Eric Draper Photography National Harbor, Md. — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin just delivered a barnstorming speech here at the Conservative Political Action Conference, proving once again that, despite being semi-retired and semi-irrelevant, the "Mama Grizzly" can work a crowd better than almost anyone else in the GOP. 
 
 Here are the 10 best lines: 
 
 1. "More background checks? Dandy idea Mr. President. Should've started with yours." 
 
 2. On her husband, Todd Palin:"He's got the rifle, I've got the rack." [Pulls out Big Gulp] 
 
 3. "Mr. President, we admit it. You won. Accept it. Now step away from the teleprompter and do your job." 
 
 4. "We can't just ignore, though, that we just lost a big election. Yeah. Came in second. Out of two ... Second position on a dog sled team is where the view never changes and the view ain't pretty." 
 
 5. "We don't have leadership coming out of Washington. We have reality television." 
 
 6. To College Republicans:"You've got to be thinking Sam Adams, not drinking Sam Adams." 
 
 7. "If these experts keep losing elections, keep raking in millions, if they feel that strongly about who should run in this party they should buck up and run or stay in the truck. The architects can head on back to the Lone Star State and put their name on the ballot." [Clearly this is a reference to Karl Rove] 
 
 8. "The next election is 20 months away. Now is the time to furlough the consultants, and tune out the pollsters, send the focus groups home and toss the political scripts. Because if we truly know what we believe, we don't need professionals to tell us." 
 
 9. To Washington consultants:"Get over yourself. It's not about you." 
 
 10."Barack Obama promised the most transparent administration ever. Barack Obama — you lie!" 
 
 Watch the full speech below: ||||| HOUSTON — Sarah Palin said Friday that the elite media would never let a Republican president get away with what Barack Obama has done in his push for new gun laws. 
 
 The former Alaska governor recalled that the national press “tore apart” George W. Bush for using “fleeting images” from Sept. 11, 2001, during his 2004 reelection campaign. 
 
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 At the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting, Palin slammed Obama for flying the grieving parents of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Air Force One and then “making them backdrops” at rallies. 
 
 (PHOTOS: NRA annual meeting) 
 
 “That same media is now the reliable poodle-skirted cheerleader for the president that writes the book on exploiting tragedy,” she said, wearing a T-shirt that said “women hunt.” 
 
 Palin insisted that all Americans felt “despair, sadness and absolute anger” when they saw what happened in Connecticut. She said everyone should care more about those getting gunned down every single day on the streets of places like Chicago and New York City, but that shouldn’t guide public policy. 
 
 “Now, emotion is a good and a necessary thing. But we have politicians exploiting emotion for their own agenda,” she said. “We have well-meaning Americans who are desperate to respond.” 
 
 Palin, a longtime NRA member, pleased the crowd by noting that her son Trigg’s nickname is “Trigger” and that her nephew’s middle name is Remington. She was rewarded with a standing ovation after describing the 4.5 million members of the group as her “brothers and sisters.” 
 
 NRA chief lobbyist Chris Cox praised Palin for criticizing a police chief who would not give out conceal-and-carry permits during her first run for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. 
 
 “We’re fighting the good fight,” Palin said near the end of a 12-minute speech. “The Washington establishment sneers at you, and you don’t give up. The lamestream media just plain doesn’t get you, and you don’t give up. You don’t retreat.” 
 
 Palin took a shot at New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, always a bogeyman at these gatherings. At her last big public event – the Conservative Political Action Conference in March – she sipped a Big Gulp from the podium to mock his ban on the sale of the large sodas. She told the NRA crowd that Bloomberg may next try to ban public displays of tobacco products. 
 
 Then she pulled out a container of snuff. 
 
 “I tell ya, don’t make me do it,” she joked. “It’s funny because [my husband] Todd’s been looking for this all morning.” ||||| Story highlights "I think a lot about the Department of Energy," Palin said 
 
 Palin said that if energy secretary, she would "get rid" of the department 
 
 Washington (CNN) Sarah Palin knows the position she wants in a Donald Trump administration: Energy secretary. 
 
 "I think a lot about the Department of Energy, because energy is my baby: oil and gas and minerals, those things that God has dumped on this part of the Earth for mankind's use instead of us relying on unfriendly foreign nations," she told CNN's Jake Tapper in an interview that aired Sunday on "State of the Union." 
 
 But Palin, the GOP's 2008 vice presidential nominee, might be the first potential cabinet member to openly speak about dissolving their office. 
 
 "I'd get rid of (the Energy Department). And I'd let the states start having more control over the lands that are within their boundaries and the people who are affected by the developments within their states. If I were in charge of that, it would be a short-term job, but it would be ... really great to have someone who knows energy and is pro-responsible development to be in charge." 
 
 Photos: The Palin family through the years Photos: The Palin family through the years In little more than a decade, Sarah Palin rose from city councilwoman to Alaska's youngest governor and the first female vice presidential nominee in GOP history. Click through to see headlines made by Palin and her family since they entered the national spotlight. Hide Caption 1 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Dakota Meyer announced his engagement to Bristol Palin, Palin's oldest daughter, with a photograph on Instagram . The couple met when the war hero visited Alaska to film "Amazing America," Sarah Palin's show on Sportsman Channel, Bristol Palin said on her blog . "He's wonderful with Tripp and I'm so proud to be marrying him," she said. Hide Caption 2 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years PETA criticized Sarah Palin in January after she posted this photo of her 6-year-old son, Trig, stepping on a family dog to reach the kitchen sink. "Dear PETA," Palin responded via Facebook. "Chill. At least Trig didn't eat the dog." Hide Caption 3 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin takes a jab at President Barack Obama in September, mocking his "coffee cup salute" moment. Obama drew criticism after the White House posted a video to Instagram featuring him walking off Marine One offering a less-than-formal salute with a coffee cup in hand. Hide Caption 4 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin shocked both liberal and conservative commentators at the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in April when she said, "Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists." Hide Caption 5 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin fires up a rally of veterans, their families and supporters at the World War II Memorial in Washington during the partial government shutdown in October 2013. Hide Caption 6 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Wearing a shirt that reads "Women hunt," Palin blasts Obama and gun control advocates for "exploiting" recent mass shootings as she speaks to the National Rifle Association convention in Houston in May 2013. Hide Caption 7 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin drinks a "Big Gulp" soda during the Conservative Political Action Conference in March 2013. She was mocking New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's push against large, sugary drinks. Hide Caption 8 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years In the middle of the Republican presidential primaries in February 2012, Palin told the Conservative Political Action Conference that the party needs a candidate who "can instinctively turn right" -- a dig at eventual GOP nominee Mitt Romney. Hide Caption 9 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin speaks during the Tea Party of America's "Restoring America" event in Iowa in September 2011. Supporters had hoped that she would use the event to announce that she was running for president. Hide Caption 10 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin was mobbed in August 2011 at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, a familiar campaign stop for presidential hopefuls. Hide Caption 11 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin and Donald Trump walk toward a limo after leaving a dinner meeting in May 2011. It came during the Palin bus tour that fueled speculation she would run for president the next year. She didn't. Hide Caption 12 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin signs copies of her second book, "American by Heart," in Andover, Kansas, in November 2010. Hide Caption 13 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years The title of Palin's 2009 bestseller "Going Rogue" is a play off a remark a John McCain campaign staffer made to CNN about her straying from the McCain playbook. Hide Caption 14 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin and her husband, Todd, join Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and his wife, Cindy, as McCain concedes the presidential race to Obama in November 2008. Hide Caption 15 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin and her husband leave City Hall after she voted in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, in November 2008. The Palins then flew to Arizona to join McCain. Hide Caption 16 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years McCain stands with his newly announced running mate in August 2008. McCain made the Palin announcement the day after Obama accepted the Democratic presidential nomination. Hide Caption 17 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin's family appears on stage after her speech to the Republican National Convention in September 2008. From left to right are her son Track; daughter Bristol; Bristol's then-fiancee, Levi Johnston; daughter Willow; daughter Piper; husband Todd; and son Trig. Hide Caption 18 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin signs her oath of office document as Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, left, and Superior Court Judge Niesje Steinkruger look on after her swearing-in ceremony in Fairbanks, Alaska, in December 2006. Hide Caption 19 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin holds her daughter Piper as she watches results on election night in November 2006. The former mayor of Wasilla became Alaska's first female governor. Hide Caption 20 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin stands beside then-Republican candidate for lieutenant governor Sean Parnell in September 2006 as they talk about their plan for a natural gas pipeline during a news conference in Anchorage, Alaska. Parnell became governor when Palin stepped down in 2009. Hide Caption 21 of 22 Photos: The Palin family through the years Palin stands in the rain in Anchorage in August 2006 as she campaigns for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Palin defeated incumbent Frank Murkowski and former state legislator John Binkley. Hide Caption 22 of 22 
 
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– Sarah Palin returned to the national spotlight at CPAC today to roundly criticize President Obama and fire potshots at the Republican establishment, NBC News reports. In her first major appearance since Fox News, Palin slammed Obama time and again: "Mr. President, we admit it, you won—now step away from the teleprompter, and do your job!" she said. She also dinged him on his golfing, his canceling of White House tours, and his proposal to broaden background checks for gun buyers. "Dandy idea, Mr. President—should've started with yours!" Her talk received the most raucous and frequent ovations of the entire conference, the Guardian reports. She saved some of her folksy (or is it kitschy?) ire for the GOP, calling on the party to embrace a populist vision: "Now is the time to furlough the consultants, and tune out the pollsters, send the focus groups home, and toss the political scripts," she said. And she speared new conservative super PACs designed to weed out more conservative candidates for more electable ones. Her talk had humor, too: She sipped a Big Gulp in a clear jab at New York's anti-soda campaign, and tossed off a line regarding her Christmas gift for husband Todd: "He's got the rifle, I've got the rack." (Business Insider runs down the most "awesome" lines of Palin's speech.)