Opens 2015 Special Olympics
Michelle Obama speaks at the opening ceremony for the 2015 Special Olympics:
Over the past few years, my husband and I have seen Americans unite in so many ways across the country. These games are a perfect reflection of that unity. They show us that we’re all in this together – that we can lift up our friends and neighbors, and that we can bring out the best in each other to reach even higher heights.
Oxford Union reparations speech
Tharoor gives a speech at the Oxford Union demanding reparation payments by Britain to India for its 200-year colonial rule, which he claims led to the crumbling of India’s economy. Prime Minister Modi praises him for his speech.
What Shashi ji said has now gone viral on Youtube.
Speaks at Stop Iran rally
At the Stop Iran Rally, Dershowitz makes an appeal to fellow liberals, calling on them to side with Republicans on the Iran Nuclear Agreement. He reiterates Pataki’s message stating that Obama should have given the draft of the agreement to Congress for review before going to the U.N.
It is a bad deal for Democrats. It is a bad deal for liberals. I am here opposing this deal as a liberal Democrat. [This deal is] bad for America, bad for world peace and bad for the security of the Middle East.
Phoenix speech
In a speech in Phoenix, AZ, before a crowd of 4,500, Trump accuses Mexico of deliberately sending criminals across the border while also professing respect for the Mexican government and love for its people.
I love the Mexican people. I love ’em. Many, many people from Mexico are legal. They came in the old-fashioned way. Legally…I respect Mexico greatly as a country. But the problem we have is their leaders are much sharper than ours, and they’re killing us at the border and they’re killing us on trade.
Trump brings on stage Jamiel Shaw Sr., a Southern California man whose 17-year-old son was shot and killed in 2008 by a man in the country illegally. Shaw vividly described how his son was shot – in the head, stomach and hands while trying to block his face – and how he heard the gunshots as he talked to his son on the phone. Shaw says he trusts Trump, and encourages the crowd to do the same. A group of youp of young Latinos unfurl a banner pointed toward the stage and begin chanting insults and are removed.
I wonder if the Mexican government sent them over here. I think so.
Addresses Chimehack
De Baubigny addresses Chimehack2, a three-day hackathon (collaborative computer programming competition), especially organized to help spur technical solutions to issues concerning women’s safety. The event, atTwitter’s San Francisco headquarters, attracts 215 engineers, designers, project managers, and marketing experts, double the previous year.
Releases climate change letter
Pope Francis blames human selfishness for global warming in his long-awaited encyclical calling for action on climate change. In the letter, he urges the rich to change their lifestyles to avert the destruction of the ecosystem. In excerpts from the 184-page document:
What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up? The question not only concerns the environment in isolation; the issue cannot be approached piecemeal…Today, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.
First major campaign speech
Clinton launches her campaign in earnest with a 45-minute address on Roosevelt Island in New York City:
It is wonderful…to be here in this beautiful park dedicated to Franklin Roosevelt’s enduring vision of America, the nation we want to be.
The speech emphasizes her biography:
I may not be the youngest candidate in this race, but I’ll be the youngest woman president in the history of the United States.
Clinton tells how her mother was abandoned by her own parents and started supporting herself as a teenager:
My mother taught me that everybody needs a chance and a champion. She knew what it was like not to have either one. I wish my mother could have been with us longer. I wish she could have seen Chelsea become a mother herself. I wish she could have met Charlotte. I wish she could have seen the America we’re going to build together.
And her view that American success should be measured by how well ordinary families are doing, not by the wealth of a few.
It’s America’s basic bargain: if you do your part, you ought to be able to get ahead. Democracy can’t be just for billionaires and corporations. Prosperity and democracy are part of your basic bargain too. I’m not running for some Americans, but for all Americans…You brought our country back. Now it’s time — your time — to secure our gains and move ahead
TED Glasgow talk
Duffy speaks at TED Glasgow on what stops people from living their dreams, concentrating on brain chemistry, upbringing, education and media.
The way to recombobulate is…to think and act like an entrepreneur. Not to start a business. You have to think and act like an entrepreneur in everything you do in life. Entrepreneurs all all about the go-do. Not can-do, not “must-do, not to-do. Two verbs. Bang, bang. They are all about outcomes. Engineering stuff to happen. Action. They have to deal with volatility, uncertainty, chaos, complexity, ambiguity, every day of their lives. They don’t clock on at nine ‘o’clock and finish at five. They are always on. That means they have to deal with risk, but they are not risk takers. They are cognitively comfortable with the notion of risk, a big difference. They build up a tolerance to risk. But that moves them outside their comfort zone.
‘Iranians Are Liars’
Graham criticizes Obama for negotiating with Iran and claims that Iranians are liars in an address to Southern Republican Leadership Conference.
I ran the pool room when I was a kid and I met a lot of liars, and I know the Iranians are liars…The Iranians cheat and they lie. They are a radical regime. They want a master religion for the world; the Nazis wanted a master race.
New Hampshire business leaders meeting
Webb discusses criminal justice reform, the economy, and national security at a meeting with New Hampshire business leaders on a trip to gauge backing for his potential presidential bid. When asked about his credentials:
I think we have some good stuff to bring to the table, and that’s what I want people to look at.
Webb says he has:
fought to take our broken criminal justice system into the national debate and out of the shadows.
On the economy:
This is a country where people want equality of opportunity and the result that their talents can bring. Those with assets and capital are doing well. Those without such things aren’t faring well, and the system must be right-sized.
He says he will decide “soon” whether to run or not.
Criticizes China
Biden says Beijing’s policies in the South China Sea are adding to tensions and the potential for conflict in the region at a graduation ceremony at a naval academy in Maryland. He says that freedom of navigation and the peaceful resolution of territorial disputes are being tested by Chinese actions in the disputed waters, the source of territorial disputes among several countries, and that the United States’ role is to keep the peace.
They’re building airstrips, the placing of oil rigs, the imposition of unilateral bans on fishing in disputed territories, the declaration of air-defence zones, the reclamation of land, which other countries are doing, but not nearly on the massive scale the Chinese are doing. Tensions run high. As I speak, they run high, but you will be there to keep the peace.
Biden also says that as part of the pivot in US foreign policy towards the Asia-Pacific there would be a significant shift of its military forces into the region.
That’s why 60 per cent of the United States naval forces will be stationed in the Asia Pacific by 2020.
Speakers announced
A Sanders spokesman says that McKibben will speak at Sanders’ presidential campaign kickoff. In an email McKibben writes:
Bernie is the ultimate what-you-see-is-what-you-get politician. There’s no fancy moves and no adroit spin, just relentless day-in day-out advocacy for working people, and for a working planet. Bernie’s been in the forefront of all the crucial environmental fights of recent years, always willing to knuckle down and do the hard work of fighting the big corporations.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., are also expected to speak — with free ice cream in tow.
Wants to be ‘the small business President’
Clinton participates in a discussion about the local and national economy with the community in New Hampshire. Her main focus for this discussion is how the state of the economy affects small businesses.
There’s nothing more important than small business, it is the engine of economic growth, it is where most of our jobs come from, and I want to be the small business President.
Proud of middle class focus
At a Center for American Progress event Biden says that he’s proud that he’s spent his career focused on the middle class.
In this town, being referred to as ‘Middle Class Joe’ is meant as an insult. No, I really mean it. Because you’re not sophisticated if you’re middle class. Because even among some of we Democrats, we’re sophisticated jerks lots of times.
He stands by the straightforward comments that have gotten him into trouble:
I got criticized for saying LaGuardia was like a Third World airport. Guess what? The governor and everybody else, including The New York Times, calls it a Third World airport. And they’re changing it. We have to invest.
He advises Democrats making a White House bid:
We should run on what we’ve done. Whoever’s running should also talk about what the resurgence in place in the future is, and talk about in 2016 what we’ve done. Some say this amounts to a third term for President Obama. I call it sticking to what works and expanding on it to restore the middle class.
Wants to expand military, toughen terror laws
Christie delivers a foreign policy themed speech in Portsmouth Navel Shipyard, New Hampshire calling for a stronger military. His plan calls for growing the military to 500,000 Army soldiers and 185,000 Marines, and increasing the size of the Navy fleet to 350 ships from the current 260 ships, and increases to the size of the Air Force.
President Reagan once said that ‘above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have. It is a weapon that we as Americans do have.
He also calls for tougher anti-terror laws, stronger surveillance program, increasing military spending and its worldwide presence.
Too often, the loudest voices in the debate about how to keep our country safe are driven by some purist, theoretical vision of how we should manage our intelligence efforts. When Edward Snowden revealed our intelligence secrets to the world in 2013, civil liberties extremists seized that moment to advance their own narrow agenda. They want you to think that there’s a government spook listening in every time you pick up the phone or Skype with your grandkids. Let me be clear – all these fears are exaggerated and ridiculous.
Commencement speech: Defend free speech
McEwan urges graduating students to defend the principle of free speech in his commencement speech.
It’s worth remembering this: freedom of expression sustains all the other freedoms we enjoy. Without free speech, democracy is a sham. Every freedom we possess or wish to possess (of habeas corpus and due process, of universal franchise and of assembly, union representation, sexual equality, of sexual preference, of the rights of children, of animals – the list goes on) has had to be freely thought and talked and written into existence. No single individual can generate these rights alone. The process is cumulative. It was a historical context of relative freedom of speech that made possible the work of those who were determined to extend that liberty.
It can be a little too easy sometimes to dismiss arguments you don’t like as hate speech, or to complain that this or that speaker makes you feel… disrespected. Being offended is not to be confused with a state of grace. It’s the occasional price we pay for living in an open society.
Praises Tufts graduates for activism
Albright praises the Tufts community for its activism during her commencement ceremony address.
You have stood up on behalf of workers, you have spoken out against the scourge of sexual assault, you have made clear that black lives matter, and you have pressed for action on climate change. All I see are doers … when I tell you the world needs you, I really, really mean it. I wanted to use the fine education I received for more than meaningful dinner conversation. I wanted to give something back to this country that had given so much to me. I insist that you put your opinions to the test, when required, you dare — as Tuft’s motto suggests — to be voices crying for peace and light. Because your choices will make all the difference to you, and to us all.
Iraq ‘Biggest disaster in American history’
Albright says during a Woodrow Wilson Center event in Washington, D.C.:
I have believed that Iraq is the biggest disaster in American history. It has ruined America’s reputation or damaged it … What it did was militarize democracy and make it very hard, and I think it has put us in a very bad position in the Middle East … I think that going into Iraq – God knows why – has kind of disturbed all of it, and we haven’t put it back together, and I think it’s going to need an awful lot of thinking from scholars and practitioners doing stuff together.
Council on Foreign Relations foreign policy speech
Rubio lays out his foreign policy vision in his talk at the Council on Foreign Relations. He criticizes Obama and calls for bigger military budget. He also wants America to take a more aggressive stance across the globe.
American strength is a means of preventing war, not promoting it…Sadly, I believe President Obama often disagrees with that simple truth. He entered office believing America was too hard on our adversaries, too engaged in too many places, and that if we just took a step back and did some more ‘nation building at home– ceding leadership to other countries — America would be better liked and the world better off.
Liberty University commencement
Bush delivers the Liberty University commencement address. He talks about abortion and the oppression of Christians around the world.
Wherever there is a child waiting to be born, we say choose life, and we say it with love…Wherever women and girls in other countries are brutally exploited, or treated as possessions without rights and dignity, we Christians see that arrogance for what it is. Wherever Jews are subjected to the oldest bigotry, we reject that sin against our brothers and sisters, and we defend them.
He also raised question on what he views as the encroachment of government against religious freedom.
We find officials in a major city demanding that pastors turn over copies of their sermons. Or federal judges mistaking themselves for elected legislators, and imposing restrictions and rights that do not exist in the Constitution.
