30
Jun
16

The President’s Day In Washington And The First Lady’s Day In Madrid

By Nerdy Wonka 70 Comments
Categories: All Photos, All Videos and Michelle Obama
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 30: U.S. President Barack Obama speaks before signing a rescue package bill for Puerto Rico which is facing more than $70 billion in debt, in the Oval Office at the White House June 30, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

US President Barack Obama speaks before signing the Freedom of Information (FOIA) Improvement Act of 2016 and the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act, into law in the Oval Office of the White House on June 30, 2016 in Washington, DC. / AFP / Brendan Smialowski (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

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U.S. President Barack Obama speaks before signing two bills, S. 2328: Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act and S. 337: FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, June 30, 2016. Obama signed the bipartisan legislation that creates a financial control board to help restructure Puerto Ricos $70 billion in debt and oversee the islands finances, marking the largest federal intervention ever into the U.S. municipal bond market. Photographer: T.J. Kirkpatrick/Bloomberg via Getty Images

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 30: U.S.President Barack Obama holds a pen before signing a rescue package bill for Puerto Rico which is facing more than $70 billion in debt, in the Oval Office at the White House June 30, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

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WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 30: U.S.President Barack Obama signs a rescue package bill for Puerto Rico which is facing more than $70 billion in debt, in the Oval Office at the White House, June 30,2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

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MADRID, SPAIN - JUNE 30: In this handout image provided by the Spanish Royal Palace, Queen Letizia of Spain and Michelle Obama are seen at Zarzuela Palace on June 30, 2016 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Casa de Su Majestad el Rey via Getty Images)

MADRID, SPAIN - JUNE 30: In this handout image provided by the Spanish Royal Palace, Queen Letizia of Spain and Michelle Obama are seen at Zarzuela Palace on June 30, 2016 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Casa de Su Majestad el Rey via Getty Images)

First Lady Michelle Obama and Queen Letizia of Spain at Zarzuela Palace in Madrid, Spain.

MADRID, SPAIN - JUNE 30: In this handout image provided by the Spanish Royal Palace, Queen Letizia of Spain and Michelle Obama are seen at Zarzuela Palace on June 30, 2016 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Casa de Su Majestad el Rey via Getty Images)

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MADRID, SPAIN - JUNE 30: US First Lady Michelle Obama attends the presentation of "Let Girls Learn" at Matadero cultural center on June 30, 2016 in Madrid, Spain. In this initiative Michelle Obama shares the stories of girls she has met in her prior travels and highlights new commitments to support "Let Girls Learn". Mrs. Obama encourage the audience to value their own educational opportunities, continue to strive for progress for girls and young women in their country, and take action to help the more than 62 million girls around the world who are out of school. (Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images)

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MADRID, SPAIN - JUNE 30: The US President Barrack Obama' s wife Michelle Obama makes presentation of a project named "Let Girls Learn" at Matadero Education Center in Madrid, Spain on June 30, 2016. (Photo by Burak Akbulut/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

First Lady Michelle Obama speaks at the presentation of “Let Girls Learn” at Matadero cultural center in Madrid, Spain. In this initiative First Lady Michelle Obama shares the stories of girls she has met in her prior travels and highlights new commitments to support “Let Girls Learn”. She encouraged the audience to value their own educational opportunities, continue to strive for progress for girls and young women in their country, and take action to help the more than 62 million girls around the world who are out of school

MADRID, SPAIN - JUNE 30: US First Lady Michelle Obama attends the presentation of "Let Girls Learn" at Matadero cultural center on June 30, 2016 in Madrid, Spain. In this initiative Michelle Obama shares the stories of girls she has met in her prior travels and highlights new commitments to support "Let Girls Learn". Mrs. Obama encourage the audience to value their own educational opportunities, continue to strive for progress for girls and young women in their country, and take action to help the more than 62 million girls around the world who are out of school. (Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images)

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MADRID, SPAIN - JUNE 30: The US President Barrack Obama' s wife Michelle Obama makes presentation of a project named "Let Girls Learn" at Matadero Education Center in Madrid, Spain on June 30, 2016. (Photo by Burak Akbulut/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

US first lady Michelle Obama gestures as she delivers a speech presenting the "Let Girls Learn" initiative on June 29, 2016 in Madrid. US First Lady Michelle Obama began a two day visit to Spain by delivering a speech on the education initiative launched in March 2015 to help adolescent girls across the world access a quality education. / AFP / GERARD JULIEN (Photo credit should read GERARD JULIEN/AFP/Getty Images)

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MADRID, SPAIN - JUNE 30: The US President Barrack Obama' s wife Michelle Obama (R) and Queen Letizia (L) of Spain make presentation of a project named "Let Girls Learn" at Matadero Education Center in Madrid, Spain on June 30, 2016. (Photo by Burak Akbulut/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

MADRID, SPAIN - JUNE 30: US First Lady Michelle Obama attends the 'Let Girls Learn' conference at Matadero de Madrid on June 30, 2016 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Fotonoticias/WireImage)

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US first lady Michelle Obama gestures as she delivers a speech presenting the "Let Girls Learn" initiative on June 29, 2016 in Madrid. US First Lady Michelle Obama began a two day visit to Spain by delivering a speech on the education initiative launched in March 2015 to help adolescent girls across the world access a quality education. / AFP / GERARD JULIEN (Photo credit should read GERARD JULIEN/AFP/Getty Images)

MADRID, SPAIN - JUNE 30: The US President Barrack Obama' s wife Michelle Obama makes presentation of a project named "Let Girls Learn" at Matadero Education Center in Madrid, Spain on June 30, 2016. (Photo by Burak Akbulut/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

70 Responses to “The President’s Day In Washington And The First Lady’s Day In Madrid”

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  1. 1 Judith Fardig
    June 30, 2016 at 8:02 pm

    Good stuff happening all over the world thanks to the Obamas!

  2. 2 lovelyplains
    June 30, 2016 at 8:02 pm

    Trump pivot coming any day now…smh

  3. 3 Judith Fardig
    June 30, 2016 at 8:04 pm

    President Obama has gotten so skinny that his wedding ring looks loose. Yikes!

    • 4 meta
      June 30, 2016 at 8:19 pm

      WOW, yes. I’ve been noticing over the last year that he seems to be losing weight. He was always very thin to begin with so I wish he would eat a slice of pie or something.

    • 5 Obama Grandmama
      June 30, 2016 at 8:31 pm

      I noticed that too.

    • 6 cd4biden
      July 1, 2016 at 1:58 pm

      I’ve also noticed how thin he has been getting lately. I go back and forth between wanting him to stay in office and wanting him out of office so he can sleep and relax a bit. Although I doubt he will ever truly relax again in his life. Too much he sees needing to be done in the world. So I count the days, 204 to go, for both reasons, and with both emotions at the same time. And tears for both, too.

  4. 7 lovelyplains
    June 30, 2016 at 8:06 pm

    Some cool stuff on the environmental-preservation front from a few days ago:

    “CROWN-OF-THORNS Starfish are the zombies of the sea. They won’t die even if you cut them in half. To kill one, you must dismember it completely—or inject it with poisonous (to them) bile salts. Instead of brains, these zombies munch coral, and off the coast of Australia, infestations of the beasts are damaging the Great Barrier Reef at an alarming rate. Enter COTSbot. In development since late 2014, the underwater droid identifies and assassinates the ravenous stars—autonomously. Unlike a human diver, the COTSbot can work safely in rough seas for eight hours at a time and doesn’t ask for a paycheck. The machine uses an acoustic sensor to navigate the reef and a camera to identify its prey from afar with 99 percent accuracy. “Very few underwater robots do onboard image processing,” says Matthew Dunbabin, the bot’s inventor and principal research fellow at the Institute for Future Environments at Queensland University of Technology. “It processes information in real time and takes action.” When it moves in for the kill, five thrusters enable the bot to hover in place as it injects the poison through a vision-guided articulating arm. These zombies don’t stand a chance.”

    “Lovers of beer and marine life rejoice. A Florida microbrewery, a New York–based advertising agency, and a Mexico-based biodegradables company have teamed up to make six-pack rings that don’t strangle and choke marine creatures. Most of us are familiar with the horrifying photos of bird carcasses stuffed with the indigestible plastics they’ve eaten over a lifetime, or turtles squeezed into the tiny openings of six-pack rings. These aren’t just one-off cases: Scientists estimate that as much as 12.7 million metric tons of plastic waste found its way into the ocean in 2010 alone, and that 90 percent of seabirds eat the stuff. “The plastic problem is pervasive throughout our marine environment,” says Myra Finkelstein, a wildlife toxicologist at the University of California–Santa Cruz. “An alarming proportion of sea birds ingest plastic.”

    But the folks at Saltwater Brewery in Delray Beach, Florida, think they’ve found a way to reduce their plastic footprint. Three months ago, they were approached by the ad agency We Believers about developing biodegradable six-pack rings. They then connected with Mexico-based biodegradables manufacturer Entelequia Inc., and at first thought they’d try kelp. Eventually, though, they settled on something that breweries have an abundance of: spent grain. Normally, says Chris Gove—a co-founder of Saltwater Brewery—brewers either give the leftover solid food waste to farmers, or they have to pay to dump it. But now, working with We Believers and Entelequia, they’ve developed a way to shape this food waste into six-pack rings, which they say biodegrade over two to three months. Of course, that doesn’t mean people should go lobbing these rings over the sides of their boats—biodegradable or not, “pack-in, pack-out” is still a good mantra to follow….continued”

  5. 8 Nerdy Wonka
    June 30, 2016 at 8:07 pm

  7. 12 lovelyplains
    June 30, 2016 at 8:23 pm

    “A Washington tourist has been thrust into a national spotlight after video showing her reluctant but powerful impromptu performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Lincoln Memorial swept social media. Star Swain, a 34-year-old assistant principal from Tallahassee, visited the memorial recently with friends and relatives who started goading her to sing the national anthem. “What started out as a dare turned into all of this,” Benny Bolden, a friend and elder at her church, told The Washington Post. The video shows Swain saying, “I’m scared,” seconds before she took several deep breaths, closed her eyes and opened her mouth. Tourists chatted and walked around the memorial as Swain started to sing. But midway through her rendition, the crowd fell silent. Spectators started to gather around Swain and listen. Then, at her high note, they started to cheer and applaud. “People just started saying: ‘That was awesome. Thank you,’ ” Swain told the Tallahassee Democrat. “One lady had tears in her eyes. “I was kind of glad it was over. It was like a sigh of relief.”

    Bolden, an elder at Family Worship and Praise Center in Tallahassee, said Marcus Henderson, the music minister, shot the video. Swain told the Democrat that the video was posted on YouTube later that day but it wasn’t until the next week that it caught fire, explaining: “Someone put it up on their Facebook page and the rest is history.” Swain, who said she is assistant principal at Jefferson County Middle-High School in Monticello, Fla., is listed as Genleah Swain on the school district’s website. Pastor Quincy Griffin Sr., from Family Worship and Praise Center, said he has known Swain for years — back when she was a trombonist and vocalist in the marching band at Florida A&M University. Now, he said, she leads the worship and arts department at his church. “It’s awesome now to let the world experience her voice beyond the four walls of the church,” Griffin told The Washington Post, adding: “She’s a very humble person but she has a very powerful voice.” The pastor said he wasn’t surprised by the social media response. “I think what I’ve always thought: She has a phenomenal voice, but she also has a gift that the world needs to experience,” Griffin said. “She has a voice of healing that they need to hear…continued”

    Still can’t get enough of this spontaneity happening at the Lincoln Memorial…some more info on the beautiful singer:

    “She is willing to go back to D.C. for an encore…pie in the sky where is your next performance?…at the White House, my dream come true” 🙂

    Image and video hosting by TinyPic

  8. 13 lovelyplains
    June 30, 2016 at 8:33 pm

    Transcript, podcast and video will be available shortly on NPR site:

  9. 14 rikyrah
    June 30, 2016 at 8:36 pm

    Which is the entire point of all the public sector firings from the GOP Governors.

    …………………….

    TWIN THREATS: HOW DISAPPEARING PUBLIC PENSIONS HURT BLACK WORKERS
    June 30, 2016
    Robert Hiltonsmith

    Public sector jobs, with the pensions they provide, have been one of the most important ways for black families to enter the middle class since the 1960s, when civil rights legislation and the expansion of the federal government opened the door for African American workers to enter public service. In particular, the establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was responsible for enforcing workforce anti-discrimination provisions in the Act, and President Johnson’s 1965 Executive Order 11246, which prohibited government contractors from discriminating on the basis of race and other categories, created opportunities for black workers to enter civil service en masse.

    Between 1961 and 1965, black workers were hired for 28 percent of new positions in the federal government despite comprising just 10 percent of the U.S. population.The importance of public sector employment for African American workers has continued to the present day, with 21.2 percent of all black women and 15.4 percent of all black men working in the public sector, compared to 17.5 percent and 11.8 percent of white women and men, respectively.

    Despite decades of efforts to reduce employment discrimination in the private sector, public employment remains important to African American workers as a source of income security, helping to close the wage gap between white and black workers. In 2014, black private sector workers earned just 78 percent, on average, of the wages of their white counterparts. In the public sector, however, this gap was significantly smaller: black public sector workers earned 90 percent of the wages of white public sector workers. Even when broken down by education level, the earnings gap between black and white workers was smaller in the public sector for workers of all levels.

    As important as public employment is to the black middle class, the pensions provided by public employment are perhaps even more crucial to the retirement security of black workers. This brief uses data from the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement5 to examine the importance of public pensions to black retirement security, and why the twin threats to public pensions—cuts to state pension benefits and the decline in public employment over the past two decades—particularly threaten the retirement security of African American workers. We find that public pensions are vital to ensuring a decent standard of living for black retirees: the poverty rate among black retirees without public pensions is nearly 20 percent higher than the poverty rate among black retirees with public pensions—almost double the difference in poverty rates between all retirees with and without public pensions. These figures show that if the twin threats to public pensions continue, African American retirees may lose much of the retirement security they’ve gained over the past half-century.

    • 15 jackiegrumbacher
      June 30, 2016 at 9:35 pm

      Yes, it was, Rikyrah. Cutting public sector jobs and pensions was always a racist move and always initiated by Republicans. The evil they wreak is just endless because they are totally without compassion.

  10. 16 meta
    June 30, 2016 at 8:53 pm

    PROGRESS:

    ‘This is a historic day’: California lawmakers send governor sweeping gun control package

    http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-cal-legislature-gun-control-package-20160630-snap-story.html

  11. 21 arapaho415
    June 30, 2016 at 9:16 pm

    GE TODville.

    To add to LP’s comment on @VP (posted on previous thread, but ICYMI, LOL):

    #LoveJoe

  12. 23 arapaho415
    June 30, 2016 at 9:17 pm

    Zika tweets:

  13. 24 arapaho415
    June 30, 2016 at 9:21 pm

    And this from Meta are words of wisdom for today…

  14. 26 MightyPamela
    June 30, 2016 at 9:34 pm

    ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

  15. 27 JER
    June 30, 2016 at 9:51 pm

  16. 28 rikyrah
    June 30, 2016 at 9:53 pm

    From p.m. carpenter:

    Where are those much-pooh-poohed “trigger warnings” when one actually needs them?

    It was cruel, unnerving, even borderline sadistic of MSNBC yesterday to abruptly switch from live coverage of President Obama at the North American trade summit to deadhead coverage of Donald Trump, grifting in Maine. My sensibilities are less than delicate, nevertheless I experienced a deeply disturbing kind of characterological-culture shock from which I am still recovering.

    One minute I’m admiring the eloquent thoughtfulness of presidential sophistication squared; seconds later — with no more than a brutally curt, “We’re now cutting to …” — I’m watching a second-rate swindler bamboozle a bunch of first-rate imbeciles. My equipoise of admiration and respect was thrown into asymmetrical disorder. It was like switching the channel from the Metropolitan Opera to “Hee-Haw,” or from a Bogart movie to Pee-Wee Herman. (Nothing personal, Pee-Wee; besides, compared to The Donald’s exhibitionism, your honor is intact).

    • 29 jacquelineoboomer
      June 30, 2016 at 10:06 pm

      So well written – and says so much – I could cheer! Exactly how we all feel, too!

    • 30 99ts
      June 30, 2016 at 10:24 pm

      What happened to the media having to cover campaigns 50:50 – still exits in my world – but the US media – including online sites like TPM are 99% Trump – all day every day.

      Josh Marshall is supposedly anti Trump yet his website is wall to wall Trump issues/events/discussions.

  18. 35 jacquelineoboomer
    June 30, 2016 at 10:26 pm

    Posted yet? She’s a chip off the old block!

  19. 36 prettyfoot58
    June 30, 2016 at 10:38 pm

    Fascinating Philadelphia comes in 4th…

  20. 37 bella2758
    June 30, 2016 at 10:49 pm

    Will someone please explain to me how Brazil got the 2016 Olympics? It seem they are having so much trouble.

  22. 39 desertflower
    June 30, 2016 at 11:02 pm

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2016/06/30/donald_trump_is_the_inevitable_result_of_decades_of_gop_denial_of_reality.html

    An interesting if infuriating article in New Republic very clearly lays out how the GOP has spent decades paving the road for Trump by attacking the science that goes against their prejudicial ideology. I strongly urge you to read it, but one section jumped out at me in particular:

    There’s another factor at work here: The anti-intellectualism that has been a mainstay of the conservative movement for decades also makes its members easy marks. After all, if you are taught to believe that the reigning scientific consensuses on evolution and climate change are lies, then you will lack the elementary logical skills that will set your alarm bells ringing when you hear a flim-flam artist like Trump. The Republican “war on science” is also a war on the intellectual habits needed to detect lies.

    BINGO.

    • 40 cd4biden
      July 1, 2016 at 3:09 pm

      So true df. This is why they constantly try to cut education funding, except for charter schools where they can more easily control the curriculum. Keep them dumb and you can keep them in line.

  24. 42 jazziz2
    July 1, 2016 at 12:47 am

    Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor by Camille Saint-Saens, 1st Movement Ali-Landing, cello 9 de mai de 2013

  25. 45 jazziz2
    July 1, 2016 at 12:58 am

  26. 46 jazziz2
    July 1, 2016 at 1:06 am

  27. 47 jacquelineoboomer
    July 1, 2016 at 1:10 am

    Sometimes I wonder where I’ve been! Am I the last to know Malia got an internship at the U.S. Embassy in Spain? Wow! How cool is that.

    • 48 Obama Grandmama
      July 1, 2016 at 1:22 am

      I read about the internship below one of the photos yesterday. I figure it may start about when school starts in the Fall and last either six months or one year. That is about the length of time my kids had internships abroad. Either way she would probably be back in time to start Harvard in the Fall of 2017 unless she starts mid-year.

      • 49 jacquelineoboomer
        July 1, 2016 at 1:47 am

        Thanks. Sounds wonderful! (And I’m glad your kids had exciting internships, as well!)

      • 50 cd4biden
        July 1, 2016 at 3:18 pm

        And I was thinking it was a nice way for her to have some privacy from the MSM here in the US during her “year off.” I wonder how she will combine this position with the experience she got on film in her last position. And also what she will study at Harvard.

        With such worldly and involved and supportive parents and grandmother, I have many times wondered who Malia and Sasha will become as adults and how their lives will play out. It has been fun to watch them grow up and begin to take their place in the world.

    • 51 theo67
      July 1, 2016 at 3:03 am

      You’re definitely not the last to know. I’m just finding out while reading this post! She’s definitely going places.

  28. 52 HZ
    July 1, 2016 at 1:19 am

    That is cool,J’OB. Our First Daughters are going to make their beautiful marks on this world.HZ

  29. 54 jazziz2
    July 1, 2016 at 1:31 am

    Watch this 10-year-old ruthlessly serve Sarah Palin for supporting Donald J. Trump for president.

  30. 57 jacquelineoboomer
    July 1, 2016 at 1:50 am

    Let’s try not to give Ryan any credit for calling a vote next week, if it happens as rumored, following the Democrats’ sit-in.

  31. 58 jacquelineoboomer
    July 1, 2016 at 2:01 am

    • 59 jacquelineoboomer
      July 1, 2016 at 2:03 am

      Too funny – Hillary’s team is responding to an old 2013 tweet of The Donald’s:

    • 61 99ts
      July 1, 2016 at 4:35 am

      And still they give TOny Blair a mention – he should disappear into the moonlight – never has the UK been worst served than by Tony Blair

  33. 62 99ts
    July 1, 2016 at 4:33 am

    For better or worse when I look at the photos of Michelle Obama and Queen Letizia – my first thought is “Let girls eat”. It worries me that women as thin as the latter are seen as role models.

  34. 63 Bobfr (@Our4thEstate)
    July 1, 2016 at 7:55 am

    Good morning TOD 🙂

  35. 64 Bobfr (@Our4thEstate)
    July 1, 2016 at 8:02 am

  36. 66 Bobfr (@Our4thEstate)
    July 1, 2016 at 8:05 am

  37. 67 Bobfr (@Our4thEstate)
    July 1, 2016 at 8:07 am

  38. 68 Bobfr (@Our4thEstate)
    July 1, 2016 at 8:07 am

  39. 69 Bobfr (@Our4thEstate)
    July 1, 2016 at 8:09 am


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