First Lady Michelle Obama addresses the Summit of the Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders
“…. no matter where you all work, no matter what issue you focus on – whether it’s health or microfinance, human rights or clean energy – women’s equality must be a central part of your work. It must. Because make no mistake about it, the work of transforming attitudes about women, it now falls on your shoulders. And it’s up to you all to embrace the future, and then drag your parents and grandparents along with you.
And I know this won’t be easy. I know that you will face all kinds of obstacles and resistance – you already have. But when you get tired or frustrated, when things seem hopeless and you start thinking about giving up, I want you to remember the words of the man whom your fellowship is now named – and I know these words have been spoken many times.
As Madiba once said, “It always seems impossible until it is done.”
And I, oh, I know the truth of those words from my own history and from the history of my country.
My ancestors came here in chains. My parents and grandparents knew the sting of segregation and discrimination. Yet I attended some of the best universities in this country. I had career opportunities beyond my wildest dreams. And today, I live in the White House, a building — (applause) — but we must remember, we live in a home that was constructed by slaves.
Today, I watch my daughters – two beautiful African American girls – walking our dogs in the shadow of the Oval Office. And today, I have the privilege of serving and representing the United States of America across the globe.
So my story and the story of my country is the story of the impossible getting done. And I know that can be your story and that can be Africa’s story too. But it will take new energy, it will take new ideas, new leadership from young people like you.
We’ve done this because we believe in Africa, and we believe in all of you. And understand we are filled with so much hope and so many expectations for what you will achieve. You hold the future of your continent in your hands, and I cannot wait to see everything you will continue to accomplish in the years ahead.
Full transcript here
@JosephineKulea: Sitting next to you #FLOTUS round circle and listening your inspirational speech was the best moment
Text of Remarks by the First Lady Before a Roundtable with Young African Leaders here
11:10: President Obama participates in a town hall at the Summit of the Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders
(The First Lady was scheduled to deliver remarks and participate in a roundtable at the Summit, but I can’t find any time or link – will keep checking. Keep an eye on CBS)
1:0: Josh Earnest briefs the press
3:05: The President awards the 2013 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal (see here)
“Today’s topic: The Obama Years. First off, let’s generate some background information from you, the students. What are some things that you’ve heard or that your parents might have experienced during Barack Obama’s presidency? Call them out and we’ll make a list on the board.”
“He helped my Dad get home from Iraq!”
“He helped my grandparents regain their lost savings!”
“He helped my mom make more money from her job!”
“He helped give rights to my Dads!”
“He helped my parents save money with their health care!”…..
“Good, so the themes I have listed here on the board are jobs, rights, health care, money, and family. Based on your own personal responses, how do you think the country as a whole felt about President Obama? Call out some words that you think people used when they talked about our 44th President.”
More here
A program designed to foster a new generation of young African leaders will be renamed after former South African President Nelson Mandela.
President Barack Obama, who has said he was one of the untold millions of people around the world who were inspired by Mandela’s life, is set to announce the name change at a town hall-style event Monday in Washington with several hundred young leaders from across sub-Saharan Africa.
The youngsters are participating in the inaugural Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, part of the broader Young African Leaders Initiative that Obama launched in 2010 to support a new generation of leadership there.
More here
“Africa’s future belongs to its young people… We need young Africans who are standing up and making things happen not only in their own countries but around the world… We want this to be the beginning of a new partnership and create networks that will promote opportunities for years to come.”
–President Barack Obama
South Africa, June 2013
The Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders is the flagship program of President Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) that empowers young people through academic coursework, leadership training, and networking. Fellowships provide outstanding young leaders from Sub-Saharan Africa with the opportunity to hone their skills at a U.S. university, and with support for professional development after they return home.
More here
Watch President Obama’s video message. Hear why he launched this important initiative. http://t.co/9sGwGifYAQ (from April 2014) #YALICHAT
— YALINetwork (@YALINetwork) July 26, 2014
Israelis and Palestinians are imprisoned in what seems increasingly like a hermetically sealed bubble. Over the years, inside this bubble, each side has evolved sophisticated justifications for every act it commits.
Israel can rightly claim that no country in the world would abstain from responding to incessant attacks like those of Hamas, or to the threat posed by the tunnels dug from the Gaza Strip into Israel. Hamas, conversely, justifies its attacks on Israel by arguing that the Palestinians are still under occupation and that residents of Gaza are withering away under the blockade enforced by Israel.
Inside the bubble, who can fault Israelis for expecting their government to do everything it can to save children on the Nahal Oz kibbutz, or any of the other communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip, from a Hamas unit that might emerge from a hole in the ground? And what is the response to Gazans who say that the tunnels and rockets are their only remaining weapons against a powerful Israel? In this cruel and desperate bubble, both sides are right. They both obey the law of the bubble — the law of violence and war, revenge and hatred.
But the big question, as war rages on, is not about the horrors occurring every day inside the bubble, but rather it is this: How on earth can it be that we have been suffocating together inside this bubble for over a century? This question, for me, is the crux of the latest bloody cycle.
More here
“You don’t have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.” -Nina Simone #Gaza
— Bonnie Greer (@Bonn1eGreer) July 26, 2014
Sporadic attacks by both Israel and Palestinian militants have punctuated a lull in fighting after the quietest night in the 21-day conflict.
There were no Israeli air strikes overnight though they resumed in the morning after a rocket hit the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon.
Earlier the UN Security Council urged a halt to hostilities to coincide with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
Israel launched its offensive three weeks ago after a surge in rocket fire.
More than 1,030 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 43 Israeli soldiers and two Israeli civilians have been killed. A Thai national in Israel has also died.
The Security Council called on Sunday night for an “immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza over and beyond the holiday period.
More here
Great Headlines of our Time:
As of Thursday, a pending bill to expand veterans’ benefits appeared to be just about dead. What had been a bipartisan issue had turned into yet another partisan food fight, with House Republicans rejecting multiple compromise offers and walking away from the negotiating table. The Senate Democratic caucus, led in this fight by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was apoplectic, blasting House GOP lawmakers for killing legislation that should be approved easily.
If the goal of the Democratic outrage was to force House Republicans to reconsider, the apoplexy worked. GOP lawmakers, reluctant to get blamed for killing another veterans-aid package, were shamed into renewing talks, and last night, negotiators struck a deal.
More here
Meet Lucy Coffey, who at 108 is the nation’s oldest woman veteran. http://t.co/dd8UGT4gjk pic.twitter.com/ugy0E32r7o
— Vice President Biden (@VP) July 26, 2014
President Obama bids farewell to Chinese Ministers in the Roosevelt Room of the White House after the first U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue on July 28, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
First Lady Michelle Obama watches the women’s singles tennis match between Serena Williams and Jelena Jankovic of Serbia at the All England Lawn Tennis Club during the London 2012 Olympics Games, July 28, 2012
.. with Venus Williams and former gymnast Dominique Dawes
Serena Williams gives a thumbs up gesture toward her sister Venus and First Lady Michelle Obama after she defeated Serbia’s Jelena Jankovic
MoooOOOooorning!
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A slim majority of Obamacare’s private insurance enrollees were uninsured when they signed up for coverage, a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds. Obamacare opponents have regularly argued that most enrollees already had coverage, meaning that health reform wasn’t driving down the uninsured rate. The new Kaiser survey, which uses a randomly-selected panel of 742 people who bought private coverage through the new exchanges,
finds that 57 percent of those who signed up for private coverage didn’t have an insurance plan when they enrolled. The Kaiser survey suggests that most people who bought on the marketplace weren’t trying to replace a plan they already had. They were people who lacked insurance coverage, and were using the new health care law to gain access to a plan they didn’t have before.
More here
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A new Kaiser survey shows that 57 percent of those who bought health insurance on Obamacare exchanges were previously uninsured. That’s about 4.5 million people who gained private insurance via the exchanges, and the vast majority of them say they would have remained uninsured if not for Obamacare. If this number is correct, it suggests that the number of newly insured by the end of the year will be a little higher than I’ve projected before—perhaps around 11-13 million.
More here
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Obamacare’s efforts to expand access to health insurance for young Americans may be helping them maintain better health and financial security, according to a large new study analyzing the impact of health care reform over the past four years. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Wednesday, found that young Americans are now reporting better physical and mental health and their out-of-pocket medical expenses have declined. “The health insurance that people are gaining seems to be doing what it is supposed to do,” Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, a pediatrician at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and the lead author of the study, told the Los Angeles Times. In 2010, Obamacare began allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until the age of 26. Since then, several surveys have found that the rate of uninsurance among that population has sharply declined. The JAMA study is one of the first to attempt to more broadly measure the impact of this aspect of the Affordable Care Act in the four years since it took effect.
In order to assess Obamacare’s impact, the researchers analyzed annual survey data collected between 2002 and 2011, before and after the coverage provision’s implementation. They tracked information from more than 60,000 people who fell into one of two different groups: young people between the ages of 19 to 25, who became newly eligible to remain dependents on their parents’ plans, and a control group of older adults between the ages of 26 to 34 who could not take advantage of that provision. Some significant differences emerged between the two populations. Among the younger group, there was a 6.2 percentage point increase in people reporting excellent physical health, as well as a 4 percentage point increase in people reporting excellent mental health. That group was also more likely to be insured, and experienced an 18 percent decline in their annual out-of-pocket medical costs.
More here
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@petesouza: Pres Obama meets w mayors from across the country to discuss reducing youth violence
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4:0 EDT: First Lady Michelle Obama delivers remarks at a screening of “The Powerbroker: Whitney Young’s Fight for Civil Rights”
Trailer:
Read about Whitney Young here
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PBS: ‘The March’ premieres tonight at 9:0 ET/PT
‘The March’ is the story of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, told by the people who organized and participated in it. It includes interviews with some of the key actors; members of the inner circles of the core organizational groups; Hollywood supporters and civil rights campaigners; John F. Kennedy administration officials; and the ordinary people who became part of the crowd of thousands, who thronged to Washington D.C. by all and every means: plane, bus and car.
More here
Obama White House.gov WH Tumblr The People’s View Smartypants Steve Benen
The Obama Diary 
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