MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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The 2013 State of the Union Address

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February 13, 2013 | 1:01:01 | Public Domain

Remarks by the President in the State of the Union Address

U.S. Capitol
Washington, D.C.

9:15 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, fellow citizens:

Fifty-one years ago, John F. Kennedy declared to this chamber that “the Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress.” (Applause.) “It is my task,” he said, “to report the State of the Union — to improve it is the task of us all.”

Tonight, thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, there is much progress to report. After a decade of grinding war, our brave men and women in uniform are coming home. (Applause.) After years of grueling recession, our businesses have created over six million new jobs. We buy more American cars than we have in five years, and less foreign oil than we have in 20. (Applause.) Our housing market is healing, our stock market is rebounding, and consumers, patients, and homeowners enjoy stronger protections than ever before. (Applause.)

So, together, we have cleared away the rubble of crisis, and we can say with renewed confidence that the State of our Union is stronger. (Applause.)

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April 26, 2013
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Sanders’ October 2010 Filibuster Against Corporate Greed

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhOAzqfMoms[/youtube]So many people are talking about Rand Paul’s filibuster of John Brennan’s CIA nomination in the U.S. Senate that I thought I would remind people of Vermont’s Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders made a much loved speech on the senate floor that was turned into a book.

It was in Oct. 2010 and the U.S. Senate was considering a budget deal that President Obama made with Republican that was heavily weighted to what Republicans wanted. Sanders spoke for eight hours, stalling adoption of the agreement.

Here is his speech–which is available on C-Span and at other sites, including the Congressional Record–in its entirety:

The Speech*

THE ECONOMY — (Senate – December 10, 2010)
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me begin by thanking my friend from Virginia for doing what is very important. I think the essence of what he is saying is that today there are millions of Federal employees, people in the Armed Forces, who are doing the very best they can. In many instances, they are doing a great job to protect our country, to keep it safe. And very often, to be honest with you, these folks get dumped on. So it is important that people such as Senator Warner come here and point out individuals who are doing a great job, people of whom we are very proud. So I thank Senator Warner for that.
Mr. President, as I think everyone knows, President Obama and the Republican leadership have reached an agreement on a very significant tax bill. In my view, the agreement they reached is a bad deal for the American people. I think we can do better.
I am here today to take a strong stand against this bill, and I intend to tell my colleagues and the Nation exactly why I am in opposition to this bill. You can call what I am doing today whatever you want. You can call it a filibuster. You can call it a very long speech. I am not here to set any great records or to make a spectacle; I am simply here today to take as long as I can to explain to the American people the fact that we have to do a lot better than this agreement provides.
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March 7, 2013
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Pieces of Me

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This site is, of course, the archive of mostly my newspaper journalism. I have written other places, too.

I don’t know if it is wanderlust, nostalgia, whatever, I found myself looking around the web for some of my past writings and came across these pieces scattered around the Internet. Some of these pieces, I posted individually at the time I wrote them but I was not consistent in doing that.

Without comment, here are some of the discoveries:

From the American Civil Liberties Union’s BLOG OF RIGHTS:

http://www.aclu.org/blog/author/michael-o-allen

The Natural Resources Defense Council publishes ONEARTH magazine:

http://www.onearth.org/author/michael-o-allen

And, at the Overseas Press Club of America, where I covered news events and wrote blog posts for OPC’s website (www.opcofamerica.org/), I found these blog posts: https://www.opcofamerica.org/search/node/michael%20o.%20allen

March 6, 2013
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Inaugural Address by President Barack Obama–January 21, 2013

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Inaugural Address by President Barack Obama–January 21, 2013

11:55 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice,
members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

Each time we gather to inaugurate a President we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional — what makes us American — is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Today we continue a never-ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. (Applause.) The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.

And for more than two hundred years, we have.

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January 21, 2013
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Mitt and the Bain Capital Chronicles

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In an all too familiar tale, during its heydays, when Mitt Romney and his posse rode into town on behalf of Bain Capital, someone’s dream was going to get crushed, usually a lot of someones. Hopes and aspirations are swiftly snuffed out.

“I don’t think Mitt Romney is a bad man. I don’t fault him for the fact that some companies win and some companies lose. That’s a fact of life,” Randy Johnson, laid off by Mitt in 1994, said at the 2012 Democratic National Convention last night. “What I fault him for is making money without a moral compass.”

David Foster, a steelworker, describes the pattern. Mitt’s Bain bought the company he worked for, loaded it with debt, forcing it into bankruptcy, then fired hundreds of workers. Mitt and his Bain cohorts made out like, well, bandits.
Cindy Hewitt talked about Romney walking away with $249 million after shutting down the plant where she worked.

After workers are laid off, a few are rehired at much lower pay, without benefits or pensions. Then plants are eventually shuttered.

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September 6, 2012
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Michelle Obama Rocks the House

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September 4, 2012
Charlotte, NC–Transcript of first lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, as prepared for delivery:

Thank you so much, Elaine…we are so grateful for your family’s service and sacrifice…and we will always have your back.

Over the past few years as First Lady, I have had the extraordinary privilege of traveling all across this country.

And everywhere I’ve gone, in the people I’ve met, and the stories I’ve heard, I have seen the very best of the American spirit.

I have seen it in the incredible kindness and warmth that people have shown me and my family, especially our girls.

I’ve seen it in teachers in a near-bankrupt school district who vowed to keep teaching without pay.

I’ve seen it in people who become heroes at a moment’s notice, diving into harm’s way to save others…flying across the country to put out a fire…driving for hours to bail out a flooded town.

And I’ve seen it in our men and women in uniform and our proud military families…in wounded warriors who tell me they’re not just going to walk again, they’re going to run, and they’re going to run marathons…in the young man blinded by a bomb in Afghanistan who said, simply, “…I’d give my eyes 100 times again to have the chance to do what I have done and what I can still do.”

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September 5, 2012
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SEIU President Mary Kay Henry at the DNC

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CHARLOTTE —

The following is a transcript of a speech, as prepared for delivery, by Mary Kay Henry, International President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, September 4, 2012.

Mary Kay Henry

International President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)

Hello, delegates, and hello to my sisters and brothers in the American labor movement! My name is Mary Kay Henry. I am here tonight on behalf of millions of Americans who work for a living: the home care worker in Columbus, the janitor in Denver, the correctional officer in Raleigh. These are the men and women who make our country strong.

And these are the men and women whom President Obama is fighting for every single day. I grew up in Southeast Michigan, just a few miles from Mitt Romney. Just a few miles away, but a world apart. But here’s the thing: Even though Mitt Romney and I both call Detroit home, it seems like he learned a very different set of values.

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September 5, 2012
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Mitt Romney’s Extraordinary Lie

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He didn’t have to tell this particular lie because it gains him absolutely nothing. Yet, he felt need to perpetrate this particular fiction. Why?

Mitt Romney said during his acceptance speech last night that Republicans rallied behind President Obama when he won in 2008, hoping that he would succeed.

“We are a good and generous people who are united by so much more than divides us,” Romney said, cribbing a line from Obama.

I don’t understand. Why would Romney tell this lie?

I know it has been a particularly mendacious week at the Republican National Convention, that Romney is a lie machine and that his running mate, one Paul Ryan, gave an acceptance speech of his own in which he tried to see how many lies he could fit into a speech. But . . .

Did we have to listen to Republicans peddle this particular lie, that they rallied behind Obama on his election?

I know tradition dictates that we put our differences aside after an election ends and work for the good of the people, do the business of state, govern. That was exactly what the Republicans would not do.

On January 20, 2009, on a day when most Americans were celebrating the inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States, a cabal of Republican leaders and strategists met for four hours to plot how to derail the nascent administration. The American people had spoken by overwhelmingly electing Obama but that wasn’t good for Republicans.

In the prologue to his book “Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives,” Robert Draper described the unprecedented meeting. Masterminding this putsch were Representatives Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), and Senators Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.).

Also invited were Newt Gingrich, strategist Frank Luntz.

If there was any doubt it was a coup d’etat, they spoke for several hours specifically how to drown every legislative initiative the incoming administration may attempt. Their opposition was tinged by a particular rancor, a nastiness that led them to not only disrespect the man in the office, but disrespect the office itself.

A few months into the administration, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted “You lie” from his seat on the Republican side of the chamber as President Obama was addressing a joint session of Congress about his health care legislation. Not long after that, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky declared that the goal of Republicans was to make sure Obama was a one-term president.

When the 2010 midterm elections ushered the so-called Tea Party Republicans, things go only worse, culminating in the budget debacle that led to the downgrading of the U.S. credit rating.

Things haven’t go much better. Republicans insist on fighting Obama even if it hurts the nation. They crippled the nation’s economy because they felt it was their best chance to regain power. It was plain for all eyes to see.

Romney could have said anything last night. He told many lies in his speech. He could have left that one about them rallying behind a new president. Why didn’t he? Is he just pathological?

August 31, 2012
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The 2012 State of the Union

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Remarks by the President in State of the Union Address
United States Capitol
Washington, D.C.
9:10 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow Americans:

Last month, I went to Andrews Air Force Base and welcomed home some of our last troops to serve in Iraq. Together, we offered a final, proud salute to the colors under which more than a million of our fellow citizens fought — and several thousand gave their lives.

We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. (Applause.) For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. (Applause.) For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. (Applause.) Most of al Qaeda’s top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban’s momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example. (Applause.) Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded.

We can do this. I know we can, because we’ve done it before. At the end of World War II, when another generation of heroes returned home from combat, they built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known. (Applause.) My grandfather, a veteran of Patton’s Army, got the chance to go to college on the GI Bill. My grandmother, who worked on a bomber assembly line, was part of a workforce that turned out the best products on Earth.

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January 25, 2012
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One True Sentence

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Hemingway writing

Hemingway writing

It was wonderful to walk down the long flights of stairs knowing that I’d had good luck working. I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. But sometimes when I was started on a new story and I could not get going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut the scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.

– Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

 

September 17, 2011
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