Michelle Obama
Wednesday July 20, 2016
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday July 20, 2016
RNC official cites ‘My Little Pony’ to defend Melania Trump
Who said it: Melania Trump or Twilight Sparkle from “My Little Pony”?
After Trump’s controversial speech from the first night of the Republican National Convention that has some accusing the Trump campaign of plagiarizing passages from a speech by first lady Michelle Obama in 2008, Republican National Convention chief strategist Sean Spicer said the lines being discussed are common phrases.
“We’re talking about 70 words, three passages,” Spicer told Wolf Blitzer on CNN Tuesday.
“Melania Trump said, ‘the strength of your dreams and willingness to work for them.’ Twilight Sparkle from ‘My Little Pony’ said, ‘This is your dream. Anything you can do in your dreams, you can do now,’ ” Spicer said.
He also compared passages of Trump’s speech with phrases from musicians John Legend and Kid Rock.
“I mean if we want to take a bunch of phrases and run them through a Google and say, ‘Hey, who else has said them,’ I can do that in five minutes,” Spicer said. “And that’s what this is.”
The Trump campaign announced it doesn’t plan to fire anybody over the allegations.
Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort also addressed the controversy on CNN Tuesday morning.
“There’s no cribbing of Michelle Obama’s speech. These were common words and values. She cares about her family,” Manafort said. “To think that she’d be cribbing Michelle Obama’s words is crazy.” (Source: CNN)
Wednesday March 9, 2016
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 9, 2016
Trudeau and Obama forging special relationship, White House says
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is winning praise from the White House for his leadership on climate change ahead of this week’s visit to Washington where that issue will be high on the agenda.
In a call with reporters Tuesday morning, officials from President Barack Obama’s administration also noted the personal relationship that is developing between the two leaders.
Obama extended the invitation for a state visit and dinner, the first in 19 years for a Canadian prime minister, when he met Trudeau at the APEC summit late last year.
The officials said Canada and the U.S. always have a close relationship, regardless of who occupies 24 Sussex Drive or 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but they acknowledged Trudeau and Obama have a lot in common.
Trudeau arrives in the U.S. capital Wednesday along with his wife Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau and a delegation that includes five cabinet members: Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna, Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Fisheries Minister Hunter Tootoo.
They will attend a lavish state dinner at the White House on Thursday night after a day of meetings in the Oval Office and at the State Department.
The White House officials discussed the close bilateral relationship between the two countries in terms of trade and defence but they paid particular attention to how Canada and the U.S. are co-operating on the environment file and suggested there is a change in tone since Trudeau defeated former prime minister Stephen Harper in October.
“Since Prime Minister Trudeau assumed office we have also had tremendous co-operation with Canada on climate and clean energy issues,” said Roberta Jacobson, assistant secretary of state, bureau of Western Hemisphere affairs. (Source: CBC News)
Friday May 11, 2012
By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Friday May 11, 2012
Joe Biden apologizes to Obama over gay marriage
After nearly single-handedly pushing gay marriage to the forefront of the U.S. presidential campaign and inadvertently pressuring President Barack Obama to declare his support for same-sex unions, there was only one thing left for Vice-President Joe Biden to do: apologize.
Biden’s apology came Wednesday in the Oval Office, shortly before the president sat for a hastily arranged interview in which he told the American people that he now supported gay marriage.
The vice-president expressed remorse and regret for declaring his support for same-sex unions ahead of Obama, said a person familiar with the exchange, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation. Obama accepted the apology, saying he knew Biden had only been speaking from the heart.
Biden’s apology followed days of frustration in the West Wing after the vice-president went off script, something he had done plenty of times. Without White House approval, Biden declared on a Sunday talk show that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex married couples having the same rights as heterosexual married couples.
Usually Obama can swat away Biden’s free-wheeling ways. But not this time.
Biden’s remarks focused a fresh spotlight on what Obama had vaguely referred to as “evolving” views on gay marriage.
What few people outside of Obama’s inner circle of six or seven close aides knew at the time was that the president had, in fact, finished that evolution months earlier and was waiting for a suitable opportunity to inform the public of his views. (Source: Ottawa Citizen)