Here is the prepared text of President Obama's speech in Ghana on Saturday, per the White House.
Good morning. It is an honor for me to be in Accra, and to speak to the representatives of the people of Ghana. I am deeply grateful for the welcome that I've received, as are Michelle, Malia and Sasha Obama. Ghana's history is rich, the ties between our two countries are strong, and I am proud that this is my first visit to sub-Saharan Africa as President of the United States.
I am speaking to you at the end of a long trip. I began in Russia, for a Summit between two great powers. I traveled to Italy, for a meeting of the world's leading economies. And I have come here, to Ghana, for a simple reason: the 21st century will be shaped by what happens not just in Rome or Moscow or Washington, but by what happens in Accra as well.
This is the simple truth of a time when the boundaries between people are overwhelmed by our connections. Your prosperity can expand America's. Your health and security can contribute to the world's. And the strength of your democracy can help advance human rights for people everywhere.
So I do not see the countries and peoples of Africa as a world apart; I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world - as partners with America on behalf of the future that we want for all our children. That partnership must be grounded in mutual responsibility, and that is what I want to speak with you about today.
We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans.
I say this knowing full well the tragic past that has sometimes haunted this part of the world. I have the blood of Africa within me, and my family's own story encompasses both the tragedies and triumphs of the larger African story.
My grandfather was a cook for the British in Kenya, and though he was a respected elder in his village, his employers called him "boy" for much of his life. He was on the periphery of Kenya's liberation struggles, but he was still imprisoned briefly during repressive times. In his life, colonialism wasn't simply the creation of unnatural borders or unfair terms of trade - it was something experienced personally, day after day, year after year.
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We're more than half way through President Obama's speech to Ghana's parliament and, so far, it looks like Obama's calls for an uncorrupt government and fair elections.
"This is about more than holding elections," Obama said, "it's also about what happens between them. Repression takes many forms, and too many nations are plagued by problems that condemn their people to poverty. No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers."
"No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery," he added. "That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end."
Obama went on to call for transparent institutions, "honest police forces, independent judges and journalists."
Obama's focus on these tenets - what he would likely call universal human rights - has been a theme during this trip abroad.
In his speech in Moscow earlier this week, Obama emphasized the importance of free elections other rights such as an independent media.
Presisdent Obama was interrupted several times and appeared to be very well received as he delivered remarks at Ghana's parliament on Saturday.
Obama is delivering a speech titled "A New Moment of Promise," and, through the grainy and green-tinted video currently streaming over the cable news networks, it looks like Obama has been very well received.
Early on in the speech, Obama described his ties to Africa and Ghana.
"I have the blood of Africa within me," Obama said.
He went on:
My grandfather was a cook for the British in Kenya, and though he was a respected elder in his village, his employers called him "boy" for much of his life. He was on the periphery of Kenya's liberation struggles, but he was still imprisoned briefly during repressive times. In his life, colonialism wasn't simply the creation of unnatural borders or unfair terms of trade - it was something experienced personally, day after day, year after year.
My father grew up herding goats in a tiny village, an impossible distance away from the American universities where he would come to get an education. He came of age at an extraordinary moment of promise for Africa. The struggles of his own father's generation were giving birth to new nations, beginning right here in Ghana. Africans were educating and asserting themselves in new ways. History was on the move.
Obama said that Africa is "too often overlooked" by the rest of the world and praised Ghana for working to put democracy "on firmer footing."
In particular, Obama also got a healthy round of applause when he discussed elections in Ghana.
"The people of Ghana have worked hard to put democracy on a firmer footing, with peaceful transfers of power even in the wake of closely contested elections," Obama said.
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) leveled the GOP's most pointed criticism of President Obama's stimulus package on Saturday, saying the president has broken his promise to spur the economy.
Delivering the weekly Republican radio and internet address, Cantor said Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package has failed.
"There is no doubt that our nation faces many challenges, but the plain truth is that President Obama's economic decisions have not produced jobs, have not produced prosperity, and have not worked," Cantor said. "President Obama has already asked you to borrow trillions, and so far nearly 3 million jobs have been lost this year alone."
"Simply put," he added, "this is now President Obama's economy and the American people are beginning to question whether his policies are working."
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President Obama on Saturday defended his $787 billion economic stimulus package as having ended an economic free fall after a week of criticism from both ends of the political spectrum.
Obama used his weekly address to the nation Saturday to say the stimulus in a little more than 100 days had worked as intended, and that without it there would have been tens of thousands of additional layoffs.
He added that the stimulus was not designed to work in four months but over two years, and seemed to ask those listening or viewing the address for patience.
"Crucially, this is a plan that will also accelerate greatly throughout the summer and the fall," said Obama, who added his administration always knew it would take some time for money to get out the door.
According to recovery.gov, the government web site tracking the stimulus, only $523 million of the $20 billion allocated to the Department of Transportation has been spent so far.
When he took office, he said he had warned that it would take many months to move the economy from recession to recovery and then prosperity. But he said the country is now moving in the right direction and was "cleaning up the wreckage" of an economic storm.
"We must let it work the way it's supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity," he said.
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The U.S. is headed down the same path Germany took in the run-up to World War II, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) charged last night.
In a speech at the Naitonal Press Club promoting his book "Saving Freedom," DeMint said that, like pre-WWII Germany, the U.S. federal government is creating a sense of dependence so it can grab power.
Part of what we're trying to do in "Saving Freedom" is just show that where we are, we're about where Germany was before World War II where they became a social democracy. You still had votes but the votes were just power grabs like you see in Iran, and other places in South America, like Chavez is running down in Venezuela. People become more dependent on the government so that they're easy to manipulate. And they keep voting for more government because that's where their security is. When our immigrants get here, they're worried, because they see it happening here. [emphasis added]
Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced that hospital associations have agreed to contribute $155 billion over the next ten years to help pay for healthcare reform.
Speaking at a press conference, the vice president said the White House and congressional Democrats are making progress on the Obama's goal of signing healthcare reform by the end of the year.
"Folks, reform is coming," he said. "It is on track. It is coming."
"We have never, in my entire tenure in public life, been this close," he added.
The money comes from hospital associations agreeing to lower Medicare and Medicaid payments.
MoveOn.org has gone after plenty of Democrats the group deems insufficiently liberal when it comes to healthcare reform. This time, they're setting their sights on President Obama.
That's right: Just days after a Washington Post report that Obama didn't like liberal activist groups attacking Democrats for not supporting the so-called public option, a proposed government-run health insurance plan close to the hearts of liberal reformers, MoveOn.org went on the attack against another Democrat: Obama himself, or at least his highest-ranking aide.
"We shouldn't be focusing resources on each other," Obama said, according to the Post. "We ought to be focused on winning this debate."
Well, MoveOn.org is focusing resources on organizing a grassroots campaign against comments White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel made in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
The campaign may be focused on Emanuel, but when you tell people to call the White House, you're clearly telling them to send a message to the president.
Emanuel said that Obama is open to compromises on the public option plan favored by liberals as part of healthcare reform. Specifically, Emanuel indicated that Obama has not ruled out a proposal that the public option would only "trigger" if private insurance failed to cover enough people under reform. Liberals are not fans of that trigger, something the White House undoubtedly knows.
As MoveOn.org has demonstrated time and again this year, anything less than strong, unqualified support for the public option is apostasy in its eyes.
"Emanuel's remarks will only embolden conservative opponents of reform. He should be standing with the majority of Americans for a strong public health insurance option - not disastrous half-measures like the 'trigger,'" the MoveOn.org email says.
"Can you call the White House switchboard and tell them you're disappointed in Chief of Staff Emanuel's comments supporting the 'trigger?' Tell them voters want a strong public health insurance option - not half-measures like the "'rigger.'"
The president apparently wasn't happy with Emanuel's comments, either.
The White House quickly walked back them back this morning in a statement attributed to Obama, who is far, far way in Russia. "As I've said before, that one of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices, and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest," Obama said.
- Jeffrey Young
Here's the entire email sent out by MoveOn.org Political Action Campaign Director Nita Chaudhary:
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that the U.S. will support mediation efforts in Honduras, CNN reports.
Clinton met with exiled leader Manuel Zelaya on Tuesday in D.C. after Zelaya's efforts to return to Honduras on Monday were foiled and he was forced to land in Nicaragua.
The mediation efforts would be led by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. It appears that interim president Roberto Micheletti is willing to participate.
"We hope this process can begin as soon as possible," Clinton said.
Zelaya was thrown out of the country in a military coup on June 28. President Obama has denounced the ouster.
Not all U.S. lawmakers have condemned the coup, though, because they say Zelaya was violating the constitution. Most recently, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tweeted this on Tuesday:
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