April D. Ryan

Monday, March 28, 2011, the President delivers an address at the National Defense University in Washington, DC to update the American people on the situation in Libya, including the actions we’ve taken with allies and partners to protect the Libyan people from the brutality of Moammar Qaddafi, the transition to NATO command and control, and our policy going forward.  During the speech the president acknowledged the US will transition military might against Libya to Nato Wednesday. 

The Spelman College community is gearing up for the May, 2011 commencement address by First Lady Michelle Obama.  University President Beverly Tatum had been requesting the White House to consider her all womens liberal arts college for the high honor. 

Spelman is the lone Historically Black College and University in 2011 where Mrs. Obama will deliver the charge for the graduating class of 2011.

“In a personal address, the first lady will discuss her upbringing, and the significance of being part of the first generation in her family to graduate from college,” a White House source told theGrio. “She will also encourage the graduates to continue to serve their communities, embrace the challenges ahead of them, and strive to fulfill their ambitious goals.” 

Mrs. Obama will also be speaking at the University of Northern Iowa and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point this May. She will speak to graduates of the Quantico Middle High School in Quantico, Virginia this June. 

Meanwhile, President Obama has announced he will be addressing the graduating class of 2011 at  Miami Dade College this spring.  The White House has also revealed he will deliver 2011 commencement season speeches to the Coast Guard, and the winner of the commencement challenge.

The list means the President will not be making a commencement address at an HBCU this year.   Needless to say most of the HBCU’s in the country were vying for the prestige of having the President of the United States deliver the 2011 commencement address. 

President Barack Obama spoke at Hampton  University’s commencement last year, telling graduates: “Now that your minds have been opened, it’s up to you to keep them that way, and it will be up to you to open minds that remain closed.” 

The black college student population particularly at the nations HBCU’s showed massive support for then Presidential candidate Barack Obama to win the Oval office in 2008. 

President Obama was criticized during his first year in office for not delivering an address to an HBCU particularly after Morehouse and Lincoln colleges made requests. Morehouse made the request when he was a candidate for President.  Obama White House officials acknowledged the commencement requests were under consideration.

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) - A cruise missile
blasted Moammar Gadhafi’s residential
compound in an attack that carried as
much symbolism as military effect, and
fighter jets destroyed a line of tanks
moving on the rebel capital. The U.S. said
the international assault would hit any
government forces attacking the
opposition.

 
Libyan soldiers survey the damage to an administrative
building hit by a missile at Moammar Gadhafi’s
compound in Tripoli, Libya, early Monday.

 
Oil prices jumped to nearly $103 a barrel
Monday in Asia after the Libyan leader vowed
a “long war” amid a second night of allied
strikes in the OPEC nation. Jubilant rebels
said they expected to bring him down in a
matter of days.

It was not known where Gadhafi was when
the missile hit near his iconic tent late
Sunday, but it seemed to show that while the
allies trade nuances over whether the Libyan
leader’s fall is a goal of their campaign - he
is not safe.

 
Half of the round, three-story administration
building was knocked down and pieces of
the missile were scattered around, according
to Associated Press photographer escorted
to the scene by the Libyan government.
About 300 Gadhafi supporters were in the
compound at the time. It was not known if
any were hurt.

 
Britain said Monday one of its bombing
missions was aborted last night to avoid
civilian casualties.

“We believe that a number of civilians had
been moved within the intended target area,”
the Ministry of Defense said Monday. State
television had said Gadhafi’s supporters
were converging on airports as human
shields.

 
The U.S. military said the bombardment so
far - a rain of Tomahawk cruise missiles
and precision bombs from American and
European aircraft, including long-range
stealth B-2 bombers - had hobbled
Gadhafi’s air defenses. More missile strikes
overnight did new damage to anti-aircraft
sites, the Italian military said.

 
U.S., British and French planes also went
after tanks headed toward Benghazi, in the
opposition-held eastern half of the country.
On Sunday, at least seven demolished tanks
smoldered in a field 12 miles south of
Benghazi, many of them with their turrets
and treads blown off, alongside charred
armored personnel carriers, jeeps and SUVs
of the kind used by Gadhafi fighters.

Weekly Address: American Jobs Through Exports to Latin America

Even as the President maintains his focus on international crises in Japan and Libya, he discusses his trip to Latin America to open up markets for US products.

President Obama is giving Libya an ultimatum for a cease fire or face military action, to include U.S. involvement.   If military action against Liby is a reality, Obama says the U.S will not commit ground troops. The American military, however, will help to impose a no fly zone over the North African country.

“The U.S. did not pursue this outcome,” contends the President. He says we are not going this alone as Arab States, France, the United Kingdom are part of the coalition.  Those countries to include the United States would impose the military action against if Mommar Quadaffi if he does not stop killing his own people and does not let humanitarian aid into the country.    Meanwhile, an American national security source says,”Moammar Quadaffi does have military experience as he lead a military overthrow in Libya. The source warns Quadaffi is “more sophisticated than people think.”

POLITICO

Obama to urge ‘No Child’ reform

By: Carrie Budoff Brown

President Barack Obama will renew his push Monday to overhaul the nearly decade-old federal education law, calling on Congress to finish a rewrite of No Child Left Behind by the start of the next school year.

Pushing an issue that administration views as ripe for bipartisan cooperation, Obama will use a visit to an Arlington, Va., school to praise the efforts by Republican and Democratic lawmakers to fix the law and outline his own priorities, top administration officials said Sunday.

“We need to make sure we’re graduating students who are ready for college and a career,” Obama will say at Kenmore Middle School, according to a White House release. “In the 21st century, it’s not enough to leave no child behind. We need to help every child get ahead. We need to get every child on a path to academic excellence.”

Monday’s push follows a meeting last week between the president and a bipartisan group of lawmakers who have been working for months with administration officials on the rewrite.

“Our agenda is largely aligned with leaders on both sides of the aisle and leaders at every level of government,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan told reporters Sunday.

But on one area of particular interest to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) – expanding school vouchers in Washington, D.C. – the president isn’t expected to make a pitch for the program. Boehner has signaled that he will use the voucher program as a bargaining chip in the education reform negotiations.

Obama “doesn’t believe that vouchers are the way that we’re going to solve the comprehensive problems that we have in our school systems right now,” said Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. “We need a holistic approach.”

Obama will call for a rewrite that targets schools and students most at risk, directing resources to low-performing schools and teachers who serve them. He will seek a system more flexible than the one in place, and will push for broadening the focus of school curricula beyond math and reading, raising expectations for students, boosting teacher effectiveness, rewarding excellence and sharing responsibility for improvement, the aides said.

“Under current law, the federal government prescribes a one-size-fits-all solution,” Duncan said. “We need to do away with unnecessary federal mandates and increase local control to pursue solutions focused on results.”

Washington (CNN) — Talks are starting this week on possible steps to tighten access to guns for people with criminal records or mental health issues, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday.

Carney responded to questions from reporters following publication Sunday of an op-ed commentary by President Barack Obama in The Arizona Daily Star that looked at the gun control debate following the January 8 shootings in Tucson. Six people were killed 13 were wounded, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Jared Lee Loughner, who has been charged in the shootings, previously was rejected for military service and had raised concern at the local college where he took classes due to erratic behavior.

“We can honor our Second Amendment rights while still ensuring that someone with a criminal record shouldn’t be able to check out at a gun seller, that an unbalanced man shouldn’t be able to buy a gun so easily,” Carney said, adding: “There is room for us to have reasonable laws that uphold liberty, ensure citizen safety, respect the Second Amendment, and that we should be able to find some common ground on some of those measures.”

Carney said the Department of Justice was launching talks this week with “stakeholders on all sides of the issue.” While declining to provide specifics, Carney said legislation was a possible outcome.

In the an op-ed commentary, Obama acknowledged the role of guns in American society, while warning of their dangers.

“Every single day, America is robbed of more futures. It has awful consequences for our society,” Obama wrote, adding that “we have a strong tradition of gun ownership that’s handed from generation to generation.”

The president outlined three “sound and effective” steps to keep “those irresponsible, law-breaking few from getting their hands on a gun in the first place,” including enforcing laws already on the books, rewarding states that provide the best data and therefore do the most to protect their citizens, and making the system for background checks “faster and nimbler.”

Following the Tucson shootings, some members of Congress voiced support for tougher gun regulations. However, the strong pro-gun lobby and deep-rooted resistance to gun control, particularly in Southern states, meant the matter failed to gain traction.

In Sunday’s piece, Obama said he understands discussions about gun control “

can reinforce stark divides.”

“However, I believe that if common sense prevails, we can get beyond wedge issues and stale political debates to find a sensible, intelligent way to make the United States of America a safer, stronger place,” Obama wrote. “We owe the victims of the tragedy in Tucson and the countless unheralded tragedies each year nothing less than our best efforts — to seek consensus, to prevent future bloodshed, to forge a nation worthy of our children’s futures.”

CNN’s Ed Henry, Gabriella Schwarz and Tom Cohen contributed to this report.

Thursday the President and First Lady will host parents, teachers, students, community leaders and others at a White House Conference on Bullying Prevention.

President Barack Obama contends all options are still on the table when it comes to resolving the human rights violations in Libya.  “On the table”, no fly zones and military boots on the ground.  An Obama administration source says if there is any military action against Libya, AFRICOM (U.S. Africa Command Headquarters) is the lead facility to ensure a no fly zone remains in place.   U.S. AFRICOM is a German based facility focusing on 53 nations with various charges to include addressing the consequences of humanitarian disasters-whether man-made or natural-that cause loss of life and displaces populations.

A change of leadership is underday at AFRICOM today.  Morgan State University gaduate, Arican American, Four Star General Kip Ward had led AFRICOM from its inception from 2007 until today.  Today there is a transfer of power from General Ward to General Carter Hamm as Ward previously planned to retire from the Military in May 2011. 

General Ward has given his farewell http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=6168&lang=0

 
　
AFRICOM conducts several categories of activities to support four primary goals and address current security challenges that threaten stability on the African contient.  AFRICOM, has primary purposes to include:

Countering transnational and extremist threats

Contributing to stability in current zones of conflict

Addressing conditions that contribute to instability