Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 5-17-16 Online Edition

Without Naming Him, Pres. Obama Takes Aim At Trump During Rutgers Commencement
President Obama And Macklemore: A Conversation About Addiction
President Obama and Grammy Award-winning artist Macklemore teamed up to discuss a disease that affects far too many Americans: addiction.
"Class of 2016, let me be as clear as I can be: In poli- tics and in life, ignorance is not a virtue," President Obama told Rutgers Uni- versity graduates in a com- mencement address urging broad engagement with the world.
His remarks, which stressed "reason" over "anti- intellectuallism," have been widely interpreted as a cri- tique of the de facto Repub- lican nominee, Donald Trump, though he did not explicitly name him:
"Facts, evidence, reason, logic, an understanding of science: These are good things. These are qualities you want in people making policy. ... That might seem obvious. ... We traditionally have valued those things, but if you're listening to today's political debate, you might wonder where this strain of anti-intellectualism came from."
Pres. Obama continued, "When our leaders express a disdain for facts, when they're not held accountable for repeating falsehoods and just making stuff up, when actual experts are dismissed as elitists, then we've got a problem."
CODE SWITCH Pres. Obama Gets All In His Blackness At Howard
His full remarks... "illus-
President Barack Obama speaks during Rutgers University's 250th Anniversary commencement cere- mony on Sunday in New Brunswick, N.J.
Macklemore opened up about his own experience with addiction:
"I’m here with Presi- dent Obama because I take this personally. I abused prescription drugs and bat- tled addiction. If I hadn’t gotten the help I needed when I needed it, I might not be here today. And I want to help others facing the same challenges I did."
President Obama laid out why opioid abuse is a problem that affects all of us:
"Drug overdoses now take more lives every year than traffic accidents. Deaths from opioid over- doses have tripled since 2000. A lot of the time, they’re from legal drugs pre- scribed by a doctor. So ad- diction doesn’t always start in some dark alley -- it often starts in a medicine cabinet."
And the President talked about what we all can do to help:
"I’ve asked Congress to
expand access to recovery services, and to give first re- sponders the tools they need to treat overdoses before it’s too late. This week, the House passed several bills about opioids -- but unless they also make actual invest- ments in more treatment, it won’t get Americans the help they need. On top of fund- ing, doctors also need more training about the power of the pain medication they prescribe, and the risks they carry. Another way our country can help those suf- fering in private is to make this conversation public."
"The good news is, there’s hope. When we talk about opioid abuse as the public health problem it is, more people will seek the help they need. More people will find the strength to re- cover, just like Mackle- more and millions of Americans have. We’ll see fewer preventable deaths and fewer broken families."
trate a world view antitheti- cal to the ideas espoused by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee," as re- ported.
"The world is more inter- connected than ever before, and it's becoming more con- nected every day. Building walls won't change that," Pres. Obama said, in an apparent reference to Trump's proposal to build a wall along the border with Mexico. He added: "The point is: To help ourselves,
we've got to help others, not pull up the drawbridge and try to keep the world out."
He also criticized "isolat- ing or disparaging Muslims" and "suggesting they should be treated differently when it comes to entering this country":
"That's not just a betrayal of who we are. It would alienate the very communi- ties at home and abroad who are our most important partners in the fight against violent extremism."
Drug Overdoses Traffic Accidents
White House News
PAGE 6 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2016