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Michelle Obama Launches First Attack At Donald Trump

One day after president Obama took a pot shot at Donald Trump in what appeared to be an escalation in campaigning against the New York billionaire on Hillary's behalf during a Wednesday PBS town hall, Trump promptly shot back, saying that "this is a president who doesn't have a clue," during his rally in Sacramento.  "He’s going to start campaigning. Well, if he campaigns, that means I’m allowed to hit him just like I hit Bill Clinton, I guess right... If he doesn’t, I don’t care. But if he campaigns, and I think he wants to, because he wants to keep this terrible agenda going where everybody is ripping us, where the world is ripping us off."

And while for now Barack has not responded in what would surely escalate to the pinnacle of prime-time TV entertaiment as Trump unleashes on the president and vice versa, the latest shot against Trump came from none other than the president's wife, Michelle. The first lady ripped into Donald Trump in what she said would be her final commencement address as first lady, at New York's City College where she was granted an honorary doctorate, criticizing the presumptive GOP presidential nominee for his name-calling and what she described as a fear of outsiders that is un-American. 

"Here in America, we don't give into our fears. We don't build up walls to keep people out, because we know that our greatness has always depended on contributions from people who were born elsewhere but sought out this country and made it their home," the first lady said, without mentioning Trump by name, in an address at The City College of New York. It was unclear if Michelle was referring to people such as these:

Michelle continued: "some folks out there today seem to have a very different perspective," Michelle Obama continued. "They seem to view our diversity as a threat to be contained rather than as a resource to be tapped. They tell us to be afraid of those who are different, to be suspicious of those with whom we disagree."

Maybe there is a reason for that? In any case, here is one untapped resource seen during last night's anti-Trump rioting in San Jose:

Oblivious to the reality around here, Michelle continued her liberal sermon: "They act as if name-calling is an acceptable substitute for thoughtful debate, as if anger and intolerance should be our default state, rather than the optimism and openness that have always been the engine of our progress," she said.

Ironically, the angry and intolerant default state was exhibited by those who accuse Trump of stirring up just those feelings.

"I have seen what happens when ideas like these take hold. I have seen how leaders who rule by intimidation, leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people, often do so because they have nothing else to offer," she said. "That is not who we are."

And yet, this is precisely "who we were" last night in San Jose.

As The Hill reports, these comments marked a rare entry into 2016 politics by the first lady who raised her voice during the latter remarks as she spoke over applause from the crowd. They were also notable coming one day after Hillary Clinton launched a full-out assault on Trump in a speech that had been billed as a foreign policy address. So far, White House attacks on Trump have been relatively low-key, in part because of the Democratic primary contest between Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

Michelle's remarks were not limited to Trump. She had the following parting words for thr class of 2016, whom she told that they're "living, breathing proof that the American Dream endures in our time," and linked their story to her family's. "It's the story that I witness every day, when I wake up in a house that was built by slaves. Two beautiful black young women head off to school, waving goodbye to their father, the president of the United States, the son of a man of Kenya who came here to America for the same reasons as many of you: to get an education and improve his prospects in life." "So graduates, while I think it's fair to say that our founding fathers never could have imagined this day, all of you are very much the fruits of their vision," she continued.

It was unclear as of this writing if the founding fathers' vision was a generation of student debt slaves buried under $1.3 trillion in debt, desperate to find a minimum wage waiter and bartender job before robots make even that last "career" option obsolete.

Michelle Obama Gives Final Commencement Speech
Source
Human Interest
America
Democratic primary contest