graduation day, today is armed forces day. let me begin by asking all of those who have worn the uniform of our great country at any stage in your life to stand so that we can recognize you with a round of applause. [applause] members of the class of 2014, i am obviously not the first to since io you today, have the microphone, perhaps i can say at the loudest. congratulations.

[applause] it.did i am mindful of the fact that when i was at my college graduation, all i could think of was will the speaker ever finish speaking? i will confess that i do not remember a single thing that the commencement speaker said at my own graduation. in fact, i don't remember his name. the great honor of addressing you today with a great deal of humility. its first commencement 44 years ago, this college has opened the doors of opportunity

for thousands of students. some of you came here directly from high school. others from the workforce. i met some today who came through the trade adjustment jobs andfter losing have now retrained for it exciting new career. some of you are going directly into the workforce, others are .oing even further whatever category you are in, you are here today because each of you has demonstrated a determination to secure a bright future. it has been said that the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. the diplomacy received today are

proof of your ability to work hard, to set clear goals, and to reach this major milestone in your life. neverth to success is straight and smooth. we heard that today. there will be obstacles along your journey, but you have already demonstrated the determination, the resilience, and the skill to succeed in whatever comes your way. i know from first-hand experience that you don't always succeed the first time you try to pursue your dreams. when i first ran for public office back in 1994, i was clobbered in the general elections that fall.

therealways grateful that was a fourth candidate from the green party because at least i came in third brother than dead last -- came in third rather than dead last. --the end of that complaint campaign, i was flat broke, uninsured, and unemployed. i was worried about what was going to come next. passion to i had a serve the people of maine in public office and after working out a wonderful college, i had the opportunity to run again. i tell you briefly a little bit of my story because i hope you asl always pursue your dream you have done today by

graduating from this fine school. the degrees you have earned cover a remarkable range of trades, fields, and interests. together, you are a powerful force that will help drive maine's economic future. asset hass greatest always been our hard-working resilient people and robust workforce development is essential for all of us to achieve our dreams. from the newest advances in information technology and health care, to the sustainable agricultural program that builds on our heritage as the breadbasket of northern new england, you have acquired the skills and education maine needs

to compete in the 21st century. you have reached a great moment in your lives, but of course, here bynot get yourself. the faculty, staff, and administration have created a close not learning community. the support from businesses and leaders of the industry throughout our state have helped to provide the resources for your career oriented education. and those people in the stands and in the audience beaming with family,our parents, loved ones, had a lot to do with your success. their support and encouragement help to meet every challenge and

they will be there for you for the challenges to come. let everything that you do from this day forward honor their sacrifices and their belief in you. while you are giving thanks to those who helped you to get to today, look to your fellow graduates as well. i know one of the special is --ies is the bond that that it forges among its students. studying and working together on community service projects have brought you together and giving

you a needed boost when you needed one. a shared sense of purpose is evident throughout this campus. i was pleased to work with your college to secure the federal funds that help to lunch the hugely 6 -- launched the hugely successful machining and radiologic technician program. whenever i advocate for funding thataine, i do so knowing the investment will deliver results. kvcc reaffirms my confidence. .ere is my prediction for you your education will deliver real value for you your entire life.

long after the information in your textbooks, obsolete -- become obsolete, you will find that the skills that the education you required -- acquired here will allow you to adapt with the times. graduates areur eager to get out there and show the world what you can do. the diplomacy received today represent a great deal of hard work on your part. but they also represent a debt to those who made it possible. there are many ways you can repay the debt. i urge you to apply your enthusiasmergy, and right here in the great state of maine.

needs the entrepreneurs, the innovators, the health-care providers, the risktakers who will create our future. i urge you, please stay in maine. one final bit of advice, serve your community. a great humanitarian and physician once said, i don't be, what your destiny will but one thing i do know, the ones among you who will be really happy in life are those who have soft and found how to serve. whether it is joining the volunteer fire department or an ambulance crew, helping out at your local school or hospital,

serving on your town council or planning board or participating in a service club or food bank, your community needs you to volunteer, to get involved, and to simply take care. maine is a wonderful place for us to live because our people work together to strengthen our community. --se be part of that effort these be part of that effort. and weeople work hard stay on the job until the job is done. state,ues of our great community, determination, hard work, and respect are the values nebec valley community

college. they are also the values of the class of 2014, values that will inspire you to meet the challenges that lie ahead and to notte new opportunities only for yourselves, but also for others. graduates, congratulations. celebrate this day wisely, of course. and good luck to all of you. thank you so much. [applause] >> massachusetts congressman joe

kennedy talks about same-sex marriage in the law at this year's university of virginia law school commencement. his grandfather is robert f kennedy. he graduated from uva in 1951. his great uncle never picked up his diploma from uva because, in 1959, he was working on his brothers campaign. him with his uncles diploma. it is just under 20 minutes. [applause] >> thank you for that righteous introduction. howsitate to figure out many members of congress are named joe but i hope it is not that many.

congratulations to you and your family and your tenure at uva. thank you for the privilege of participating in this event. from corporate left academia to the supreme court and the horizons of legal reform, there is not a piece of our legal system that you have not touched. service, youryour vision, your dogged dedication. to the class of 2014 and all of your family and friends, congratulations on an extraordinary achievement. countlessurvived hours in the law library, a few too many long nights, endless caffeine drips, and your fair competition.

all of that behind you, and the only thing standing between you and that's diploma is me. [laughter] saying thatommon the three best years you'll have is a lawyer are your three years of law school. i have heard that is especially true at uva. i will give you a little more time to soak it in. the one it is comfortable. -- go on and get comfortable. my family has a long tradition here at this institution. my grandfather earned his degree here in 1951. his brother followed in his footsteps come as did my uncle. part of that tradition stems from a deep appreciation for the caliber of the legal education that tva offers, and another part comes from that in a pinch it is always good to have a family member steeped in

virginia law. tell grandmother likes to it, our family was living in mclean and my grandfather was the attorney general. spotted ather neglected horse on a neighbor's farm and organized an undercover rescue operation and to provide it with a more doting owner. some might call it theft. my grandmother ended up in court, which was pretty serious given that horse theft at one time was a hanging offense. let her off, though i imagine it was an interesting conversation between her and the attorney general. in case he was a little bit of insight, my grandmother was once asked if she would never again steal a starving horse, she said, "i don't think i could live with myself if i didn't."

it was just a few years ago that i was sitting exactly where you are. while it did manage to get my diploma, my law school career did not get off to the most auspicious start. i will never forget walking into my first class. and haved the case been pretty grossed out that there was somebody who would gotten a hairy hand. i made a beeline straight for the back row. "ad down, no doubt, books attending to be as under the radar as someone with this hair could be. turns out, assigned seating. kennedy, big bold letters. minutes later our professor comes in, drops an enormous pile of books on the table, turns around, looks at me, and says let's get started,

mr. kennedy what is the definition of a subset? hello, welcome to law school. "i don't know." "you don't know?" "i don't know." "did you do your reading?" "subset is the first word in your reading." ebcause i didn't know what it meant." "do you own a dictionary?" "i haven't had a chance to get one." "that's what people do when they don't know what a word means -- they look it up in the dictionary. is there anyone who can help mr. kennedy?" hand went up. including the hand of the cute girl who agreed to marry me a

few years later. of thatd remind me seven years later. she went on to become our senior united states senator from massachusetts, elizabeth warren. was toter what else happen over the rest of my law school career, it could not possibly as the -- as hu miliating as the first three seconds. i went on to redeem myself, and i went on to graduate on a day much like this, ready to get my diploma. and she was the one to hand it to me. she couldn't resist to ask me one more time before she let it go -- what is the definition of a subset? i was able to come up with the answer. here's to the graduates the only advice i would give you today. either buy a dictionary or marry someone who knows the answer. [laughter]

it is good advice. [applause] thank you. it is definitely the only applause i got anywhere near law school. there are a few lessons i could share with you today at this proud and patriotic institution. ago, thomass jefferson founded the university of virginia to be unlike any other in our young nation. an institution of higher ich the fortunesc of our country may depend," he wrote in 1821. a place that would train students not just in academia but for the trenches of public service. here, graduates educated you graduate not just with a degree but with a purpose. here,r first three years

the most competitive in the history of uva law, you have probably shouldered that tradition. a man wrongly accused. you set an immigration reform bill. you use a lot to champion issues from autism to housing to wounded warriors. tomorrow, each of you will carry your piece of this experience into the country weathering stormy seas. an economy still searching for its footing. threats to our foreign policy the world over. political battles so deeply divisive that they literally have older governments to a halt. but worst of all, a lot of faith. a slowly spreading suspicion that maybe this american experiment has peaked. it'd be easy to think that this

is not your problem. it is the clown that government that are giving the system a bad name. this is more than your problem. this is your purpose. very challenge that your founder imagine that you might rise to meet. that you would be the ones to prove that our system works. whichthe foundation on jefferson's american experiments depended. anchored by all be the word of law. , that compassaw adjusters, would carry us forward, slowly, surely, steadily. even when our humanity might get in the way. 2014, this is the responsibility and the right -- youropportunity lying at feet. our laws of the vehicle by which we improve. the mechanism that holds us

accountable to the standards we set for ourselves. cap by one generation to the next to build an ever more perfect union. to put a man who graduated from this very place just a few years ago -- "law," my grandfather said, "is the form that free men give to justice." guardians ande guarantors of the law. whether you like it or not. write laws,will some of you will challenge them, someone force them, some will interpret them, some might break them. all of you will defend them. and in that process, improve them. at the university of virginia, this is your legacy. work, your problem, your purpose. the school was founded by a man who declared that

"enemies of the people are criminals of government," it dedicated his life to building the latter. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that only happen if there was a system in place to protect them and people willing to hold the system accountable. governmentr been our that defines us, but we define our government. as generations of lawyers who havecome before you said, this is not an easy task. every lawyer i have ever met has a story or two to carry with them, to like their ways on tougher days. at the months after jumping into my first campaign in 2012, i signed up to march the boston pride parade.

for those of you who have ever been to a pride parade, you can picture it. block after block of dancing, banners, confetti, general chaos. for those of you have a sense of barney frank, you can imagine he is not amused by any of it. it was about 90 degrees and the parade has started two hours too late. we finally got underway. for the next few hours, i walked by his side and person after person pushed back the sidewalk barriers and rushed up to him with tears in her eyes. "thank you, congressman." "congressman, thank you, you changed my life." it was a course of people as they bid farewell to a man who entered public office would such a parade was not possible. 32 years later, he was fighting

back tears of his own, probably holding his soon-to-be husband's hand in the streets of the city that was beaming with love and support and gratitude. another chapter in that story -- the following year i was back at the parade again with congressman frank. this time we were joined by my college roommate, jason collins. become theecently first active male athletes to come out as gay in our major professional sports. he was credited with watching the pride parade the year before, and helping him find the courage to speak up. day, antalk june african american basketball player stood next to a retired, jewish congressmen, and a pasty white redhaired irish guy. and three of us marched through scenereets of boston in a that our forefathers could never have imagined.

that is why our laws matter. theuse we can't predict brightness of our own future. because new frontiers creates challenges that demand a 238-year-old system to be tried. even if it takes decades and decades to make it happen. last year i had the honor of meeting a lawyer named mary. she was going before the massachusetts supreme court. it made massachusetts the very first state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage. it wasn't that fact that impressed me most, it was the fact that she had taken her fight to every state house in new england before marching its to the doors of the supreme court. it is the work she had done for 20 years before, the quiet decade she she put into the parts, the aids

epidemic, equality and housing, adoption. she had been laying the groundwork for years. with people like congressman ofnk, hundreds of thousands lawyers and advocates, who toiled in the trenches of our legal and legislative system without credit or fanfare. long before there was ever hope of having public opinion on their side, before jason collins became household names, before the supreme court that a lot claiming to defend marriage could actually degraded. before a judge in virginia would declare that, "we have arrived upon another moment in history when we the people become more inclusive and our freedom more perfect," as she deemed a ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. write to its, your story -- graduates, your story, our

story, is the work of countless, quiet heroes who came before you. you and i have never known the country where men and women could be bought and sold. where newspapers run ads that aplly, weresh need found labeled "colored". the future is ours to form. someday, 30 years from now, your children and mine to be on stages like this one and say that they have never known a country where you could be fired for who you love, pay less for your gender, where skin color doesn't matter at the ballot, the system that americans have fought for and bled for is not looked upon with disappointment. easy in law and government

to get swept up in the big victories. in the public tree and pomp and circumstance, the triumph of justice. thereeasy to forget that are moments long before that took your breath away, there is a person whose name you don't know, sitting in a windowless office you will never see, with nothing more than a case file a telephone, a cup of coffee, a stack of books, into degree that looks an awful lot like the one you're about to receive. groundwork. vigilance. our, --case, i were by hour by hour, person by person. this is the legwork of our imperfect, ever evolving system. day in and day out. a system that is maddening yet

inspiring, petty yet grand, a police low and relentlessly steady. -- painfully slow and relentlessly steady. that does not belong to any single one of us and yet all of us. and when we do that right, would be do that well, the force of our history has changed. class of 2014, this is your purpose. ark of our been the beloved country towards justice, no matter the headwinds. to prove that the brightest days are yet to come and that we can still do big and bold things, not despite our humanity, but because of it. your country is waiting. may you work every day to make her as good, as graceful, as you know she can be. thank you so much, and congratulations. [applause]

>> tomorrow, live on c-span, the heritage foundation will host a discussion with the only russian lawmaker to vote against russia's annexation of crimea. he will talk about russian politics, the situation in ukraine, and u.s.-russiia relations. and his discussion of campaign finance and how it relates to freedom of speech with a former chair of the federal election commission and is an attorney who successfully argued against limiting donations to political campaigns. also from the heritage foundation. book includesw journalists on the fall of the soviet union. >> it contained the seeds of its own destruction. soppyf the problems we

and begin at the very beginning. i spoke already about the attempt to control all institutions and control all parts of the economy. one of the problems is that when you do that, when you try to control everything, you create opposition and potential dissidents. if you tell all artifact paid the same way and one artist says made him intoust a political dissident. scouts they are not allowed to be scouts, they have and oneung pioneers, group decides they don't like that so a form of secrets underground boy scout troop -- which absolutely happened -- you have created another group of political opponents from otherwise apolitical teengares. c-span's "sunday

s at 8". now available at a father's day -- as a father's day gift. >> next, president obama's foreign policy from washington journal. back thet to welcome new york white house correspondent and his best-selling book, "days of fire." now out in paperback this week. thanks for being with us. an american soldier is freed by the taliban. that is causing a lot of consternation at capitol hill. what happened? the last american pow in afghanistan. it comes at the end of the week in which president obama is trying to turn a page on that war. he went to visit the troops the

day before and came back to washington announcing he's going to withdraw troops by the time he leaves office at 2016. finishing up the war in afghanistan means bringing home, for him, the last pow. the trade-off of course is that it requires a detente with the taliban. inmates in guantanamo are sent to qatar. beublicans say we shouldn't theyng bad guys because could do more damage to others on the road. >> the statement getting a lot of attention a republican from california -- he is our guest on "newsmakers." here is what he has said in a

joint statement. executing this, the president violated laws which would require him to notify congress 30 days before any transfer from guantánamo bay and to explain how the posed by such terrorist has been substantially mitigated. tempered because the president chose to ignore the law and foreign policy." >> there is process, which they talk about, and there is policy. not theis one thing, most important thing, but policy is. theirs?ade our guys for and history of war, we have had prisoners lost. during the cold war there are people who were swapped. an ongoing war and struggle with terrorists, do violence against

americans? >> how big the battle will he face? at the endt obama -- of the day, it is a done deal. he has executed this. thetruth is that commander-in-chief's power in wartime is pretty substantial. there is a trade-off because the images of him coming all -- coming home will be very compelling. on behalfgreat desire americans to have one of their own home. knew theite house president was violating the law. there was rationale behind it. when he signed it into law, he wrote a signing statement saying that i am the commander-in-chief and i do not support it. >> we also saw this during the

bush it ministration, where they will sign the law and say but this particular part of the law -- it is unfairly and unconstitutionally tries to constrain the power of the executive branch i will not recognize it. if the court will intervene, i am not a lawyer. most course traced a way from its. -- most courts try to stay away from it. it is his idea that presidents are kind of picking and choosing. the president addressed his foreign-policy in west point at the commencement ceremony. to go back to wednesday's beach and share with you and our audience a part of what the president said to the graduating cadets at west point and his next two and a half years in the white house. >> here's my bottom line.

america must always lead on the world stage. if we do not, no one else will. u.s. is and of the always will be the backbone of that leadership. action cannotary be the only or even primary component of our leadership in every instance. just because they have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail. because the cost associated with military actions are still high, we should expect every civilian leader and especially our commander-in-chief to be clear about how that awesome power should be used. point,wednesday at west and address to the u.s. military academy. what was the reaction?

>> not great. it was a lot -- it was panned a lot. many people found it wanting. the white house tells itself that that is ok because he is in touch with the views of the broader american public. it is weary of war and area of playing a larger role in the world stage. they appreciate the policy of restraint. he isis written that frustrated with the president's foreign policy, which was generally perceived as a strong suit. in private conversations, the president has used a saliter ver sion of the phrase "don't doe stupid stuff." president it was always

talked about policy in the sense that we shouldn't boil it down to bumper stickers, he has boil it down to a bumper sticker slogan of "don't do stupid s tuff." it is a policy of caution and restraint in minimalism. it is a reaction to the bush era. it generally doesn't work out all that well, even for us. >> this is the front page of the washington examiner. and a number of references to those who say "c ritics on the other side." >> there are two different sets of critics he is responding to. rand paul on one side -- he do esn't like the word isolationist, but he does have a very utilitarian kind of view.

on the outside you have john much moreich is a hawkish interventionist view of foreign policy. president obama is trying to address those critics as well. he sees himself as trying to find a middle ground between those two extremes. 9800 will remain at the end of this year to hear reporting. in the busht began administration -- what is your take away as we look at the cover of your book? later, we are, 13 years and it is striking that we are still debating, grappling with the issues that grew in the bush era. things on the front page -- this story about the nsa and gathering images of people around the world, all have their

roots in the bush era. that's why wrote the book. important tougely understand where it came from. >> one quote from the book that is certainly relevant for any ofsident, " in the summer 2008, what surprised you should most -- how little authority i have," he said with a laugh. >> that is what obama is experiencing to. the presidency is magnified by the media. but in fact it is only one part of our government, and it is constrained. congress,urts, -- courts, international diplomacy. they come in thinking we will be master of the universe, and over time, usually discovers just how hard it is to push the rock up the hill.

>> peter baker is white house correspondent for the new york times. his work is available online at nytimes.com. thank you for being with us. >> like to be here. the next washington journal, former transportation secretary discusses how u.s. competitiveness are hampered by the countries collapsing infrastructure. foundation talks about the process of immigration legislation and how it could end economy.impact the in the most expensive job training program in the labor department. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on

acebook and twitter. night on c-span -- >> this week our guest is bret baier, anchor of "special report with bret baier" on the fox news channel and author of "special heart" chronicling the life and near death struggles of his son, paul, who was born with a rare and severe heart defect. >> bret baier in your new book called "special heart" you tell a story abo a