Happy Graduation, Grads: Here's a List of Commencement Speakers

Congrats to grads, whether you are graduating from the University of Maine or the University of Hawaii. We don't have commencement speakers from those two schools, but here is a list of 15 other speakers who addressed graduates over the last three weekends.


1) Lesli Baskerville (pictured top). North Carolina Central U. Durham, NC

2) Dom Amendum. UNC-Greensboro. Greensboro, NC

3) John Kerry. Yale University. New Haven, Conn.

4) Sheryl Sandberg. Harvard University. Cambridge (Boston), Mass.

5) P. Diddy Combs (pictured middle) Howard University. Washington, DC.

6) Connie Willis. Univ. Northern Colorado. Greeley, Colo.

7) Eric Stough. Animator ("South Park.") Colorado U. Boulder, Colo.

8) Christopher Patten. Notre Dame. South Bend, Ind.

9) Colin Powell (pict. bottom) High Point University. High Point, NC.

10) Cece Stewart. Winthrop University. Rock Hill, SC.

11) Bill and Melinda Gates. Stanford University. Palo Alto, Calif.

12) Marc Bennioff. Univ. of Southern California. Los Angeles, Calif.

13) Al Gore. Princeton University. Princeton, NJ.

14) Adm. William H. McRaven. Univ. of Texas. Austin, Tex.

15) Alex Smith, quarterback of Kansas City Chiefs. Univ. of Utah. Salt Lake City, Utah.

This is NOT an Endorsement_ 3 Third Party Candiates

There is one presidential candidate who has previously lost to Mitt Romney; she is Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate from Boston who was arrested in Texas this week for trespassing while protesting the development of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline.

Stein only got four percent of the vote when she ran with the Greens for the governor of Massachusetts in the 2002 race won by Romney, but it was only a five percent differential which allowed him to eek out a victory over Shannon O'Brien, the Democratic candidate who had been the state's treasurer.

Stein is on the ballot in 47 states; the three states where she is not are Oklahoma, Nebraska and Nevada_ the Silver State is the only one of those three which is considered a swing state. In fact, political experts say the city of Elko, Nev., was the jurisdiction which was most helpful towards George W. Bush's victory over John Kerry in 2004.

Cheri Honkak, a Native American activist is Stein's running mate, and she was also arrested during the protest.

Rocky Anderson, who is ironically the only Utah native in the race (Romney is a Mormon, which is the main religion in Utah), the Justice Party candidate, is openly agnostic and he is known for his progressive stances on immigration, climate change, gay rights and military defense. Anderson served as the mayor of Salt Lake City from 2000 to 2008. His vocal opposition to the Iraq War made him known nationally.

In 2011, Anderson left the Democratic Party for the newly formed Justice Party. Anderson's running mate is novelist Luis J. Rodriguez.

At 28, Peta Lindsay is far and away the youngest person running for president in this election cycle. Ironically, she and far right Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode were both born in Virginia. Lindsay is the candidate for the Socialist Party, which is actually the oldest third party. Lindsay, who is also an alumnus of Howard University in Washington, DC, is a feminist and African-American rights activist. Her running mate is Yasi Osorio; neither candidate has previous political experience.


http://www.jillstein.org

http://www.gp.org

http://www.voterocky.org

http://www.howard.edu

For information on three other third party candidates, go to our other blog "The Daily Vampire:" http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com