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Higher Minimum Wages, Full-employment Programs, Early-childhood Education: Those Kinds Of Programs Are, By Design, Universal, But By Definition, Because They Are Helping Folks Who Are In The Worst Economic Situations, Are Most Likely To Disproportionately Impact And Benefit African Americans. They Also Have The Benefit Of Being Sellable To A Majority Of The Body Politic.

-Barack Obama

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Higher Minimum Wages, Full-employment

Barack Obama

...

Higher Minimum Wages, Full-employment Programs, Early-childhood Education: Those Kinds Of Programs Are, By Design, Universal, But By Definition, Because They Are Helping Folks Who Are In The Worst Economic Situations, Are Most Likely To Disproportionately Impact And Benefit African Americans. They Also Have The Benefit Of Being Sellable To A Majority Of The Body Politic.

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The Capacity Of Iraq's Security Forces Has Improved, And Iraq's Leaders Have Made Strides Toward Political Accommodation

Perfect Is Unattainable. Better Is Possible.

Simple Exchanges Can Break Down Walls Between Us, For When People Come Together And Speak To One Another And Share A Common Experience, Then Their Common Humanity Is Revealed. We Are Reminded That We're Joined Together By Our Pursuit Of A Life That's Productive And Purposeful, And When That Happens Mistrust Begins To Fade And Our Smaller Differences No Longer Overshadow The Things That We Share. And That's Where Progress Begins.

Common Humanity

How Donald Trump Reaches Out To Groups That May Not Have Supported Him, How He Signals His Interest In Their Issues Or Concerns, I Think Those Are The Kinds Of Things That Can Set A Tone That Will Help Move Things Forward Once He Has Actually Taken Office.

We All Knew This. We All Knew That It Would Take More Time Than Any Of Us Want To Dig Ourselves Out Of This Hole Created By This Economic Crisis.

We Think Of Faith As A Source Of Comfort And Understanding But Find Our Expressions Of Faith Sowing Division; We Believe Ourselves To Be A Tolerant People Even As Racial, Religious, And Cultural Tensions Roil The Landscape. And Instead Of Resolving These Tensions Or Mediating These Conflicts, Our Politics Fans Them, Exploits Them,and Drives Us Further Apart.

It Is My View That If Society Was Doing The Right Thing With Respect To You, [and There Were] Programs Targeted At Helping People Rise Into The Middle Class And Have A Good Income And Be Able To Save And Send Their Kids To School, And You've Got A Vigorous Enforcement Of Anti-discrimination Laws, Then I Have Confidence In The Black Community's Capabilities To Then Move Forward.

There’s No Doubt That There’s Some Folks Who Just Really Dislike Me Because They Don’t Like The Idea Of A Black President.

Based On Current Surveys Of Public Opinion In The United States, It Turns Out That The Majority Of Americans Think I've Done A Pretty Good Job.

A Nation That Can't Control Its Energy Sources Can't Control Its Future.

It Is This World, A World Where Cruise Ships Throw Away More Food In A Day Than Most Residents Of Port-au-prince See In A Year, Where White Folks' Greed Runs A World In Need, Apartheid In One Hemisphere, Apathy In Another Hemisphere...that's The World! On Which Hope Sits!

The Hard Truth Is Carbon Pollution Has Built Up In Our Atmosphere For Decades Now. And Even If We Americans Do Our Part, The Planet Will Slowly Keep Warming For Some Time To Come.

You Don't Need To See My Birth Certificate, Or My College Records, Or My Legal Writings, Or... Anything.

Let It Be Said To Our Children's Children That When We Were Tested We Refused To Let This Journey End, That We Didn't Turn Our Back Nor Did We Falter; And With Eyes Fixed On The Horizon And God's Grace Upon Us, We Carried Forth That Great Gift Of Freedom And Delivered It Safely To Future Generations.

[afghanistan And Iraq] Are Still Countries That Are Fragile Enough That We're Gonna Have To Partner With Them In Some Way.

The Reason I Take Pride For That Is One Of The Things You Worry About When You're In The Bubble, And There's All This Pomp And Circumstance And Hail To The Chief Is, Do You Lose Touch With What You Thought Was Important And What Brought You Here? And I'm Proud That I Don't Think I Have Lost Touch.

I Know What The Counterterrorism Feels Like Because I Was There. But I Also Operated Within Limits. And Within The United States Government, We've Decided Long Ago That There Are Limits On What We're Going To Do In The War Against Terrorism.

For Decades, Our Differences With Iran Meant That Our Governments Almost Never Spoke To Each Other. Ultimately, That Did Not Advance America's Interests.

Religious Concerns Ok, If Translated Into Universal Values.

Those Opposed To Abortion Cannot Simply Invoke God's Will-they Have To Explain Why Abortion Violates Some Principle That Is Accessible To People Of All Faiths.

I Think We've Set The Bar With Respect To The Notion That It Is Possible To Provide Health Care For People. Now I Know That The Incoming Congress And Administration Talks About Repealing It. But We've Set A Bar That Shows That This Can Be Done. And That Core Principle Is One That The Majority Of Americans, Including Supporters Of Donald Trump Believe In.

I Do Think That There Is A Big Difference Between Family Farms And Agri-business, And One Of The Distressing Things That I Think Has Occurred Is With Consolidation Of Farm Lands. You've Seen Large Agri-businesses Benefit From Enormous Profits From Existing Farm Programs, And I Think We Should Be Focusing Most Of Those Programs On Those Family Farmers.

Those Of Us Who Have The Privilege To Serve This Country Have An Obligation To Do Our Job As Best We Can. We Come From Different Parties, But We Are Americans First. And That's Why Disagreement Cannot Mean Dysfunction. It Can't Degenerate Into Hatred. The American People's Hopes And Dreams Are What Matters, Not Ours. Our Obligations Are To Them. Our Regard For Them Compels Us All, Democrats And Republicans, To Cooperate, And Compromise, And Act In The Best Interests Of Our Nation - One Nation, Under God, Indivisible With Liberty And Justice For All.

One Of The Best Investments We Can Make In A Child’s Life Is High-quality Early Education.

I Believe That If We Stop Talking At One Another And Start Talking With One Another, We Can Get A Lot Done.

This Kind Of Inequality - A Level That We Haven’t Seen Since The Great Depression - Hurts Us All. When Middle-class Families Can No Longer Afford To Buy The Goods And Services That Businesses Are Selling...it Drags Down The Entire Economy From Top To Bottom. America Was Built On The Idea Of Broad-based Prosperity... That’s Why A Ceo Like Henry Ford Made It His Mission To Pay His Workers Enough So That They Could Buy The Cars He Made. It’s Also Why A Recent Study Showed That Countries With Less Inequality Tend To Have Stronger And Steadier Economic Growth Over The Long Run.

Leadership Isn't Just Legislation, That It's A Matter Of Persuading People And Giving Them Confidence, And Bringing Them Together And Setting A Tone.

I Want To Reduce America's Deficit By Cutting Spending That We Don't Need But Also By Asking The Wealthy To Do A Little Bit More So That We Can Invest In Things Like Research And Technology That Are The Key To A 21st Century Economy.

I Promised To Bring Change To Washington. The Underlying Reason For The Economic Mess We're In Has Been Building For Years. It's A Fundamental Imbalance In Which The Top 1 Percent Now Gets Almost A Quarter Of All National Income. We Haven't Seen Income And Wealth This Concentrated Since The Late Nineteen Twenties, And We All Know What Happened Then - The Great Depression. We'll Never Really Get Out Of The Gravitational Pull Of The Great Recession Until We Fix This Basic Problem.

Great Depression

I Believe That The Free Enterprise System Is The Greatest Engine Of Prosperity The World's Ever Known. I Believe In Self-reliance And Individual Initiative And Risk-takers Being Rewarded. But I Also Believe That Everybody Should Have A Fair Shot And Everybody Should Do Their Fair Share And Everybody Should Play By The Same Rules, Because That's How Our Economy's Grown. That's How We Built The World's Greatest Middle Class.

No Matter How Much You've Done, Or How Successful You've Been, There's Always More To Do, Always More To Learn, And Always More To Achieve.

When Your Team Loses, Everybody Gets Deflated. And It's Hard, And It's Challenging.

This Comes From A Group Of People Who`ve Been Wrong About Every Foreign Policy Issue Over The Last Two Decades. They Supported Hillary Clinton`s War In Libya. They Supported President [barack] Obama`s Bombing Of Assad.

My Administration Is Committed To Creating An Unprecedented Level Of Openness In Government. We Will Work Together To Ensure The Public Trust And Establish A System Of Transparency, Public Participation, And Collaboration. Openness Will Strengthen Our Democracy And Promote Efficiency And Effectiveness In Government.

You're Going To Face A Choice In November. This Is A Choice Between The Policies That Got Us Into This Mess In The First Place And The Policies That Got Us Out Of This Mess - And What The Other Side Is Counting On Is People Not Having A Good Memory.

I Think That We've Had An Economy That's Been Out Of Balance For Too Long. So The General Principle Of Raising Taxes On Higher Income Americans, Like Myself, And Providing Relief To Those Who Haven't Benefited As Much From This New Global Economy, I Think Is A Sound One.

We Ask For Nothing More Than The Chance To Blaze Our Own Trail, And Yet Each Of Us Is Only Here Because Somebody, Somewhere, Helped Us Find Our Path. That`s Part Of What Makes America Exceptional. We Are Family And We`ll Do Anything To Help Each Other Along The Way.

Even As We Do All That's Necessary To Ensure Israel's Security, Even As We Are Clear-eyed About The Difficult Challenges Before Us, And Even As We Pledge To Stand By Israel Through Whatever Tough Days Lie Ahead, I Hope We Do Not Give Up On That Vision Of Peace. For If History Teaches Us Anything, If The Story Of Israel Teaches Us Anything, It Is That With Courage And Resolve, Progress Is Possible. Peace Is Possible.

There Is A Big Risk For The Republicans In A Race, Especially With Hillary Clinton As A Likely Democratic Nominee In A Contest That Will Focus On The Possibility Of The First Woman President To Be Six Months Suspending Up The Nomination Of A Black Woman, Who Is Imminently Qualified.

We Learn From Our Mistakes, We Do Some Reflection, We Lick Our Wounds, We Brush Ourselves Off - Then We Go Forward, With The Presumption Of Good Faith In Our Fellow Citizens.

Every Woman Should Have Access To The Healthcare That She Needs.

The Supreme Court Nominations [example]. I Mean, The Fact That Mitch Mcconnell, The Leader Of The Republicans, Was Able To Just Stop A Nomination Almost A Year Before The Next Election And Really Not Pay A Political Price For It, That's A Sign That The Incentives For Politicians In This Town To Be So Sharply Partisan Have Gotten So Outta Hand That We're Weakening Ourselves.

All Of Us Have A Responsibility To Work For The Day When The Mothers Of Israelis And Palestinians Can See Their Children Grow Up Without Fear; When The Holy Land Of The Three Great Faiths Is The Place Of Peace That God Intended It To Be; When Jerusalem Is A Secure And Lasting Home For Jews And Christians And Muslims, And A Place For All Of The Children Of Abraham To Mingle Peacefully Together As In The Story Of Isra - (applause) - As In The Story Of Isra, When Moses, Jesus, And Mohammed, Peace Be Upon Them, Joined In Prayer. (applause.)

What We Have Done, I Think, Is Build A Model From A Lot Of Hard Lessons In Afghanistan And Iraq But In Other Places Around The World, Where We Are Working With Them In An Advisory Capacity.

Immigration Is Part Of The Reason Why Our Economy Is Stronger And Better Positioned Than Most Of Our Other Competitors, Is Because We've Got A Younger Population That's More Dynamic When It Comes To Trade.

You Didn't Elect Me To Tell You What You Wanted To Hear. You Elected Me To Tell You The Truth.

African American

I've Always Wanted To Come To Greece.

Libraries Have A Special Role To Play In Our Knowledge Economy. Your Institutions Have Been And Should Be A Place Where Parents And Children Come To Read Together And Learn Together. We Should Take Our Kids There More.

He Described To Me How Crocodiles Kill More People Than Sharks. There Are Just A Lot Of Things In Australia That Can Kill You.

The Sweetest Sound I Know Is The Muslim Call To Prayer.

The Gulf States Are Extraordinarily Suspicious Of Iran For Good Reason. They View Iran As Meddling In Their Affairs. They Have Seen Iran Level Asymmetric Attacks Against Their Facilities Or Their Interests.

We Long For Unity, But Are Unwilling To Pay The Price. But Of Course, True Unity Cannot Be So Easily Won. It Starts With A Change In Attitudes - A Broadening Of Our Minds, And A Broadening Of Our Hearts.

In Fact, The American People Did Decide, Back In 2012, When They Elected Me President Of The United States.

The Greatest Gift That Michelle And I Have Received Over The Last Eight Years Has Been The Honor Of Serving As Your President And First Lady. Together, We Fought Our Way Back From The Worst Recession In 80 Years, And Got Unemployment To A Nine-year Low.

My Hope Is That The President-elect [donald Trump] Coming In Takes A Similarly Constructive Approach, Finding Areas Where We Can Cooperate With Russia, Where Our Values And Interests Align. But That The President-elect Also Is Willing To Stand Up To Russia Where They Are Deviating From Our Values And International Norms.

Torture Is How You Create Enemies, Not How You Defeat Them.

Of Course, There's Been A Real Debate About Where To Invest And Where To Cut, And I'm Committed To Working With Members Of Both Parties To Cut Our Deficits And Debt. But We Can't Simply Cut Our Way To Prosperity.

I Am Somebody Who Usually Writes Out The Rough Draft In Longhand. Then I Type It Into The Computer, And That Is Where I Do My Editing. I Find That If I Write It On The Computer, I Go Too Quick. So I Like Getting That First Draft Out And Then Typing It In; You Are Less Self-conscious About It.

America Isn't Congress. America Isn't Washington. America Is The Striving Immigrant Who Starts A Business, Or The Mom Who Works Two Low-wage Jobs To Give Her Kid A Better Life. America Is The Union Leader And The Ceo Who Put Aside Their Differences To Make The Economy Stronger.

How You Staff, Particularly The Chief Of Staff, The National Security Adviser, Your White House Counsel, How You Set Up A Process In The System To Surface Information And Generate Options For A President, Understanding That Ultimately The President Is Going To Be The Final Decision-maker. That's Something That Has To Be Attended To Right Away.

I Then Spoke To Chancellor (angela) Merkel Of Germany And We Agreed That The United States And Our European Allies Will Work Closely Together In The Weeks And Months Ahead.

If You Want To Know Who We Are, Who America Is, How We Respond To Evil-that's It: Selflessly, Compassionately, Unafraid.

Yes, We Can. Yes, We Can Change. Yes, We Can.

Both President Kennedy And President Reagan Were Roundly Criticized By Parts Of The Foreign Policy Establishment That Felt They Were Being Weak By Engaging Our Adversaries. So Some Of It Is Built Into A Political Lexicon That Makes You Sound Tougher If You Don't Talk To Somebody, And Rather, Very Loudly, Wield A Big Stick.

Our Campaign Was Not Hatched In The Halls Of Washington -- It Began In The Backyards Of Des Moines And The Living Rooms Of Concord And The Front Porches Of Charleston. ...this Is Your Victory.

There's Nothing That America Can't Handle If We Actually Look Squarely At The Problem. ...change Depends On Our Actions.

I Think It's Fair To Say That [donald Trump] And I Are Sort Of Opposites In Some Ways.

The Laws Of Our Land Are Catching Up To The Fundamental Truth That Millions Of Americans Hold In Our Hearts: When All Americans Are Treated As Equal, No Matter Who They Are Or Whom They Love, We Are All More Free.

You Can Be Stylish, And Powerful Too.

For The United States Of America, The Best Is Yet To Come.

Best Is Yet To Come

If We Aren't Willing To Pay A Price For Our Values, Then We Should Ask Ourselves Whether We Truly Believe In Them At All.

Let Me Even Say Before I Even Get Inaugurated, During The Transition We Are Going To Be Having Meetings All Across The Country With Community Organizations So That You Have Input Into The Agenda For The Next Presidency Of The United States Of America.

I Don't Think Donald Trump Is Ideological.

Just As Black Anger Often Proved Counterproductive, So Have These White Resentments Distracted Attention From The Real Culprits Of The Middle Class Squeeze - A Corporate Culture Rife With Inside Dealing, Questionable Accounting Practices, And Short-term Greed.

The Changes In Thinking About Same-sex Marriage Have Come Slowly At First And Then In Rapid Course. If Such Change Is Possible In This Area, Is It Also Possible In The Vexed And Sordid Realm Of Race Relations?

Jesus Christ Is The Lord. I Believe In That.

The Same Would Be True For Something Like Social Security, Where Historically, If You Just Read The Law And The Fact That It Excluded Domestic Workers Or Agricultural Workers, You Might Not See Race In It, Unless You Knew That That Covered A Huge Chunk Of African Americans, Particularly In The South.

African American

Do Something, Congress. Do Anything.

We Also Think This Is A Reminder Of The Long Tradition Of Bipartisan Foreign Policy That Has Been The Hallmark Of America At Moments Of Greatest Need, And That's The Kind Of Spirit That We Hope Will Be Reflected In Our Administration.

America Is Governed By Rules Of Law, And Those Are Not Ones That The President Of The United States Or Anybody Else Can Just Set Aside For The Sake Of Expediency Even When We Are Deeply Supportive Of Turkish Democracy, And Even When We Care Deeply About Any Attempts To Overthrow Their Government Or Any Other Illegal Actions, We've Got To Go Through A Legal Process.

My Advice To African Leaders Is To Make Sure That If, In Fact, China Is Putting In Roads And Bridges, Number One, That They Are Hiring African Workers; Number Two, That The Roads Don't Just Lead From The Mine To The Port To Shanghai.

I Think What Is True Is That There's Been An Underlying Division In The United States. Some Of It Has To Do With The Fact That Economic Growth And Recovery Tends To Be Stronger In The Cities And In Urban Areas. In Some Rural Areas, Particularly Those That Were Reliant On Manufacturing, There Has Been Weaker Growth, Stagnation, People Feeling As If Their Children Won't Do As Well As They Will.

We Believe That No Matter Where You Live - Whether A Village In Punjab Or The Bylanes Of Chandni Chowk, An Old Section Of Kolkata Or A New High-rise In Bangalore - Every Person Deserves The Same Chance To Live In Security And Dignity, To Get An Education, To Find Work, And To Give Their Children A Better Future.

The Campaign Was A More Significant Training Ground Than I Think People Give It Credit For. By The Time I Got Here, I Think I Had A Pretty Good Sense Of What Was Required. But The Circumstances In Which I Came In Were Different Than Most Executives, Right? The Enterprise Was In The Midst Of A Major Crisis.

Donald Trump Is Like Hillary Clinton Said, A Man You Can Bait With A Tweet Is Not A Man You Can Trust With Nuclear Weapons. You Can`t Do It.

I've Come To Embrace The Notion That I Haven't Done Enough In My Life. I've Come To Confirm That One's Title, Even A Title Like President Of The United States, Says Very Little About How Well One's Life Has Been Led. No Matter How Much You've Done Or How Successful You've Been, There's Always More To Do, Always More To Learn, And Always More To Achieve.

That Window Is Closing. . . . Now, The Clock Is Ticking. . . . We're Not Going To Have These Talks Just Drag Out In A Stalling Process. . . . We Haven't Given Away Anything - Other Than The Opportunity For Us To Negotiate

Clock Is Ticking

We Should Never Hesitate To Use Military Force, And I Will Not, As President, In Order To Keep The American People Safe. But We Have To Use Our Military Wisely. And We Did Not Use Our Military Wisely In Iraq.

I Actually Believe In Redistribution (of Wealth)

Redistribution Of Wealth

With Only 2 Percent Of The World's Oil Reserves, Oil Isn't Enough. This Country Needs An All-out, All-of-the-above Strategy That Develops Every Available Source Of American Energy. A Strategy That's Cleaner, Cheaper, And Full Of New Jobs.

People Need To Remember We Are The Governing Party Because We Have Diversity Of Opinion In Our Party. We're Not Pure. We Have Moderates And We Have More Progressives.

The Terrorists Do Not Speak For Over A Billion Muslims Who Reject Their Hateful Ideology.

I Don't Want Ever To Be A President Who Is Comfortable And At Ease With Killing People.

I Will Tell You, When 20 6-year-olds Are Gunned Down And Congress Literally Does Nothing, Yeah That's The Closest I Came To Feeling Disgusted.

Every Three Weeks, We Bring Online As Much Solar Power As We Did In All Of 2008.

Before We Get Too Depressed About The State Of Our Politics, Let's Remember Our History ..... Many Forms Of Government Have Been Tried, And Will Be Tried In This World Of Sin And Woe. What Is Amazing, Is That Despite All The Conflict, Our Experiment In Democracy Has Worked Better Than Any Form Of Government On Earth

Democracies Have

I Want To Control Our Own Energy By Developing Oil And Natural Gas But Also The Energy Sources Of The Future.

Let's Face It, Fox News, You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone. It'll Be Harder To Convince The Public That Hillary Clinton Was Born In Kenya.

Congress Has Become So Dysfunctional That More And More Of A Burden Is Placed On The Agencies To Fill In The Gaps. And The Gaps Get Bigger And Bigger Because They're Not Constantly Refreshed And Tweaked.

We're Going To Reverse A Trend That Is Killing Most Families In This Country, And That Is They're Having To Go In Their Pocket For More And More Money For Health Care Every Year.

I Think The American People Have A Generous Instinct. They Understand That We're A Nation Of Immigrants. But If Those Folks Are Going To Live In This Country, They Have To Be Put On A Pathway To Citizenship That Involves Them Paying A Fine, Making Sure That They Are At The Back Of The Line And Not Cutting In Front Of People Who Applied Legally To Come Into The Country.

We've Endured Too Many Tragedies. And Each Time I Learn The News I React Not As A President, But As Anybody Else Would - As A Parent.

Maybe At The Same Time As I'm More Confident Today, I'm Also More Humble.

I Think The American People, You Know, They're Going To Want That New Car Smell. They Want To Drive Something Off The Lot That Doesn't Have As Much Mileage As Me.

Historically, When A Previous Us Administration Enters Into An Agreement, It Carries Forward Into The Future Administration.

I Think That Our Politics Everywhere Are Gonna Be Going Through This Bumpy Phase. But As Long As We Stay True To Our Democratic Principles, As Long As Elections Have Integrity, As Long As We Respect Freedom Of Speech, Freedom Of Religion, As Long As There Are Checks And Balances In Our Governments So That The People Have The Ability To Not Just Make Judgments About How Well Government Is Serving Them But Also Change Governments If They're Not Serving Them Well, Then I Have Confidence That Over The Long Term, Progress Will Continue.

I Was Able To See Faith As More Than Just A Comfort To The Weary Or A Hedge Against Death; Rather, It Was An Active, Palpable Agent In The World.

I Think There Are A Whole Host Of Things That Are Civil Rights, And Then There Are Other Things - Such As Traditional Marriage - That, I Think, Express A Community's Concern And Regard For A Particular Institution.

Some Heinous Crimes Justify The Ultimate Punishment.

We Have To Think About Affirmative Action And Craft It In Such A Way Where Some Of Our Children, Who Are Advantaged, Aren't Getting More Favorable Treatment Than A Poor White Kid Who Struggled More.

If We're Trying To Protect The American Public, We Should Not Put In Place A Travel Ban.

We Cannot Simply Look To Austerity As A Strategy And It Is Incredibly Important That The Greek People See Improvements In Their Daily Lives So That They Can Carry With Them The Hope That Their Lives Will Get Better.

Now Is The Time To Keep The Promise Of Equal Pay For An Equal Day's Work, Because I Want My Daughters To Have Exactly The Same Opportunities As Your Sons.

Women Deserve Equal Pay For Equal Work.

We Have Reaffirmed Again And Again That The United States Is Not And Never Will Be At War With Islam. Islam Teaches Peace, And When It Comes To America And Islam, There Is No Us And Them, There's Only Us, Because Millions Of Muslim Americans Are Part Of The Fabric Of Our Country. So, We Reject Any Suggestion Of A Clash Of Civilizations.

But Do I Think That Our Actions In Anyway Violate The War Powers Resolution, The Answer Is No.

One Of The Things You Discover About Being President Is That There Are All These Rules And Norms And Laws And You Got To Pay Attention To Them.

That Is The True Genius Of America-a Faith In Simple Dreams, An Insistence On Small Miracles.

More People Are Realising That Isil's Not A Caliphate. It's A Crime Ring.

My View Is That Discrimination Against Anyone At The Ballot Box Is Wrong And Should Have The Full Enforcement Of The Federal Government.

As President Of The United States, I Don't Bluff.

For Too Many Of Us, It's Become Safer To Retreat Into Our Own Bubbles, Whether In Our Neighborhoods Or On College Campuses, Or Places Of Worship Or Especially Our Social Media Feeds, Surrounded By People Who Look Like Us And Share The Same Political Outlook And Never Challenge Our Assumptions. And Increasingly, We Become So Secure In Our Bubbles That We Start Accepting Only Information, Whether It's True Or Not, That Fits Our Opinions, Instead Of Basing Our Opinions On The Evidence That Is Out There.

Even If The Criticism Is Not Always Perfectly Informed And In Some Cases I Would Deem Unfair, Just The Noise, Attention, Fuss Probably Keeps Powerful Officials Or Agencies On Their Toes. And They Should Be On Their Toes When It Comes To The Use Of Deadly Force.

Unless We Free Ourselves From A Dependence On These Fossil Fuels... We Are Condemning Future Generations To Global Catastrophe

There Are People In Iran Who Have The Same Aspirations As People All Around The World For A Better Life.

I Have Fought Against Spending. I Have Fought Against Special Interests. I Have Fought For Reform.

It Still Puts Burden On Some Troops Of Ours Who Are There [in Afghanistan And Iraq] As Advisors And Facilitators.

I Will Never Forget Who This Victory Truly Belongs To. It Belongs To You. It Belongs To You. I Was Never The Likeliest Candidate For This Office. We Didn't Start With Much Money Or Many Endorsements. Our Campaign Was Not Hatched In The Halls Of Washington. It Began In The Backyards Of Des Moines And The Living Rooms Of Concord And The Front Porches Of Charleston. It Was Built By Working Men And Women Who Dug Into What Little Savings They Had To Give $5 And $10 And $20 To The Cause.

As Citizens, We Understand That It Is Not About What America May Do For Us. It's About What Can Be Done By Us, Together.

I Refuse To Accept Any Approach That Isn't Balanced. I'm Not Going To Ask Students And Seniors And Middle-class Families To Pay Down The Entire Deficit While People Like Me, Making Over $250,000, Aren't Asked To Pay A Dime More In Taxes.

What Makes [cyber Security] Difficult Is Because It's Not Just A Government Problem. It Is A Private Sector And Government Problem. And There's Gotta Be A Lot More Cooperation.

For Now, Decisions Are Upon Us And We Cannot Afford Delay. We Cannot Mistake Absolutism For Principle Or Substitute Spectacle For Politics, Or Treat Name-calling As Reasoned Debate.

One Of The Great Qualities Of Chancellor Merkel Is That She Is Steady. She Analyzes A Situation. She's Honest. Sometimes We've Had Disagreements, But When We Do, It's Very Constructive. And We Are Consistently Open With Each Other About How We Should Approach These Issues.

These Are Young People Who Made Mistakes That Aren't That Different Than The Mistakes I Made And The Mistakes That A Lot Of You Guys Made, We Have A Tendency Sometimes To Almost Take For Granted Or Think It's Normal That So Many Young People End Up In Our Criminal Justice System. It's Not Normal. ... What Is Normal Is Teenagers Doing Stupid Things.

Hunter Pence Eats Pizza With A Fork.

I Think That At A Certain Stage Those Early Ambitions Burn Away, Partly Because You Achieve Something, You Get Something Done, You Get Some Notoriety. And Then The Particularities Of Who You Are And What Your Deepest Commitments Are Begin Expressing Themselves. You're Not Just Chasing The Idea Of "me" Being Important, But You, Rather, Are Chasing A Particular Passion.

I Want To Express Our Grieve And Condolences To The Families Of Two Hostages: One American, Dr. Warren Weinstein And An Italian Giovanni Laporto Who Were Tragically Killed In A U.s. Counterterrorism Operation.

I Reject Discrimination Against Muslim Americans - Who Are Just As Patriotic As We Are.

One Of The Gratifying Things, I Think, About The End Of My Presidency Even Though Admittedly My Successor Ran Against A Lot Of What We Stood For, Is When You Look At The Individual Issues And The Progress That We've Made On A Lot Of Those Issues, We Got The Support Of A Pretty Decent Majority.

If You're Looking For The Safe Choice, You Shouldn't Be Supporting A Black Guy Named Barack Obama To Be The Next Leader Of The Free World.

Now Suddenly You Got Members Of Your [white House] Team Who Were 23, 24. They've Met Their Wives Here, Or Their Husbands Here.

You Have To Exercise, Or At Some Point You'll Just Break Down.

The Brain Is A Body Part Too; We Just Know Less About It.

The Study Of Law Can Be Disappointing At Times, A Matter Of Applying Narrow Rules And Arcane Procedure To An Uncooperative Reality; A Sort Of Glorified Accounting That Serves To Regulate The Affairs Of Those Who Have Power--and That All Too Often Seeks To Explain, To Those Who Do Not, The Ultimate Wisdom And Justness Of Their Condition. But That's Not All The Law Is. The Law Is Also Memory; The Law Also Records A Long-running Conversation, A Nation Arguing With Its Conscience.

Men Have To Take More Responsibility. Men Have To Intervene

In A Global Economy Where Our Economies And Supply Chains Are Deeply Integrated, It's Not Even Possible.

If We Have The Kinds Of Confirmation That We Need, We Will Once Again Work With The International Community And The Organization Charged With Monitoring Compliance By The Syrian Government, And We Will Reach Out To Patrons Of Assad Like Russia To Put A Stop To It.

I Think It's Very Important To Remember That So Much Of The Work That Gets Done Between Countries Is Not Done At The Level Of Presidents, But Is Done Within Various Agencies, Whether It's Law Enforcement Or Economic Ministries. And When They Establish Relationships And Systems Of Communications And Shared Projects And Shared Visions, Those Structures Continue Even After Any Particular President Is Gone. It Builds Trust And Understanding Between Countries That Are Critically Important.

The Only People Who Don't Want To Disclose The Truth Are The People With Something To Hide.

Each Path To Knowledge Involves Different Rules And These Rules Are Not Interchangeable.

Immigration Keeps This Country Young, It Keeps It Dynamic, We Have Entrepreneurs And Strivers Who Come Here And Are Willing To Take Risks, And That's Part Of The Reason Why America Historically Has Been Successful.

People Have To Recognize That It’s Going To Take Some Time For Trust To Be Built Not Only Between Democrats And Republicans, Between Congress And The White House, Between The House And The Senate. You Know, We’ve Had A Dysfunctional Political System For A While Now.

The Other Thing Is Going To Be Me Being Able To Show Not Just The American People Or The Israeli People But The World That, In Fact, We Have Mechanisms In Place That Will Prevent Iran From Having A Nuclear Weapon.

I Will Promise You This, That If We Have Not Gotten Our Troops Out By The Time I Am President, It Is The First Thing I Will Do. I Will Get Our Troops Home, We Will Bring An End To This War. You Can Take That To The Bank.

I Find It Hard To Believe That My God Would Consign Four-fifths Of The World To Hell. I Can't Imagine That My God Would Allow Some Little Hindu Kid In India Who Never Interacts With The Christian Faith To Somehow Burn For All Eternity. That's Just Not Part Of My Religious Makeup.

I Was A Constitutional Law Professor, Which Means Unlike The Current President I Actually Respect The Constitution.

So While An Incredible Amount Of Progress Has Been Made, On This Fifth Anniversary, I Wanted To Come Here And Tell The People Of This City Directly: My Administration Is Going To Stand With You - And Fight Alongside You - Until The Job Is Done. Until New Orleans Is All The Way Back, All The Way.

Without Investments In Research And Science That Will Create The Next Apple, Create The Next New Innovation That Will Sell Products Around The World, We Will Lose. If We're Not Training Engineers To Make Sure That They Are Equipped Here In This Country, Then Companies Won't Come Here. Those Investments Are What's Going To Help To Make Sure That We Continue To Lead This World Economy Not Just Next Year, But 10 Years From Now, 50 Years From Now, A Hundred Years From Now.

One Of The Most Durable And Destructive Legacies Of Discrimination Is The Way We've Internalized A Sense Of Limitation; How So Many In Our Community Have Come To Expect So Little From The World And From Themselves.

Each And Every Time, A New Generation Has Risen Up And Done What’s Needed To Be Done. Today We Are Called Once More — And It Is Time For Our Generation To Answer That Call. For That Is Our Unyielding Faith — That In The Face Of Impossible Odds, People Who Love Their Country Can Change It.

I Do Think That It Is Impossible For Us To Think Only In Terms Of The Palestinian-israeli Conflict And Not Think In Terms Of What's Happening With Syria Or Iran Or Lebanon Or Afghanistan And Pakistan. These Things Are Interrelated. And If We Are Looking At The Region As A Whole And Communicating A Message To The Arab World And The Muslim World, That We Are Ready To Initiate A New Partnership Based On Mutual Respect And Mutual Interest, Then I Think That We Can Make Significant Progress.

As You Travel Through The Middle East What Keeps On Striking Home To Me Is How Similar Everyone Is, And Yet The Degree To Which We Can Find Differences To Fight Wars Over. It Requires A Great Deal Of Empathy, I Think, Between Various Sides To Overcome This History And Live In Peace.

My Experience Is That Our Intelligence Officials Try To Do The Right Thing, But Even With Good Intentions, Sometimes They Make Mistakes. Sometimes They Can Be Overzealous.

Good Intentions

Fdr, Jfk, Lbj [all Democratic Presidents ] We Have A Pretty Long List Of Presidents Who Maybe Were Not Entirely Forthcoming With Intelligence Information Before They Went To War, So I'd Be Cautious Against Making Legal Cases Against The Administration.

Going Through The Legislative Process Is Always Better, In Part Because It's Harder To Undo.

Legislative Process

We Will Finish The Race.

We Need To Eradicate The Slander That Says A Black Youth With A Book Is Acting White.

I Do Think That When You Go Into Red States, They're - So-called Red States - I Think They're Troubled With Certain Excesses With Respect To The Patriot Act, But They're Also Concerned With Making Sure We're Secure Against Terrorism.

[donald Trump] Ran An Extraordinarily Unconventional Campaign And It Resulted In The Biggest Political Upset In Perhaps Modern Political History. American History.

There's A Whole Generation Coming Up Behind Us That Was Engaged, Inspired, Worked For Change During The Course Of My Presidency, Saw What Was Possible.

This Is Not Some Distant Problem Of The Future. This Is A Problem That Is Affecting Americans Right Now. Whether It Means Increased Flooding, Greater Vulnerability To Drought, More Severe Wildfires - All These Things Are Having An Impact On Americans As We Speak.

What I Worry About Would Be That You Essentially Have Two Chambers, The House And The Senate, But You Have Simply, Majoritarian, Absolute Power On Either Side. And That's Just Not What The Founders Intended.

I Don't Think That There's A Hard-and-fast Deadline. . . .what We Have Said All Along Is That This Is Not An Open-ended Process, We Are Not In This Just To Talk For Talk's Sake. . . . We Expect Prompt, Concrete Steps To Be Taken Over The Next Couple Of Weeks.

America Is Not - And Never Will Be - At War With Islam. We Will, However, Relentlessly Confront Violent Extremists.

We Have To Find Ways In Which, Collectively, We Agree There's Some Things That Government Needs To Do To Help Protect Us, That In This Age Of Non-state Actors Who Can Amass Great Power, I Want My Government - And I Think The German People Should Want Their Government - To Be Able To Find Out If A Terrorist Organization Has Access To A Weapon Of Mass Destruction That Might Go Off In The Middle Of Berlin.

Mass Destruction

We Are One Nation Under God, And We May Call That God Different Names But We Remain One Nation.

Under My Plan Of A Cap And Trade System, Electricity Rates Would Necessarily Skyrocket… Because I’m Capping Greenhouse Gasses, Coal Power Plants, Natural Gas…you Name It…whatever The Plants Were, Whatever The Industry Was, They Would Have To Retro-fit Their Operations. That Will Cost Money…they Will Pass That Money On To The Consumers.

The Future Is Ours To Win. But To Get There We Can't Just Stand Still.

I Didn't Become A Christian Until Many Years Later, When I Moved To The South Side Of Chicago After College. It Happened Not Because Of Indoctrination Or A Sudden Revelation, But Because I Spent Month After Month Working With Church Folks Who Simply Wanted To Help Neighbors Who Were Down On Their Luck No Matter What They Looked Like, Or Where They Came From, Or Who They Prayed To. It Was On Those Streets, In Those Neighborhoods, That I First Heard God's Spirit Beckon Me. It Was There That I Felt Called To A Higher Purpose - His Purpose.

Making Your Mark On The World Is Hard. If It Were Easy, Everybody Would Do It. But It's Not. It Takes Patience, It Takes Commitment, And It Comes With Plenty Of Failure Along The Way. The Real Test Is Not Whether You Avoid This Failure, Because You Won't. It's Whether You Let It Harden Or Shame You Into Inaction, Or Whether You Learn From It; Whether You Choose To Persevere.

[my Grandmother] Is A Typical White Person.

One Of The Great Things About Being Commander In Chief Is Getting To Know Our Men And Women In Uniform In A Very Intimate Way, Whether It's Visiting Walter Reed And Seeing Our Wounded Soldiers, Or Being On A Base And Talking To Families, Or Interacting With Them On Missions. They're The Best Of The Best: Always Thinking About The Mission, Not Thinking About Credit, Not Thinking About Who's Up Front.

If You Think That We've Overregulated In The Environmental Space What I Can Show You Is That We Have Tripled The Amount Of Wind Power In This Country, Increased By Tenfold The Amount Of Solar Power. We Are Producing As Much Oil And Gas As We've Ever Produced.

Even As Ramadan Holds Profound Meaning For The World’s 1.5 Billion Muslims, It Is Also A Reminder To People Of All Faiths Of Our Common Humanity And The Commitment To Justice, Equality, And Compassion Shared By All Great Faiths. In That Spirit, I Wish Muslims Across America And Around The World A Blessed Month, And I Look Forward To Again Hosting An Iftar Dinner Here At The White House. Ramadan Kareem.

I'm Always Suspicious Of Politics Dividing People Instead Of Bringing Them Together.

I Have Nothing To Hide. I Enjoy Being Myself. I'm Not Going To Change Who I Am Just Because It's Halloween.

I Have Made It A Top Priority For My Administration To Deepen Cooperation With Israel Across The Whole Spectrum Of Security Issues - Intelligence, Military, Technology.

Everybody Deserves Fair Treatment, Equal Treatment In The Eyes Of The Law And The State. And That Includes Gays, Lesbians, Transgender Persons. I Am Not A Fan Of Discrimination And Bullying Of Anybody On The Basis Of Race, On The Basis Of Religion, On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation Or Gender. This Is Actually Part And Parcel Of The Agenda That's Also Going To Be Front And Centre, And That Is How Are We Treating Women And Girls.

We Cannot Meet 21st Century Challenges With A 20th Century Bureaucracy.

I Actually Believe That Some Residue Of Discrimination Would Lessen, Because It's My View That There Is A Certain Percentage Of The White Population That Stereotypes And Makes Assumptions About African Americans Because They Don't Inject The History Of Slavery And Jim Crow Into Current Incarceration Rates, Or Crime Rates, Or Poverty Rates, Or What Have You.

Like Joe Biden And So Many Other Americans, I've Lost People I Love Deeply To Cancer. I've Heard Often From Those Whose Loved Ones Are Suffering From Alzheimer's, Addiction, And Other Debilitating Diseases. Their Heartbreak Is Real, And So We Have A Responsibility To Respond With Real Solutions.

I'm Not The Strapping Young Muslim Socialist That I Used To Be.

The Future Must Not Belong To Those Who Slander The Prophet Of Islam

America Is Much Less Violent Than It Was 20, 30 Years Ago, And Immigration Is Much Less A Problem Than It Was Not Just 20, 30 Years Ago, But When I Came In As President.

I Reiterated Our Hope That Negotiations Over The United Kingdom's Exit From The E.u. Will Be Conducted In A Smooth And Orderly And Transparent Fashion And Preserve As Closely As Possible The Economic And Political And Security Relationships Between The U.k. And E.u.

Our Objective Is Clear: We Will Degrade, And Ultimately Destroy, Isil Through A Comprehensive And Sustained Counter-terrorism Strategy.

The Most Important Thing We Can Do Is To Make Sure That We Are Creating Jobs In This Country. But Not Just Jobs, Good Paying Jobs. Ones That Can Support A Family.

Why Can't I Just Eat My Waffle?

If A Jayvee Team Puts On Lakers Uniforms, That Doesn't Make Them Kobe Bryant.

I'm Determined To Disagree With People Without Being Disagreeable. That's Part Of The Empathy. Empathy Doesn't Just Extend To Cute Little Kids. You Have To Have Empathy When You're Talking To Some Guy Who Doesn't Like Black People.

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