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I Am Absolutely Certain That Generations From Now, We Will Be Able To Look Back And Tell Our Children That This Was The Moment When We Began To Provide Care For The Sick And Good Jobs To The Jobless; This Was The Moment When The Rise Of The Oceans Began To Slow And Our Planet Began To Heal; This Was The Moment When We Ended A War And Secured Our Nation And Restored Our Image As The Last, Best Hope On Earth. This Was The Moment - This Was The Time - When We Came Together To Remake This Great Nation So That It May Always Reflect Our Very Best Selves And Our Highest Ideals.

-Barack Obama

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I Am Absolutely Certain

Barack Obama

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I Am Absolutely Certain That Generations From Now, We Will Be Able To Look Back And Tell Our Children That This Was The Moment When We Began To Provide Care For The Sick And Good Jobs To The Jobless; This Was The Moment When The Rise Of The Oceans Began To Slow And Our Planet Began To Heal; This Was The Moment When We Ended A War And Secured Our Nation And Restored Our Image As The Last, Best Hope On Earth. This Was The Moment - This Was The Time - When We Came Together To Remake This Great Nation So That It May Always Reflect Our Very Best Selves And Our Highest Ideals.

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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.

Let Us Join Together Across Denominations, Religions And Cultures To Make A Habit Of Empathy And Reach Out To Those Most In Need. To Share The Blessings We Enjoy And To Advance The Cause Of Peace In All Corners Of Our World.

I Don't Expect That The President-elect [donald Trump] Will Follow Exactly Our Blueprint Or Our Approach, But My Hope Is That He Does Not Simply Take A Real-politic Approach And Suggest That, You Know, If We Just Cut Some Deals With Russia, Even If It Hurts People Or Even If It Violates International Norms, Or Even If It Leaves Smaller Countries Vulnerable Or Creates Long-term Problems In Regions Like Syria, That We Just Do Whatever Is Convenient At The Time.

The Most Important Thing We Can Do Is To Make Sure That We've Got Very High Standards, We Expect A Lot Out Of All Of Our Young People, And We Make Sure That We Have The Best Teachers Possible In Every Classroom.

This Is About Respect For Women, The Judgments That Women Make And Their Doctors About Their Reproductive Health. It's An Important Part Of Who Women Are, Their Reproductive Health.

What Washington Needs Is Adult Supervision.

Global Warming Is Not Just The Greatest Environmental Challenge Facing Our Planet - It Is One Of Our Greatest Challenges Of Any Kind.

We Don't Really Have Any Kind Of Regulatory Structure At All.

We Want To See The Iranians Engage, And As You Know, We Have Attempted To Bring About That Engagement Over The Course Of The Last Three-plus Years. It Has Not Proven Effective.

I've Been Keeping My Own Naughty And Nice List For Washington.

We Have Not Always Been In Sync On Every Issue In Terms Of Our Core Values, In Terms Of Her Integrity, Her Truthfulness, Her Thoughtfulness, [angela Merkel] Doing Her Homework, Knowing Her Facts, Her Commitment To Looking Out For The Interests Of The German People First, But Recognizing That Part Of Good Leadership On Behalf Of The Nation Requires Engaging The World As A Whole, And Participating Effectively In Multilaterally Institutions, I Think She's Been Outstanding.

The Fact Is Every Single Day In The Ordinary American People, America's Families Have To Make Decisions About Their Families And That Should Be Made By Them, Not By The Texas Or United States.

We Have To Acknowledge The Progress We Made, But Understand That We Still Have A Long Way To Go. That Things Are Better, But Still Not Good Enough.

Not Good Enough

If You Like Your Healthcare Plan, You'll Be Able To Keep Your Healthcare Plan, Period. No One Will Take It Away, No Matter What.

By Some Estimates, The Oil You Recently Discovered Off The Shores Of Brazil Could Amount To Twice The Reserves We Have In The United States. We Want To Work With You. We Want To Help With Technology And Support To Develop These Oil Reserves Safely, And When You're Ready To Start Selling, We Want To Be One Of Your Best Customers.

If All It Took Was Someone Proclaiming I Believe Jesus Christ And That He Died For My Sins, And That Was All There Was To It, People Wouldn't Have To Keep Coming To Church, Would They.

By 2025 We Expect New Spacecraft Designed For Long Journeys To Allow Us To Begin The First Ever Crewed Missions Beyond The Moon Into Deep Space. So We'll Start By Sending Astronauts To An Asteroid For The First Time In History. By The Mid-2030s I Believe We Can Send Humans To Orbit Mars And Return Them Safely To Earth. And A Landing On Mars Will Follow And I Expect To Be Around In See It.

I Would Say To People Is, That Investigation, As It Has Already Been Stated, Is A Marathon And Not A Sprint. But It Is One Of Great Concern To The American People. And So We're Committed To Keeping People Informed.

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.

The Trade Agreement Itself Does Have Labor And Environmental Protections, But We Have To Stand For Human Rights And We Have To Make Sure That Violence Isn't Being Perpetrated Against Workers Who Are Just Trying To Organize For Their Rights.

After All, There Were Thousands Of So-called Campus Radicals, Most Of Them White And Tenured And Happily Tolerated. No, It Remained Necessary To Prove Which Side You Were On, To Show Your Loyalty To The Black Masses, To Strike Out And Name Names.

Leather Jackets

That's The True Genius Of America: That America Can Change. Our Union Can Be Perfected. What We've Already Achieved Gives Us Hope For What We Can And Must Achieve Tomorrow.

The More We Can Encourage Entrepreneurship, Particularly For Young People, The More They Have Hope. That Requires Some Reforms In These [african] Governments: Rooting Out Corruption, Increased Transparency And How Government Operates, Making Sure That Regulations Are Not Designed Just To Advantage Elites, But Are Allowing People Who Have A Good Idea To Get Out There And Get Things Done.

The Greek People Have Gone Through Some Very Difficult Times And There's Still A Hard Road Ahead, But Despite Those Hardships, Greece Has Continued To Be A Reliable Ally, Has Shown True Compassion To Fellow Human Beings In Need. It's An Example Of The Greek Character.

We Honor Those Who Walked So We Could Run. We Must Run So Our Children Soar. And We Will Not Grow Weary.

I Am Absolutely Certain That Generations From Now, We Will Be Able To Look Back And Tell Our Children That This Was The Moment When We Began To Provide Care For The Sick And Good Jobs To The Jobless; This Was The Moment When The Rise Of The Oceans Began To Slow And Our Planet Began To Heal; This Was The Moment When We Ended A War And Secured Our Nation And Restored Our Image As The Last, Best Hope On Earth. This Was The Moment - This Was The Time - When We Came Together To Remake This Great Nation So That It May Always Reflect Our Very Best Selves And Our Highest Ideals.

If You Were Successful, Somebody Along The Line Gave You Some Help... Somebody Helped To Create This Unbelievable American System That We Have That Allowed You To Thrive. Somebody Invested In Roads And Bridges. If You’ve Got A Business - You Didn’t Build That. Somebody Else Made That Happen.

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.

One Of The Things That I Am Concerned About Is The Degree To Which We've Seen A Lot Of Commentary Lately Where There Were, There Are Republicans Or Pundits Or Cable Commentators Who Seemed To Have More Confidence In Vladimir Putin Than Fellow Americans Because Those Fellow Americans Were Democrats. That Cannot Be.

When I Ran For The U.s. Senate The Assumption Was That Anyone's Name That Was Close To "osama" Doesn't Stand A Chance. So If Somebody Thought That Tacking On "hussein" In There Would Be A Killer, Then I Think They Underestimate The American People And The Seriousness Of The Problems We Face.

For Everywhere We Look, There Is Work To Be Done. The State Of Our Economy Calls For Action: Bold And Swift. And We Will Act Not Only To Create New Jobs But To Lay A New Foundation For Growth. We Will Build The Roads And Bridges, The Electric Grids And Digital Lines That Feed Our Commerce And Bind Us Together. We Will Restore Science To Its Rightful Place And Wield Technology's Wonders To Raise Health Care's Quality And Lower Its Costs.

I Will Never Forget Who This Victory Truly Belongs To. It Belongs To You.

I Will Support Iraqis And Syrians Fighting To Reclaim Their Communities.

In Order For Us To Compete With China, We've Also Got To Make Sure, Though, That We're Taking - Taking Care Of Business Here At Home. If We Don't Have The Best Education System In The World, If We Don't Continue To Put Money Into Research And Technology That Will Allow Us To Create Great Businesses Here In The United States, That's How We Lose The Competition.

Even As We Implement The Nuclear Deal And Welcome Our Americans Home, We Recognize That There Remain About Differences Between The United States And Iran. We Remain Steadfast In Opposing Iran's Destabilizing Behavior Elsewhere, Including Its Against Israel And Our Gulf Partners And Its Support For Violent Proxies In Places Like Syria And Yemen.

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

There Is A Theory That Basically Says That We Can Shred Regulations And Consumer Protections And Give More And More To The Most, And Somehow Prosperity Will Trickle Down. It Hasn't Worked. And I Think That The Fundamentals Of The Economy Have To Be Measured By Whether Or Not The Middle Class Is Getting A Fair Shake.

There Is A Wide Range Of Views Within The Jewish Community, So It's Not Monolithic.

The Elevation Of Appearance Over Substance, Of Celebrity Over Character, Of Short Term Gains Over Lasting Achievement Displays A Poverty Of Ambition. It Distracts You From What's Truly Important.

We Can't Have Special Interests Sitting Shotgun. We Gotta Have Middle Class Families Up In Front. We Don't Mind The Republicans Joining Us. They Can Come For The Ride, But They Gotta Sit In Back.

Theoretically, You Can Make, Obviously, A Powerful Argument That Centuries Of Slavery, Jim Crow, Discrimination Are The Primary Cause For All Those Gaps. That Those Were Wrongs Done To The Black Community As A Whole, And Black Families Specifically, And That In Order To Close That Gap, A Society Has A Moral Obligation To Make A Large, Aggressive Investment, Even If It's Not In The Form Of Individual Reparations Checks, But In The Form Of A Marshall Plan, In Order To Close Those Gaps. It Is Easy To Make That Theoretical Argument.

The People Of The United Kingdom Have Spoken, And We Respect Their Decision. The Special Relationship Between The United States And The United Kingdom Is Enduring, And The United Kingdom's Membership In Nato Remains A Vital Cornerstone Of Us Foreign, Security And Economic Policy.

I Am Reminded Every Day Of My Life, If Not By Events, Then By My Wife, That I Am Not A Perfect Man.

If You're Really Concerned About Deficits, You Cannot Take Seriously A Budget That Would Give $30 Billion A Year Worth Of Tax Cuts To Not Just The Top 1 Percent But The Top 0.1 Percent.

A Lot Of Countries Have Advanced Capabilities. And Given The Vulnerabilities Of Our Infrastructure And Our Economies To Digital Platforms, We Have To Be Careful In Making Sure That This Doesn't Become A Lawless, Low-level Battlefield.

My First Job Is To Say Thank You To Those Who Voted Me. Those Who Didn't, I'm Going To Get Your Vote Next Time.

It May Be Something That Future Generations Are More Open To, But I Am Pretty Confident That For The Foreseeable Future, Using The Argument Of Nondiscrimination, And "let's Get It Right For The Kids Who Are Here Right Now," And Giving Them The Best Chance Possible, Is Going To Be A More Persuasive Argument.

Sustaining The Energy And Focus Involved In Doing A Good Job I Think Starts To - Starts To Gets Tougher The Longer You Do It.

As Soon As The Recovery Is Well Under Way, We Need To Set Up A Long-term Plan To Reduce The Structural Deficit And Make Sure We Are Not Leaving A Mountain Of Debt For The Next Generation.

When People Are Oppressed, And Human Rights Are Denied - Particularly Along Sectarian Lines Or Ethnic Lines - When Dissent Is Silenced, It Feeds Violent Extremism, It Creates An Environment That Is Ripe For Terrorists To Exploit. When Peaceful, Democratic Change Is Impossible, It Feeds Into The Terrorist Propaganda That Violence Is The Only Answer Available.

I Think I Have An Ongoing Conversation With God. I Think Throughout The Day, I'm Constantly Asking Myself Questions About What I'm Doing, Why Am I Doing It.

My God, Donald Trump Is Unfit! He's Ill-tempered, He's Unsuited, He Is Not Qualified, He's Unsuited To Be President.

Nothing In Life That’s Worth Anything Is Easy.

I Don't Have A Philosophical Objection, Necessarily, To A Travel Ban If That Is The Thing That Is Going To Keep The American People Safe.

Today We're Seeing That Climate Change Is About More Than A Few Unseasonably Mild Winters Or Hot Summers. It's About The Chain Of Natural Catastrophes And Devastating Weather Patterns That Global Warming Is Beginning To Set Off Around The World.. The Frequency And Intensity Of Which Are Breaking Records Thousands Of Years Old.

And To All Those Who Have Wondered If Americas Beacon Still Burns As Bright - Tonight We Proved Once More That The True Strength Of Our Nation Comes Not From Our The Might Of Our Arms Or The Scale Of Our Wealth, But From The Enduring Power Of Our Ideals: Democracy, Liberty, Opportunity, And Unyielding Hope. For That Is The True Genius Of America - That America Can Change. Our Union Can Be Perfected. And What We Have Already Achieved Gives Us Hope For What We Can And Must Achieve Tomorrow.

We [usa] Don't Have Diplomatic Leverage To Eliminate Every Vestige Of A Peaceful Nuclear Program In Iran. What We Do Have The Leverage To Do Is To Make Sure That They Don't Have A Weapon.

All The Good Things That Are Happening In America Don't Get Reported On A Lot.

The Question We Ask Today Is Not Whether Our Government Is Too Big Or Too Small, But Whether Government Works.

Well, I Think That When You Think About The Challenges We Face, These Are Challenges That Require Us To Look Forward And Not Backwards. When It Comes To The Economy I Think We Have To Recognize That We Are Now In A Global Economy. And That The Measure Of Our Success Is: How Well Are We Training Our Workers? How Well Are We Investing In The New Energy Economy?

If We’re Going To Have Arguments, Let’s Have Arguments — but Let’s Make Them Debates Worthy Of This Body And Worthy Of This Country.

On This Thanksgiving, As We Spend Time With Our Family And Friends, Let's All Reflect On What We're Thankful For In Our Own Lives. And Let's Remember Those Who Cannot Be With Their Loved Ones Because They're Serving Overseas. But Let's Also Do Our Part To Help Those Who Have No Place To Go For A Meal. I Encourage All Americans To Do What They Can To Help Those In Need-because The Best Way To Show Our Gratitude For What We Have Is By Doing Our Part For Those Who Have Less.

Family And Friends

So If Somebody Wants To Build A Coal-powered Plant, They Can; It's Just That It Will Bankrupt Them Because They're Going To Be Charged A Huge Sum For All That Greenhouse Gas That's Being Emitted.

For The Palestinians' Efforts To Delegitimize Israel Will End In Failure. Palestinian Leaders Will Not Achieve Peace Or Prosperity If Hamas Insists On A Path Of Terror And Rejection. And Palestinians Will Never Realize Their Independence By Denying The Right Of Israel To Exist.

I'm Proud Of The Fact That I Stood Up Early And Unequivocally In Opposition To Bush's Foreign Policy. [...] That Opposition Hasn't Changed.

That Bright Blue Ball Rising Over The Moon's Surface, Containing Everything We Hold Dear - The Laughter Of Children, A Quiet Sunset, All The Hopes And Dreams Of Posterity - That's What's At Stake. That's What We're Fighting For. And If We Remember That, I'm Absolutely Sure We'll Succeed.

There Are Enormous Resources In Greece.

I've Always Viewed The Paris Agreement As A Starting Point. If You Look At All The Commitments That Have Been Made By All The Countries, It's Still Not Sufficient To Deal With The Very Dangerous Situation We Face. What It Has Done Is That It Created An Architecture Whereby As Technology Improves, As We Find New Clean Sources Of Energy, As We Make Our Economies More Efficient, Then Gradually We Can Turn Up The Dial And Improve The Outcomes Of Paris.

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.

I Will Never Turn Medicare Into A Voucher. No American Should Ever Have To Spend Their Golden Years At The Mercy Of Insurance Companies. They Should Retire With The Care And Dignity They Have Earned.

I Was Always Amused That People Were Either Skeptical Or Surprised That I Would Choose A Hillary Clinton As A Secretary Of State. To My Mind, Having Somebody Smart, Tough, Capable With Her Own Stature, Who Could Travel Around The World And Command The Stage, Was A Huge Asset.

Corporations Aren’t People. People Are People.

Reading Is The Gateway Skill That Makes All Other Learning Possible

Democracy Cannot Be Imposed On Any Nation From The Outside. Each Society Must Search For Its Own Path, And No Path Is Perfect.

We Need Somebody Who's Got The Heart, The Empathy, To Recognize What It's Like To Be A Young Teenage Mom, The Empathy To Understand What It's Like To Be Poor Or African-american Or Gay Or Disabled Or Old - And That's The Criterion By Which I'll Be Selecting My Judges.

It’s Not That I Want To Punish Your Success. I Want To Make Sure That Everybody Who Is Behind You, That They’ve Got A Chance For Success, Too. My Attitude Is That If The Economy’s Good For Folks From The Bottom Up, It’s Gonna Be Good For Everybody. I Think When You Spread The Wealth Around, It’s Good For Everybody.

You Don't Take It Personally. You Understand That If People Are Angry That Somehow The Government Is Failing, Then They Are Going To Look To The Guy Who Represents Government.

Our Planet Is Changing In Ways That Will Have Profound Impacts On All Of Humankind.

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

Know That America Is A Friend Of Each Nation And Every Man, Woman, And Child Who Seeks A Future Of Peace And Dignity...[for] We Are Shaped By Every Language And Culture, Drawn From Every End Of This Earth.

That's When America Soars, When We Look Out For One Another And We Take Care Of Each Other, When We Root For One Another's Success, When We Strive To Do Better And To Be Better Than The Generation That Came Before Us And Try To Build Something Better For Generations To Come, That's Why We Do What We Do. That's The Whole Point Of Public Service.

I Believe That Marriage Is The Union Between A Man And A Woman. Now, For Me As A Christian - For Me - For Me As A Christian, It Is Also A Sacred Union. God's In The Mix.

Our Vulnerability To Russia Or Any Other Foreign Power Is Directly Related To How Divided, Partisan, Dysfunctional Our Political Process Is. That's The Thing That Makes Us Vulnerable.

I Would Love To See An America Where Race Is Understood In The Same Way That The Ethnic Diversity Of The White Population Is Understood.

It Should Be The Power Of Our Vote, Not The Size Of Our Bank Accounts, That Drives Our Democracy

While We Breathe, We Will Hope.

We Americans Are Not An Inherently More Violent People Than Folks In Other Countries. We're Not Inherently More Prone To Mental Health Problems. The Main Difference That Sets Our Nation Apart Is What Makes Us So Susceptible To So Many Mass Shootings Is That We Don't Do Enough, We Don't Take The Basic Commonsense Actions To Keep Guns Out Of The Hands Of Criminals And Dangerous People. What's Different In America Is It's Easy To Get Your Hands On A Gun.

I've Just Concluded That For Me Personally It Is Important For Me To Go Ahead And Affirm That I Think Same-sex Couples Should Be Able To Get Married.

Peace Is Not Just The Absence Of War. True Peace Depends Upon Creating The Opportunity That Makes Life Worth Living. And To Do That, We Must Confront The Common Enemies Of Human Beings: Nuclear Weapons And Poverty; Ignorance And Disease.

I Believe We [americans] Are Strongest As A Nation, When The President And Congress Work Together.

Working Together

If You Don't Have Good People, And You Don't Have A Good Process And You Don't Have, At Some Level, The Basic Reverence For [presidential] Office, And An Understanding Of The Incredible Responsibilities And Obligations, Then, I Think You Can Get Into Trouble.

We Are Reminded That, In The Fleeting Time We Have On This Earth, What Matters Is Not Wealth, Or Status, Or Power, Or Fame, But Rather How Well We Have Loved And What Small Part We Have Played In Making The Lives Of Other People Better.

America's Nurses Are The Beating Heart Of Our Medical System.

What Matters Is How Well We Have Loved, And What Small Part We Have Played In Making The Lives Around Us Better.

Number One, It Is Important That We Fix The Legal Immigration System, Because Right Now We've Got A Backlog That Means Years For People To Apply Legally. And What's Worse Is, We Keep On Increasing The Fees, So That If You've Got A Hard Working Immigrant Family, They've Got To Hire A Lawyer; They've Got To Pay Thousands Of Dollars In Fees. They Just Can't Afford It. And It's Discriminatory Against People Who Have Good Character, We Should Want In This Country, But Don't Have The Money. So We've Got To Fix That.

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.

I Reserve The Right, As President Of The United States To Meet With Anybody At A Time And Place Of My Choosing If I Think It's Going To Keep America Safe.

Number One, It Is Absolutely Critical That We Tone Down The Rhetoric When It Comes To The Immigration Debate, Because There Has Been An Undertone That Has Been Ugly. Oftentimes, It Has Been Directed At The Hispanic Community. We Have Seen Hate Crimes Skyrocket In The Wake Of The Immigration Debate As It Has Been Conducted In Washington, And That Is Unacceptable.

The Answers To Our Problems Don't Lie Beyond Our Reach. They Exist In Our Laboratories And Universities; In Our Fields And Our Factories; In The Imaginations Of Our Entrepreneurs And The Pride Of The Hardest-working People On Earth. Those Qualities That Have Made America The Greatest Force Of Progress And Prosperity In Human History We Still Possess In Ample Measure.

Elections Matter And Voting Counts.

To Everyone In This Congress Who Still Refuses To Raise The Minimum Wage, I Say This: If You Truly Believe You Could Work Full-time And Support A Family On Less Than $15,000 A Year, Go Try It. If Not, Vote To Give Millions Of The Hardest-working People In America A Raise.

The American Story Has Never Been About Things Coming Easy. It Has Been About Rising To The Moment When The Moment Is Hard. About Rejecting Panicked Division For Purposeful Unity. About Seeing A Mountaintop From The Deepest Valley. That Is Why We Remember That Some Of The Most Famous Words Ever Spoken By An American Came From A President Who Took Office In A Time Of Turmoil: "the Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Fear Itself.

Enforcement Priorities Developed By My Administration Are Not Affected By This Ruling. This Means That The People Who Might Have Benefited From The Expanded Deferred Action Policies, Long-term Residents Raising Children Who Are Americans Or Legal Residents, They Will Remain Low Priorities For Enforcement, As Long As You Have Not Committed A Crime, Our Limited Immigration Enforcement Resources Are Not Focused On You.

Hillary Clinton Has Been In Politics For The Same Reason I Am - Because We Can Improve Other People's Lives By Doing This Work.

The Day I'm Inaugurated, This Country Looks At Itself Differently And The World Looks At America Differently. If You Believe That We've Got To Heal America And We've Got To Repair Our Standing In The World, Then I Think My Supporters Believe That I Am A Messenger Who Can Deliver That Message Around The World In A Way That No Other Candidate Can Do.

I Was Able To Do That [showing Up Of Democratic Benefits] When I Was The Candidate. But I've Not Seen Or Presided Over That Kind Of Systematic Outreach That I Think Needs To Happen.

Try To Be As Honest As Possible.

There's One Issue That Will Define The Contours Of This Century More Dramatically Than Any Other, And That Is The Urgent And Growing Threat Of A Changing Climate.

What We Shouldn't Be Doing Is Trying To Take Away Your Rights To Bargain For Better Wages Or Working Conditions... These So-called "right To Work" Laws, They Don't Have To Do With Economics; They Have Everything To Do With Politics. What They're Really Talking About Is Giving You The Right To Work For Less Money.

Those Aren't The Kinds Of Folks Who Represent Our Core American Values.

American Values

I Hope You Guys Are Up For A Fight. I Hope You Guys Are Game Because I Haven't Been Putting Up With 19 Months Of Airplanes And Hotel Food And Missing My Babies And My Wife - I Didn't Put Up For That Stuff Just To Come In Second.

One Of The Issues The Democrats Have To Be Clear On Is The Given Population Distribution Across The Country. We Have To Compete Everywhere. We Have To Show Up Everywhere. We Have To Work At A Grassroots Level, Something That's Been A Running Thread In My Career.

I Invigorated The Grassroots In The Republican Party As Well As The Democratic Party.

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.

But I Also Want To Give Them A Pathway So That They Can Earn Citizenship, Earn A Legal Status, Start Learning English, Pay A Significant Fine, Go To The Back Of The Line, But They Can Then Stay Here And They Can Have The Ability To Enforce A Minimum Wage That They're Paid, Make Sure The Worker Safety Laws Are Available, Make Sure That They Can Join A Union.

If We Are Truly Created Equal Then Surely The Love We Commit To One Another Must Be Equal As Well

I Actually Believe That We Need Missile Defense, Because Of Iran And North Korea And The Potential For Them To Obtain Or To Launch Nuclear Weapons, But I Also Believe That, When We Are Only Spending A Few Hundred Million Dollars On Nuclear Proliferation, Then We're Making A Mistake.

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.

I Want To Deal With The Homeless Situation Here In Washington, D.c. I Think It Is A Travesty That We've Got Men - And Increasingly Women - Families, Across The Street And The In Shadow Of This Great Capital, That Shows A Lack Of Concern, Not Just For The Capital, But For American, When We Are Allowing Something Like That To Happen.

We Are Reaching A Tipping Where The Pace Of Settlements, During The Course Of My Presidency Has Gotten So Substantial That It's Getting Harder And Harder To Imagine An Effective, Contiguous Palestinian State. And I Think It Would Have Long-term Consequences For Peace And Security In The Region, And The United States, Because Of Our Investment In The Region, And Because We Care So Deeply About Israel, I Think Has A Legitimate Interest In Saying To A Friend, "this Is A Problem."

If You Give Up On The Idea That Your Voice Can Make A Difference, Then Other Voices Will Fill The Void

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.

My Abiding Faith In The American People Is Undiminished. That's Still What Drives Me Every Single Day.

There Are Patriots Who Opposed The War In Iraq And There Are Patriots Who Supported The War In Iraq. We Are One People, All Of Us Pledging Allegiance To The Stars And Stripes, All Of Us Defending The United States Of America.

Americans Have Always Pursued Our Dreams Within A Free Market That Has Been The Engine Of Our Progress. It's A Market That Has Created A Prosperity That Is The Envy Of The World, And Rewarded The Innovators And Risk-takers Who Have Made America A Beacon Of Science, And Technology, And Discovery. But The American Economy Has Worked In Large Part Because We Have Guided The Market's Invisible Hand With A Higher Principle - That America Prospers When All Americans Can Prosper. That Is Why We Have Put In Place Rules Of The Road To Make Competition Fair, And Open, And Honest.

Now, At Times This Issue Has Tended To Degenerate Into An 'either-or' Type Of Debate. Either We Protect Our People From Terror Or We Protect Our Most Cherished Principles. But That Is A False Choice. It Asks Too Little Of Us And Assumes Too Little About America.

One Of The Great Strengths Of The United States Is... We Have A Very Large Christian Population - We Do Not Consider Ourselves A Christian Nation Or A Jewish Nation Or A Muslim Nation. We Consider Ourselves A Nation Of Citizens Who Are Bound By Ideals And A Set Of Values.

Part Of American Leadership Is Making Sure That We're Doing Nation Building Here At Home. That Will Help Us Maintain The Kind Of American Leadership That We Need.

We Should Foster A Culture In Which People's Private Religious Beliefs, Including Atheists And Agnostics, Are Respected. And That's The Kind Of Culture That I Think Allows All Of Us, Then, To Believe What We Want. That's Freedom Of Conscience. That's What Our Constitution Guarantees.

We Have Known For Decades That Our Survival Depends On Finding New Sources Of Energy. Yet We Import More Oil Today Than Ever Before.

If The Critics Are Right That I've Made All My Decisions Based On Polls, Then I Must Not Be Very Good At Reading Them.

You Can Put Lipstick On A Pig. It's Still A Pig.

With Respect To Russia, My Principal Approach To Russia Has Been Constant Since I First Came Into Office. Russia Is An Important Country. It Is A Military Superpower. It Has Influence In The Region And It Has Influence Around The World.

We Must Act, Knowing That Our Work Will Be Imperfect.

The Window Is Closing.

The American People Are A Non-ideological People. They Very Much Are Looking For Common-sense, Practical Solutions To The Problems That They Face. Oftentimes They've Got Contradictory Senses Of Various Issues And Policy Positions And I Don't Think That Either The Republican Party Or The Democratic Party Necessarily Capture Their Deepest Dreams When Those Parties Are Described In Caricature Or In Policy Terms.

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.

It Continues To Be My Strong Belief That The Way We Are Going To Make Sure That Everybody Feels A Part Of This Global Economy Is Not By Shutting Ourselves Off From Each Other, Even If We Could, But Rather By Working Together More Effectively Than We Have In The Past.

Working Together

Because As Tough As Things Have Been, I Am Convinced You Are Tougher. I've Seen Your Passion And I've Seen Your Service... I've Seen A Generation Eager, Impatient Even, To Step Into The Rushing Waters Of History And Change Its Course.

So We Have A Choice To Make. We Can Once Again Let Washington's Bad Habits Stand In The Way Of Progress. Or We Can Pull Together And Say That In America, Our Destiny Isn't Written For Us But By Us. We Can Place Good Ideas Ahead Of Old Ideological Battles, And A Sense Of Purpose Above The Same Narrow Partisanship. We Can Act Boldly To Turn Crisis Into Opportunity And, Together, Write The Next Great Chapter In Our History And Meet The Test Of Our Time.

I Don't Have To Negotiate An Arms Agreement With Great Britain Or With France.

The Greatest Threat To U.s. And Global Security Is No Longer A Nuclear Exchange Between Nations, But Nuclear Terrorism By Violent Extremists And Nuclear Proliferation To An Increasing Number Of States.

Nuclear Terrorism

Nuclear Proliferation

And Above All, Children Need Our Unconditional Love - Whether They Succeed Or Make Mistakes; When Life Is Easy And When Life Is Tough.

We Consume About 25 Percent Of The World's Oil. We Only Have 2 Percent Of The Reserves.

The Arts Are What Makes Life Worth Living. You've Got Food, You've Got Shelter, Yeah. But The Things That Make You Laugh, Make You Cry, Make You Connect - Make You Love Are Communicated Through The Arts. They Aren't Extras.

I Think You Need To Have People Around You Who Can Remind You That, Actually, What You Just Said Makes No Sense. Fortunately, I Have My Wife To Do That Continually.

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.

Not Out Of Mere Charity, But Because Peace In Our Time Requires The Constant Advance Of Those Principles That Our Common Creed Describes; Tolerance And Opportunity, Human Dignity And Justice.

I Think That When It Comes To Social Security, All Of Us Want To Make Sure That Our Senior Citizens Can Retire With Dignity And Respect. And Everybody Has To Be Open-minded In Thinking How Do We Firm Up A System That, In Fact, Is Going To Be In Difficulty In The Coming Years.

I Do Think That All Politicians Today Have To Be More Attentive To People Wanting To Be Heard, Wanting To Have More Control Over Their Lives.

I Think It's True That We Shouldn't Apply A Strict Litmus Test And The Most Important Thing In Any Judge Is Their Capacity To Provide Fairness And Justice To The American People.

Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Me 35 Years Ago.

Could Have Been

That's What Building A Body Of Work Is All About. It's About The Daily Labor, The Many Individual Acts, The Choices Large And Small That Add Up Over Time, Over A Lifetime To A Lasting Legacy. It's About Not Being Satisfied With The Latest Achievement, The Latest Gold Star, Because The One Thing I Know About A Body Of Work Is That It's Never Finished. It's Cumulative. It Deepens And Expands With Each Day You Give Your Best. You May Have Setbacks And You May Have Failures, But You're Not Done.

As Progressives We Believe In Affordable Health Care For All Americans.

Several Americans, Unjustly Detained By Iran, Are Finally Coming Home. In Some Cases, These Americans Faced Years Of Continued Detention, And I've Met With Some Of Their Families. I've Seen Their Anguish, How They Ache For Their Sons And Husbands. I Gave These Families My Word. I Made A Vow That We Would Do Everything In Our Power To Win The Release Of Their Loved Ones, And We Have Been Tireless.

Throughout American History, There Have Been Moments That Call On Us To Meet The Challenges Of An Uncertain World, And Pay Whatever Price Is Required To Secure Our Freedom.

We've Got To Be Able To Distinguish Between Dangerous Individuals Who Need To Be Incapacitated And Incarcerated Versus Young People Who Are In An Environment In Which They Are Adapting, But If Given Different Opportunities, A Different Vision Of Life, Could Be Thriving The Way We Are. That's What Strikes Me. There But For The Grace Of God. And That, I Think, Is Something That We All Have To Think About.

Today’s Decision Was A Victory For People All Across This Country Whose Lives Will Be More Secure.

But Shouldn't We Also Quit Marketing Murder As A Game?

We're Breaking Protocol Here. That's The Good Thing About Being President - I Can Do Whatever I Want.

Military Surge In Afghanistan To Eliminate The Taliban.

The Time To Fix Our Broken Immigration System Is Now... We Need Stronger Enforcement On The Border And At The Workplace... But For Reform To Work, We Also Must Respond To What Pulls People To America... Where We Can Reunite Families, We Should. Where We Can Bring In More Foreign-born Workers With The Skills Our Economy Needs, We Should.

I Think That I'm A Better Speechwriter Than My Speechwriters. I Know More About Policies On Any Particular Issue Than My Policy Directors. And I'll Tell You Right Now That I'm Gonna Think I'm A Better Political Director Than My Political Director.

What I Could Not Support Was A Dumb War, A Rash War, A War Based Not On Reason But On Passion, Not On Principle But On Politics.

Sticking Your Head In The Sand Might Make You Feel Safer, But It’s Not Going To Protect You From The Coming Storm.

I Think, The Argument Sometimes That I've Had With Folks Who Are Much More Interested In Sort Of Race-specific Programs Is Less An Argument About What Is Practically Achievable And Sometimes Maybe More An Argument Of "we Want Society To See What's Happened, And Internalize It, And Answer It In Demonstrable Ways." And Those Impulses I Very Much Understand.

There Is No Military Solution To The War In Iraq. Our Troops Can Help Suppress The Violence, But They Cannot Solve Its Root Causes. And All The Troops In The World Won't Be Able To Force Shia, Sunni, And Kurd To Sit Down At A Table, Resolve Their Differences, And Forge A Lasting Peace. In Fact, Adding More Troops Will Only Push This Political Settlement Further And Further Into The Future, As It Tells The Iraqis That No Matter How Much Of A Mess They Make, The American Military Will Always Be There To Clean It Up.

We Didn't Become The Most Prosperous Country In The World Just By Rewarding Greed And Recklessness. We Didn't Come This Far By Letting The Special Interests Run Wild. We Didn't Do It Just By Gambling And Chasing Paper Profits On Wall Street. We Built This Country By Making Things, By Producing Goods We Could Sell.

Having The United Kingdom In The European Union Gives Us Much Greater Confidence About The Strength Of The Transatlantic Union And Is Part Of The Cornerstone Of Institutions Built After World War Ii That Has Made The World Safer And More Prosperous.

To Those Leaders Around The Globe Who Seek To Sow Conflict, Or Blame Their Society's Ills On The West - Know That Your People Will Judge You On What You Can Build, Not What You Destroy.

During The Course Of My Presidency, It Feels As If A Couple Times A Year, I End Up Having To Speak To The Country And To Speak To A Particular Community About A Devastating Loss. The Grieving That The Country Feels Is Real, The Sympathy, The Prioritizing, The Comforting Of The Families, All That’s Important. But I Think Part Of The Point That I Wanted To Make Was That It’s Not Enough Just To Feel Bad.

As Commander In Chief, I Will Maintain The Strongest Military In The World, Keep Faith With Our Troops And Go After Those Who Would Do Us Harm. But After A Decade Of War, I Think We All Recognize We've Got To Do Some Nation Building Here At Home, Rebuilding Our Roads, Our Bridges And Especially Caring For Our Veterans Who Sacrificed So Much For Our Freedom.

I Insist On The Dignity And God- Given Potential And Work Of Every Child, Regardless Of Race Or Gender Or Sexual Orientation Or What Zip Code They Were Born In.

In America, We Started The Public School System Very Early In The Century, And As A Consequence We Had More Skilled Workers Than Any Nation On Earth, Which Meant That We Were More Productive Than Any Nation On Earth.

The System Isn't Working When 12 Million People Live In Hiding, And Hundreds Of Thousands Cross Our Borders Illegally Each Year; When Companies Hire Undocumented Immigrants Instead Of Legal Citizens To Avoid Paying Overtime Or To Avoid A Union; When Communities Are Terrorized By Ice Immigration Raids -- When Nursing Mothers Are Torn From Their Babies, When Children Come Home From School To Find Their Parents Missing, When People Are Detained Without Access To Legal Counsel. When All That's Happening, The System Just Isn't Working.

Today, On This Day Of Possibility, We Stand In The Shadow Of A Lanky, Raw-boned Man With Little Formal Education Who Once Took The Stage At Old Main And Told The Nation That If Anyone Did Not Believe The American Principles Of Freedom And Equality, That Those Principles Were Timeless And All-inclusive, They Should Go Rip That Page Out Of The Declaration Of Independence.

America Can Do Whatever We Set Our Mind To. That Is The Story Of Our History, Whether It's The Pursuit Of Prosperity For Our People, Or The Struggle For Equality For All Our Citizens; Our Commitment To Stand Up For Our Values Abroad, And Our Sacrifices To Make The World A Safer Place. Let Us Remember That We Can Do These Things Not Just Because Of Wealth Or Power, But Because Of Who We Are: One Nation, Under God, Indivisible, With Liberty And Justice For All.

The Iranians May Simply Try To Run Out The Clock.

I Believe, In The Words Of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., That There Is Such A Thing As Being Too Late, And When It Comes To Climate Change, That Hour Is Almost Upon Us.

If Democrats Are Not Showing Up In Those [rural] Places Even If You're Not Gonna Win Right Away But If You're Not In There At Least Making An Argument That, "hey, You Know What? It's The Democrats Who Are Trying To Raise Your Minimum Wage."

Throughout History, The Arts And Humanities Have Helped Men And Women Around The Globe Grapple With The Most Challenging Questions And Come To Know The Most Basic Truths. In Our Increasingly Interconnected World, The Arts Play An Important Role In Both Shaping The Character That Defines Us And Reminding Us Of Our Shared Humanity. This Month, We Celebrate Our Nation's Arts And Humanities, And We Recommit To Ensuring All Americans Can Access And Experience Them.

The Key Is Whether Or Not We Have Got Priorities That Are Working For You, As Opposed To Those Who Have Been Dictating The Policy In Washington Lately. And That's Mostly Lobbyists And Special Interests. We Have Got To Put An End To That.

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.

I'll Turn The Page On A Growing Empire Of Classified Information. We'll Protect Sources And Methods, But We Won't Use Sources And Methods To Hide The Truth.

The Surest Path To Success Is To Surround Yourself With Brilliant Women

Surround Yourself

Better May Not Be As Good As The Best, But Better Is Surprisingly Hard To Obtain. And Better Is Actually Harder Than Worse.

The Problem Is That Young People Are Less Likely To Vote Than Older People. What Results Is A Situation In Which Sometimes The Elections Don't Fully Reflect The Views Of The American Population.

As Part Of The Coalition Against Isil, We Are Putting That Terrorist Network Under Tremendous Pressure.

I Didn't Set A Red Line, The World Set A Red Line

Acts Of Sacrifice And Decency Without Regard To What's In It For You Create A Ripple Effect. Ones That Lift Up Families And Communities, That Spread Opportunity.

As The United States Begins A New Chapter In Our Relationship With Cuba, We Hope It Will Create An Environment That Improves The Lives Of The Cuban People, Not Because It Is Imposed By Us, The United States, But Through The Talent And Ingenuity And Aspirations, And The Conversations Among Cubans From All Walks Of Life So They Can Decide What The Best Course Is For Their Prosperity.

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.

Here's The Truth: Even If Countries Like The United States Curb Our Emissions, If Growing Countries Like India - With Soaring Energy Needs - Don't Also Embrace Cleaner Fuels, Then We Don't Stand A Chance Against Climate Change.

I Said To One Young Activist Who Herself Was The Daughter Of An Undocumented Worker, And So Could Speak From A Very Personal And Legitimate Perspective - I Remember Saying To Her: I Agree With You, From A Moral Perspective, That A Child From Honduras Is Worth The Same As My Daughter. God Is Not A Respecter Of Boundaries; He's Not Saying That American Kids Deserve A Better Life Than Honduran Kids. But I'm The President Of The United States, And The Nation-state By Definition Means That Boundaries Mean Something And Borders Mean Something.

Now, Anybody Who Thinks That We Can Move This Economy Forward With Just A Few Folks At The Top Doing Well, Hoping That It's Going To Trickle Down To Working People Who Are Running Faster And Faster Just To Keep Up, You'll Never See It.

You Wouldn't Know That If You Talked To Human Rights Watch Or Amnesty International Or Some Of The International Activist Organizations. Certainly You Wouldn't Know That If You Were Talking To Some Of The Writers Who Criticize Our Drone Policy. But I've Actually Told My Staff It's Probably Good That They Stay Critical Of This Policy, Even Though I Think Right Now We're Doing The Best That We Can In A Dangerous World With Terrorists Who Would Gladly Blow Up A School Bus Full Of American Kids If They Could.

I Think The Turks' Willingness To Take Seriously Action On The Borders To Stop The Flow Of Foreign Fighters Joining Isil Is Significant.

People Are Less Certain Of Their National Identities Or Their Place In The World. It Starts Looking Different And Disorienting. And There Is No Doubt That That Has Produced Populist Movements Both From The Left And From The Right In Many Countries In Europe.

Islam Is Not Part Of The Problem In Combating Violent Extremism - It Is An Important Part Of Promoting Peace.

We Can Seize This Future Together Because We Are Not As Divided As Our Politics Suggests.

Futures Together

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