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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.

-Barack Obama

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I Don't Have A

Barack Obama

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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.

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

Learning To Stand In Somebody Else's Shoes, To See Through Their Eyes, That's How Peace Begins. And It's Up To You To Make That Happen. Empathy Is A Quality Of Character That Can Change The World.

I Mean, If You Think About - If You Think About It, Ups And Fedex Are Doing Just Fine, Right? No, They Are. It's The Post Office That's Always Having Problems.

Nobody Gets To Threaten The Full Faith And Credit Of The United States Just To Extract Political Concessions.

Race Is Still A Powerful Force In This Country. Any African American Candidate, Or Any Latino Candidate, Or Asian Candidate Or Woman Candidate Confronts A Higher Threshold In Establishing Himself To The Voters ... Are Some Voters Not Going To Vote For Me Because I'm African American? Those Are The Same Voters Who Probably Wouldn't Vote For Me Because Of My Politics.

At Some Fundamental Level, Religion Does Not Allow For Compromise. It Insists On The Impossible. If God Has Spoken, Then Followers Are Expected To Live Up To God's Edicts, Regardless Of The Consequences. To Base One's Life On Such Uncompromising Commitment May Be Sublime; To Base Our Policy Making On Such Commitments Would Be A Dangerous Thing.

Another Tradition To Politics, A Tradition (of Politics) That Stretched From The Days Of The Country’s Founding To The Glory Of The Civil Rights Movement, A Tradition Based On The Simple Idea That We Have A Stake In One Another, And That What Binds Us Together Is Greater Than What Drives Us Apart, And That If Enough People Believe In The Truth Of That Proposition And Act On It, Then We Might Not Solve Every Problem, But We Can Get Something Meaningful Done.

The Biggest Deficit That We Have In Our Society And In The World Right Now Is An Empathy Deficit. We Are In Great Need Of People Being Able To Stand In Somebody Else's Shoes And See The World Through Their Eyes.

Now Let's Make Two Things Clear: Isil Is Not 'islamic.' No Religion Condones The Killing Of Innocents, And The Vast Majority Of Isil's Victims Have Been Muslim. And Isil Is Certainly Not A State. It Was Formerly Al Qaeda's Affiliate In Iraq, And Has Taken Advantage Of Sectarian Strife And Syria's Civil War To Gain Territory On Both Sides Of The Iraq-syrian Border. It Is Recognized By No Government, Nor The People It Subjugates. Isil Is A Terrorist Organization, Pure And Simple. And It Has No Vision Other Than The Slaughter Of All Who Stand In Its Way.

I Think It's A Healthy Thing For The Democratic Party To Go Through Some Reflection.

There Are Dangers That Globalization Increases Inequality. There Are Dangers That Because Capital Is Mobile And Workers Are Not, If We Are Not Providing Them Sufficient Protection, That They Can Be Left Behind In This Process. And That's What We Have To Focus On.

What We Have To Do Is Make Sure That Here In America, If You Work Hard, You Can Get Ahead. If You Worked Hard, Not Only Did You Have A Good Job, But You Also Had Decent Benefits, Decent Health Care. We've Got To Make Sure That We're Doing Everything We Can To Expand The Middle Class And People Who Are Working Hard Can Get Into The Middle Class.

Tonight, We Gather To Affirm The Greatness Of Our Nation - Not Because Of The Height Of Our Skyscrapers, Or The Power Of Our Military, Or The Size Of Our Economy. Our Pride Is Based On A Very Simple Premise, Summed Up In A Declaration Made Over Two Hundred Years Ago.

You've Got Audiences Cheering At The Prospect Of Somebody Dying Because They Don't Have Health Care And Booing A Service Member In Iraq Because They're Gay. That's Not Reflective Of Who We Are.

The American People Recognize That Their Careers Or Their Kids' Careers Are Going To Have To Be More Dynamic. That They Might Not Be Working At A Single Plant For 30 Years. That They Might Have To Change Careers. They Might Have To Get More Education. They Might Have To Retool Or Retrain. And I Think The American People Are Game For That.

Instead Of Having A Set Of Policies That Are Equipping People For The Globalization Of The Economy, We Have Policies That Are Accelerating The Most Destructive Trends Of The Global Economy.

I Think Our Basic Principle That This Is A Free Market System And That That Has Worked For Us, That It Creates Innovation And Risk Taking, I Think That's A Principle That We've Gotta Hold To As Well. But What I Don't Wanna Do Is Get Bottled Up In A Lot Of Ideology And Is This Conservative Or Liberal. My Interest Is Finding Something That Works.

I Can Document This Past Week [of Presidency] We've Put Out Memos From Every Agency Showing What Did We Do. Try To Be As Honest As Possible. There's A Little Hype Involved Obviously. It's Spin Because It's Our Agencies. We Feel Some Pride About It. But Tried To Be Self-critical As Well.

There Are Places And Moments In America Where This Nation’s Destiny Has Been Decided...selma Is Such A Place.

I Have Seen, The Desperation And Disorder Of The Powerless: How It Twists The Lives Of Children On The Streets Of Jakarta Or Nairobi In Much The Same Way As It Does The Lives Of Children On Chicago 's South Side.

It's Time To Put Country Ahead Of Party. It's Time To Put The Next Generation Ahead Of The Next Election.

I Do Not Talk To The Fbi Directors About Pending Investigations [on Hillary Clinton].

People Who Have Health Insurance Are Benefiting In All Sorts Of Ways That They May Not Be Aware Of, Everything From No Longer Having Lifetime Limits On The Claims That They Can Make To Seniors Getting Prescription Drug Discounts Under Medicare To Free Mammograms.

The Biggest Threat That We Face Right Now Is Not A Nuclear Missile Coming Over The Skies. It's In A Suitcase. This Is Why The Issue Of Nuclear Proliferation Is So Important. It Is The - The Biggest Threat To The United States Is A Terrorist Getting Their Hands On Nuclear Weapons.

We [americans] Are A Nation Of Immigrants. We All Understand What This Country Has Become Because Talent From All Around The World Wants To Come Here, People Who Are Willing To Take Risks, People Who Want To Build On Their Dreams And Make Sure Their Kids Have An - Even Bigger Dreams Than They Have.

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 Are Unique Among Advanced Countries That We Don't Have Universal Health Care. My Hope Was That I Was Able To Get A Hundred Percent Of People Health Care While I Was President. We Didn't Quite Achieve That, But We Were Able To Get 20 Million People Health Care Who Didn't Have It Before. And Obviously Some Of The Progress We Made Is Now Imperiled Because There's Still A Significant Debate Taking Place In The United States. For Those 20 Million People, Their Lives Have Been Better.

In The Wake Of 9/11, My Meetings With Arab And Pakistani Americans, For Example, Have A More Urgent Quality, For The Stories Of Detentions And Fbi Questioning And Hard Stares From Neighbors Have Shaken Their Sense Of Security And Belonging. They Have Been Reminded That The History Of Immigration In This Country Has A Dark Underbelly; They Need Specific Reassurances That Their Citizenship Really Means Something, That America Has Learned The Right Lessons From The Japanese Internments During World War Ii, And That I Will Stand With Them Should The Political Winds Shift In An Ugly Direction.

The Terms Of Peace May Be Negotiated By Political Leaders, But The Fate Of Peace Is Up To Each Of Us.

I Have Said Repeatedly That America Doesn't Torture And I'm Going To Make Sure That We Don't Torture. Those Are Part And Parcel An Effort To Regain America's Moral Stature In The World.

It Is Absolutely Important That We Have A Unified Alliance And That We Explain To The Russians That You Cannot Be A 21st-century Superpower, Or Power, And Act Like A 20th-century Dictatorship.

It Will Take Time To Eradicate A Cancer Like Isil. And Any Time We Take Military Action, There Are Risks Involved - Especially To The Servicemen And Women Who Carry Out These Missions. But I Want The American People To Understand How This Effort Will Be Different From The Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan. It Will Not Involve American Combat Troops Fighting On Foreign Soil.

Our Alliance With Our Nato Partners Has Been A Cornerstone Of U.s. Foreign Policy For Nearly 70 Years, In Good Times And In Bad And Through Presidents Of Both Parties Because The United States Has A Fundamental Interest In Europe's Stability And Security.

I Think That One Of The Things That We All Agree To Is That The Touchstone For Economic Policy Is, Does It Allow The Average American To Find Good Employment And See Their Incomes Rise; That We Can't Just Look At Things In The Aggregate, We Do Want To Grow The Pie, But We Want To Make Sure That Prosperity Is Spread Across The Spectrum Of Regions And Occupations And Genders And Races; And That Economic Policy Should Focus On Growing The Pie, But It Also Has To Make Sure That Everybody Has Got Opportunity In That System.

Congress Should Fund Research On The Effects That Violent Video Games Have On Young Minds... We Don't Benefit From Ignorance. We Don't Benefit From Not Knowing The Science.

We Right Now Give $15 Billion Every Year As Subsidies To Private Insurers Under The Medicare System. Doesn't Work Any Better Through The Private Insurers. They Just Skim Off $15 Billion.

Jesus Lived A Life Of Peace, Love, Kindness And Forgiveness, During The Hustle And Bustle Of The Christmas Season, May We All Do Our Best To Follow His Example.

I Think What Will Happen With Donald Trump Is There Are Going To Be Certain Elements Of His Temperament That Will Not Serve Him Well Unless He Recognizes Them And Corrects Them.

Democracy Demands That The Religiously Motivated Translate Their Concerns In To Universal, Rather Than Religion-specific, Values... It Requires That Their Proposals Be Subject To Argument And Amenable To Reason. Now I May Be Opposed To Abortion For Religious Reasons, To Take One Example, But If I Seek To Pass A Law Banning The Practice, I Cannot Simply Point To The Teachings Of My Church Or Evoke God's Will. I Have To Explain Why Abortion Violates Some Principle That Is Accessible To People Of All Faiths, Including Those With No Faith At All.

I Cannot Swallow Whole The View Of Lincoln As The Great Emancipator.

If We Are Going To Solve The Challenges We Face, You Need A President Who Will Pursue Genuine Solutions Day In And Day Out. And That Is My Commitment To You. We Need Immigration Reform That Will Secure Our Borders, And Punish Employers Who Exploit Immigrant Labor; Reform That Finally Brings The 12 Million People Who Are Here Illegally Out Of The Shadows By Requiring Them To Take Steps To Become Legal Citizens. We Must Assert Our Values And Reconcile Our Principles As A Nation Of Immigrants And A Nation Of Laws. That Is A Priority I Will Pursue From My Very First Day.

A Political Candidacy Built Around Hope And Change And Compromise Would Eventually Become A Presidency Of Crisis And Confrontation.

I Know My Country Has Not Perfected Itself. At Times, We've Struggled To Keep The Promise Of Liberty And Equality For All Of Our People. We've Made Our Share Of Mistakes, And There Are Times When Our Actions Around The World Have Not Lived Up To Our Best Intentions.

I'm No Longer Just A Candidate. I'm The President. I Know What It Means To Send Young Americans Into Battle, For I Have Held In My Arms The Mothers And Fathers Of Those Who Didn't Return. I've Shared The Pain Of Families Who've Lost Their Homes, And The Frustration Of Workers Who've Lost Their Jobs.

I've Been To 57 States.

The Globe Is Shrinking, The Information Age Is Bringing A Lot Of Changes. People Are Anxious About Their Future And Their Children's Futures.

With Respect To Syria, We Are Going To Continue To Work As We Have Over The Last Five, Six Years To Push Towards A Political Transition And Settlement.

I Think If You Look At Almost Every Year Under Every President Over The Last, I Don't Know, 20, 30 Years, You're Going To Be Hard-pressed To Find A Year In Which The Majority Of Americans Thought We Were On The Right Track.

We Understand The Concerns That People Have With Not Only Protecting Our Values, But Our Privacy Interests As Well. We Think That The Usa Freedom Act Was A Good Resolution Of That.

The Worst Thing That Colonialism Did Was To Cloud Our View Of Our Past.

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.

The Cold War Has Been Over For A Long Time. I'm Not Interested In Having Battles That, Frankly, Started Before I Was Born.

As You Might Imagine, If You're A Teenager Having A Couple Of People With Microphones And Guns Always Following You Around, That Could Grate On Them. But You Know, They've Handled It With Grace And I Give Michelle [obama] Most Of The Credit For How Well They've Done, But I Also Just Think They Are Graceful, Good Young, Young Women.

Generally Speaking, People Who Know Me Will Tell You That My Public Persona Is Not That Different From My Private Persona.

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

Legislative Process

And I Will Do Everything That I Can As Long As I Am President Of The United States To Remind The American People That We Are One Nation Under God, And We May Call That God Different Names But We Remain One Nation.

The Market Alone Can't Solve Our Health-care Woes.

She Is Running Around Talking About How This Is An Insult To Sportsmen, How She Values The Second Amendment. She's Talking Like She's Annie Oakley.

We Ask Our Men And Women In Uniform To Leave Their Families, Our Guardsmen And Reservists To Leave Their Jobs. We Ask You To Fight, To Sacrifice, To Risk Your Lives For Your Country. The Last Thing You Should Have To Do Is Fight For A Job When You Come Home.

One Thing I Don't Like Is When You Disrespect The Law.

Our Job Is Not To Ask That God Respond To Our Notion Of Truth. Our Job Is To Be True To Him, Hi-his Word And His Commandments, And We Should Assume Humbly That We're Confused And Don't Always Know What We're Doin' And We're Staggerin' And Stumblin' Towards Him And Have Some Humility In That Process.

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.

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.

I Always Enjoy Watching Republicans Compliment Bill Clinton Now, Because At The Time, I'm Sure He Didn't Feel A Lot Of The Love.

The Map Isn't Always The Territory, And You Have To Kind Of Walk Through It To Get A Feel For It.

There Are Few Things In Life That Are Harder To Find And More Important To Keep Than Love. Well, Love And A Birth Certificate.

In Fact, The Best Thing We Could Do On Taxes For All Americans Is To Simplify The Individual Tax Code. This Will Be A Tough Job, But Members Of Both Parties Have Expressed An Interest In Doing This, And I Am Prepared To Join Them.

There Are Folks Who Will Equivocate. They'll Say, 'you Know, I'm Not A Scientist.' Well, I'm Not Either. But The Best Scientists In The World Know That Climate Change Is Happening.

Israel Has Legitimate Concerns About Its Security Relative To Iran. I Mean, You Have A Large Country With A Significant Military That Has Proclaimed That Israel Shouldn't Exist, That Has Denied The Holocaust, That Has Financed Hezbollah, And As A Consequence, There Are Missiles That Are Pointed Towards Tel Aviv. There Are Very Good Reasons Why Israelis Are Nervous About Iran's Position In The World Generally.

These Days, The House Republicans Actually Give John Boehner A Harder Time Than They Give Me. Which Means Orange Really Is The New Black.

In This New, Hyper Competitive Age, None Of Us, None Of Us Can Afford To Be Complacent.

America Is A Country Of Strong Families And Strong Values. My Life's Been Blessed By Both.

How Do We In The African American Community Build A Culture In Which We Are Saying To Our Kids, "here's What It Takes To Succeed. Here's The Sacrifices You Need To Make To Be Able To Get Ahead. Here's How We Support Each Other. Here's How We Look Out For Each Other."

For The First Time In Our History, The Winners Of The White House Turkey Pardon Were Chosen Through A Highly Competitive Online Vote. And Once Again, Nate Silver Completely Nailed It. The Guy Is Amazing.

The Fact That There Is A Robust Debate In Congress Is Good. The Fact That The Debate Sometimes Seems Unanchored To Facts Is Not So Good.

First Of All, I Think Everybody Has To Acknowledge Don't Underestimate The Guy [donald Trump], Because He's Going To Be 45th President Of The United States.

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.

Senator Mccain Likes To Talk About Judgment, But Really, What Does It Say About Your Judgment When You Think George Bush Has Been Right More Than Ninety Percent Of The Time? I Don't Know About You, But I'm Not Ready To Take A Ten Percent Chance On Change.

Working Full-time Should Mean Enough To Support A Family.

Religious Freedom Doesn't Mean You Can Force Others To Live By Your Own Beliefs

No One Nation Can Or Should Try To Dominate Another Nation.

Don't Shortchange The Future, Because Of Fear In The Present.

The Old Rules May Say We Can’t Protect Our Environment And Promote Economic Growth At The Same Time, But In America, We’ve Always Used New Technologies - We’ve Used Science; We’ve Used Research And Development And Discovery To Make The Old Rules Obsolete.

Research And Development

You're Not Going To Be Able To Make Good Decisions Without Building Some Relationship Of Trust Between Yourself And Community.

It's Time To End The Hypocrisy Of Those Who Accumulate Wealth Through The Global Economy, And Then Siphon Funds To Those Who Teach Children To Tear It Down.

I Began Feeling The Way I Imagine An Actor Or Athlete Must Feel When, After Years Of Commitment To A Particular Dream...he Realizes That He's Gone Just About As Far As Talent Or Fortune Will Take Him. The Dream Will Not Happen, And He Now Faces The Choice Of Accepting This Fact Like A Grownup And Moving On To More Sensible Pursuits, Or Refusing The Truth And Ending Up Bitter, Quarrelsome, And Slightly Pathetic.

The Problem Was, And We Saw Some Of This In The Immigration-reform Issues As Well, Was They Hadn't Done Sufficient Homework To Know That I Didn't Have All The Capacity They Thought I Did In Order To Just Execute This Through The Stroke Of A Pen.

To Keep Nigeria One, Is A Task That Must Be Done.

This Is Why The Anti-discrimination Principle Being Enforced Is Important. Because It Won't Stop If Some Of The Underlying Biases Aren't Challenged And Surfaced. And That In And Of Itself Creates Backlash And Denial. This Is What I Mean When I Say Better Is Hard.

Since 2010, America Has Put More People Back To Work Than Europe, Japan, And All Advanced Economies Combined.

Us Intelligence Agencies Will Only Use Such Data To Meet Specific Security Requirements: Counterintelligence, Counterterrorism, Counterproliferation, Cybersecurity, Force Protection For Our Troops And Allies, And Combating Transnational Crime, Including Sanctions Evasion.

Societies Held Together By Fear And Repression May Offer The Illusion Of Stability For A Time, But They Are Built Upon Fault Lines That Will Eventually Tear Asunder.

Beside The Two Wars He Inherited In Iraq And Afghanistan, And Promised To End, A Financial Crisis At Home Had Pushed The United States To The Brink Of Another Great Depression. When We Spoke With The New President In March Of 2009, The Economy Was Losing 800,000 Jobs A Month, The Government Was Throwing Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars At Failing Banks, And The Auto Industry Was On The Verge Of Collapse. Politically Pummeled From All Sides, Obama Did His Best To Keep A Sense Of Humor.

A Central Notion In The Affordable Care Act Was We Had An Inefficient System With A Lot Of Waste That Didn't Also Deliver The Kind Of Quality That Was Needed That Often Put Health Care Providers In A Box Where They Wanted To Do Better For Their Patients, But Financial Incentives Were Skewed The Other Way... We Don't Need To Reinvent The Wheel; You're Already Figuring Out What Works To Reduce Infections In Hospitals Or Help Patients With Complicated Needs.

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.

I Am Very Proud Of The Fact I Do Not Cheat When I'm Playing Golf.

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.

[a] Family With Two Kids That Earns The Minimum Wage Still Lives Below The Poverty Line. That's Wrong. That's Why, Since The Last Time This Congress Raised The Minimum Wage, 19 States Have Chosen To Bump Theirs Even Higher. Tonight, Let's Declare That In The Wealthiest Nation On Earth, No One Who Works Full-time Should Have To Live In Poverty, And Raise The Federal Minimum Wage To $9 An Hour.

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.

Today, We Are Closer To Fulfilling America's Promise Of Economic And Social Justice Because We Stand On The Shoulders Of Giants Like Dr. King, Yet Our Future Progress Will Depend On How We Prepare Our Next Generation Of Leaders. We Must Fortify Their Ladders Of Opportunity By Correcting Social Injustice, Breaking The Cycle Of Poverty In Struggling Communities, And Reinvesting In Our Schools. Education Can Unlock A Child's Potential And Remains Our Strongest Weapon Against Injustice And Inequality.

I Do Think That I Am Generally Optimistic.

Evil Does Exist In The World. A Non-violent Movement Could Not Have Halted Hitler's Armies. Negotiations Cannot Convince Al Qaeda's Leaders To Lay Down Their Arms. To Say That Force May Sometimes Be Necessary Is Not A Call To Cynicism - It Is A Recognition Of History; The Imperfections Of Man And The Limits Of Reason.

Call Loretta Lynch For A Vote. Get Her Confirmed. Put Her In Place. Let Her Do Her Job.

When Our Government Is Spoken Of As Some Menacing, Threatening, Foreign Entity, It Ignores The Fact That In Our Democracy, Government Is Us

The United States, We Know What Happens When We Start Dividing Ourselves Along Lines Of Race Or Religion Or Ethnicity.

I Have Never Had To Travel More Than Thirty Seconds From Home To Office, And It's Because Of That That I've Been Able To Maintain, Really A Family Life That Has Nurtured And Sustained Me During This Time [of Presidency].

In America, There's A Failure To Appreciate Europe's Leading Role In The World.

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.

The Interests We Share As Human Beings Are Far More Powerful Than The Forces That Drive Us Apart.

The Notion That Somehow As A Consequence Of Me Knowing Somebody Who Engaged In Detestable Acts 40 Years Ago, When I Was 8 Years Old, Somehow Reflects On Me And My Values Doesn't Make Much Sense.

We Can't Just Drill Our Way Out Of The Energy And Climate Challenge That We Face.

Every Decision, Every Debate, No Matter How Important It Is, With The Same Question: 'what Does This Mean For The Next Election? What Does It Mean For Your Poll Numbers? Is This Good For The Democrats Or Good For The Republicans? Who Won The News Cycle?' That's Just How Washington Is. They Can't Help It. They're Obsessed With The Sport Of Politics.

It Is Very Important For I Think Those Of Us Who Desperately Want Peace, Who See War As, At Some Level, A Break-down, A Manifestation Of Human Weakness, To Understand That Sometimes It’s Also Necessary – And You Know, To – To Be Able To Balance Two Ideas At The Same Time; That We Are Constantly Striving For Peace, We Are Doubling Up On Our Diplomacy, We Are Going To Actively Engage, We Are Going To Try To See The World Through Other People’s Eyes And Not Just Our Own.

With Respect To The Pledge I Made That If You Like Your Plan You Can Keep It. The Way I Put That Forward Unequivocally Ended Up Not Being Accurate.

You Could Analyze Me And Say That My Father Leaving And Being Absent Was A Motivator For Early Ambition, Trying To Prove Myself To This Apparition Who Had Vanished. You Could Argue That Me Being A Mixed Kid In A Place Where There Weren't A Lot Of Black Kids Around Might Have Spurred On My Ambitions. You Could Go Through A Whole Litany Of Things That Sparked Me Wanting To Do Something Important.

Americans... Still Believe In An America Where Anything's Possible - They Just Don't Think Their Leaders Do.

We Did Not Come To Fear The Future. We Came Here To Shape It.

We Are Growing The Economy In Smart Ways And Rebuilding Our Infrastructure And Investing In Science And Development And That We Stay True To Those Values That Helped To Get Us Here.

Yes, This Is Hard. But There Should Be No Question That The United States Of America Is Stepping Up To The Plate. We Recognize Our Role In Creating This Problem; We Embrace Our Responsibility To Combat It. We Will Do Our Part, And We Will Help Developing Nations Do Theirs. But We Can Only Succeed In Combating Climate Change If We Are Joined In This Effort By Every Nation - Developed And Developing Alike. Nobody Gets A Pass.

My Job Is To Communicate To The American People That The Muslim World Is Filled With Extraordinary People Who Simply Want To Live Their Lives And See Their Children Live Better Lives. My Job To The Muslim World Is To Communicate That The Americans Are Not Your Enemy. We Sometimes Make Mistakes. But If You Look At The Track Record America Was Not Born As A Colonial Power, And That The Same Respect And Partnership That America Had With The Muslim World As Recently As 20 Or 30 Years Ago, There's No Reason Why We Can't Restore That. And That I Think Is Going To Be An Important Task.

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.

The Goal Of This Office Will Not Be To Favor One Religious Group Over Another - Or Even Religious Groups Over Secular Groups. It Will Simply Be To Work On Behalf Of Those Organizations That Want To Work On Behalf Of Our Communities, And To Do So Without Blurring The Line That Our Founders Wisely Drew Between Church And State.

No One Is Pro-abortion.

The Real Test Is Not Whether You Avoid Failure, Because You Won't. It's Whether You Let It Harden Or Shame You Into Inaction, Or Whether You Learn From It. . .

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.

My Staff Was Very Excited For Brisvegas. When I Arrived, They Advised I Needed Some Xxxx.

But If You - If What - The Reports Are True, What They're Saying Is, Is That As A Consequence Of Us Getting 30 Million Additional People Health Care, At The Margins That's Going To Increase Our Costs, We Knew That.

The United States Was Founded On The Idea That All People Are Endowed With Inalienable Rights, And That Principle Has Allowed Us To Work To Perfect Our Union At Home While Standing As A Beacon Of Hope To The World. Today, That Principle Is Embodied In Agreements Americans Helped Forge - The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, The Geneva Conventions, And Treaties Against Torture And Genocide - And It Unites Us With People From Every Country And Culture.

Undocumented Workers Can't Report If They're Not Being Paid Overtime, Or If Their Health And Safety Laws Are Being Violated, Of If They're Not Getting The Minimum Wage. And So A Lot Of Times Companies Prefer To Hire Them In Order To Take Advantage Of Them. We've Got To Crack Down On Those Employers.

Israel Is Our Friend, That We Will Assist In Their Security.

My Guiding Principle As President Has Been To Try To Do The Right Thing Even When It's Not Politically Convenient.

Guiding Principles

Cool, Logical, Big-eared And Level-headed, The Center Of Star Trek's Optimistic, Inclusive Vision Of Humanity's Future. I Loved Spock.

Some May Still Deny The Overwhelming Judgment Of Science, But None Can Avoid The Devastating Impact Of Raging Fires, And Crippling Drought, And More Powerful Storms.

These Kinds Of Tragedies [like Shooting In Fort Lauderdale] Have Happened Too Often During The Eight Years That I've Been President. The Pain, The Grief, The Shock That They Must Be Going Through Is Enormous. I've Asked Me Staff To Reach Out To The Mayor Down There And Make Sure That Coordination Between The State And Local Officials Is What It Should Be. But I Think We'll Find Out Over The Next 24 Hours Exactly How This Happened And What Motivated This Individual.

If It Is Orderly And Lawful, Immigration Is Good For Our Economy.

We Should Be More Modest In Our Belief That We Can Impose Democracy On A Country Through Military Force.

Ultimately There Is No Dividing Line Between Main Street And Wall Street. We Will Rise Or We Will Fall Together As One Nation.

We Are Greater Than The Sum Of Our Individual Ambitions

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.

Hope -- Hope In The Face Of Difficulty. Hope In The Face Of Uncertainty. The Audacity Of Hope! In The End, That Is God’s Greatest Gift To Us...a Belief In Things Not Seen. A Belief That There Are Better Days Ahead.

I Miss Saturday Morning, Rolling Out Of Bed, Not Shaving, Getting Into My Car With My Girls, Driving To The Supermarket, Squeezing The Fruit, Getting My Car Washed, Taking Walks.

I Confess To Wincing Every So Often At A Poorly Chosen Word, A Mangled Sentence, An Expression Of Emotion That Seems Indulgent Or Overly Practiced. I Have The Urge To Cut The Book By Fifty Pages Or So, Possessed As I Am With A Keener Appreciation For Brevity.

If We Want To Really Reduce Foreign Influence On Our Elections, Then We Better Think About How To Make Sure That Our Political Process, Our Political Dialogue Is Stronger Than It's Been.

When The Economy Is Still Struggling, Putting People Back To Work, Finding Ways To Spur Economic Activity, Ultimately Can Help To Reduce The Structural Deficits And Debts That Countries Experience.

If Everybody Voted, Then It Would Completely Change The Political Map In This Country.

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 Found During The Course Of My Political Career On The National Scene There's A Point Where The Vanity Burns Away And You've Had Your Fill Of Your Name In The Papers, Or Big Adoring Crowds, Or The Exercise Of Power. And For Me That Happened Fairly Quickly. And Then You Are Really Focused On: What Am I Going To Get Done With This Strange Privilege That's Been Granted To Me? How Do I Make Myself Worthy Of It?

I Am A Strong Believer In The Free Market. I Am A Strong Believer In Capitalism. But, I Am Also A Strong Believer That There Are Certain Common Goods - Our Air, Our Water, Making Sure That People Are Safe - That Require To Have Some Regulation.

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.

The United States Will Do What We Must To Prevent Iran From Obtaining A Nuclear Weapon.

Our Unalienable Right To Life And Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness, Those Rights Were Stripped From College Kids In Blackburg And Santa Barbara, And From High Schoolers At Columbine. And, And From First Graders In Newtown, First Graders.

Pursuit Of Happiness

Sometimes We Take Somebody Who's Been In The Trenches And Fought The Good Fight And Been Steady For Granted. Sometimes We Act As If Never Having Done Something And Not Knowing What You're Doing Is A Virtue.

This Is Something That I'm Sure I'd Have Serious Debates With My Fellow Christians About. I Think That The Difficult Thing About Any Religion, Including Christianity, Is That At Some Level There Is A Call To Evangelize And Prostelytize. There's The Belief, Certainly In Some Quarters, That People Haven't Embraced Jesus Christ As Their Personal Savior That They're Going To Hell.

If You Look At What Happened, I Came In The Middle Of The Worst Financial Crisis Since The Great Depression. And Unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt Who Waited, Well, Didn't Take Office Until About Three Years Into The Great Depression, It Was Happening Just As I Was Elected.

What I Remember Thinking At That Point, Having Gone Through Both The Ups And Downs Of My First Four Years, And Seeing The Sea Of People Was, "what A Remarkable Country This Is And How Lucky Am I That We Live In A Place Where The Son Of A Single Mom, Not Born Into Any Kind Of Fame Or Fortune, In A Pretty Remote State Somehow Can End Up Be In A Position To - To Make A Difference."

We Will Not Apologise For Our Way Of Life.

America's Strong Bonds With Israel Are Well Known - This Bond Is Unbreakable.

Someone Once Said That Every Man Is Trying To Live Up To His Father's Expectations Or Make Up For Their Father's Mistakes.

For The Sake Of Our Children And Our Future, We Must Do More To Combat Climate Change.

[two Of The Most Unpopular Presidential Candidates Selected By The Two Parties In History] Indicates That There Is A Lot Of Cynicism Out There. It Indicates That The Corrosive Nature Of Everything From Talk Radio To Fake News To Negative Advertising Has Made People Lack Confidence In A Lot Of Our Existing Institutions.

The Countries Who Out-educate Us Today Will Out-compete Us Tomorrow.

If You Have Health Insurance, Then You Don't Have To Do Anything. If You've Got Health Insurance Through Your Employer, You Can Keep Your Health Insurance, Keep Your Choice Of Doctor, Keep Your Plan.

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

Surround Yourself

I Am A Little Jet Lagged From My Trip To Malaysia...the Lengths We Have To Go To To Get Cnn Coverage These Days.

If You Don't Have Any Fresh Ideas, Then You Use Stale Tactics To Scare The Voters. If You Don't Have A Record To Run On, Then You Paint Your Opponent As Someone People Should Run From. You Make A Big Election About Small Things.

The Reforms We Seek Would Bring Greater Competition, Choice, Savings And Inefficiencies To Our Health Care System.

I Think We Need Missile Defense. But I Want To Make Sure It Works, That It's Cost Effective, That The Technologies Are Operable, That It's Our Best Possible Strategy, And That Hasn't Been Shown.

In The Midst Of Economic Recovery And Global Upheaval, Disasters Like This Remind Us Of The Common Humanity That We Share.

Common Humanity

But Having Made My Decision As Commander-in-chief Based On What I Am Convinced Is Our National Security Interests, I Will Seek Authorization For The Use Of Force From The American People's Representatives In Congress.

I'd Say, Probably, Intellectually I've Drawn As Much From Judaism As Any Other Faith.

I Don't Want My Generals Or My Defense Secretary Or My National-security Team To Ever Feel Deploying Weapons To Kill People As Routine Or Abstract, Even If The Targets Are Bad People.

Arne Duncan Is Done More To Bring Our Educational System, Sometimes Kicking And Screaming, Into The 21st Century Than Anyone Else.

The Best Anti-poverty Program Is A World-class Education.

Grace Bell Lived In Belhaven, North Carolina Her Entire Life, All 100 Years Of Her Life. Just A Few Weeks Ago Republicans Challenged Her Voter Registration Status And Tried To Remove Her From The Voter Rolls. Now Grace Got Her Voter Registration Reinstated. And You Better Believe She`s Going To Vote. But This 100-year Old Woman Wasn`t Alone In Being Targeted. The List Of Voters Republicans Tried To Purge Was Two-thirds Black And Democratic. That Didn`t Happen By Accident.

I Think Donald Trump Is Going To Try As Best He Can To Make Sure That He Delivers Not Only To The People Who Voted For Him But For The People At Large And The Good Thing Is That There Are Going To Be Elections Coming Up So There's A Built-in Incentive For Him To Try To Do That.

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.

The Degree Of Polarization That Currently Exists In Washington Is Such Where I Think It's Fair To Say If I Presented A Cure For Cancer, Getting Legislation Passed To Move That Forward Would Be A Nail-biter.

Libraries Remind Us That Truth Isn't About Who Yells The Loudest But Who Has The Right Information.

We Should Raise The Minimum Wage So That No One Who Works Full Time Has To Live In Poverty

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.

All Of Us Share This World For But A Brief Moment In Time. The Question Is Whether We Spend That Time Focused On What Pushes Us Apart, Or Whether We Commit Ourselves To An Effort -- A Sustained Effort -- To Find Common Ground, To Focus On The Future We Seek For Our Children, And To Respect The Dignity Of All Human Beings.

America, We Cannot Turn Back. Not With So Much Work To Be Done. Not With So Many Children To Educate, And So Many Veterans To Care For. Not With An Economy To Fix And Cities To Rebuild And Farms To Save. Not With So Many Families To Protect And So Many Lives To Mend. America, We Cannot Turn Back. We Cannot Walk Alone. At This Moment, In This Election, We Must Pledge Once More To March Into The Future. Let Us Keep That Promise - That American Promise - And In The Words Of Scripture Hold Firmly, Without Wavering, To The Hope That We Confess.

The United States Is Committed To A Regional Order Rooted In International Rules And Norms, Including Freedom Of Navigation, And The Peaceful Resolution Of Disputes. That's The Only Way To Ensure Our Common Security.

So Americans Understand The Costs Of War. Yet As A Country, We Will Never Tolerate Our Security Being Threatened, Nor Stand Idly By When Our People Have Been Killed. We Will Be Relentless In Defense Of Our Citizens And Our Friends And Allies. We Will Be True To The Values That Make Us Who We Are.

You Mention The Navy, For Example, And The Fact That We Have Fewer Ships Than We Did In 1916. Well Governor, We Also Have Fewer Horses And Bayonets.

Those Are Values That Help Guide Not Just My Family's Christian Faith, But That Of Jewish Americans, And Muslim Americans; Nonbelievers And Americans Of All Backgrounds. And No One Better Embodies That Spirit Of Service Than The Men And Women Who Wear Our Country's Uniform And Their Families.

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

That Is The True Genius Of America, A Faith In The Simple Dreams Of Its People, The Insistence On Small Miracles. That We Can Say What We Think, Write What We Think, Without Hearing A Sudden Knock On The Door. That We Can Have An Idea And Start Our Own Business Without Paying A Bribe Or Hearing A Sudden Knock On The Door. That We Can Participate In The Political Process Without Fear Of Retribution, And That Our Votes Will Be Counted.

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.

The Law Is A Powerful Thing But The Law Doesn't Always Change What's In People's Hearts. And So All Of Us Have An Obligation To Think About How We're Treating Other People.

There Was No Such Thing As Al Qaeda In Iraq, Until George Bush And John Mccain Decided To Invade Iraq.

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.

I Think Same Sex Couples Should Be Able To Get Married.

I Think It's Perfectly Consistent To Say That I Want My Government To Be Operating For All Faiths And All Peoples, Including Atheists And Agnostics, While Also Insisting That There Are Values Tha Tinform My Politics That Are Appropriate To Talk About.

You Want To Be Commander-in-chief? You Can Start By Standing Up For The Men And Women Who Wear The Uniform Of The United States, Even When It's Not Politically Convenient.

You Know, My Faith Is One That Admits Some Doubt.

The World Must Come Together To Confront Climate Change. There Is Little Scientific Dispute That If We Do Nothing, We Will Face More Drought, Famine And Mass Displacement That Will Fuel More Conflict For Decades.

What We Have Done Though Is Consistently Looked For Additional Opportunities To Get Stuff Done. Wherever We See A Possibility Of Increasing Wages, Creating More Jobs, Making Sure That More People Are Able To Access Opportunity, We're Gonna Seize It.

We Can Lose So Much Of What We've Gained In Terms Of The Kind Of Democratic Freedoms And Market-based Economies And Prosperity That We've Come To Take For Granted.

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.

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David E. Kelley

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