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I Think That Sometimes The Democrats Have To Run Upstream Or Swim Upstream Because We've Got The Republicans Making It Out As If We Don't Care About These Things, And We Should Be Able To Engage And Be Willing To Engage In The Discussion About Morality And Values.

-Barack Obama

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I Think That Sometimes

Barack Obama

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I Think That Sometimes The Democrats Have To Run Upstream Or Swim Upstream Because We've Got The Republicans Making It Out As If We Don't Care About These Things, And We Should Be Able To Engage And Be Willing To Engage In The Discussion About Morality And Values.

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Of All The Rocks Upon Which We Build Our Lives, We Are Reminded Today That Family Is The Most Important.

They Assert That Their Program Is Purely Peaceful. . . . We Want Them To Demonstrate Clearly In The Actions They Propose That They Have Truly Abandoned Any Nuclear Weapons Ambition.

If You Can Look Back And Say, "the Economy's Better. Our Security's Better. The Environment's Better. Our Kids' Education Is Better," If You Can Say That You've Made Things Better, Then Considering All The Challenges Out There, You Should Feel Good. But I'm The First To Acknowledge That I Did Not Crack The Code In Terms Of Reducing This Partisan Fever.

It Is That Fundamental Belief, It Is That Fundamental Belief, I Am My Brother’s Keeper, I Am My Sister’s Keeper That Makes This Country Work. It’s What Allows Us To Pursue Our Individual Dreams And Yet Still Come Together As One American Family. E Pluribus Unum. Out Of Many, One.

We Don't Have Time For A Meeting Of The Flat Earth Society.

Keeping The People's Government Open Is Not A Concession To Me. Keeping Vital Service Running And Hundreds Of Thousands Of Americans On The Job Is Not Something You 'give' To The Other Side.

The Study Of Geography Is About More Than Just Memorizing Places On A Map. It's About Understanding The Complexity Of Our World, Appreciating The Diversity Of Cultures That Exists Across Continents. And In The End, It's About Using All That Knowledge To Help Bridge Divides And Bring People Together.

America, This Is Our Moment. This Is Our Time. Our Time To Turn The Page On The Policies Of The Past. Our Time To Bring New Energy And New Ideas To The Challenges We Face. Our Time To Offer A New Direction For The Country We Love.

... I Just Want To Remind The Owners And The Players: You Guys Make Money Because You Have A Whole Bunch Of Fans Out There Who Are Working Really Hard. They Buy Tickets. They're Watching On Tv. Ya'll Should Be Able To Figure This Out. Get This Done.

We Are Not At War Against Islam.

If You Were Successful, Somebody Along The Line Gave You Some Help. There Was A Great Teacher Somewhere In Your Life.

Every Single Thing I`ve Done, From The Affordable Care Act To Pushing To Raise The Minimum Wage, To Making Sure That Young People Are Able To Go To College And Get Good Job Training, To What We`re Pushing Now In Terms Of Sick Paid Leave,everything I Do Has Been Focused On How Do We Make Sure The Middle Class Is Getting A Fair Deal.

And We Have Done More In The Two And A Half Years That I've Been In Here Than The Previous 43 Presidents To Uphold That Principle, Whether It's Ending 'don't Ask, Don't Tell,' Making Sure That Gay And Lesbian Partners Can Visit Each Other In Hospitals, Making Sure That Federal Benefits Can Be Provided To Same-sex Couples.

I Will Cut Taxes - Cut Taxes - For 95 Percent Of All Working Families, Because, In An Economy Like This, The Last Thing We Should Do Is Raise Taxes On The Middle Class.

Foreign Assistance Is Not An End In Itself. The Purpose Of Aid Must Be To Create The Conditions Where It's No Longer Need.

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.

You Can't Just Listen To Rush Limbaugh And Get Things Done.

All This Marked Them As Vaguely Liberal, Although Their Ideas Would Never Congeal Into Anything Like A Firm Ideology; In This, Too, They Were American.

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.

I Think That What Is True Is That The Russians Intended To Meddle, And They Meddled. And It Could Be Another Country In The Future.

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

Common Humanity

That Is Another Theme In The Book [dreams From My Father]. How Do We Exercise More Empathy In Our Public Discourse? How Do We Get The Black To See Through The Eyes Of The White? Or The Citizen To See Through The Eyes Of The Immigrant? Or The Straight To See Through The Eyes Of The Gay? That Has Always Been A Struggle In Our Politics.

The Path Towards Sustainable Energy Sources Will Be Long And Sometimes Difficult. But America Cannot Resist This Transition, We Must Lead It.

In The Absence Of Sound Oversight,responsible Businesses Are Forced To Compete Against Unscrupulous And Underhanded Businesses, Who Are Unencumbered By Any Restrictions On Activities That Might Harm The Environment, Or Take Advantage Of Middle-class Families, Or Threaten To Bring Down The Entire Financial System.

Responsible Business

Anybody Gone Into Whole Foods Lately And See What They Charge For Arugula? I Mean, They're Charging A Lot Of Money For This Stuff.

One Thing I Think We Have To Do Is To Make Sure That The Undocumented Workers Who Are Living In America Today, That They Have To Take Responsibility. They've Got To Register, Pay A Fine, Pay Their Back Taxes, Learn English And Then Get On A Pathway In Which They Could Have The Prospect Of Being Here Legally.

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.

Iraq Will Require Us Occupation Of Undetermined Length.

The True Test Of The American Ideal Is Whether We're Able To Recognize Our Failings And Then Rise Together To Meet The Challenges Of Our Time. Whether We Allow Ourselves To Be Shaped By Events And History, Or Whether We Act To Shape Them. Whether Chance Of Birth Or Circumstance Decides Life's Big Winners And Losers, Or Whether We Build A Community Where, At The Very Least, Everyone Has A Chance To Work Hard, Get Ahead, And Reach Their Dreams.

What I Would Advise, What I Advised Before The Election, And What I Will Continue To Advise After The Election, Is That Elections Matter; Voting Matters; Organizing Matters; Being Informed On The Issues Matter.

This Notion That's Peddled By The Religious Right - That They Are Oppressed Is Not True. Sometimes It's A Cynical Ploy To Move Their Agenda Ahead. The Classic Example Being That Somehow Secularists Are Trying To Eliminate Christmas, Which Strikes Me As Some Kind Of Manufactured Controversy.

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

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How Do We Transform Mere Power Into Justice, Mere Sentiment Into Love?

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In Ancient Times And In Our Times, Muslim Communities Have Been At The Forefront Of Innovation And Education.

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I'm Inspired By The People I Meet In My Travels--hearing Their Stories, Seeing The Hardships They Overcome, Their Fundamental Optimism And Decency. I'm Inspired By The Love People Have For Their Children. And I'm Inspired By My Own Children, How Full They Make My Heart. They Make Me Want To Work To Make The World A Little Bit Better. And They Make Me Want To Be A Better Man.

You Work With What You Got.

If American Workers Are Being Denied Their Right To Organize And Collectively Bargain When I'm In The White House, I'll Put On A Comfortable Pair Of Shoes Myself. I'll Walk On That Picket Line With You As President Of The United States Of America, Because Workers Deserve To Know That Somebody Is Standing In Their Corner.

Weapons That Were Designed For Soldiers In War Theaters Don’t Belong On Our Streets.

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In America, One Of Our Challenges, Historically, Is That We Have Very Low Voting Rates, Even During Presidential Elections.

I've Been Very Good For Gun Manufacturers.

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I Will Begin To Remove Our Troops From Iraq Immediately.

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If We Get To A Point Where People In This Country Feel More Affinity With A Leader Who Is An Adversary And View The United States And Our Way Of Life As A Threat To Him, Then We're Gonna Have Bigger Problems Than Just Cyber Hacking.

I Think That The Risk To All The Progress We've Made Was At Stake In The Election Because Not Just The President-elect But A Lot Of Members Of Congress, Including Now The Speaker Of The House And The Senate Majority Leader, Have Said That Their Principal Agenda Was To Undo A Lot Of This Progress. But As I've Been Talking About Over The Last Several Days When It Comes To Health Care, The Gains That We've Made Are There. Twenty Million People Have Health Insurance That Didn't Have It Before. The Uninsured Rate Is The Lowest It's Ever Been.

Majority Leader

While Freedom Is A Gift From God, It Must Be Secured By His People Here On Earth.

The World Only Makes Sense To Me Given My Life And My Background If, In Fact, We're Not Just An Assortment Of Tribes That Can Never Understand Each Other, But That We're, Rather, One Common Humanity That Can Meet And Learn And Love Each Other.

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Peace Is Not Merely The Absence Of Visible Conflict.

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.

We Can Be Civil To Each Other, And We Can Try To Express Ourselves Acknowledging That We're All Patriots, We're All Americans, And Not Assume The Absolute Worst In People's Motives.

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We Do Not Benefit From A Relationship With China Or Any Other Country In Which We Put Our Values And Our Ideals Aside.

There Is No Individual Salvation Without Collective Salvation

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

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A Low-carbon, Clean Energy Economy Can Be An Engine Of Growth For Decades To Come.

The Cyber World Is Sort Of The Wild, Wild West, And To Some Degree, We're Asked To Be The Sheriff.

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 All Remember Abraham Lincoln As The Leader Who Saved Our Union. Founder Of The Republican Party.

The Muslim Call To Prayer Is One Of The Prettiest Sounds On Earth At Sunset.

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

In My First Term, I Sang Al Green. In My Second Term, I'm Going With Young Jeezy.

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When We Succeed, We Succeed Because Of Our Individual Initiative, But Also Because We Do Things Together.

We've Got A Lot Of Work To Do Economically In This Country To Bring About A More Just And Fair Economy.

We Should Never Forget That God Granted Us The Power To Reason So That We Would Do His Work Here On Earth - So That We Would Use Science To Cure Disease, And Heal The Sick, And Save Lives.

Peace Is Not Merely The Absence Of Visible Conflict. Only A Just Peace Based On The Inherent Rights And Dignity Of Every Individual Can Truly Be Lasting.

There's Something About The American Spirit - Inherent In The American Spirit -- We Don't Hang On To The Past. We Always Move Forward.... We Are Going To Leave Something Better For Our Children - Not Just Here In The United States, But All Around The World.

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My Father's Voice Had Nevertheless Remained Untainted, Inspiring, Rebuking, Granting Or Withholding Approval. 'you Do Not Work Hard Enough, Barry. You Must Help In Your People's Struggle. Wake Up, Black Man!

I Think Part Of The Reason That I Have Been Successful, Though, Despite Maybe Not Always Fitting My Message Into The Pre-packaged Formulas, Is There Is This Whole Other Media Ecology Out There Of The Internet And Instagram And Memes And Talk Shows And Comedy, And I'm Pretty Good At That.

The Thing That Has Disturbed Me Most About The Russian Hacking Episode Is - And The Thing That Surprised Me Most Has Not Been The Fact Of Russian Hacking. The Cyber World Is Full Of Information Gathering, You Know, Propaganda, Et Cetera. I Have Been Concerned About The Degree To Which, In Some Circles, You've Seen People Suggest That Vladimir Putin Has More Credibility Than The U.s. Government. I Think That's Something New.

I See Tragedy And Comedy And Pain And Irony And All That Stuff. But In The End I Think Life Is Fascinating, And I Think People Are More Good Than Bad, And I Think That The Possibilities Of Progress Are Real.

I'm Very Consistent About Spending Time With Family. And When You Have Dinner With Your Daughters - They'll Keep You In Your Place And They'll Teach You Something About Perspective.

The 20th Century Was A Bloodbath, And For All The Frustrations And Failures Of The Project To Unify Europe, The Last Five Decades Have Been Periods Of Unprecedented Peace, Growth, And Prosperity In Europe.

At A Time When The European Project Is Facing Challenges, It's Especially Important To Show The Benefits Of Economic Integration By Continuing To Invest In Our People And Working To Reduce Inequality, Both Within And Across Our Countries.

Unemployment Is Low, Incomes Are Up, Poverty Is Down - And That's Going To Be A Lasting Change.

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.

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.

Now, As The World's Largest Economy And As The World's Second Largest Emitter, America Bears Our Responsibility To Address Climate Change, And We Intend To Meet That Responsibility.

Nobody's Madder Than Me About The Website Not Working As Well As It Should, Which Means It's Going To Get Fixed.

By The End Of This Decade, A Majority Of Our Navy And Air Force Fleets Will Be Based Out Of The Pacific, Because The United States Is And Always Will Be A Pacific Power.

We Seem To Have Trouble With [critical Thinking]. And Our Political System Doesn't Help.

If You Think That Running Your Economy Into The Ground And Having To Send Troops In In Order To Prop Up Your Only Ally Is Leadership, Then We've Got A Different Definition Of Leadership.

No Party Has A Monopoly On Wisdom. No Democracy Works Without Compromise. But When Governor Romney And His Allies In Congress Tell Us We Can Somehow Lower Our Deficit By Spending Trillions More On New Tax Breaks For The Wealthy - Well, You Do The Math. I Refuse To Go Along With That. And As Long As I'm President, I Never Will.

You Might Be Locked In A World Not Of Your Own Making, Her Eyes Said, But You Still Have A Claim On How It Is Shaped. You Still Have Responsibilities.

There’s No Black Male My Age, Who’s A Professional, Who Hasn’t Come Out Of A Restaurant And Is Waiting For Their Car And Somebody Didn’t Hand Them Their Car Keys.

While We May Not Live To See The Full Realization Of Our Ambition, We Will Have The Satisfaction Of Knowing That The World We Leave To Our Children Will Be Better Off For What We Did.

What Used To Be Racial Segregation Now Mirrors Itself In Class Segregation, This Great Sorting (has) Taken Place. It Creates Its Own Politics. There Are Some Communities Where Not Only Do I Not Know Poor People, I Don't Even Know People Who Have Trouble Paying The Bills At The End Of The Month. I Just Don't Know Those People. And So There's Less Sense Of Investment In Those Children.

Ultimately, If You Think About All The Youth That Everybody Has Mentioned Here In Africa, If Everybody Is Raising Living Standards To The Point Where Everybody Has Got A Car And Everybody Has Got Air Conditioning, And Everybody Has Got A Big House, Well, The Planet Will Boil Over - Unless We Find New Ways Of Producing Energy.

I Will Continue To Believe That Israel's Security Is Paramount.

All People Should Be Treated Equally, Regardless Of Who They Are Or Who They Love.

I Would Say That I Have Been Consistent In My Broad View Of How American Power Should Be Deployed, And The View That We Underestimate Our Power When We Restrict It To Just Our Military Power. We Shortchange Our Influence And Our Ability To Shape Events When That's The Only Tool We Think We Have In The Toolbox.

It Is The Kindness To Take In A Stranger When The Levees Break; The Selflessness Of Workers Who Would Rather Cut Their Hours Than See A Friend Lose Their Job Which Sees Us Through Our Darkest Hours. It Is The Firefighter's Courage To Storm A Stairway Filled With Smoke, But Also A Parent's Willingness To Nurture A Child, That Finally Decides Our Fate.

The United States Has To Go Through Structural Reforms In Terms Of Improving Our Education System Or Revamping Our Infrastructure Or, You Know, Looking At Some Regulations That Weren't Properly Controlling Excesses On Wall Street.

Unless You're One Of The First Americans, A Native American, You Came From Someplace Else. Somebody Brought You.

Native American

I Was Pretty Realistic To People About What We Could Get Done, And The Situation We Were In, And Trying To Tamp Down Expectations. If You Listen To My Stump Speeches, If You Listen To What I Said At Grant Park, I Kept On Saying, "look, This Is Not Just About Me, This Is Not Going To Happen In One Year, Or One Term, Or Even One Presidency." And We Tried To Layer Into Everything We Were Saying A Sense Of Hope, But Also Realism.

I Know That Gaps Can Be Closed. And They Can Be Closed Substantially, More Than I Think We Believe.

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.

Tonight, I Can Report To The American People And To The World That The United States Has Conducted An Operation That Killed Osama Bin Laden, The Leader Of Al Qaeda, And A Terrorist Who's Responsible For The Murder Of Thousands Of Innocent Men, Women, And Children.

I Am A Christian. So, I Have A Deep Faith. So I Draw From The Christian Faith...so, I'm Rooted In The Christian Tradition. I Believe That There Are Many Paths To The Same Place.

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

I Am Not In Favor Of Concealed Weapons. I Think That Creates A Potential Atmosphere Where More Innocent People Could (get Shot During) Altercations.

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.

The Boarded-up Homes, The Decaying Storefronts, The Aging Church Rolls, Kids From Unknown Families Who Swaggered Down The Streets - Loud Congregations Of Teenage Boys, Teenage Girls Feeding Potato Chips To Crying Toddlers, The Discarded Wrappers Tumbling Down The Block - All Of It Whispered Painful Truths.

It's A Moral Imperative, It's An Economic Imperative, And It Is A Security Imperative. For We've Seen How Spikes In Food Prices Can Plunge Millions Into Poverty, Which, In Turn, Can Spark Riots That Cost Lives, And Can Lead To Instability. And This Danger Will Only Grow If A Surging Global Population Isn't Matched By Surging Food Production. So Reducing Malnutrition And Hunger Around The World Advances International Peace And Security - And That Includes The National Security Of The United States.

I Believe Marriage Is Between A Man And A Woman. I Am Not In Favor Of Gay Marriage. But When You Start Playing Around With Constitutions, Just To Prohibit Somebody Who Cares About Another Person, It Just Seems To Me That's Not What America's About. Usually, Our Constitutions Expand Liberties, They Don't Contract Them.

The One Thing I've Said To [donald Trump] Directly, And I Would Advise My Republican Friends In Congress And Supporters Around The Country, Is Just Make Sure That, As We Go Forward Certain Norms, Certain Institutional Traditions Don't Get Eroded, Because There's A Reason They're In Place.

We Don't Ask You To Believe In Our Ability To Bring Change, Rather, We Ask You To Believe In Yours.

We Are Not Going To Be Able To Rebuild Afghanistan Into A Jeffersonian Democracy.

But Let Me Perfectly Clear, Because I Know You'll Hear The Same Old Claims That Rolling Back These Tax Breaks Means A Massive Tax Increase On The American People: If Your Family Earns Less Than $250,000 A Year, You Will Not See Your Taxes Increased A Single Dime. I Repeat: Not One Single Dime.

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

I Think The American People Recognize Is After A Decade Of War It's Time To Do Some Nation Building Here At Home. And What We Can Now Do Is Free Up Some Resources, To, For Example, Put Americans Back To Work, Especially Our Veterans, Rebuilding Our Roads, Our Bridges, Our Schools, Making Sure That, You Know, Our Veterans Are Getting The Care That They Need When It Comes To Post-traumatic Stress Disorder And Traumatic Brain Injury, Making Sure That The Certifications That They Need For Good Jobs Of The Future Are In Place.

We Have Got To Dispel This Myth That Bullying Is Just A Normal Rite Of Passage.

I Think That Sometimes The Democrats Have To Run Upstream Or Swim Upstream Because We've Got The Republicans Making It Out As If We Don't Care About These Things, And We Should Be Able To Engage And Be Willing To Engage In The Discussion About Morality And Values.

Part Of What's Unique About Climate Change, Though, Is The Nature Of Some Of The Opposition To Action. It's Pretty Rare That You'll Encounter Somebody Who Says The Problem You're Trying To Solve Simply Doesn't Exist. When President Kennedy Set Us On A Course For The Moon, There Were A Number Of People Who Made A Serious Case That It Wouldn't Be Worth It; It Was Going To Be Too Expensive, It Was Going To Be Too Hard, It Would Take Too Long. But Nobody Ignored The Science. I Don't Remember Anybody Saying That The Moon Wasn't There Or That It Was Made Of Cheese.

The Pain I Felt Was My Father's Pain.

If You Look At Sort Of How Politics Has Divided Itself Here In This Country, The Big Divide Right Now Is Between Urban Areas, Which Have Become Increasingly Democratic, And Rural Or Exurban Areas That Feel As If They're Being Ignored.

We Don't Make Determinations About Who We Love. And That's Why I Think That Discrimination On The Basis Of Sexual Orientation Is Wrong.

[america] Will Stand Steadfast With Israel In Pursuit Of Security And A Lasting Peace.

I Believe In Returning The Nation's Wealth To Its Rightful Owners.

Prosperity Without Freedom Is Just Another Form Of Poverty.

We Reaffirm That On Days Like This, There Are No Republicans Or Democrats. We Are Americans, United In Concern For Our Fellow Citizens.

I Always Tell Young People In Particular: Do Not Say That Nothing's Changed When It Comes To Race In America, Unless You Lived Through Being A Black Man In The 1950s Or '60s Or '70s.

Public School System Status Quo Is Indefensible.

We Believed We Could Prepare Our Kids For A More Competitive World. And Today, Our Younger Students Have Earned The Highest Math And Reading Scores On Record. Our High School Graduation Rate Has Hit An All-time High. And More Americans Finish College Than Ever Before.

Every Major World Religion Has Identified Marriage As Between A Man And A Woman.

World Religions

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

What The American People Hope - What They Deserve - Is For All Of Us, Democrats And Republicans, To Work Through Our Differences; To Overcome The Numbing Weight Of Our Politics. For While The People Who Sent Us Here Have Different Backgrounds, Different Stories, Different Beliefs, The Anxieties They Face Are The Same. The Aspirations They Hold Are Shared: A Job That Pays The Bills; A Chance To Get Ahead; Most Of All, The Ability To Give Their Children A Better Life.

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.

Now We're In The Midst Of Not Just Advocating For Change, Not Just Calling For Change - We're Doing The Grinding, Sometimes Frustrating Work Of Delivering Change - Inch By Inch, Day By Day.

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

It Is My Strong Belief That Israel Has Not Just The Right But The Obligation To Protect Itself.

One Voice Can Change A Room, And If One Voice Can Change A Room, Then It Can Change A City, And If It Can Change A City, It Can Change A State, And If It Change A State, It Can Change A Nation, And If It Can Change A Nation, It Can Change The World. Your Voice Can Change The World.

Stock Market Risk Is Ok, But Not For Social Security.

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.

Here's What I Can Tell The American People: 95 Percent Of You Will Get A Tax Cut. And If You Make Less Than $250,000, Less Than A Quarter-million Dollars A Year, Then You Will Not See One Dime's Worth Of Tax Increase.

I Didn't Have A Perfect Model, But I Wanted To Try To Blend My Own Personal Reflections And Experiences With This Broader Canvas To See How A Lot Of The Narratives We Have About Economy And Foreign Policy Got Stuck. Because We Have These Categories Of Liberal, Conservative, Free Marketer, Open Government - All These Stereotypes About Our Politics And The Categories We Try To Put Things In Are Inadequate To This Sort Of Complex, Ambiguous, Sometimes Contradictory Experience We Have As Ordinary People And That I Have As An Elected Official.

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

Religious Concerns Ok, If Translated Into Universal Values.

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.

Iran . . . Has Failed To Take The Opportunity To Demonstrate That Its Nuclear Program Is Peaceful . . . Time Is Not Unlimited.

I Get A Thick Book Full Of Death, Destruction, Strife, And Chaos. That's What I Take With My Morning Tea.

What We Also Have To Recognize Is That The Deficit Levels That I'm Inheriting, Over A Trillion Dollars, Coming Out Of Last Year, That That Is Unsustainable. At A Certain Point, Other Countries Stop Buying Our Debt, At A Certain Point, We'd End Up Having To Raise Interest Rates, And It Would End Up Creating More Economic Chaos And Potentially Inflation.

You Know, The Bowling Alley Doesn‘t Seem To Be Improving My Game. That‘s The One Thing I Have Noticed.

The Belief That Peace Is Desirable Is Rarely Enough To Achieve It. Peace Requires Responsibility. Peace Entails Sacrifice.

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.

If There's Even One Thing We Can Do - Even One Life We Can Save - We Have An Obligation To Try

Our Efforts Will Only Be Effective If Ordinary Citizens In Other Countries Have Confidence That The United States Respects Their Privacy Too. And The Leaders Of Our Close Friends And Allies Deserve To Know That If I Want To Learn What They Think About An Issue, I Will Pick Up The Phone And Call Them, Rather Than Turning To Surveillance.

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

People Of Berlin - People Of The World - This Is Our Moment. This Is Our Time.

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

American Values

In Terms Of My Conversations With [vladimir] Putin, These Are Conversations That Took Place Before The Election. As I Indicated, There Has Been Very Clear Proof That They Have Engaged In Cyber Attacks. This Isn't New. It's Not Unique To Russia. There Are A Number Of States Where We've Seen Low-level Cyber Attacks And Industrial Espionage And, You Know, Other Behavior That We Think Should Be Out Of Bounds.

I Am Encouraged By The President-elect's [donald Trump] Insistence That Nato Is A Commitment That Does Not Change. And His Full Commitment To Nato As The Foundation For Our International Security I Think Is Very Important.

But While They're Adding Teachers In Places Like South Korea, We're Laying Them Off In Droves. It's Unfair To Our Kids. It Undermines Their Future And Ours. And It Has To Stop. Pass This Bill, And Put Our Teachers Back In The Classroom Where They Belong.

I Think Back To The Day I Drove Michelle And A Newborn Malia Home From The Hospital Nearly 11 Years Ago - Crawling Along, Miles Under The Speed Limit, Feeling The Weight Of My Daughter's Future Resting In My Hands. I Think About The Pledge I Made To Her That Day: That I Would Give Her What I Never Had - That If I Could Be Anything In Life, I Would Be A Good Father. I Knew That Day That My Own Life Wouldn't Count For Much Unless She Had Every Opportunity In Hers.

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

I Do Think That Saving The Economy Was A Pretty Big Deal. We Did A Lot Of Stuff Early That Ended Up Having An Impact. I Believe That The Work We've Done In Moving Our Energy Future In A Cleaner Direction Is Going To Stick Even If Some Of The Individual Steps That We Took Are Reversed By Future Administrations. I Think That It's Embedded Itself In The Economy.

We Can Have Reasonable, Thoughtful Gun Control Measure That I Think Respect The Second Amendment And People's Traditions.

The War Does Not End When You Come Home. It Lives On In Memories Of Your Fellow Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen And Marines Who Gave Their Lives. It Endures In The Wound That Is Slow To Heal, The Disability That Isn't Going Away, The Dream That Wakes You At Night, Or The Stiffening In Your Spine When A Car Backfires Down The Street.

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

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 Irony Is That We've Seen This Model Work Really Well In Massachusetts Because Gov. Romney Did A Good Thing, Working With Democrats In The State To Set Up What Is Essentially The Identical Model And, As A Consequence, People Are Covered There. It Hasn't Destroyed Jobs. And As A Consequence, We Now Have A System In Which We Have The Opportunity To Start Bringing Down Costs As Opposed To Just Leaving Millions Of People Out In The Cold." "gov. Romney Said This Has To Be Done On A Bipartisan Basis

Everybody Acknowledges That The Current Path We're On Is Unsustainable, Not Just For The People Who Don't Have Health Insurance But For Those Who Do.

That Is The Nature Of Democracy. It Is Hard. It Is Not Always Inspiring.

We Will Outstretch The Hand If You Unclench Your Fist.

Now, In Practice, In Daily Social Interactions, Etc., There May Be All Kinds Of Biases And Prejudices That Are Unspoken, That People Aren't Aware Of, That Affect Who's Hired, And Who Gets Loans, And How Kids Are Treated In School. But It's A Powerful Thing If You Have On Your Side An Idea That The Overwhelming Majority Of People Believe In Because That's How You Can Build A Consensus That's Lasting.

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

Legislative Process

We Live In A Culture That Discourages Empathy. A Culture That Too Often Tells Us Our Principle Goal In Life Is To Be Rich, Thin, Young, Famous, Safe, And Entertained.

I Think It Is Important First Of All That The President Of The United States Underscores Our Commitment To Partnering With Countries Around The World, Even Though We're Not Intimidated By Terrorist Organisations.

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.

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.

We Created A Whole Lot Of Millionaires To Boot. Businesses Did Just Fine. And You Know There Are Plenty Of Patriotic, Successful Americans All Across The Country -- I Meet Them Every Day -- Who'd Be Willing To Make This Contribution Again Because They Understand There Is Such A Thing As The Common Good. They Understand That We're In This Thing Together.

I Think It Is Important For Europe To Understand That Even Though I Am President And George Bush Is Not President, Al Qaeda Is Still A Threat.

We Won't Apologise For Our Way Of Life, Nor Will We Weaver In Its Defence, And For Those Who Seek To Advance Their Aims By Inducing Terror And Slaughtering Innocents, We Say To You Now That Our Spirit Is Stronger And Cannot Be Broken, You Cannot Outlast Us, And We Will Defeat You.

Let's Also Say That The Justice Department And The Courts Are Making Sure, As I've Said In A Speech Before, That When Jamal Sends His Résumé In, He's Getting Treated The Same As When Johnny Sends His Résumé In.now, Are We Going To Have Suddenly The Same Number Of Ceos, Billionaires, Etc., As The White Community? In 10 Years? Probably Not, Maybe Not Even In 20 Years. But I Guarantee You That We Would Be Thriving, We Would Be Succeeding. We Wouldn't Have Huge Numbers Of Young African American Men In Jail.

If You've Got A Business - You Didn't Build That.

Presidential Election

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

Over The Last 15 Months, We've Traveled To Every Corner Of The United States. I've Now Been In 57 States? I Think One Left To Go.

The Biggest Challenge, I Think, Is Always Maintaining Your Moral Compass.

Rather Than Double-down On The Top-down Economics That Let A Fortunate Few Play By Their Own Rules, Let’s Embrace An Economic Patriotism That Says We Rise Or Fall Together, As One Nation, And As One People.

Mr Speaker, Mr Vice President, Members Of Congress, Distinguished Guests, And Fellow Americans, Last Month I Went To Andrews Air Force Base And Welcomed Home Some Of Our Last Troops To Serve In Iraq. Together, We Offered A Final, Proud Salute To The Colors Under Which More Than A Million Of Our Fellow Citizens Fought, And Several Thousand Gave Their Lives. We Gather Tonight Knowing That This Generation Of Heroes Has Made The United States Safer And More Respected Around The World.

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.

N Case You Missed It, This Week, There Was A Tragedy In Kansas. Ten Thousand People Died - An Entire Town Destroyed.

When We Think About Immigration, We Have To Understand There Are Folks All Around The World Who Still See America As The Land Of Promise. And They Provide Us Energy, And They Provide Us Innovation. And They Start Companies Like Intel And Google, And We Want To Encourage That.

[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.

There Are Certain Occupations - Probably, Most Prominently, Politics - Where There Would Be A Bias Against Somebody Who's Agnostic Or Atheist In Running For Office.

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