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It Ought To Concern Every Person, Because It Is A Debasement Of Our Common Humanity. It Ought To Concern Every Community, Because It Tears At Our Social Fabric. It Ought To Concern Every Business, Because It Distorts Markets. It Ought To Concern Every Nation, Because It Endangers Public Health And Fuels Violence And Organized Crime. I’m Talking About The Injustice, The Outrage, Of Human Trafficking, Which Must Be Called By Its True Name - Modern Slavery.

-Barack Obama

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It Ought To Concern

Barack Obama

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It Ought To Concern Every Person, Because It Is A Debasement Of Our Common Humanity. It Ought To Concern Every Community, Because It Tears At Our Social Fabric. It Ought To Concern Every Business, Because It Distorts Markets. It Ought To Concern Every Nation, Because It Endangers Public Health And Fuels Violence And Organized Crime. I’m Talking About The Injustice, The Outrage, Of Human Trafficking, Which Must Be Called By Its True Name - Modern Slavery.

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Common Humanity

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It Is Legitimate For The Turks To Try To Defend Themselves.

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One Thing I Will Not Compromise Over Is Whether Or Not Congress Should Pay The Tab For A Bill They've Already Racked Up. If Congress Refuses To Give The United States The Ability To Pay Its Bills On Time, The Consequences For The Entire Global Economy Could Be Catastrophic.

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I Delivered A Clear And Forceful Message That Although We Recognize Russia's Intelligence Gathering Will Sometimes Take Place Even If We Don't Like It, There's A Difference Between That Than Either Meddling With Elections Or Going After Private Organizations Or Commercial Entities, And That We're Monitoring It Carefully, And We Will Respond Appropriately If And When We See This Happening.

The Problem Is That, Over Time, Big Pieces Of Business That Have To Get Done Without Leadership From Washington, Don't Get Done.

I Do Think Brexit Vote Speaks To The Ongoing Changes And Challenges That Are Raised By Globalisation.

Perhaps I Possess A Certain Midwestern Sensibility That I Inherited From My Mother And Her Parents, A Sensibility That Warren Buffet Seems To Share: That At A Certain Point One Has Enough, That You Can Derive As Much Pleasure From A Picasso Hanging In A Museum As From One That's Hanging In Your Den, That You Can Get An Awfully Good Meal In A Restaurant For Less Than Twenty Dollars, And That Once Your Drapes Cost More Than The Average American's Yearly Salary, Then You Can Afford To Pay A Bit More In Taxes.

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Last Time I Checked, Congress Was Created To Uphold The Values Of The Constitution, Not The Bible And Its Biased Teachings. 'all Men (including Women) Are Created Equal' And Are Afforded Unalienable Rights. Way To Go, Mr. President! Stand Up For What You Believe And For The People Of This Country.

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

There Is A Certain Percentage Of The White Population ... If They Started Having More Middle-class Black Kids Who Are Friends With Their Kids, Eating Cheerios In Their Kitchen, Their Attitudes Start Changing.

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

For Top Executives To Award Themselves These Kinds Of Compensation Packages In The Midst Of This Economic Crisis Isn't Just Bad Taste, It's Bad Strategy, And I Will Not Tolerate It As President.

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

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I Have Made It Clear That We Will Hunt Down Terrorists Who Threaten Our Country, Wherever They Are. That Means I Will Not Hesitate To Take Action Against Isil In Syria, As Well As Iraq. This Is A Core Principle Of My Presidency: If You Threaten America, You Will Find No Safe Haven.

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

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No One Is Exempt From The Call To Find Common Ground.

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You Can't Just Heely Away From Your Problems Forever

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That Is The American Story. People, Just Like You, Following Their Passions, Determined To Meet The Times On Their Own Terms. They Weren't Doing It For The Money. Their Titles Weren't Fancy. But They Changed The Course Of History And So Can You.

Everyone On My Team Should Be Extraordinarily Proud Of What They Have Done.

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History Doesn't Always Move In A Straight Line. Sometimes It Zigs And Zags.

We've Got To Make Sure That Teachers Are Respected, That They Are Rewarded, That Young People Like Yourself Who Have Talent And Want To Work With People, That You're Able To Support Yourself And Live Out A Great Life Being A Teacher.

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.

Obviously I'm Grayer, A Few More Wrinkles. One Of The Things I'm Proud About Is That I Think My Basic Character And Outlook Actually Have Not Changed Much. And People Who Are Closest To Me Will Tell You That The Guy Who Came Here Is The Same Guy Who's Leaving.

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.

We Lose Ourselves When We Compromise The Very Ideals That We Fight To Defend. And We Honor Those Ideals By Upholding Them Not When It's Easy, But When It Is Hard.

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

We Are A Nation Of Laws.

There Isn't Anyone Who Can't Serve ... Nobody Who Can't Help Somebody Else.

I Have 90 Percent Or 95 Percent Support In The African American Community And It's Not Sort Of "well, He's Black, So It's Okay. We're Not Going To Say Anything Even Though We're Seething." And I Hang Out With A Lot Of Middle-aged Black Women, And They're Not Casual In Their Support Of Me. There's A Lot Of Love Forthcoming. Partly Because They Understand The Constraints Of This Society. They Know That This Is Hard.

African American

I'm Asking You To Believe. Not Just In My Ability To Bring About Real Change In Washington . . . I'm Asking You To Believe In Yours." Keeping Faith With Those Who Serve Must Always Be A Core American Value And A Cornerstone Of American Patriotism. Because America's Commitment To Its Servicemen And Women Begins At Enlistment, And It Must Never End.

In The Unlikely Story That Is America, There Has Never Been Anything False About Hope. For When We Have Faced Down Impossible Odds; When We've Been Told That We're Not Ready, Or That We Shouldn't Try, Or That We Can't, Generations Of Americans Have Responded With A Simple Creed That Sums Up The Spirit Of A People: Yes We Can.

We Have To Have Better Intelligence. We Have To Have Better Interdiction Capabilities. And So The Issue Is Not How Much We Spend Or How Hard We Try; The Issue Is Are We Doing It The Right Way? Are We Being Smart About It?

I Would Not Have The Justice Department Prosecuting And Raiding Medical Marijuana Users. It's Not A Good Use Of Our Resources.

We Cannot Stop Every Act Of Senseless Violence. We Cannot Know Every Evil That Lurks In Troubled Minds. But If We Can Prevent Even One Tragedy Like This, Save Even One Life, Spare Other Families What These Families Are Going Through, Surely We've Got An Obligation To Try.

The Single Biggest Threat That We Face Is A Nuclear Weapon Or Some Weapon Of Mass Destruction. What That Means Is That We Have To Be Extraordinarily Aggressive And Vigilant In Controlling Nuclear Proliferation.

Mass Destruction

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.

We Reject The Use Of National Security Letters To Spy On Citizens Who Are Not Suspected Of A Crime.

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

The Sort Of Seeing Cruelty And Callousness Of That Sort From Young People Is Heartbreaking.

I Don't Want To Jump The Gun, [but] I Will Tell You, Though, That My Goal Is To Have The Best Possible Government.

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Iran Has Made Vile Comments, Anti-semitic Comments, Comments About The Destruction Of Israel. It Is Precisely For That Reason That Even Before I Became President, I Said Iran Could Not Have A Nuclear Weapon.

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We're Not Going To Have You Burdening The Health System.

Contrary To The Rumours You Have Heard, I Was Not Born In A Manger. I Was Actually Born On Krypton And Sent Here By My Father, Jor-el, To Save The Planet Earth.

The Future Rewards Those Who Press On. I Don't Have Time To Feel Sorry For Myself. I Don't Have Time To Complain. I'm Going To Press On.

That's Just How White Folks Will Do You. It Wasn't Merely The Cruelty Involved; I Was Learning That Black People Could Be Mean And Then Some. It Was A Particular Brand Of Arrogance, An Obtuseness In Otherwise Sane People That Brought Forth Our Bitter Laughter. It Was As If Whites Didn't Know They Were Being Cruel In The First Place. Or At Least Thought You Deserved Of Their Scorn.

Isil Is A Terrorist Organization, Pure And Simple. And It Has No Vision Other Than The Slaughter Of All Who Stand In Its Way.

Toughest Decision Was Early In My Presidency When I Ordered 30,000 More Troops Into Afghanistan. As Somebody Who Had Run To End A Large Troop Presence Overseas.

I Stand Here Today Humbled By The Task Before Us, Grateful For The Trust You Have Bestowed, Mindful Of The Sacrifices Borne By Our Ancestors.

If I Had A Son, He'd Look Like Trayvon.

I'm So Overexposed, I'm Making Paris Hilton Look Like A Recluse.

That's Part Of What I Tried To Describe To My Team And Supporters After The Election, There Was A Lot Of Disappointment.

Our Founding Fathers, Faced With Perils We Can Scarcely Imagine, Drafted A Charter To Assure The Rule Of Law And The Rights Of Man, A Charter Expanded By The Blood Of Generations. Those Ideals Still Light The World, And We Will Not Give Them Up For Expedience's Sake.

You Have To Be Involved In Terms Of What's Happening In Your Local Neighborhood And What Issues Are There.

We Think About The Enormous Costs Of Homelessness, Or The Enormous Cost Of Hiv/aids, Over The Long Term, As People Visit Emergency Rooms, Etc. The More We Are Investing In That Ounce Of Prevention The Better Off We're Going To Be.

Our Intelligence Communities Spend A Lot Of Time And Effort Gathering A Lot Of Strands And A Lot Of Data [on Russian Hacking]. There Are Times Where They're Very Cautious And They Say, "we Think This Is What Happened, But We're Not Certain."

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.

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

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.

[with Donald Trump] We Are Moving Into An Era Where A Lot Of People Get Their Information Through Tweets And Sound Bites And Some Headline That Comes Over Their Phone.

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

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.

When You Try To Sow The Seeds Of Doubt In People`s Minds About The Legitimacy Of Our Election, That Undermines Democracy. Then You`re Doing The Work Of Our Adversaries For Them.

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

Iran Will For Sure Have Pledged To The International Community That It Will Not Develop A Nuclear Weapon, And Now Will Be Subject To An Additional Protocol, A More Vigorous Inspection And Monitoring Regime That Lasts In Perpetuity.

Ten Thousand People Died, An Entire Town Destroyed.

Unfortunately, You've Grown Up Hearing Voices That Incessantly Warn Of Government As Nothing More Than Some Separate, Sinister Entity That's At The Root Of All Our Problems. Some Of These Same Voices Also Do Their Best To Gum Up The Works. They'll Warn That Tyranny Is Always Lurking Just Around The Corner. You Should Reject These Voices.

More Than A Building That Houses Books And Data, The Library Represents A Window To A Larger World, The Place Where We've Always Come To Discover Big Ideas And Profound Concepts That Help Move The American Story Forward And The Human Story Forward.

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

My Administration Is Committed To Creating An Unprecedented Level Of Openness In Government.

Broken Promises

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

Now You Have A Choice: We Can Give More Tax Breaks To Corporations That Ship Jobs Overseas, Or We Can Start Rewarding Companies That Open New Plants And Train New Workers And Create New Jobs Here, In The United States Of America.

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.

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

The Path Of America's Development Is Never A Straight Line. Sometimes We Move In Ways That Are Forwards; Sometime That Seem Back.

All Too Rarely Do I Hear People Asking Just What It Is That We've Done To Make So Many Children's Hearts So Hard, Or What Collectively We Might Do To Right Their Moral Compass - What Values We Must Live By.

The United States Has Been Enriched By Muslim Americans. Many Other Americans Have Muslims In Their Families Or Have Lived In A Muslim-majority Country - I Know, Because I Am One Of Them.

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.

For More Than Four Decades, The Libyan People Have Been Ruled By A Tyrant - Moammar Gaddafi. He Has Denied His People Freedom, Exploited Their Wealth, Murdered Opponents At Home And Abroad, And Terrorized Innocent People Around The World - Including Americans Who Were Killed By Libyan Agents.

I Am Designating A New Director Of Recovery For Auto Communities And Workers To Cut Through Red Tape And Ensure That The Full Resources Of Our Federal Government Are Leveraged To Assist The Workers, Communities, And Regions That Rely On Our Auto Industry.

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.

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.

What Is True In The South Is True For America.

Don't Get Cynical. Don't Ever Think You Can't Make A Difference.

And We Remember The End Of Our Combat Mission And The Emergence Of A New Dawn - The Precision Of Our Efforts Against Al Qaeda In Iraq, The Professionalism Of The Training Of Iraqi Security Forces, And The Steady Drawdown Of Our Forces. In Handing Over Responsibility To The Iraqis, You Preserved The Gains Of The Last Four Years And Made This Day Possible.

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

African American

Any Strategy To Reduce Intergenerational Poverty Has To Be Centered On Work, Not Welfare--not Only Because Work Provides Independence And Income But Also Because Work Provides Order, Structure, Dignity, And Opportunities For Growth In People's Lives.

I Hope We Can All Agree That, Instead Of Continuing To Subsidize Yesterday's Energy Sources. We Need To Invest In Tomorrow's.

So I Came To My Christian Faith Later In Life, And It Was Because The Precepts Of Jesus Christ Spoke To Me In Terms Of The Kind Of Life That I Would Want To Lead. Jesus Christ Dying For My Sins Spoke To The Humility We All Have To Have As Human Beings, That We're Sinful And We're Flawed And We Make Mistakes, And That We Achieve Salvation Through The Grace Of God.

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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