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It's Time To Fundamentally Change The Way That We Do Business In Washington. To Help Build A New Foundation For The 21st Century, We Need To Reform Our Government So That It Is More Efficient, More Transparent, And More Creative. That Will Demand New Thinking And A New Sense Of Responsibility For Every Dollar That Is Spent.

-Barack Obama

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It's Time To Fundamentally

Barack Obama

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It's Time To Fundamentally Change The Way That We Do Business In Washington. To Help Build A New Foundation For The 21st Century, We Need To Reform Our Government So That It Is More Efficient, More Transparent, And More Creative. That Will Demand New Thinking And A New Sense Of Responsibility For Every Dollar That Is Spent.

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One Of The Interesting Things About Being In Public Life Is There Are Constantly These Pressures Being Placed On You From Different Sides. To Be Effective, You Have To Be Able To Listen To A Variety Of Points Of View, Synthesize Viewpoints.

Let's Say I'm On The Policy Wonk End Of The Spectrum. As Much As I Can Dive Into A Briefing Book And Really Work To Master Various Subjects That Come Before My Desk, I'm Still Not An Expert On A Huge Amount Of The Stuff That We Work On.

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

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.

We Have To Focus On How Do We Ensure The Economy Works For Everybody, And Not Just A Few.

We Will Not Hesitate To Speak Out When We See Actions That Contradict Those Values.

I Favor Legalizing Same-sex Marriages, And Would Fight Efforts To Prohibit Such Marriages.

Where You Are Right Now Doesn't Have To Determine Where You'll End Up.

Good Afternoon, Everybody-ugh, Jesus, Gimme A Sec.

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

Futures Together

The President Is Eager To Get To Work And Looks Forward To Working With The New Congress On Policies That Will Make Sure Middle-class Americans Are Sharing In The Economic Recovery, But The President Is Clear That He Will Not Let This Congress Undo Important Protections Gained -- Particularly In Areas Of Health Care, Wall Street Reform And The Environment.

Now, Because He Knows That His Economic Theories Don't Work, He's Been Spending These Last Few Days Calling Me Every Name In The Book. Lately He's Called Me A Socialist For Wanting To Roll-back The Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthiest Americans So We Can Finally Give Tax Relief To The Middle Class. I Don't Know What's Next. By The End Of The Week He'll Be Accusing Me Of Being A Secret Communist Because I Shared My Toys In Kindergarten. I Shared My Peanut Butter And Jelly Sandwich.

In Your Generation, Everybody Is Constantly Bombarded With All Kinds Of Different Input From Different Cultures, And That's A Strength, That's A Positive Thing. That's Why I Remain Confident About America's Ability To Compete In The World, Precisely Because We've Got A Little Bit Of Everybody In This Country.

Michelle And I Don't Want Anyone Telling Us Who Our Family's Doctor Should Be - And No One Should Decide That For You Either. Under Our Proposals, If You Like Your Doctor, You Keep Your Doctor. If You Like Your Current Insurance, You Keep That Insurance. Period, End Of Story.

With The Magnitude Of The Challenges We Face Right Now, What We Need In Washington Are Not More Political Tactics, We Need More Good Ideas. We Don't Need More Point Scoring, We Need More Problem Solving.

When We Start Using Religion As A Bludgeon In Politics, When We Start Questioning Other People's Faith, We Start Using Religion To Divide, Instead Of Bring The Country Together, Then I Think We've Got A Problem.

Let's Take The Money That We've Been Spending On War Over The Last Decade To Rebuild America, Roads, Bridges Schools. We Do Those Things, Not Only Is Your Future Going To Be Bright But America's Future Is Going To Bright As Well.

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.

If It's On Facebook, It All Looks The Same.

Change Has Come To America.

Reinvigorating The Civil Rights Division Of The Justice Department, Making Sure That In Our Department Of Education, Where We See Evidence Of Black Boys Being Suspended At Substantially Higher Rates Than White Boys For The Same Behavior, In The Absence Of That Kind Of Rigorous Enforcement Of The Nondiscrimination Principle, Then The Long-standing Biases That I Believe Have Weakened, But Are Still Clearly Present In Our Society, Assert Themselves In Ways That Usually Disadvantage African Americans.

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.

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

What Is Required Of Us Now Is A New Era Of Responsibility - A Recognition, On The Part Of Every American, That We Have Duties To Ourselves, Our Nation, And The World, Duties That We Do Not Grudgingly Accept But Rather Seize Gladly, Firm In The Knowledge That There Is Nothing So Satisfying To The Spirit, So Defining Of Our Character, Than Giving Our All To A Difficult Task. This Is The Price And The Promise Of Citizenship.

But Something Stirred Across The Country Because Of What Happened In Selma, Alabama, Because Some Folks Were Willing To March Across A Bridge. And So They [my Parents] Got Together, Barack Obama Jr. Was Born. So Don't Tell Me I Don't Have A Claim On Selma, Alabama. Don't Tell Me I'm Not Coming Home When I Come To Selma, Alabama.

You Could See A Man Talking To Himself As Just Plain Crazy, Or Read About The Criminal On The Front Page Of The Daily Paper And Ponder The Corruption Of The Human Heart, Without Having To Think About Whether The Criminal Or Lunatic Said Something About Your Own Fate.

I Think That There's A Power In That [information Through Tweets And Sound Bites ]. There's Also A Danger, What Generates A Headline Or Stirs Up A Controversy And Gets Attention Isn't The Same As The Process Required To Actually Solve The Problem.

We Are Not Going To Have A Situation Where Our Education Spending Goes Back To Its Lowest Level Since The Year 2000 Despite A Larger Population And More Kids To Educate. We Know That The Single Most Important Thing In Terms Of How Well We Can Compete Around The World Is The Quality Of Our Workforce. We Can't Do That To Our Kids.

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

Democracies Have

One Of The Best Parts Of The Holiday Season Is Spending Time With The Special People In Your Life.

People In Your Life

People Take Pride In Being Irish-american And Italian-american. They Have A Particular Culture That Infuses The Whole Culture And Makes It Richer And More Interesting. I Think If We Can Expand That Attitude To Embrace African-americans And Latino-americans And Asian-americans, Then We Will Be In A Position Where All Our Kids Can Feel Comfortable With The Worlds They Are Coming Out Of, Knowing They Are Part Of Something Larger.

The Only Time I Get Frustrated With Activist Criticism Is If I Have Recognized Them, And Invited Them To Work With Me To Figure Out How We Solve This Problem That They're Concerned About, And Either They Don't Engage Out Of The Sense Of Purity - "i'm Not Going To Shake His Hand" - Or You're Not Sufficiently Prepared So You Don't Even Know What To Ask For, Or You're Not Being Strategic As An Activist And Trying To Figure Out How The Process Has To Work In Order For You To Get What You Want.

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

To Those Of You Mourn The Loss Of A Loved One Today, My Heart Goes Out To You. We Remember That The Blessings That We Enjoy As Americans Came At A Dear Cost. Our Nation Owes A Debt To Its Fallen Heroes That We Cannot Ever Fully Repay. But We Can Honor Their Sacrifice, And We Must. We Must Honor It In Our Own Lives By Holding Their Memories Close To Our Hearts, And Heeding The Example They Set.

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.

It's Important To Know That The Vast Majority Of People Who Were Excited In 2008 Are Still Really Enthusiastic. We've Got More Volunteers Now Than Ever, And They're Engaged, They're Motivated, They're Not Paying Attention To The Ups And Downs Of Polls Or Washington.

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.

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

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 Won Iowa Not Because The Demographics Dictated That I Would Win Iowa. It Was Because I Spent 87 Days Going To Every Small Town And Fair And Fish Fry And Bfw Hall, And There Were Some Counties Where I Might Have Lost, But Maybe I Lost By 20 Points Instead Of 50 Points. There's Some Counties Maybe I Won, That People Didn't Expect, Because People Had A Chance To See You And Listen To You And Get A Sense Of Who You Stood For And Who You Were Fighting For.

Some People Only Speak Of Freedom Of Speech While They're Out Of Power. Once They're In Power, They're Ruthless In Suppressing The Rights Of Others.

Freedom Of Speech

Many Of You Know That I Got My Name, Barack, From My Father. What You May Not Know Is Barack Is Actually Swahili For 'that One.' And I Got My Middle Name From Somebody Who Obviously Didn't Think I'd Ever Run For President.

We Cannot Help But Believe That The Old Hatreds Shall Someday Pass; That The Lines Of Tribe Shall Soon Dissolve; That As The World Grows Smaller, Our Common Humanity Shall Reveal Itself.

Common Humanity

[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.

As I Travel Around The World, It's Fascinating; European Leaders, Asian Leaders, They All Say To Me, America Is Actually Poised To Be The World Leader For Another Century - If We Can Fix Some Of This Political Dysfunction. ... We've Got A Lot Of National Security Challenges, But If We Get Our Economy Together, And If We Can Get Our Political System To Work Well, I Am Really Confident About Our Future.

Climate Change Constitutes A Serious Threat To Global Security, An Immediate Risk To Our National Security, And, Make No Mistake, It Will Impact How Our Military Defends Our Country.

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

Suppressing Ideas Never Succeeds In Making Them Go Away.

My Goal Is Not To Resolve Conflicts And Tensions In The Region Through More War. My Goal Is To Make Sure That, You Know, We Are Able To Negotiate A Deal That We Can Verify.

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

I Don't Think The Democrats Should Think In Narrow Tactical Terms About Mid-term Elections.

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.

In Europe, Where The Terrorist Threat Is Probably Greatest At The Moment, The Amount Of Information-sharing That's Been Taking Place, The Effectiveness Of Law Enforcement Across Borders Gives Us The Ability To Protect Ourselves While Still Being True To The Basic Precepts Of Our Liberal Democracies. I Hope That That Continues, And It Is Something That I Think We Should Be Worried About.

I Have Become A Symbol Of The Possibility Of America Returning To Our Best Traditions.

In The Face Of Impossible Odds, People Who Love This Country Can Change It.

When Bp Was Not Moving Fast Enough On Claims, We Told Bp To Set Aside $20 Billion In A Fund - Managed By An Independent Third Party - To Help All Those Whose Lives Have Been Turned Upside Down By The Spill.

I Think That Donald Trump Is Coming To This Office With Fewer Set Hard-and-fast Policy Prescriptions Than A Lot Of Other Presidents Might Be Arriving With.

National Legislation Will Prevent Other States' Flawed Concealed-weapons Laws From Threatening The Safety Of Illinois Residents.

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

You Have Countries Like India That Have Tried To Help Untouchables, With Essentially Affirmative-action Programs, But It Hasn't Fundamentally Changed The Structure Of Their Societies.

Will Not Collect A Ransom In Exchange For Not Crashing The American Economy.

American Economy

Abraham Lincoln And Millard Fillmore Had The Same Title. They Were Both Presidents Of The United States, But Their Tenure In Office And Their Legacy Could Not Be More Different.

I Do Have Confidence That We're Gonna Be Able To Get It Right. But It's Not Gonna Be Overnight. And There's No Silver Bullets To This. The Fact Of The Matter Is, Is That We Are Suffering From A Massive Hangover From A Binge Of Risk Taking.

[a]lthough The Principle Of Equality Has Always Been Self-evident, It Has Never Been Self-executing.

We Do Not Want To Keep Our Troops In Afghanistan. We See No Military - We Seek No Military Bases There. It Is Agonizing For America To Lose Our Young Men And Women. It Is Costly And Politically Difficult To Continue This Conflict. We Would Gladly Bring Every Single One Of Our Troops Home If We Could Be Confident That There Were Not Violent Extremists In Afghanistan And Now Pakistan Determined To Kill As Many Americans As They Possibly Can.

The American People Are Going To Have A Good Choice.

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.

The President Of The United States Is Supposed To Lead The Free World And Not Follow It. Other Nations Have Been More Outspoken. So, I Hope That We'll Hear More Of This Because Young Men And Women Taking To The Streets In Tehran Need Our Support. The Signs Are In English. They're Basically Asking For Us To Speak Up On Their Behalf.

Of All The Rocks Upon Which We Build Our Lives, We Are Reminded Today That Family Is The Most Important. And We Are Called To Recognize And Honor How Critical Every Father Is To That Foundation. They Are Teachers And Coaches. They Are Mentors And Role Models. They Are Examples Of Success And The Men Who Constantly Push Us Toward It.

When It Comes To The Budget, We Know That We Shouldn't Be Cutting More On Core Investments, Like Education, That Are Going To Help Us Grow In The Future. And We've Already Seen The Deficit Cut In Half. It's Going Down Faster Than Any Time In The Last 60 Years. So Why Would We Make More Cuts In Education, More Cuts In Basic Research? Nobody Thinks That's A Good Idea.

I Don't Know The Facts Of When Joe Soptic's Wife Got Sick Or When She Died.

There Was A Time When If You Had A Financial Crisis In Southeast Asia Somewhere, It Had No Impact On Our Markets. Today It Does.

I Have Muslim Members Of My Family. I Have Lived In Muslim Countries.

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

You Work With What You Got.

Everybody Potentially Can Make The Claim That We Should All Be Treated Fairly.

The Problem Is That The Way [president] Bush Has Done It Over The Last Eight Years Is To Take Out A Credit Card From The Bank Of China In The Name Of Our Children, Driving Up Our National Debt From $5 Trillion Dollars For The First 42 Presidents - Number 43 Added $4 Trillion Dollars By His Lonesome - So That We Now Have Over $9 Trillion Dollars Of Debt That We Are Going To Have To Pay Back. [that's] $30,000 For Every Man, Woman And Child. That's Irresponsible. It's Unpatriotic.

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

If We're Going To Prevent People From Being Susceptible To The False Promises Of Extremism, Then The International Community Has To Offer Something Better And The United States Intends To Do Its Part.

A Change Is Brought About Because Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things.

Rand`s [paul] A Libertarian. He Has A View Of The World That I Don`t Share. He Said That We Shouldn`t Have Any Troops In Iraq. He Agreed With Obama That Was A Disaster. When There Was A Chance To Do Something Constructive About Syria With A No-fly Zone, He Said We Don`t Need One.

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.

Take Off Your Bedroom Slippers, Put On Your Marching Shoes. Shake It Off. Stop Complaining, Stop Grumbling, Stop Crying. We Are Going To Press On. We’ve Got Work To Do.

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

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

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

You Are Part Of The First Generation Of Officers To Begin Your Service In A World Where The Effects Of Climate Change Are So Clearly Upon Us. Climate Change Will Shape How Every One Of Our Services Plan, Operate, Train, Equip, And Protect Their Infrastructure, Today And For The Long-term.

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.

I Think The Greek People, Although It Is Difficult And Challenging And The Politics Of It I Know Are Not Good, Should Appreciate The Fact That In This Global Economy, The Greek Economy Was Going To Have To Go Through Some Structural Reforms.

Today, I Can Report That, As Promised, The Rest Of Our Troops In Iraq Will Come Home By The End Of The Year.

The Trick Is Figuring Out How Do We Structure Government Systems That Pool Resources, And Hence Facilitate Some [wealth] Redistribution, Because I Actually Believe In Redistribution, At Least At A Certain Level, To Make Sure That Everybody's Got A Shot.

I Think There Is Nothing Wrong With Instituting Policies That Say That Harassment Of Any Form, Whether It Comes Through The Internet Or Whether It Happens To You Face To Face, Is Unacceptable; That We've Got Zero Tolerance When It Comes To Sexual Harassment, We Have Zero Tolerance When It Comes To Harassing People Because Of Their Sexual Orientation, Because Of Their Race, Because Of Their Ethnicity.

If You Want Some Additional Money For Your School, We'll Give It To You. But You've Got To Compete, Show Us That You're Going To Reform Your Education System So That Our Children Are Performing Better.

One Of The Things I Think The Next President Has To Do Is To Stop Fanning People's Fears. If We Spend All Our Time Feeding The American People Fear And Conflict And Division, Then They Become Fearful And Conflicted And Divided. And If We Feed Them Hope And We Feed Them Reason And Tolerance, Then They Will Become Tolerant And Reasonable And Hopeful.

It Took A Lot Of Blood, Sweat And Tears To Get To Where We Are Today, But We Have Just Begun. Today We Begin In Earnest The Work Of Making Sure That The World We Leave Our Children Is Just A Little Bit Better Than The One We Inhabit Today.

We Had A Farewell Dinner For Some Of My Senior Staff, And Generally Everybody Likes To Talk About How Cool I Was.

It Is Moments Like These That Force Us To Try Harder, And Dig Deeper, And To Discover Gifts We Never Knew We Had - To Find The Greatness That Lies Within Each Of Us.

Weapons Of War Have No Place On Our Streets.

When I Talked To [donald Trump] About - Our Intelligence Agencies, What I've Said To Him Is - Is That There Are Gonna Be Times Where You've Got Raw Intelligence That Comes In And In My Experience, Over Eight Years, The Intelligence Community Is Pretty Good About Saying, "look, We Can't Say For Certain What This Means." But There Are Gonna Be Times Where The Only Way You Can Make A Good Decision Is If You Have Confidence That The Process Is Working, And The People That You Put In Charge Are Giving You Their Very Best Assessments.

Let Us Reach For The World That Ought To Be -- That Spark Of The Divine That Still Stirs Within Each Of Our Souls.

[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'm Going To Tell The American People What I Believe Will Make This Country Great.

We Have An Obligation And A Responsibility To Be Investing In Our Students And Our Schools.

The Importance Of Making Sure That The Sense Of Accountability When, In Fact, Law Enforcement Is Involved In A Deadly Shooting Is Something That I Think Communities Across The Board Are Going To Need To Consider, We Have A Great Opportunity, Coming Out Of Some Great Conflict And Tragedy, To Really Transform How We Think About Community Law Enforcement Relations So That Everybody Feels Safer And Our Law Enforcement Officers Feel, Rather Than Being Embattled, Feel Fully Supported.

When It Comes To Preventing Iran From Obtaining A Nuclear Weapon, I Will Take No Options Off The Table. ... That Includes All Elements Of American Power: A Political Effort Aimed At Isolating Iran, A Diplomatic Effort To Sustain Our Coalition And Ensure That The Iranian Program Is Monitored, An Economic Effort That Imposes Crippling Sanctions And, Yes, A Military Effort To Be Prepared For Any Contingency.

The Amount Of Interaction, The Amount Of Understanding That Exists In Your Generation Among People Of Different Races And Different Creeds And Different Colors Is Unprecedented. And By The Way, That Goes - That Cuts Across Party Lines, That Cuts Across Partisan Lines.

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

We Too Often Let The Material Things Serve As Indicators That We're Doing Well, Even Though Something Inside Us Tells Us That Were Not Doing Our Best. That We Are Avoiding That Which Is Hard, But Also Necessary. That We Are Shrinking From Rather Than Rising To The Challenges Of The Age.

I Can Make A Firm Pledge, Under My Plan, No Family Making Less Than $250,000 A Year Will See Any Form Of Tax Increase. Not Your Income Tax, Not Your Payroll Tax, Not Your Capital Gains Taxes, Not Any Of Your Taxes.

Nature Is Actually Resilient, If We Take Care To Just Stop Actively Destroying It.

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

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

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

Change Doesn't Come From Washington. Change Comes To Washington

It Is In The Interests Of All Of Us - The United States, China And The Rest Of The World - To Make Sure That The Rules Of The Road Are Upheld. These Rules And Norms Are Part Of The Foundation Of Regional Stability, And They Have Allowed Nations Across The Region, Including China, To Grow And Prosper.

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

If You Go Out And Make Some Things Happen, You Will Fill The World With Hope.

Mexico Is Going To Need The United States To Cooperate In Order To Rid Itself Of The Violence And Corruption That Results From The Drug Trade.

I Think The Average American, If They Go To The Workplace, Somebody's Next To 'em, They're Not Poking Around Trying To Figure Out What Their Religious Beliefs Are.

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.

Race Remains A Potent And Often Divisive Force In Our Society.

Black Churches Minister To Social Needs Out Of Necessity.

Even Those Who Claim The Bible's Inerrancy Make Distinctions Between Scriptural Edicts, Sensing That Some Passages - The Ten Commandments, Say, Or A Belief In Christ's Divinity - Are Central To Christian Faith, While Others Are More Culturally Specific And May Be Modified To Accommodate Modern Life.

We Are Still The America That Does The Hard Things, That Does The Great Things. We're The Nation That Always Dared To Dream. We're The Nation That Dared To Take Risks.

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

In The Midst Of This Enormous Economic Crisis, I Think Canada Has Shown Itself To Be A Pretty Good Manager Of The Financial System And The Economy In Ways That We Always - Haven't Always Been Here In The United States.

I Don't Care Whether You're Driving A Hybrid Or An Suv. If You're Headed For A Cliff, You Have To Change Direction. That's What The American People Called For In November, And That's What We Intend To Deliver.

I Think That The Democratic Party Is A Big Tent, Which Means That There Are Positions I May Not Agree With.

If You've Got A Business, You Didn't Build That. Somebody Else Made That Happen.

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.

There Aren't A Lot Of Situations Where I Look Back And I Say, The Decision I Actually Made Or The Course We Actually Pursued Was The Wrong Course.

Palestinians Will Never Realize Their Independence By Denying The Right Of Israel To Exist.

The United Kingdom And The European Union Will Remain Indispensable Partners Of The United States Even As They Begin Negotiating Their Ongoing Relationship To Ensure Continued Stability, Security And Prosperity For Europe, Great Britain And Northern Ireland, And The World.

If We Win All Those Fights, And Now Let's Say The Income Gap, And The Wealth Gap, And The Education Gap Have For The Most Part Been Closed - Let's Say Hypothetically, , First Of All, America As A Whole Would Be A Lot Richer.

Throughout History, Islam Has Demonstrated Through Words And Deeds The Possibilities Of Religious Tolerance And Racial Equality.

Elections Matter And Voting Counts.

We're Going To Have To Invest In The American People Again, In Tax Cuts For The Middle Class, In Health Care For All Americans, And College For Every Young Person Who Wants To Go. In Businesses That Can Create The New Energy Economy Of The Future. In Policies That Will Lift Wages And Will Grow Our Middle Class. These Are The Policies I Have Fought For My Entire Career.

[this Upset] Means That Means Donald Trump Now Has To Transition To Governance.

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

I Am Absolutely Convinced That Race Relations On The Whole Are Actually Better Now Than They Were 20 Years [ago].

I Strongly Agree With Vice President Gore That We Cannot Drill Our Way To Energy Independence, But Must Fast-track Investments In Renewable Sources Of Energy Like Solar Power, Wind Power And Advanced Biofuels...

Under My Plan Of A Cap-and-trade System, Electricity Rates Would Necessarily Skyrocket.

Steve Was Among The Greatest Of American Innovators - Brave Enough To Think Differently, Bold Enough To Believe He Could Change The World, And Talented Enough To Do It...the World Has Lost A Visionary. And There May Be No Greater Tribute To Steve's Success Than The Fact That Much Of The World Learned Of His Passing On A Device He Invented.

I'm Measuring My Actions Against That Inner Voice That For Me At Least Is Audible, Is Active, It Tells Me Where I Think I'm On Track And Where I Think I'm Off Track.

We Start This New Year In The Midst Of An Economic Crisis Unlike We Have Seen In Our Lifetime.

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

We Know That Every Father Has A Personal Responsibility To Do Right By Their Kids - To Encourage Them To Turn Off The Video Games And Pick Up A Book; To Teach Them The Difference Between Right And Wrong; To Show Them Through Our Own Example The Value In Treating One Another As We Wish To Be Treated. And Most Of All, To Play An Active And Engaged Role In Their Lives.

My Job To The Muslim World Is To Communicate That The Americans Are Not Your Enemy. We Sometimes Make Mistakes. We Have Not Been Perfect.

I Never Understood That Line. The Point Was To Inhale. That Was The Point.

The Good News Is That The Paris Agreement Is Not Just A Bilateral Agreement Between The United States And Some Other Country. You Have 200 Countries Who Came Together. It's An International Agreement.

Donald Trump Seems To Do A Good Job Mentioning His Own Name.

Faith Doesn't Mean That You Don't Have Doubts.

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

If We Truly Believe In Our Public Schools, Then We Have A Moral Responsibility To Do Better - To Break The Either-or Mentality Around School Reform, And Embrace A Both-and Mentality. Good Schools Will Require Both The Structural Reform And The Resources Necessary To Prepare Our Kids For The Future.

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.

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

What Makes Us Exceptional - What Makes Us American - Is Our Allegiance To An Idea Articulated In A Declaration Made More Than Two Centuries Ago: “we Hold These Truths To Be Self-evident, That All Men Are Created Equal; That They Are Endowed By Their Creator With Certain Unalienable Rights; That Among These Are Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness.”

Pursuit Of Happiness

When Any Kind Of Military Action Is Popular It's Because Either There's Been A Very Clear, Direct Threat To Us - 9/11 - Or An Administration Uses Various Hooks To Suggest That American Interests Were Directly Threatened - Like In Panama Or Grenada. And Sometimes, Those Hooks Are More Persuasive Than Others, But Typically, They're Not Put Before Congress.

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.

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

Today, More Than Ever Before, Science Holds The Key To Our Survival As A Planet And Our Security And Prosperity As A Nation. It's Time We Once Again Put Science At The Top Of Our Agenda And Work To Restore America's Place As The World Leader In Science And Technology.

Hillary Clinton Was An Outstanding Secretary Of State. She Would Never Intentionally Put America In Any Kind Of Jeopardy.

I Can Say With Confidence That I Never Bought Into The Hype, And I Made Sure That The People Around Me Didn't Buy Into The Hype, And I Did Not Surround Myself With People Who Fed Me The Hype. And I'm Glad Of That As Well.

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.

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

Nothing Is More Powerful Than The Black Church Experience. A Good Choir And A Good Sermon In The Black Church, It's Pretty Hard Not To Be Move And Be Transported.

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

Assault Weapons Ban Reintroduced.

Assault Weapons

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.

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

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

Operations In Iraq And Afghanistan And The War On Terrorism Have Reduced The Pace Of Military Transformation And Have Revealed Our Lack Of Preparation For Defensive And Stability Operations. This Administration Has Overextended Our Military.

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

There's No Doubt That On The Issue Of Abortion, Oftentimes It's Very Difficult To Split The Difference, Although We Can Agree On The Notion That None Of Us Are Pro-abortion And All Of Us Would Like To See A Reduction In Unwanted Pregnancies, For Example, And We Could Focus On Those Issues.

We've Persevered Because Of A Belief We Share With The Iraqi People - A Belief That Out Of The Ashes Of War, A New Beginning Could Be Born In This Cradle Of Civilization. Through This Remarkable Chapter In The History Of The United States And Iraq, We Have Met Our Responsibility. Now, It's Time To Turn The Page.

And That, I Suppose, Is What I'd Been Trying To Tell My Mother That Day: That Her Faith In Justice And Rationality Was Misplaced, That We Couldn't Overcome After All, That All The Education And Good Intentions In The World Couldn't Help You Plug Up The Holes In The Universe Or Give You The Power To Change Its Blind, Mindless Course.

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

I Think Perhaps Education Doesn’t Do Us Much Good Unless It Is Mixed With Sweat.

If You Look At The Current Mosul Campaign Against Isil, For Example The Few Thousand Troops That We Have There To Support That Effort Allows The Iraqi Military To Move Forward In An Effective Way.

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.

Those Who Threaten Israel Threaten Us. Israel Has Always Faced These Threats On The Frontlines. And I Will Bring To The White House An Unshakable Commitment To Israel's Security. That Starts With Insuring Israel's Qualitative Military Advantage. I Will Insure That Israel Can Defend Itself From Any Threat - From Gaza To Tehran.

I Continue To Believe That She Has Not Jeopardized America's National Security. Now, What I've Also Said Is That, And She's Acknowledged, That There's A Carelessness In Terms Of Managing Emails That She Has Owned And She Recognizes. But I Also Think It Is Important To Keep This In Perspective. This Is Somebody Who Has Served Her Country For Four Years As Secretary Of State And Did An Outstanding Job, And No One Has Suggested That In Some Ways, As A Consequence Of How She Handled Emails, That That Detracted From Her Excellent Ability To Carry Out Her Duties.

I Think Since The Systematic Emergence Of Terrorism And The Assassination Attempts, Everything Has Tightened. My Hope Is That It Loosens Back Up Once I Leave.

In The United States, If 43 Percent Of Eligible Voters Do Not Vote, Then Democracy Is Weakened.

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 Dollar Is The Reserve Currency Of The World.

One Of The Things I Advised Donald Trump To Do Was To Make Sure That, Before He Commits To Certain Courses Of Action, He Has Really Dug In And Thought Through How Various Issues Play Themselves Out.

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

For The First Time, Preventing Nuclear Proliferation And Nuclear Terrorism Is Now At The Top Of America's Nuclear Agenda.

Nuclear Terrorism

Nuclear Proliferation

Over The Last Few Years A Lot Of People Have Become Aware Of The Inequities In The Criminal Justice System, Right Now, With Our Overall Crime Rate And Incarceration Rate Both Falling, We're At A Moment When Some Good People In Both Parties, Republicans And Democrats And Folks All Across The Country, Are Coming Up With Ideas To Make The System Work Smarter And Better.

First And Foremost, It's Important To Remember That, From My Perspective At Least, My Most Important Legacy Was Making Sure That The World Didn't Go Into A Great Depression.

When It Comes To The War In Iraq, The Time For Promises And Assurances For Waiting And For Patience Is Over. Too Many Lives Have Been Lost, Too Many Billions Of Dollars Have Been Spent For Us To Trust The President On Another Tired And Failed Policy That's Opposed By Generals And Experts, Democrats And Republicans, Americans And Many Of The Iraqis Themselves.

In Many Ways [those Middle-aged Black Ladies] My Touchstone, Because They Are What I Meant When I Talked About The Audacity Of Hope.

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.

I Have To Be Able To Implement A Policy That Doesn't Completely Erase Borders And Boundaries. Not Because I Think That Honduran Child Who's Gotten Here Is Less Worthy Of Love, Attention, Opportunity Than My Child, But Because I'm The President Of The United States Of America And I'm Not Speaking As A Religious Leader.

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

If You Look At Countries Like South Africa, Where You Had A Black Majority, There Have Been Efforts To Tax And Help That Black Majority, But It Hasn't Come In The Form Of A Formal Reparations Program.

One Of The Great Things About The United States Is That When It Comes To World Affairs, The President Obviously Is The Leader Of The Executive Branch, The Commander-in-chief, The Spokesperson For The Nation, But The Influence And The Work That We Have Is The Result Not Just Of The President, It Is The Result Of Countless Interactions And Arrangements And Relationships Between Our Military And Other Militaries, And Our Diplomats And Other Diplomats, The Intelligence Officers And Development Workers.

One Of The Things That I've Urged The President-elect To Do Is To Develop A Strong Working Relationship With The Intelligence Community And I Think It's Important That Congress, On A Bipartisan Basis.

You Can’t Let Your Failures Define You. You Have To Let Your Failures Teach You.

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Arthur Rubinstein

Constance Baker Motley

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