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Later, I Would Realize That The Position Of Most Black Students In Predominantly White Colleges Was Already Too Tenuous, Our Identities Too Scrambled, To Admit To Ourselves That Our Black Pride Remained Incomplete. And To Admit Our Doubt And Confusion To Whites, To Open Up Our Psyches To General Examination By Those Who Had Caused So Much Of The Damage In The First Place, Seemed Ludicrous, Itself An Expression Of Self-hatred - For There Seemed No Reason To Expect That Whites Would Look At Our Private Struggles As A Mirror Into Their Own Souls, Rather Than Yet More Evidence Of Black Pathology.

-Barack Obama

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Later, I Would Realize

Barack Obama

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Later, I Would Realize That The Position Of Most Black Students In Predominantly White Colleges Was Already Too Tenuous, Our Identities Too Scrambled, To Admit To Ourselves That Our Black Pride Remained Incomplete. And To Admit Our Doubt And Confusion To Whites, To Open Up Our Psyches To General Examination By Those Who Had Caused So Much Of The Damage In The First Place, Seemed Ludicrous, Itself An Expression Of Self-hatred - For There Seemed No Reason To Expect That Whites Would Look At Our Private Struggles As A Mirror Into Their Own Souls, Rather Than Yet More Evidence Of Black Pathology.

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I Would Meet Directly With The Leadership In Iran.

It's The Job, I Think, Of Leaders To Try To Address Peoples' Real Legitimate Concerns And Channel Them In The Most Constructive Ways Possible.

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Guarantees That

We Know The Battle Ahead Will Be Long. But Always Remember That, No Matter What Obstacles Stand In Our Way, Nothing Can Stand In The Way Of The Power Of Millions Of Voices Calling For Change.

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

I Just Miss - I Miss Being Anonymous.

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The Capacity Of Iraq's Security Forces Has Improved, And Iraq's Leaders Have Made Strides Toward Political Accommodation

Yesterday, John Mccain Actually Said That If He's President That He'll Take On, And I Quote, 'the Old Boys Network In Washington.' Now I'm Not Making This Up. This Is Somebody Who's Been In Congress For Twenty-six Years, Who Put Seven Of The Most Powerful Washington Lobbyists In Charge Of His Campaign. And Now He Tells Us That He's The One Who's Gonna' To Take On The Old Boys Network. The Old Boys Network? In The Mccain Campaign That's Called A Staff Meeting. Come, On!

When I Touched My Hand Against The Western Wall And Placed My Prayer Between Its Ancient Stones, I Thought Of All The Centuries That The Children Of Israel Had Longed To Return To Their Ancient Homeland. When I Went To Sderot And Saw The Daily Struggle To Survive In The Eyes Of An Eight-year-old Boy Who Lost His Leg To A Hamas Rocket, And When I Walked Among The Hall Of Names At Yad Vashem, I Was Reminded Of The Existential Fear Of Israelis When A Modern Dictator Seeks Nuclear Weapons And Threatens To Wipe Israel Off The Face Of The Map - Face Of The Earth.

We Are Committed To A World In Which We Keep America Safe, But We Recognize That Our Power Doesn't Just Flow From Our Extraordinary Military But Also Flows From The Strength In Our Ideals And Our Principles And Our Values.

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

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

Not Much Happens In Russia Without Vladimir Putin.

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

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Only A Handful Of Men And Women Leave An Imprint On The Conscience Of A Nation And On The History That They Helped Shape.

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This Is My Last Election. After My Election, I Have More Flexibility.

If [black] Nationalism Could Create A Strong And Effective Insularity, Deliver On Its Promise Of Self-respect, Then The Hurt It Might Cause Well-meaning Whites, Or The Inner Turmoil It Caused People Like Me, Would Be Of Little Consequence.

I Will Begin To Remove Our Troops From Iraq Immediately.

Tim Kaine Has A Message Of Fiscal Responsibility And Generosity Of Spirit. That Kind Of Message Can Sell Anywhere.

I Will Not Stand By While The Special Interests Use The Same Old Tactics To Keep Things Exactly The Way They Are ... Not This Time. Not Now.

I Believe In Keeping Guns Out Of Our Inner Cities, And That Our Leaders Must Say So In The Face Of The Gun Manufacturer's Lobby.

In The Course Of A Healthy Debate, We Prioritize Different Goals, And The Different Means Of Reaching Them. But Without Some Common Baseline Of Facts, Without A Willingness To Admit New Information And Concede That Your Opponent Might Be Making A Fair Point, And That Science And Reason Matter - Then We're Going To Keep Talking Past Each Other, And We'll Make Common Ground And Compromise Impossible.

I Was A Constitutional Law Professor, Which Means Unlike The Current President I Actually Respect The Constitution.

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.

Politics Has Never Been For The Thin-skinned Or The Faint-of-heart, And If You Enter The Arena, You Should Expect To Get Roughed Up.

Even As We Do All That's Necessary To Ensure Israel's Security, Even As We Are Clear-eyed About The Difficult Challenges Before Us, And Even As We Pledge To Stand By Israel Through Whatever Tough Days Lie Ahead, I Hope We Do Not Give Up On That Vision Of Peace. For If History Teaches Us Anything, If The Story Of Israel Teaches Us Anything, It Is That With Courage And Resolve, Progress Is Possible. Peace Is Possible.

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

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We Cannot Drill Our Way Out Of Our Addiction To Oil.

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A Better Politics Is One Where We Appeal To Each Other’s Basic Decency Instead Of Our Basest Fears.

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

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And Joe Biden, Thank You For Being The Best Vice President I Could Ever Hope For.

Operation Iraqi Freedom Is Over, And The Iraqi People Now Have Lead Responsibility For The Security Of Their Country

That Is The Difference We Make In The World. And Our Own Safety, Our Own Security, Depends Upon Our Willingness To Do What It Takes To Defend This Nation And Uphold The Values That We Stand For - Timeless Ideals That Will Endure Long After Those Who Offer Only Hate And Destruction Have Been Vanquished From The Earth.

Contrary To The Claims Of Some Of My Critics And Some Of The Editorial Pages, I Am An Ardent Believer In The Free Market.

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No One In The United States Of America Should Ever Be Targeted Because Of Who They Are, What They Look Like, Or How They Worship.

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When You Start Just Focusing Exclusively On Trying To Tear The Other Person Down Instead Of What You Are Going To Do On Behalf Of The American People To Deal With This Economy, Then That's Not Serving Democrats, That's Not Serving Republicans, That's Not Serving Anybody.

It Was Young People Who Stubbornly Insisted On Justice, Stubbornly Refused To Accept The World As It Is That Transformed Not Just The Country But Transformed The World.

The United States Is Not, And Never Will Be, At War With Islam.

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Hope - Hope In The Face Of Difficulty. Hope In The Face Of Uncertainty. The Audacity Of Hope!

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I've Been Fighting With Acorn, Alongside Acorn, On Issues You Care About, My Entire Career.

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

Effective Immediately, We Will Only Pursue Phone Calls That Are Two Steps Removed From A Number Associated With A Terrorist Organization Instead Of Three.

We've Got To Identify New Strategies To Use Cleaner Energy, Because That Is A Recipe For Reducing The Overall Amount Of Pollution That's Out There.

At The Dawn Of The 21st Century, Where Knowledge Is Literally Power, Where It Unlocks The Gates Of Opportunity And Success, We All Have Responsibilities As Parents, As Librarians, As Educators, As Politicians, And As Citizens To Instill In Our Children A Love Of Reading So That We Can Give Them A Chance To Fulfill Their Dreams.

America Is An Unlikely Place - A Country Built On Defiance Of The Odds; On A Belief In The Impossible. And I Remind You Of This Because As You Set Out To Live Your Own Stories Of Success And Achievement, It's Now Your Turn To Help Keep It This Way.

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.

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

Strong Countries And Strong Presidents Talk To Their Adversaries. That's What Kennedy Did With Khrushchev. That's What Reagan Did With Gorbachev. That's What Nixon Did With Mao. I Mean Think About It. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - These Countries Are Tiny Compared To The Soviet Union. They Don't Pose A Serious Threat To Us The Way The Soviet Union Posed A Threat To Us. And Yet We Were Willing To Talk To The Soviet Union At The Time When They Were Saying We're Going To Wipe You Off The Planet.

My Top Priority In Any Trade Negotiation Is Expanding Opportunity For Hardworking Americans. It's No Secret That Past Trade Deals Haven't Always Lived Up To Their Promise, And That's Why I Will Only Sign My Name To An Agreement That Helps Ordinary Americans Get Ahead, The Bill Put Forward Today Would Help Us Write Those Rules In A Way That Avoids The Mistakes From Our Past, Seizes Opportunities For Our Future And Stays True To Our Values.

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

Right Around My First Year Of College - I Remember "song Of Solomon," By Toni Morrison, Just Moved Me Tremendously. The Power Of Language And How It Can Peel Back Truths, Bring Things To The Surface. So I Learned A Lot From Fiction.

The Senators Know It's Important To Win Statewide To Have Hispanics And Other Immigrant Populations Supporting Them.

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Let Me Tell Your Something. I'm From Chicago. I Don't Break.

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

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I Think I Was Able To Talk To People About Values In Ways That People - In Ways That Resonated With Folks.

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?

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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.

Historically, When A Previous Us Administration Enters Into An Agreement, It Carries Forward Into The Future Administration.

To The Extent That We've Got A Fiscal Crisis Right Now, Part Of It Is Prompted By A Bullheaded Insistence On The Part Of The President, For Example, That We Should Extend All Of His Tax Cuts, Make All Of Them Permanent.

I Believe We Can Seize This Future Together, Because We Are Not As Divided As Our Politics Suggests. [...] We Are Greater Than The Sum Of Our Individual Ambitions. [...] We Are And Forever Will Be The United States Of America. [...] We Will Continue Our Journey Forward And Remind The World Just Why It Is That We Live In The Greatest Nation On Earth.

Look, Americans Will Go For Leadership That Makes Sense. Our Job, You Know, As Public Officials, Is Not To Put Our Finger In The Air. Our Job Is To Listen, And Then Lead.

There Are Enormous Resources In Greece.

My Strong Preference Has Always Been To Legislate When I Can Get Legislation Done.

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 Is True, I Worry About The Hype. The Only Person More Over-hyped Than Me Is You.

If You're An American And You Are, You Know, Subscribing To The Ideals And The Creed And The Values That We Believe In As A Country, You Know, Then We Don't Have A Religious Test In This Country.

Since I've Been In The Senate, Is That My Work With People Like Tom Coburn On Opening Up Transparency In Government, Making Sure That Every Dollar The Federal Government Spends That's Out There - That That's All Posted On A Searchable Database On The Internet.

Political Gerrymandering Makes The Incentive For Most Members Of Congress To Play To The Extremes Of Their Base Rather Than To The Center.

Tonight, Let Us Think Back To The Sense Of Unity That Prevailed On 9/11.

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.

Every Woman Should Be In Control Of The Decisions That Affect Her Own Health.

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

My Life Story Is Something Obviously That Belongs To Me Very Personally. And The Fact Of The Matter Is That I Had Choices And Chances And Opportunities That Were Provided To Me, Based On The Way I Was Able To Direct My Own Decision-making. And What I'm Working To Fight For Is To Make Sure That All Women Have The Ability To Do That.

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

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

We Believe That No Matter Where You Live - Whether A Village In Punjab Or The Bylanes Of Chandni Chowk, An Old Section Of Kolkata Or A New High-rise In Bangalore - Every Person Deserves The Same Chance To Live In Security And Dignity, To Get An Education, To Find Work, And To Give Their Children A Better Future.

The Thing I Know For Sure Is That At The End Of My Life, What I'm Going To Remember Is The Love I Felt For My Family And My Friends, And Whatever Good I Did For Other People.

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

Today We Are Engaged In A Deadly Global Struggle For Those Who Would Intimidate, Torture, And Murder People For Exercising The Most Basic Freedoms. If We Are To Win This Struggle And Spread Those Freedoms, We Must Keep Our Own Moral Compass Pointed In A True Direction.

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

The Last Thing That I Want To Do Is To Have The United States Be A Foil.

Since Taking Office, I've Made It Clear That The United States Was Prepared To Begin A New Chapter Of Engagement With The Islamic Republic Of Iran. We Offered The Iranian Government A Clear Choice. It Could Fulfill Its International Obligations And Realize Greater Security, Deeper Economic And Political Integration With The World, And A Better Future For All Iranians. Or It Could Continue To Flout Its Responsibilities And Face Even More Pressure And Isolation.

The Peaceful Transition Of Power Is One Of The Hallmarks Of Our Democracy.

My Presidency Is Not Over. I've Got Another Five Years Coming Up.

That Window Is Closing. . . . Now, The Clock Is Ticking. . . . We're Not Going To Have These Talks Just Drag Out In A Stalling Process. . . . We Haven't Given Away Anything - Other Than The Opportunity For Us To Negotiate

Clock Is Ticking

I Don't Believe We Can Get Very Far, With Leaders Who Write Off Half The Nation As A Bunch Of Victims Who Never Take Responsibility For Their Own Lives.

So While An Incredible Amount Of Progress Has Been Made, On This Fifth Anniversary, I Wanted To Come Here And Tell The People Of This City Directly: My Administration Is Going To Stand With You - And Fight Alongside You - Until The Job Is Done. Until New Orleans Is All The Way Back, All The Way.

Like It Or Not, We Have To Have A Financial System That Is Healthy And Functioning.

Financial System

But Today, Just A Few Years Into The Twenty-first Century, We Already Find Ourselves In A Different And Precarious Position. As Revolutions In Communications And Technology Have Broken Down Barriers Across The World, It Has Given More Power To Both Our Competitors And Our Enemies.

Just Because Iran And Syria May Recognize Assad's Weaknesses Doesn't Necessarily Mean That Assad Recognizes His Weaknesses.

America Will Rise Again. And Hope Will Rise Again.

Presidential Elections Always Turn On Personalities, They Turn On How Campaigns Are Run, They Turn On Natural Desires For Change.

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

This Self-reflection, This Willingness To Examine Ourselves, To Make Corrections, To Do Better, That's Part Of What Makes Us Americans. It's Part Of What Sets Us Apart From Other Nations, The United States Is The Most Professional, Most Capable, Most Cutting-edge Intelligence Community In The World.

This Is My Number One Priority. I've Got A Lot Of Things On My Plate. But My Top Priority Is To Defeat Isil And To Eliminate The Scourge Of This Barbaric Terrorism That's Been Taking Place Around The World. Groups Like Isil Can't Destroy Us. They Can't Defeat Us. They Don't Produce Anything. They're Not An Existential Threat To Us. It Is Very Important For Us To Not Respond With Fear.

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

Presidential Election

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

Winnie The Pooh Seems To Me To Be A Fundamental Text On National Security.

National Security

I Know That Campaigns Can Seem Small, And Even Silly. Trivial Things Become Big Distractions. Serious Issues Become Sound Bites. And The Truth Gets Buried Under An Avalanche Of Money And Advertising. If You're Sick Of Hearing Me Approve This Message, Believe Me - So Am I.

We Must Carry Forward The Work Of The Women Who Came Before Us And Ensure Out Daughters Have No Limits On Their Dreams, No Obstacles To Their Achievements And No Remaining Ceilings To Shatter.

We Still Have Sanctions On Iran For Its Violations Of Human Rights, For Its Support Of Terrorism And For Its Ballistic Missile Program. And We Will Continue To Enforce These Sanctions Vigorously. Iran's Recent Missile Test, For Example, Was A Violation Of Its International Obligations.

Higher Minimum Wages, Full-employment Programs, Early-childhood Education: Those Kinds Of Programs Are, By Design, Universal, But By Definition, Because They Are Helping Folks Who Are In The Worst Economic Situations, Are Most Likely To Disproportionately Impact And Benefit African Americans. They Also Have The Benefit Of Being Sellable To A Majority Of The Body Politic.

The Government Can't Solve Every Problem, But An Enlightened Government Can Make Sure That People Can Work Hard For Their Dreams And Achieve Them.

I'm Trying To Move An Aircraft Carrier Here, I'm Not Just Steering The Speedboat.

Aircraft Carriers

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