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Let's Be Grateful For What We Have. Let's Be Mindful Of Those Who Have Less. Let's Appreciate Those Who Hold A Special Place In Our Lives, And Make Sure They Know It. And Let's Think About Those Who Can't Spend The Holiday With Their Loved Ones - Especially The Members Of Our Military Serving Overseas.

-Barack Obama

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Let's Be Grateful For

Barack Obama

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Let's Be Grateful For What We Have. Let's Be Mindful Of Those Who Have Less. Let's Appreciate Those Who Hold A Special Place In Our Lives, And Make Sure They Know It. And Let's Think About Those Who Can't Spend The Holiday With Their Loved Ones - Especially The Members Of Our Military Serving Overseas.

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It's Important To Listen To What Scientists Have To Say, Even When It's Inconvenient, Especially When It's Inconvenient

Environmentalism Is Not An Upper-income Issue, It's Not A White Issue, It's Not A Black Issue, It's Not A South Or A North Or An East Or A West Issue. It's An Issue That All Of Us Have A Stake In. And If I Can Do Anything To Make Sure That Not Just My Daughter But Every Child In America Has Green Pastures To Run In And Clean Air To Breathe And Clean Water To Swim In, Then That Is Something I'm Going To Work My Hardest To Make Happen.

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The Presidency Has A Funny Way Of Making A Person Feel The Need To Pray.

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Why Hang Out With Celebrities When I Can Hang Out With The People Who Made Me One?

Jason Rezaian Is Coming Home. A Courageous Journalist For The Washington Post Who Wrote About The Daily Lives And Hopes Of The Iranian People, He's Been Held For A Year And A Half. He Embodies The Brave Spirit That Gives Life To The Freedom Of The Press. Jason Has Already Been Reunited With His Wife And Mom.

We're Still Fighting To Make Sure That Basic Anti-discrimination Laws Are Enforced, Not Just At The Federal Level, By The Way, But Throughout Government And Throughout The Private Sector? And Those Are Fights That We Can Win Because - And This Is Where I Do Believe America Has Changed - The Majority, Not By Any Means 100 Percent, But The Majority Of Americans Believe In The Idea Of Nondiscrimination.

Making Products We Sell Around The World, Stamped With Three Proud Words, 'made In The Usa!'

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.

The More We Are Using Clean Energy, Renewable Energy Sources, The Less Environmentally Problematic Facilities End Up Being A Problem For Everybody, But Particularly For Folks Who Have To Suffer The Consequences Of Some Of These Facilities.

Don’t Ever Let Anybody Tell You That Your Efforts Don’t Matter Or That Your Voice Doesn’t Count. Don’t Ever Believe That You Can’t Make A Difference. You Have.

For America To Get More Entangled Militarily In Syria Is A Serious Step, And We Have To Do So Making Absolutely Certain That We Know Who We Are Helping; That We're Not Putting Arms In The Hands Of Folks Who Eventually Could Turn Them Against Us Or Allies In The Region.

Just Listen To What Mr. [donald] Trump Has To Say And Make Your Own Judgment With Respect To How Confident You Feel About His Ability To Manage Things Like Our Nuclear Triad.

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

I Think That Mr. Snowden Raised Some Legitimate Concerns. How He Did It Was Something That Did Not Follow The Procedures And Practices Of Our Intelligence Community. If Everybody Took The Approach That I Make My Own Decisions About These Issues, Then It Would Be Very Hard To Have An Organized Government Or Any Kind Of National Security System.

Security Systems

At The Moment That We Persuade A Child, Any Child, To Cross That Threshold, That Magic Threshold Into A Library, We Change Their Lives Forever, For The Better

The Problem Is That Young People Are Less Likely To Vote Than Older People. What Results Is A Situation In Which Sometimes The Elections Don't Fully Reflect The Views Of The American Population.

We, The People, Still Believe That Our Obligations As Americans Are Not Just To Ourselves, But To All Posterity.

The War On Drugs Has Been An Utter Failure. We Need To Rethink And Decriminalize Our Marijuana Laws.

We've Evolved A Lot Since 9/11 Also, In Terms Of Our Law Enforcement Capabilities, Our Intelligence Capabilities, Military, Counterterrorism.

My Fellow Americans, We Are And Always Will Be A Nation Of Immigrants. We Were Strangers Once, Too.

Undocumented Workers

We Have Not Always Been In Sync On Every Issue In Terms Of Our Core Values, In Terms Of Her Integrity, Her Truthfulness, Her Thoughtfulness, [angela Merkel] Doing Her Homework, Knowing Her Facts, Her Commitment To Looking Out For The Interests Of The German People First, But Recognizing That Part Of Good Leadership On Behalf Of The Nation Requires Engaging The World As A Whole, And Participating Effectively In Multilaterally Institutions, I Think She's Been Outstanding.

I Will Begin To Remove Our Troops From Iraq Immediately.

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.

It [the Constitution] Didn't Break Free From The Essential Constraints That Were Placed By The Founding Fathers In The Constitution, At Least As It's Been Interpreted, And The Warren Court Interpreted It In The Same Way That Generally The Constitution Is A Charter Of Negative Liberties. It Says What The States Can't Do To You, It Says What The Federal Government Can't Do To You, But It Doesn't Say What The Federal Government Or The State Government Must Do On Your Behalf. And That Hasn't Shifted.

If You're One Of The More Than 250 Million Americans Who Already Have Health Insurance, You Will Keep Your Health Insurance. This Law Will Only Make It More Secure And More Affordable.

[the Democrats] Have Got To Do A Better Job Of Showing Up.

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

National Security

Without A Deal [with Iran], The International Sanctions Regime Will Unravel With Little Ability To Reimpose Them. With This Deal, We Have The Possibility Of Peacefully Resolving A Major Threat To Regional And International Security. Without A Deal, We Risk Even More War In The Middle East And Other Countries In The Region Would Feel Compelled To Pursue Their Own Nuclear Programs, Threatening A Nuclear Arms Race In The Most Volatile Region In The World.

My Administration Doesn’t Have Any Secrets, And From Now On, Neither Will You.

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

I Don't Think That Any Economist Disputes That We're In The Worst Economic Crisis Since The Great Depression. The Good News Is That We're Getting A Consensus Around What Needs To Be Done.

The Internet Didn't Get Invented On Its Own. Government Research Created The Internet So That All The Companies Could Make Money Off The Internet. The Point Is, Is That When We Succeed, We Succeed Because Of Our Individual Initiative, But Also Because We Do Things Together.

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

This Kind Of Gaping Inequality Gives Lie To The Promise That’s At The Very Heart Of America: That This Is A Place Where You Can Make It If You Try. We Tell People - We Tell Our Kids - That In This Country, Even If You’re Born With Nothing, Work Hard And You Can Get Into The Middle Class. We Tell Them That Your Children Will Have A Chance To Do Even Better Than You Do. That’s Why Immigrants From Around The World Historically Have Flocked To Our Shores.

I'm Willing To Work With Anyone Of Either Party Who Has A Good Idea And The Commitment To See Through. And We Should All Expect You To Hold Us Accountable For Our Progress Or Our Failure To Deliver.

The Fear Among Economists Across The Political Spectrum That Was - Was That We Were Rapidly Plummeting Towards A Second Great Depression. So, In The Weeks And Months That Followed, We Undertook A Series Of Difficult Steps To Prevent That Outcome. And We Were Forced To Take Those Steps Largely Without The Help Of An Opposition Party, Which, Unfortunately, After Having Presided Over The Decision-making That Had Led To The Crisis, Decided To Hand It Over To Others To Solve.

Yes, Our Greatness As A Nation Has Depended On Individual Initiative, On A Belief In The Free Market. But It Has Also Depended On Our Sense Of Mutual Regard For Each Other, Of Mutual Responsibility. The Idea That Everybody Has A Stake In The Country, That We're All In It Together And Everybody's Got A Shot At Opportunity. Americans Know This. We Know That Government Can't Solve All Our Problems - And We Don't Want It To. But We Also Know That There Are Some Things We Can't Do On Our Own. We Know That There Are Some Things We Do Better Together.

What Is The Empathy Deficit? The Inability Of People To Stand In Other Folks Shoes. It's Hard To Empathize With People Who Have Different Values Than You

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Internationally, I Have Obviously Been Deeply Concerned About How We Fight The Terrorist Threat.

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The Pain I Felt Was My Father's Pain.

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Nobody Is Listening To Your Telephone Calls.

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Democracy Demands That The Religiously Motivated Translate Their Concerns Into Universal, Rather Than Religion-specific, Values.

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The Other Thing Is Going To Be Me Being Able To Show Not Just The American People Or The Israeli People But The World That, In Fact, We Have Mechanisms In Place That Will Prevent Iran From Having A Nuclear Weapon.

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.

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I Say That Is Because Those Are The Times Where Sometimes You Feel Actually A Little Bit Hurt. Because You Feel Like Saying To These Folks, "[don't] You Think If I Could Do It, I [would] Have Just Done It. Do You Think That The Only Problem Is That I Don't Care Enough About The Plight Of Poor People, Or Gay People, Or Immigrants, Or ...?"

I'm Suspicious Of Too Much Certainty In The Pursuit Of Understanding Just Because I Think People Are Limited In Their Understanding.

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We've Endured Too Many Tragedies. And Each Time I Learn The News I React Not As A President, But As Anybody Else Would - As A Parent.

Angela Merkel Has Been An Extraordinary Partner For Me And For The United States Throughout My Presidency.

The American People Intuitively Understand This, Which Is Why The Majority Of Catholics Practice Birth Control And Some Of Those Opposed To Gay Marriage Nevertheless Are Opposed To A Constitutional Amendment To Ban It. Religious Leadership Need Not Accept Such Wisdom In Counseling Their Flocks, But They Should Recognize This Wisdom In Their Politics.

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

As Opposed To Getting Into Arguments About, Well, These Folks Have Been Treated Fairly So Now We're Going To Be Doing Things That, Very Easily In The Minds Of A Lot Americans Feel Like, "now I'm Being Treated Unfairly."

There's So Much Active Misinformation And It's Packaged Very Well And It Looks The Same When You See It On A Facebook Page Or You Turn On Your Television. If Everything Seems To Be The Same And No Distinctions Are Made, Then We Won't Know What To Protect.

I Don't Want To Pit Red America Against Blue America. I Want To Be President Of The United States Of America.

Broken Promises

Whatever We Think Of The Past, We Must Not Be Prisoners To It.

Part Of The Reason That Our Politics Seems So Tough Right Now And Facts And Science And Argument Does Not Seem To Be Winning The Day All The Time Is Because We're Hardwired Not To Always Think Clearly When We're Scared. And The Country's Scared.

Rather Take That Moral Sense And Apply It To The Particulars Of A Job That Is Going To Test Those Ethical And Moral Precepts Differently Than If You're A Professor, Or A Business Person, Or A Dad. And If I Were Not Comfortable With The Judicious Use Of Our Military To Protect The American People, Than I Shouldn't Have Run For President. And Having Said That, I Do Think That The Wisdom Of A [martin Luther] King Or A [mahatma] Gandhi Can Inform My Decisions.

I Learned To Slip Back And Forth Between My Black And White Worlds. One Of Those Tricks I Had Learned: People Were Satisfied So Long As You Were Courteous And Smiled And Made No Sudden Moves. They Were More Than Satisfied; They Were Relieved -- Such A Pleasant Surprise To Find A Well-mannered Young Black Man Who Didn't Seem Angry All The Time.

Black And White

I'm Always Suspicious Of Politics Dividing People Instead Of Bringing Them Together.

I Think That People Are Born With A Certain Makeup, And That We're All Children Of God.

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

What I Value Most About Pastor Wright Is Not His Day-to-day Political Advice. He's Much More Of A Sounding Board For Me To Make Sure That I Am Speaking As Truthfully About What I Believe As Possible And That I'm Not Losing Myself In Some Of The Hype And Hoopla And Stress That's Involved In National Politics.

It’s Not That I Want To Punish Your Success. I Want To Make Sure That Everybody Who Is Behind You, That They’ve Got A Chance For Success, Too. My Attitude Is That If The Economy’s Good For Folks From The Bottom Up, It’s Gonna Be Good For Everybody. I Think When You Spread The Wealth Around, It’s Good For Everybody.

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

My Advice To African Leaders Is To Make Sure That If, In Fact, China Is Putting In Roads And Bridges, Number One, That They Are Hiring African Workers; Number Two, That The Roads Don't Just Lead From The Mine To The Port To Shanghai.

As You Get Older, Your Mind Gets A Little More Set. And It Needs The Poking And Prodding And Breaking Through Of Stereotypes That I Think Young People Provide.

No Single Nation Should Pick And Choose Which Nations Holds Nuclear Weapons. And That's Why I Strongly Reaffirmed America's Commitment To Seek A World In Which No Nations Hold Nuclear Weapons.

Nuclear Weapons

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

I've Been Saying For Years, We're Gonna Have To Spend A Lot More Time On Cyber Security.

But The Question Is, Do We Care Enough? Do We Care Enough To Keep Standing Up For The Country That We Know Is Possible, Even If It's Hard, And Even If It's Politically Uncomfortable? Do We Care Enough To Sustain The Passion And The Pressure To Make Our Communities Safer And Our Country Safer? Do We Care Enough To Do Everything We Can To Spare Other Families The Pain That Is Felt Here Today?

We Have To Deal With Issues Like Inequality, We Have Deal With Issues Of Economic Dislocation, We Have To Deal With Peoples Fears That Their Children Won't Do As Well As They Have. The More Aggressively And Effectively We Deal With Those Issues, The Less Those Fears May Channel Themselves Into Counter-productive Approaches That Pit People Against Each Other.

Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg Never Gives Up And He Does Not Quit.

I Could Say, As A Member Of Congress, We Usually Get An Alert If Something Is Going To Happen At The Capitol.

If We Think That We Can Secure Our Country By Just Talking Tough Without Acting Tough And Smart, Then We Will Misunderstand This Moment And Miss Its Opportunities. If We Think That We Can Use The Same Partisan Playbook Where We Just Challenge Our Opponent's Patriotism To Win An Election, Then The American People Will Lose. The Times Are Too Serious For This Kind Of Politics.

I'm About To Embark On What May Be As Important As An Initiative As Anything I Do As President, Trying To Nudge The World In The Direction Of Doing Something Serious About Climate Change.

But The Basic Principle That We’re Going To Have To See Some Of This Debt Written Down, That The Government Is Going To Have To Support Some Banks, That Others That Are Not Viable, Essentially That We’re Going To Have To Do Something With Those Assets.

If You Work Hard. And Are Responsible. You Should Be Rewarded.

My First Job Is To Say Thank You To Those Who Voted Me. Those Who Didn't, I'm Going To Get Your Vote Next Time.

One Of The Things That We Have To Change In This Country Is The Idea That People Can't Disagree Without Challenging Each Other's Character And Patriotism. I Have Never Suggested That Sen. Mccain Picks His Positions On National Security Based On Politics Or Personal Ambition. I Have Not Suggested It Because I Believe That He Genuinely Wants To Serve America's National Interest. Now, It's Time For Him To Acknowledge That I Want To Do The Same. Let Me Be Clear: I Will Let No One Question My Love Of This Country.

We've Seen Those Results In Generations Of Muslim Immigrants - Farmers And Factory Workers, Helping To Lay The Railroads And Build Our Cities, The Muslim Innovators Who Helped Build Some Of Our Highest Skyscrapers And Who Helped Unlock The Secrets Of Our Universe.

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."

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.

I Wanna Thank The German People For The Incredible Partnership That Our Countries Have Been Able To Establish All These Years.

You Have To Have A Strong Team Around You [being A President].

I Find It Amusing That Those Who Helped To Authorize And Engineer The Biggest Foreign Policy Disaster In Our Generation Are Now Criticizing Me For Making Sure That We Are On The Right Battlefield And Not The Wrong Battlefield In The War Against Terrorism.

We've Had Every Official In Hawaii, Democrat And Republican, Every News Outlet That Has Investigated This, Confirm That, Yes, In Fact, I Was Born In Hawaii, Aug. 4, 1961, In Kapiolani Hospital.

There Are A Lot Of Very Religious Scientists Around. I Think The Problem Here Is That In Our School Systems, And To Some Degree - And This Is Where It Is Relevant - With School Boards Around The Country That Are Mandating Curriculums And Textbooks, You Start Seeing This Weird Watering Down Of Scientific Fact So That Our Kids Are Growing Up In An Environment - And This Connects To What I Was Saying Earlier Abou The Media - Where Everything's Contested. Where Nothing Is True.

You Know, One Of The Things I Think You Understand As President Is You're Held Responsible For Everything, But You Don't Always Have Control Of Everything, Right?

It Still Puts Burden On Some Troops Of Ours Who Are There [in Afghanistan And Iraq] As Advisors And Facilitators.

That Is The True Genius Of America, A Faith In The Simple Dreams Of Its People, The Insistence On Small Miracles. That We Can Say What We Think, Write What We Think, Without Hearing A Sudden Knock On The Door.

We Should Foster A Culture In Which People's Private Religious Beliefs, Including Atheists And Agnostics, Are Respected.

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 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.

Jesus Is An Historical Figure For Me, And He's Also A Bridge Between God And Man, In The Christian Faith, And One That I Think Is Powerful Precisely Because He Serves As That Means Of Us Reaching Something Higher.

There Is No Doubt That Thanks To The Steps That We Took Early On To Rescue Our Economy And To Rebuild It On A New Foundation, We Are Entering Into The New Year With New Confidence That America Is Coming Back.

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

Historically - When You Look At How America Has Evolved, Typically We Make Progress On Race Relations In Fits And Starts. We Make Some Progress, And Then There's Maybe Some Slippage.

I Believe When Women Succeed America Succeeds!

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

If We Got There And We Looked Up And We Said, "you Know What? Black Folks Are Still Doing A Little Bit Worse Off Than Whites, But It's Not Like It Was 20 Years Ago," Then We Can Have A Discussion About How Do We Get That Last Little Bit. But That's A High-class Problem To Have.

There Are War-torn Countries, People Full Of Poverty, Who Still Voted, 60, 70 Percent. If Here In The United States Of America, We Voted At 60 Percent, 70 Percent, It Would Transform Our Politics.

Our Combat Mission Is Ending, But Our Commitment To Iraq's Future Is Not.

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

I Was Raised By A Single Mom Who Had To Put Herself Through School While Looking After Two Kids. And She Worked Hard Every Day And Made A Lot Of Sacrifices To Make Sure We Got Everything We Needed. My Grandmother, She Started Off As A Secretary In A Bank. She Never Got A College Education, Even Though She Was Smart As A Whip. And She Worked Her Way Up To Become A Vice President Of A Local Bank, But She Hit The Glass Ceiling. She Trained People Who Would End Up Becoming Her Bosses During The Course Of Her Career.

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

We Have Greater Awareness Of Where We're Falling Short Than We Used To. Just Take The Example Of Community Police Relations.

In Order For Us To Compete With China, We've Also Got To Make Sure, Though, That We're Taking - Taking Care Of Business Here At Home. If We Don't Have The Best Education System In The World, If We Don't Continue To Put Money Into Research And Technology That Will Allow Us To Create Great Businesses Here In The United States, That's How We Lose The Competition.

Unlike My Opponent, I Will Not Let Oil Companies Write This Country's Energy Plan, Or Endanger Our Coastlines, Or Collect Another $4 Billion In Corporate Welfare From Our Taxpayers.

On Behalf Of The American People, Just Let Me Say That We Are Proud To Count Greece As One Of Our Closest Allies And One Of Our Greatest Friends.

We've Been Able To Build Up The Afghan Security Forces And Stabilize It.

The Values That We Talked About, The Values Democracy And Free Speech And International Norms And Rule Of Law, Respecting The Ability Of Other Countries To Determine Their Own Destiny And Preserve Their Sovereignty And Territorial Integrity. Things Are Not Something That We Can Set Aside.

So While I Will Never Minimize The Costs Involved In Military Action, I Am Convinced That A Failure To Act In Libya Would Have Carried A Far Greater Price For America.

I Intend To Protect A Free And Open Internet, Extend Its Reach To Every Classroom, And Every Community, And Help Folks Build The Fastest Networks, So That The Next Generation Of Digital Innovators And Entrepreneurs Have The Platform To Keep Reshaping Our World.

Each Side Has Legitimate Aspirations - And That's Part Of What Makes Peace So Hard. And The Deadlock Will Only Be Broken When Each Side Learns To Stand In The Other's Shoes; Each Side Can See The World Through The Other's Eyes. That's What We Should Be Encouraging. That's What We Should Be Promoting.

Democracy Cannot Be Imposed On Any Nation From The Outside. Each Society Must Search For Its Own Path, And No Path Is Perfect.

We Must Build A World Free Of Unnecessary Barriers, Stereotypes, And Discrimination. ... Policies Must Be Developed, Attitudes Must Be Shaped, And Buildings And Organizations Must Be Designed To Ensure That Everyone Has A Chance To Get The Education They Need And Live Independently As Full Citizens In Their Communities.

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.

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.

Poorly Secured Nuclear Material In The Former Soviet Union, Or Secrets From A Scientist In Pakistan Could Help Build A Bomb That Detonates In Paris. The Poppies In Afghanistan Become The Heroin In Berlin. The Poverty And Violence In Somalia Breeds The Terror Of Tomorrow.

I Believe That We Have Better Ideas. But I Also Believe That Good Ideas Don't Matter If People Don't Hear Them.

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

We Cannot Allow Internet Service Providers To Restrict The Best Access Or To Pick Winners And Losers In The Online Marketplace For Services And Ideas.

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

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

The Leaders We Revere And The Businesses That Last Are Generally Not The Result Of A Narrow Pursuit Of Popularity Or Personal Advancement, But Of Devotion To Some Bigger Purpose. That's The Hallmark Of Real Success. The Other Trapping Of Success Might Be The By Product Of This Larger Mission, But It Can't Be The Central Thing.

The Notion That We Can Control The Flow Of Information Is Obsolete.

I'll Be Honest, There Have Been Times When I've Listened To The Rhetoric In Europe Where An Easy Equivalent Somehow Between The United States And Russia And Between How Our Governments Operate Versus Other Governments Operate, Where Those Distinctions Aren't Made.

Rather Than Pointing Fingers Or Assigning Blame, Let’s Use This Occasion To Expand Our Moral Imaginations, To Listen To Each Other More Carefully, To Sharpen Our Instincts For Empathy And Remind Ourselves Of All The Ways That Our Hopes And Dreams Are Bound Together.

More Broadly, Prime Minister Lee [hsien Loong] And I Will Work To Advance The Us-singapore Partnership Across The Board. We're Committed To Sustaining The Dynamism Of Our Economies With The Trans-pacific Partnership - The Highest-standard Trade Agreement Ever - Which Will Support Trade And Innovation In Both Our Countries.

We Don't Turn Back. We Leave No One Behind. We Pull Each Other Up. We Draw Strength From Our Victories, And We Learn From Our Mistakes, But We Keep Our Eyes Fixed On That Distant Horizon, But We Keep Our Eyes Fixed On That Distant Horizon, Knowing That Providence Is With Us, And That We Are Surely Blessed To Be Citizens Of The Greatest Nation On Earth.

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.

The Nation That Leads The Clean Energy Economy Will Be The Nation That Leads The Global Economy.

I Would Have To Investigate More Of Bill's Dancing Abilities, You Know, And Some Of This Other Stuff Before I Accurately Judge Whether He Was In Fact A Brother.

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

I Want Every Young Man Who Sees Me To Know That I'm Not That Different From Them. I Wasn't Born Into Wealth. I Wasn't Born Into Fame. I Made A Lot Of Mistakes - But I Kept At It.

I Didn't Become A Christian Until Many Years Later, When I Moved To The South Side Of Chicago After College. It Happened Not Because Of Indoctrination Or A Sudden Revelation, But Because I Spent Month After Month Working With Church Folks Who Simply Wanted To Help Neighbors Who Were Down On Their Luck No Matter What They Looked Like, Or Where They Came From, Or Who They Prayed To. It Was On Those Streets, In Those Neighborhoods, That I First Heard God's Spirit Beckon Me. It Was There That I Felt Called To A Higher Purpose - His Purpose.

I Do Think That It Is Impossible For Us To Think Only In Terms Of The Palestinian-israeli Conflict And Not Think In Terms Of What's Happening With Syria Or Iran Or Lebanon Or Afghanistan And Pakistan. These Things Are Interrelated. And If We Are Looking At The Region As A Whole And Communicating A Message To The Arab World And The Muslim World, That We Are Ready To Initiate A New Partnership Based On Mutual Respect And Mutual Interest, Then I Think That We Can Make Significant Progress.

Specifically, The Part Where In The Early 19th Century America Reconstituted The U.s. Marine Corps To Battle The Islamic Barbary Pirates, Though I Don't Think That's What Obama Meant.

This Is The Moment When We Must Come Together To Save This Planet. Let Us Resolve That We Will Not Leave Our Children A World Where The Oceans Rise And Famine Spreads And Terrible Storms Devastate Our Lands.

My Job Is Exhilarating. It's Challenging. I Find That The Governance Part Of It, The Decision Making Part Of It - Actually Comes - Comes Pretty Naturally. I Think I've Got A Great Team. I Think We're Making Good Decisions. The The Hardest Thing About The Job Is Staying Focused. Because There's So Many Demands And Decisions That Are Pressed Upon You.

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.

It's Very Important That We Have A President Who Is Mindful Of The Cruelty That Is Perpetrated On Animals.

Markets Will Rise And Fall, But This Is The United States Of America. No Matter What Some Agency May Say, We've Always Been And Always Will Be A Triple A Country.

Shooting In Orlando Is A Sobering Reminder That Attacks On Any American, Regardless Of Race, Ethnicity, Religion Or Sexual Orientation, Is An Attack On All Of Us And On The Fundamental Values Of Equality And Dignity That Define Us As A Country. And No Act Of Hate Or Terror Will Ever Change Who We Are Or The Values That Make Us Americans.

While The Future Is Unknowable, The Winds Always Blow In The Direction Of Human Progress.

There Is Not A Liberal America And A Conservative America - There Is The United States Of America. There Is Not A Black America And A White America And Latino America And Asian America - There's The United States Of America.

What We've Seen At Least Since 1979 Is Iran Making Constant, Calculated Decisions That Allow It To Preserve The Regime, To Expand Their Influence Where They Can, To Be Opportunistic, To Create What They View As Hedges Against Potential Israeli Attack In The Form Of Hezbollah And Other Proxies In The Region.

We Have The Power To Make The World We Seek, But Only If We Have The Courage To Make A New Beginning.

Our Job As Americans Is To Restore That Basic Bargain That Says, If You Work Hard, If You're Willing To Meet Your Responsibilities, You Can Get Ahead. You Can Get Ahead. Doesn't Matter What You Look Like, Doesn't Matter Where You Come From. Our Middle Class, When It's Growing, When It's Thriving, When There Are Ladders Of Opportunity For People To Do A Little Bit Better Each Year And Then Make Sure That Their Kids Are Doing Even Better Than Them, That's The American Dream. That's What We Got To Fight For. That Has To Be The North Star That Guides Everything We Do.

Even On Health Care What You've Seen Is A Lot Of Stories Surfacing Lately About People Who Said, "well, I Voted For [donald] Trump But I Don't Think He's Really Gonna Take Away My Health Care."

That Is The Story Of Our History - Whether It's The Pursuit Of Prosperity For Our People Or The Struggle For Equality For All Of Our Citizens, Our Commitment To Stand Up For Our Values Abroad, And Our Sacrifices To Make The World A Safer Place. Let Us Remember That We Can Do These Things Not Just Because Of Wealth Or Power, But Because Of Who We Are. One Nation Under God, Indivisible, With Liberty And Justice For All.

Make Away Out Of No Way

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.

The Rise In Health Care Costs Since Obamacare, The Affordable Care Act Was Passed, Have Been At Their Lowest Rate In 50 Years. Those Savings Have Extended The Medicare Trust Fund By 11 Years. So We've Got A Baseline Of Facts.so It Is True Theoretically That All That Progress Can Be Undone, And Suddenly 20 Million People Or More Don't Have Health Insurance.

The Small Irritations Or Indignities That We Experience Are Nothing Compared To What A Previous Generation Experienced... It’s One Thing For Me To Be Mistaken For A Waiter At A Gala. It’s Another Thing For My Son To Be Mistaken For A Robber And To Be Handcuffed Or, Worse, If He Happens To Be Walking Down The Street And Is Dressed The Way Teenagers Dress.

I Think That Leadership More Than Anything Is About Setting A Course And Describing A Vision For People.

A Lot Of Pictures Of Yourself - You Know, It's A Little Narcissistic.

Pictures Of Yourself

To Sustain A Governing Majority, That Requires An Ability For Republicans And Democrats To Find Some Common Ground. And Right Now, The Structure Of The System Is Such Where It Makes It Really Hard For People To Work Together.

Working Together

As Iraqi Forces Continue The Liberation Of Mosul, I'm Pleased That Nato Will Be Meeting The Commitment We Made In Warsaw To Begin Training Additional Forces In Iraq.

You Can't Just Heely Away From Your Problems Forever

I Was Never Great, But I Was A Good [basketball] Player, And I Could Play Seriously. Now I'm Like One Of These Old Guys Who's Running Around, And The Guys I Play With, Who Are All A Lot Younger, They Sort Of Pity Me And Sympathize With Me. They Tolerate Me, But We All Know That I'm The Weak Link On The Court. And I Don't Like Being The Weak Link.

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?

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.

To The Muslim World, We Seek A New Way Forward, Based On Mutual Interest And Mutual Respect. To Those Leaders Around The Globe Who Seek To Sow Conflict, Or Blame Their Society's Ills On The West - Know That Your People Will Judge You On What You Can Build, Not What You Destroy. To Those Who Cling To Power Through Corruption And Deceit And The Silencing Of Dissent, Know That You Are On The Wrong Side Of History; But That We Will Extend A Hand If You Are Willing To Unclench Your Fist.

Mutual Interest

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

We, The People, Still Believe That Every Citizen Deserves A Basic Measure Of Security And Dignity.

With Singapore's Partnership, The United States In Engaging More Deeply Across South-east Asia And Asean, Which Is Central To The Region's Peace And Prosperity. Singapore Is An Anchor For The Us Presence In The Region, Which Is A Foundation Of Stability And Peace.

The Shadow Of Crisis Has Passed, And The State Of The Union Is Strong.

You Know, When Trayvon Martin Was First Shot I Said That This Could Have Been My Son. Another Way Of Saying That Is Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Me 35 Years Ago. And When You Think About Why, In The African American Community At Least, There's A Lot Of Pain Around What Happened Here, I Think It's Important To Recognize That The African American Community Is Looking At This Issue Through A Set Of Experiences And A History That Doesn't Go Away.

From The Day I Took Office, I've Been Told That Addressing Our Larger Challenges Is Too Ambitious; Such An Effort Would Be Too Contentious. I've Been Told That Our Political System Is Too Gridlocked, And That We Should Just Put Things On Hold For A While. For Those Who Make These Claims, I Have One Simple Question: How Long Should We Wait? How Long Should America Put Its Future On Hold?

The Politics Around Trade Has Always Been Tough, Particularly In The Democratic Party, Because People Have Memories Of Outsourcing And Job Loss.

I Do Think That This Whole Area Of Cyber Is Something That At An International Level We Have To Work On And Develop Frameworks And International Norms So That We Don't See A Cyber Arms Race.

Any Discuss About Taxes Ends Up Being, Are You Raising Them Or Lowering Them, As The Opposed To The Question I Ask - Are We Raising Them For High Income Individuals That Can Afford It, And Lowering Them For Lower Income People Who Really Need Help. Those Old Categories Don't Work, And They're Preventing Us From Solving Them Problems.

You Can't Rest On Your Laurels. Your Own Body Of Work Is Yet To Come.

I Am Sorry That They Are Finding Themselves In This Situation Based On Assurances They Got From Me.

Jerusalem Will Remain The Capital Of Israel, And It Must Remain Undivided.

And Above All, Children Need Our Unconditional Love - Whether They Succeed Or Make Mistakes; When Life Is Easy And When Life Is Tough.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Truth Is That America Has Been Closely Divided Politically For Quite Some Time. That Was Reflected In Some Of The Challenges I Had With The Republican Congress.

This Kind Of Game In Which Anybody Who I Know, Regardless Of How Flimsy The Relationship Is, That Somehow Their Ideas Could Be Attributed To Me, I Think The American People Are Smarter Than That. They're Not Going To Suggest Somehow That That Is Reflective Of My Views, Because It Obviously Isn't.

So How Do Latinos Feel If There's A Big Investment Just In The African American Community, And They're Looking Around And Saying, "we're Poor As Well. What Kind Of Help Are We Getting?" Or Asian Americans Who Say, "look, I'm A First-generation Immigrant, And Clearly I Didn't Have Anything To Do With What Was Taking Place."

African American

You Don't Defeat A Terrorist Network That Operates In Eighty Countries By Occupying Iraq.

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

Hostility And Hatred Are No Match For Justice; They Offer No Pathway To Peace.

Americans Have Always Pursued Our Dreams Within A Free Market That Has Been The Engine Of Our Progress. It's A Market That Has Created A Prosperity That Is The Envy Of The World, And Rewarded The Innovators And Risk-takers Who Have Made America A Beacon Of Science, And Technology, And Discovery. But The American Economy Has Worked In Large Part Because We Have Guided The Market's Invisible Hand With A Higher Principle - That America Prospers When All Americans Can Prosper. That Is Why We Have Put In Place Rules Of The Road To Make Competition Fair, And Open, And Honest.

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