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Let's Remember That Our Leadership Is Defined Not Just By Our Defense Against Threats, But By The Enormous Opportunities To Do Good And Promote Understanding Around The Globe To Forge Greater Cooperation, To Expand New Markets, To Free People From Fear And Want. And No One Is Better Positioned To Take Advantage Of Those Opportunities Than America.

-Barack Obama

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Let's Remember That Our

Barack Obama

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Let's Remember That Our Leadership Is Defined Not Just By Our Defense Against Threats, But By The Enormous Opportunities To Do Good And Promote Understanding Around The Globe To Forge Greater Cooperation, To Expand New Markets, To Free People From Fear And Want. And No One Is Better Positioned To Take Advantage Of Those Opportunities Than America.

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The Reason We're Governing Right Now Is Because We Defeated Moderate Republicans With Moderate Democrats. And People Need To Be Patient About That And Realize That Compromise Is Not Evil.

We Were Still Able To See The Phone Records Of A Potential Terrorist Cause, We Held Them, Now You Have To Hope The Phone Company Still Has Them, You Have To Argue With Their Chief Counsel By The Time You Get Access To It, And Try To Find Out Who They've Been Talking To Before It's Too Late.

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.

It Is Time To Leave Behind The Divisive Battles Of The Past. It Is Time To Move Forward As One Nation.

We Have Now Just Enshrined, As Soon As I Sign This Bill, The Core Principle That Everybody Should Have Some Basic Security When It Comes To Their Healthcare.

I Am Who I Am. You Sort Of Get What You See With Me.

As I've Said, There Were Patriots Who Supported This War, And Patriots Who Opposed It. And All Of Us Are United In Appreciation For Our Servicemen And Women, And Our Hopes For Iraqis' Future.

I Have Been To This Point Unwilling To Sign On To Same-sex Marriage Primarily Because Of My Understandings Of The Traditional Definitions Of Marriage. But I Also Think You're Right That Attitudes Evolve, Including Mine.

My Job Is To Keep My Eye On The Ball And To Stay Focused On What Can We Get Done Every Single Day To Advance The Vision And Values That Brought Me Here.

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

The Things That Led Me To Run For Office - Trying To Figure Out How We Create An Economy Where Everybody's Got A Fair Shot And If You Work Hard, You Can Achieve Your Dreams.

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

We May Have Different Backgrounds, But We Believe In The Same Dream That Says This Is A Country Where Anything's Possible. No Matter Who You Are. No Matter Where You Come From.

We Learn From Our Mistakes, We Do Some Reflection, We Lick Our Wounds, We Brush Ourselves Off - Then We Go Forward, With The Presumption Of Good Faith In Our Fellow Citizens.

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.

Having A Tax Code That Rewards Companies That Are Shipping Jobs Overseas Instead Of Companies That Are Investing Here In The United States, That Will Not Make Us More Competitive.

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

I Found During The Course Of My Political Career On The National Scene There's A Point Where The Vanity Burns Away And You've Had Your Fill Of Your Name In The Papers, Or Big Adoring Crowds, Or The Exercise Of Power. And For Me That Happened Fairly Quickly. And Then You Are Really Focused On: What Am I Going To Get Done With This Strange Privilege That's Been Granted To Me? How Do I Make Myself Worthy Of It?

As President Of The United States, I Don't Bluff.

Cool, Logical, Big-eared And Level-headed, The Center Of Star Trek's Optimistic, Inclusive Vision Of Humanity's Future. I Loved Spock.

If We're Serious About Building An Economy That Lasts, We Have Got To Get Serious About Education. We Are Going To Have To Pick Up Our Games And Raise Our Standards.

We've Been Able To Organize The International Community Around It In Ways That Aren't Going To Go Back.

If We Fall Into The Trap Of Painting All Muslims With A Broad Brush And Imply That We Are At War With An Entire Religion, Then We Are Doing The Terrorists' Work For Them.

You Didn't Build That. Somebody Else Made That Happen.

Presidential Election

Keep In Mind That, When I Came In, We Had Had A Crisis That Was The Worst We've Seen Since The 1930s, And Working With People Like Chancellor Merkel, Working With The G-20 And Other Institutions Internationally, We Were Able To Stabilize The Financial System, Stabilize The Us Economy And Return To Growth.

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.

We Wouldn't Even Be Where We Are Had It Not Been That 70% Of Hispanics Voted For President Obama, Voted Democratic In The Last Election. That Caused An Epiphany In The Senate, That's For Sure. So All Of A Sudden We Have Already Passed Comprehensive Immigration Reform In The Senate. That's A Big Victory.

In The Unlikely Story That Is America, There Has Never Been Anything False About Hope.

We As A Country Have To Do Some Soul-searching.

Grace Bell Lived In Belhaven, North Carolina Her Entire Life, All 100 Years Of Her Life. Just A Few Weeks Ago Republicans Challenged Her Voter Registration Status And Tried To Remove Her From The Voter Rolls. Now Grace Got Her Voter Registration Reinstated. And You Better Believe She`s Going To Vote. But This 100-year Old Woman Wasn`t Alone In Being Targeted. The List Of Voters Republicans Tried To Purge Was Two-thirds Black And Democratic. That Didn`t Happen By Accident.

When What You’re Doing Doesn’t Work For 50 Years, It’s Time To Try Something New.

Being Attentive To Inequality And Not Tone Deaf To It. But Offering Prescriptions That Are Actually Going To Help Folks In Communities That Feel Forgotten. That's Going To Be Our Most Important Strategy. And I Think We Can Successfully Do That.

No, You Can't Deny Women Their Basic Rights And Pretend It's About Your 'religious Freedom'. If You Don't Like Birth Control, Don't Use It. Religious Freedom Doesn't Mean You Can Force Others To Live By Your Own Beliefs.

We Have A Choice. We Can Shape Our Future, Or Let Events Shape It For Us. And If We Want To Succeed, We Can't Fall Back On The Stale Debates And Old Divides That Won't Move Us Forward.

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

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.

If Everybody Who Voted In 2008 Shows Up In 2010, We Will Win This Election. We Will Win This Election.

You Might Slow Down A Little Bit, You Might Not Jump As High As You Used To, But I Know What I'm Doing And I'm Fearless.

If You Look At What Happened, I Came In The Middle Of The Worst Financial Crisis Since The Great Depression. And Unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt Who Waited, Well, Didn't Take Office Until About Three Years Into The Great Depression, It Was Happening Just As I Was Elected.

If You Run You Stand A Chance Of Losing, But If You Don't Run You've Already Lost.

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

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.

We Could Come Together, Democrats And Republicans, To Find Practical, Commonsense Solutions To Health Care, To Education, To Energy Issues, Because Although I'm A Proud Democrat, I'm A Prouder American. And I Think All Of Us Believe, Regardless Of Our Party Affiliations, That This Is A Critical Time, Where We've Got To Solve Big Problems.

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.

American Leadership Is Not Simply A Matter Of Going It Alone And Bearing All Of The Burden Ourselves.

Obama Said If Elected His Government Would "harness Technology To Confront The Biggest Challenges That America Faces".

We Have To Recognize We've Got Some Big Problems On Race, Just Like We Got Still Big Problems On Crime, Just Like We Got Big Problems On Just About Everything. But We Also Have To Make Sure That We've - Draw Confidence From The Progress That We Have Made, 'cause Otherwise, You Get Into This Cycle Of Cynicism.

Literacy Is The Most Basic Currency Of The Knowledge Economy.

Write Anything You Want Because We'll Never Be Heard From Again.

I'm Kind Of A Night Owl.

The Balkanization Of The Media Means That Nobody Is Having A Single Conversation With A Single Set Of Agreed-upon Facts And Assumptions The Way You Had As Recently As The 90s.

Islam Has Always Been Part Of America

[we] Are Focused On Protecting And Defending Our Common Security And Upholding A Rules-based Order That Undergirds The Peace And Prosperity Of The Region And The World. In This Work, We Are Grateful For Our Continued Partnership With Singapore.

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

Globalization Makes Our Economy, Our Health, And Our Security All Captive To Events On The Other Side Of The World. And No Other Nation On Earth Has A Greater Capacity To Shape That Global System, Or To Build Consensus Around A New Set Of International Rules That Expand The Zones Of Freedom, Personal Safety, And Economic Well-being. Like It Or Not, If We Want To Make America More Secure, We Are Going To Have To Help Make The World More Secure.

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.

It's Important To Make Sure That Governments Have Some Checks On What They Do, That People Can Oversee What's Being Done So The Government Doesn't Abuse It.

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

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.

Ours Is A Nation Of Laws: Of Citizens Who Live Under Them And For The Citizens Who Enforce Them. So, To A Community In Ferguson That Is Rightly Hurting And Looking For Answers, Let Me Call Once Again For Us To Seek Some Understanding Rather Than Simply Holler At Each Other. Let's Seek To Heal Rather Than To Wound Each Other.

With The Changing Economy, No One Has Lifetime Employment. But Community Colleges Provide Lifetime Employability.

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.

For Now, Decisions Are Upon Us And We Cannot Afford Delay. We Cannot Mistake Absolutism For Principle Or Substitute Spectacle For Politics, Or Treat Name-calling As Reasoned Debate.

Simple Exchanges Can Break Down Walls Between Us, For When People Come Together And Speak To One Another And Share A Common Experience, Then Their Common Humanity Is Revealed. We Are Reminded That We're Joined Together By Our Pursuit Of A Life That's Productive And Purposeful, And When That Happens Mistrust Begins To Fade And Our Smaller Differences No Longer Overshadow The Things That We Share. And That's Where Progress Begins.

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.

I Think I'm Able To Reach A Lot Of Folks, Despite The Fact That The Conventional News Media Sometimes Says, "you Know, This Speech Is Too Long," Or "it's Too Complicated," Or "he Needs To Have Better Sound Bites," Or What Have You.

Now Let Me Be Clear - I Suffer No Illusions About Saddam Hussein. He Is A Brutal Man. A Ruthless Man. A Man Who Butchers His Own People To Secure His Own Power. He Has Repeatedly Defied Un Resolutions, Thwarted Un Inspection Teams, Developed Chemical And Biological Weapons, And Coveted Nuclear Capacity. He's A Bad Guy. The World, And The Iraqi People, Would Be Better Off Without Him.

[...] We Must Start By Inspiring Our Children With A Sense Of Purpose...by Nurturing Their Imagination So That They May Dream Big And Then Work Hard To Reach Those Dreams. Too Often, Our Children Spend Hours Playing Playstation Without Ever Finding Out How To Build Playstation. They Watch Television But Never Wonder How It's Put Together. They Surf Web Page After Web Page On The Internet, But Are Never Taught How To Design One.

Since 2010, America Has Put More People Back To Work Than Europe, Japan, And All Advanced Economies Combined.

Estiven Rodriguez Couldn't Speak A Word Of English When He Moved To New York City At Age Nine. But Last Month, Thanks To The Support Of Great Teachers And An Innovative Tutoring Program, He Led A March Of His Classmates - Through A Crowd Of Cheering Parents And Neighbors - From Their High School To The Post Office, Where They Mailed Off Their College Applications. And This Son Of A Factory Worker Just Found Out He's Going To College This Fall.

Cuba Is Actually One Where I Am More Optimistic Because Of The Unique Nature Of Cuba - 90 Miles Off Our Shore With A Massive Ex-patriot Population, Now Cuban-american Population That Still Have Deep Links To The Island. There I Am More Confident That Over Time That The Winds Of Commerce And Telecommunication And Travel Start Shifting The Nature Of That Regime. But That's A Small Country Which Has Almost A Unique Relationship To Us.

America At Its Best Is Inclusive And Not Exclusive.

In A Moment When The Outcome Of Our Revolution Was Most In Doubt The Father Of Our Nation Ordered These Words Be Read To The People. Let It Be Told To The Future World That In The Depth Of Winter, When Nothing But Hope And Virtue Could Survive, That The City And The Country Alarmed At One Common Danger Came Forth To Meet It.

I'm A Big Believer In Tolerance. I Think That Religion At It's Best Comes With A Big Dose Of Doubt.

Now, Some Have Said I Blame Too Many Problems On My Predecessor, But Let's Not Forget That's A Practice That Was Initiated By George W. Bush.

America Can't Provide Health Care To People Who Need It. We Can't Invest In Science And Technology, Which Will Determine Whether Or Not We Are Going To Be Competitive In The Long Term. There Has Never Been A Country On Earth That Saw Its Economy Decline And Yet Maintained Its Military Superiority.

The Incredible Story Of Progress That Is America Has Always Been Built By Those Who Ask Why, What If, And Why Not. Our Schools Must Begin Instilling That Wonder In Our Children Again So That Their Generation Will Unite Around The Next Great Project Of Our Time, Whether It Be Declaring America Energy Independent Or Launching The Next Great Technological Revolution.

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

For All The Cruelty And Hardship Of Our World, We Are Not Mere Prisoners Of Fate. Our Actions Matter, And Can Bend History In The Direction Of Justice.

I Will Stand With Israel If They Are Attacked.

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

A Little Reminder To Those Who Don't Back Obama And Gay Marriage. It's Probably Cause You're Gay.

I Can't Even Get A Credit Card Without Three Credit Bureaus Saying I'm Good Enough.

The Pyramids Are One Of Those Things That Live Up To The Hype. They're Elemental In Ways That Are Hard To Describe.

The Philippines Made A Lawful And Peaceful Effort To Resolve Their Maritime Claims With China Using The Tribunal Established Under The Law Of The Sea Convention (unclos). The Tribunal's Ruling Delivered A Clear And Legally Binding Decision On Maritime Claims In The South China Sea As They Relate To China And The Philippines - And That Ruling Should Be Respected. We Believe This Decision Can And Should Serve As An Opportunity To Renew Efforts To Address Maritime Claims Peacefully.

You Don't Like A Particular Policy Or A Particular President? Then Argue For Your Position. Go Out There And Win An Election. Push To Change It. But Don't Break It. Don't Break What Our Predecessors Spent Over Two Centuries Building. That's Not Being Faithful To What This Country's About.

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

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

Netanyahu Made All Sorts Of Claims. This Was Going To Be A Terrible Deal. This Was Going To Result In Iran Getting 50 Billion Dollars Worth Of Relief. Iran Would Not Abide By The Agreement. None Of That Has Come True.

You Know, I Have More Than Enough To Do Without Having To Worry About The Financial System.

Two-thirds Of Americans Believe That, After A Baby's Heart Is Beating And They Can Feel Pain, That They Need Some Protection.

My Tax Plan Will Cut Taxes For 95 Percent Of Workers, Because We Need To Put Money Back Into The Pockets Of Struggling Middle-class Families And Close The Egregious Tax Loopholes That Have Exploded Over The Last Eight Years. My Plan Eliminates Capital Gains Taxes Entirely For The Small Businesses And Start-ups That Are The Backbone Of Our Economy, As Opposed To John Mccain's Plan, Which Would Tax These Businesses. John Mccain Is Running To Serve Out A Third Bush Term. But The Truth Is, When It Comes To Taxes, That's Not Being Fair To George Bush.

People Are Very Hungry For Something New. I Think They Are Interested In Being Called To Be A Part Of Something Larger Than The Sort Of Small, Petty, Slash-and-burn Politics That We Have Been Seeing Over The Last Several Years.

One Thing Both Men Have In Common Is A Love Of Golf And A Shared Knowledge Of The Word "mulligan," Which Means A Do-over To Replace A Lousy Shot.

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

Societies In Which We Are Able To Unify Ourselves Around Values And Ideals And Character And How We Treat Each Other And Cooperation And Innovation, Ultimately Are Gonna Be More Successful Than Societies That Don't.

Elections Matter And Voting Counts.

One Of The Issues The Democrats Have To Be Clear On Is The Given Population Distribution Across The Country. We Have To Compete Everywhere. We Have To Show Up Everywhere. We Have To Work At A Grassroots Level, Something That's Been A Running Thread In My Career.

Today, About 40 Percent Of America's Carbon Pollution Comes From Our Power Plants. There Are No Federal Limits To The Amount Those Plants Can Pump Into The Air. None. We Limit The Amount Of Toxic Chemicals Like Mercury, And Sulfur, And Arsenic In Our Air And Water, But Power Plants Can Dump As Much Carbon Pollution Into Our Atmosphere As They Want. It's Not Smart, It's Not Right, It's Not Safe, And I Determined It Needs To Stop.

I Can Say Across Europe That Many Principles That Have Been Taken For Granted Here Around Free Speech, And Around Civil Liberties And An Independent Judiciary, And Fighting Corruption, Those Are Principles That, You Know, Not Perfectly But Generally, We Have Tried To Apply Not Just In Our Own Country But Also With Respect To Our Foreign Policy.

For We Know That Our Patchwork Heritage Is A Strength, Not A Weakness.

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.

Our Intelligence Agencies Will Continue To Gather Information About The Intentions Of Governments - As Opposed To Ordinary Citizens - Around The World, In The Same Way That The Intelligence Services Of Every Other Nation Does. We Will Not Apologize Simply Because Our Services May Be More Effective.

I Think At Times Of Significant Stress People Are Going To Be Looking For Something And They Don't Always Know Exactly What It Is That They're Looking For And They May Opt For Change Even If They're Not Entirely Confident What That Change Will Bring.

Sometimes I Wonder How Much Of These Debates Have To Do With The Desire, The Legitimate Desire, For That History To Be Recognized. Because There Is A Psychic Power To The Recognition That Is Not Satisfied With A Universal Program, It's Not Satisfied By The Affordable Care Act, Or An Expansion Of Pell Grants, Or An Expansion Of The Earned-income Tax Credit.

My Task Over The Last Two Years Hasn't Just Been To Stop The Bleeding. My Task Has Also Been To Try To Figure Out How Do We Address Some Of The Structural Problems In The Economy That Have Prevented More Googles From Being Created.

There's A Lot Of People Talking About Elitism And All Of That.yes, I Went To Princeton And Harvard, But The Lens Through Which I See The World Is The Lens That I Grew Up With. I Am The Product Of A Working Class Upbringing.

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

This Is The Defining Issue Of Our Time. This Is A Make-or-break Moment For The Middle Class And For All Those Who Are Fighting To Get Into The Middle Class.

I Hope People Appreciate Chancellor Merkel Because, Although She Traditionally Is Considered Center-right And I'm Considered Center-left, The Truth Is That We Share Those Core Values, And Those Are Worth Protecting. As The Senior Leader In Europe, As The Leader Who's Been Longest Lasting, I Think She Has Great Credibility, And She Is Willing To Fight For Those Values. I'm Glad That She's There, And I Think The German People Should Appreciate Her. Certainly, I Have Appreciated Her As A Partner.

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

Financial System

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.

She Is Running Around Talking About How This Is An Insult To Sportsmen, How She Values The Second Amendment. She's Talking Like She's Annie Oakley.

I Feel Good When I'm Engaged In What I Think Are The Core Issues Of The Society, And Those Core Issues To Me Are What's Happening To Poor Folks In This Society.

And Lest We Get On Our High Horse And Think This Is Unique To Some Other Place, Remember That During The Crusades And The Inquisition, People Committed Terrible Deeds In The Name Of Christ. In Our Home Country, Slavery And Jim Crow All Too Often Was Justified In The Name Of Christ.

It Could Be Another Election Where The Alignments Between Republicans And Democrats Are Different Than They Were This Time And Who A Foreign Country Prefers.

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.

It's Good To Get Fresh Legs In [the White House]. I Think That It Refreshes Our Democracy.

Nations Are More Successful When Their Women Are Successful.

I Just Want To Say That The Only Thing Less Popular Than Putting Money Into Banks Is Putting Money Into The Auto Industry.

Part Of What Makes Me Most Optimistic Is If You Look At The Attitudes Of Young People. Across The Board, Young People Are Much More Comfortable With Respecting Differences. They Are Much More Comfortable With Diversity.

[my Grandmother] Is A Typical White Person.

Iran Is Biggest Strategic Beneficiary Of Invasion Of Iraq.

The Real Problem, If You Look At How, For Example, Hezbollah Got A Lot Of Missiles That Are A Grave Threat To Israel, It's Not Because They Were Legal, It's Not Because Somehow That Was Authorized Under International Law; It Was Because There Was Insufficient Intelligence Or Capacity To Stop Those Shipments.

Before I Even Came Into Office, I Said That Preventing Iran From Getting A Nuclear Weapon Was A Priority.

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

I Opposed The Defense Of Marriage Act In 1996. It Should Be Repealed And I Will Vote For Its Repeal On The Senate Floor. I Will Also Oppose Any Proposal To Amend The U.s. Constitution To Ban Gays And Lesbians From Marrying.

I Have Been In Washington For A While Now, And Most Things Don't Surprise Me. The Fact That Twenty 6-year-olds Were Gunned Down In The Most Violent Fashion Possible And This Town Couldn't Do Anything About It Was Stunning To Me.

My Experience Is That Our Intelligence Officials Try To Do The Right Thing, But Even With Good Intentions, Sometimes They Make Mistakes. Sometimes They Can Be Overzealous.

Good Intentions

America Is, Is No Longer, Uh, What It, Uh, Could Be, Uh, What It Was Once Was, Uh, And I Say To Myself, Uh, I Don't Want That Future, Uh, For My Children.

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.

Yes To Trade, But Trade That Ensures That These Other Countries That Trade With Us Aren't Engaging In Child Labor.

My Guiding Principle As President Has Been To Try To Do The Right Thing Even When It's Not Politically Convenient.

Guiding Principles

For Decades, This Great Leader, Often At Dr. King’s Side, Was Denied His Rightful Place In History Because He Was Openly Gay. No Medal Can Change That, But Today, We Honor Bayard Rustin’s Memory By Taking Our Place In His March Towards True Equality, No Matter Who We Are Or Who We Love.

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

I Don't Regret The Excitement, Because I Do Think That It Helped Us Accomplish As Much As We Did.

If Some Of These [republican] Folks Were Around When Columbus Set Sail, They Must Have Been Founding Members Of The 'flat Earth Society.' They Would Not Believe That The World Was Round.

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.

Of Course We [with Angela Merkel] Discussed Our Commitment To Meeting Shared Security Challenges From Countering Cyber Threats To Ensuring That Iran Continues To Live Up To The Terms Of The Iran Nuclear Deal.

Come On! I Just Answered, Like, Eight Questions.

The Holy Koran Teaches That Whoever Kills An Innocent Is As - It Is As If He Has Killed All Mankind.

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.

People'd Be Like, "oh, Spending Taxpayer Money." It's Like, "no, No, I Actually I'm Paying For All Of This. The Only Thing I Don't Pay For Is Secret Service And An Airplane."

I Reserve The Right, As President Of The United States To Meet With Anybody At A Time And Place Of My Choosing If I Think It's Going To Keep America Safe.

Everything We've Done Has Been Designed To Make Sure That We Address That Number One Priority. That's What The Sanctions Regime Was All About. That's How We Were Able To Mobilize The International Community, Including Some Folks That We Are Not Particularly Close To, To Abide By These Sanctions. That's How These Crippling Sanctions Came About, Was Because We [usa] Were Able To Gain Global Consensus That Iran Having A Nuclear Weapon Would Be A Problem For Everybody.

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

We Will Respond To The Threat Of Climate Change

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.

As Long As Countries Like China Keep Going All In On Clean Energy, So Must We.

This Is What I Would Call Old Politics. This Is The Stuff We're Trying To Get Rid Of. Because The Problem Is, When We Start Breaking Down Into Conservative And Liberal, And We've Got A Bunch Of Set Predispositions, Whether It's On Gun Control, Or Its' On Health Care, Any Attempt To Do Health Care Is Socialized Medicine.

Basically, I Am A Night Owl. My Wife Is An Early Bird, So She Goes To Bed Around 9:30, And My Kids Are In Bed About 8. So, If I Am Home, I Will Usually Start Writing About 9:30 And Go Till About 12:30 Or 1:30, Depending On What My Energy Level Is.

If People Find That Controversial Then I Would Just Refer Them To The Sermon On The Mount.

When All Americans Are Treated As Equal We Are All More Free.

Marriage Equality

Jesus Lived A Life Of Peace, Love, Kindness And Forgiveness, During The Hustle And Bustle Of The Christmas Season, May We All Do Our Best To Follow His Example.

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

Who You Are And Who You Love Should Never Be A Fireable Offense

The Second Thing We Have To Do Is To Make Sure That All Of Us Think About How We Approach Our Elections And Our Democracy Not Only To Secure Them From Vote Tampering, But Also To Make Sure That We Understand When Propaganda Is Being Churned Through The System.

As You Travel Through The Middle East What Keeps On Striking Home To Me Is How Similar Everyone Is, And Yet The Degree To Which We Can Find Differences To Fight Wars Over. It Requires A Great Deal Of Empathy, I Think, Between Various Sides To Overcome This History And Live In Peace.

As The Wealthiest Nation On Earth, I Believe The United States Has A Moral Obligation To Lead The Fight Against Hunger And Malnutrition, And To Partner With Others.

Hunger And Poverty

There Are Gonna Be Elections Coming Up Among Our Nato Allies That We Have To Pay Attention To. I Anticipate That This Kind Of Thing Can Happen Again Here. And So In Addition To The Report Assessing What Exactly Happened, What We Have Also Done Is To Make Sure That The Department Of Homeland Security And Our Intelligence Teams Are Working With The Various Folks Who Run Our Elections.

The Brain Is A Body Part Too; We Just Know Less About It.

One Of The Thing About Being President - That Can't Be Taught, You Have To Experience, Is - There Is The Sheer Weight Of Decision Making. And When I Make A Decision To Send 17,000 Young Americans To Afghanistan - You Can Understand That Intellectually. But Understanding What That Means For Those Families, For Those Young People - When You End Up Sitting At Your Desk, Signing - A Condolence Letter To One Of The Family Members Of A Fallen Hero - You're Reminded Each And Every Day, At Every Moment, That - The Decisions You Make Count.

My Only Agenda For The Next Two Years Is The Same As The One I’ve Had Since The Day I Swore An Oath On The Steps Of This Capitol — to Do What I Believe Is Best For America.

Across The Globe There Are Girls Who Will One Day Lead Nations, If Only We Afford Them The Chance To Choose Their Own Destinies.

My Question Would Be Whether There Is Active Persecution Of Atheists.

Just Like I Described In Health Care, Yeah, Somebody Comes In, They Got New Ideas, Maybe Ideas That Are Completely Opposite Of My Ideas. Maybe Some Of It Goes, Maybe Some Of That Progress Goes Back. Maybe They Think Of Some Things We Didn't Think Of, And So In Some Other Areas - We Can Learn Something.

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

There's Just A Whole Different Attitude And Vibe When You're Not In Power As When You're In Power.

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

Another Tradition To Politics, A Tradition (of Politics) That Stretched From The Days Of The Country’s Founding To The Glory Of The Civil Rights Movement, A Tradition Based On The Simple Idea That We Have A Stake In One Another, And That What Binds Us Together Is Greater Than What Drives Us Apart, And That If Enough People Believe In The Truth Of That Proposition And Act On It, Then We Might Not Solve Every Problem, But We Can Get Something Meaningful Done.

My Powers Of Empathy, My Ability To Reach Into Another's Heart, Cannot Penetrate The Blank Stares Of Those Who Would Murder Innocents With Abstract, Serene Satisfaction.

Of Course, There's Been A Real Debate About Where To Invest And Where To Cut, And I'm Committed To Working With Members Of Both Parties To Cut Our Deficits And Debt. But We Can't Simply Cut Our Way To Prosperity.

He [barack Obama] Might Have A Pen, And He Might Have A Phone, But What He Does Not Have Is The Constitutional Power To Run This Country Like A Dictator.

People Have To Recognize That It’s Going To Take Some Time For Trust To Be Built Not Only Between Democrats And Republicans, Between Congress And The White House, Between The House And The Senate. You Know, We’ve Had A Dysfunctional Political System For A While Now.

The Interests Of All Cypriots Would Be Advanced With A Bizonal Bicommunal Federation.

Just From A Political Perspective, Do You Think The President Of The United States Going Into Re-election Wants Gas Prices To Go Up Higher? Look, Here's The Bottom Line With Respect To Gas Prices: I Want Gas Prices Lower Because They Hurt Families.

I Think That What Is Always True When You Run Against An Incumbent President Is, Is That You End Up Talking More About That President's Record Than Your Vision For The Future, And I Think That The Democrats Do Have To Present A Proactive Agenda And Vision For The Country And Not Simply Run Against Something If They're Going To Be Successful.

If Iran Cheats, The World Will Know It.

I [give] Maybe The Long-winded Speeches That Not Everybody Reads, But I Can Also Do A Slow Jam On Jimmy Fallon Better Than Most.

And To All Those Who Have Wondered If Americas Beacon Still Burns As Bright - Tonight We Proved Once More That The True Strength Of Our Nation Comes Not From Our The Might Of Our Arms Or The Scale Of Our Wealth, But From The Enduring Power Of Our Ideals: Democracy, Liberty, Opportunity, And Unyielding Hope. For That Is The True Genius Of America - That America Can Change. Our Union Can Be Perfected. And What We Have Already Achieved Gives Us Hope For What We Can And Must Achieve Tomorrow.

Every Four Minutes, Another American Home Or Business Goes Solar.

One Of The Things I Think I Can Bring To The Presidency Is To Make Government And Public Service Cool Again.

What We Can Be Scientifically Certain Of Is That Our Continued Use Of Fossil Fuels Is Pushing Us To A Point Of No Return

And I Will Do Everything That I Can As Long As I Am President Of The United States To Remind The American People That We Are One Nation Under God, And We May Call That God Different Names But We Remain One Nation.

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.

What We Can Do Is To Shape How That Process Of Global Integration Proceeds, So That It's Increasing Opportunity For Ordinary People, So That It's Creating Better Jobs, So That We Are Strengthening Protections For Workers, So That We Are Addressing Some Of The Environmental Challenges That Come With Rapid Growth.

You Mention The Navy, For Example, And The Fact That We Have Fewer Ships Than We Did In 1916. Well Governor, We Also Have Fewer Horses And Bayonets.

That's Where Peace Begins - Not Just In The Plans Of Leaders, But In The Hearts Of People. Not Just In Some Carefully Designed Process, But In The Daily Connections - That Sense Of Empathy That Takes Place Among Those Who Live Together In This Land And In This Sacred City Of Jerusalem.

You Not Only Do You Appreciate The Sacrifices People Have Made And The Hours They've Kept And The Soccer Games They Missed And The Birthday Parties, But I Also Had A Lot Of Young People Who Came In Here [to White House], And This Probably, You Know, Echoes With You, In Your Own Experience, You Were Young When You Got Here.

Muslim Leaders Around The Globe Have To Continue Working With Us To Decisively And Unequivocally Reject The Hateful Ideology That Groups Like Isil And Al Qaeda Promote. To Speak Out Against Not Just Acts Of Violence, But Also Those Interpretations Of Islam That Are Incompatible With The Values Of Religious Tolerance, Mutual Respect, And Human Dignity.

We Americans Are Not An Inherently More Violent People Than Folks In Other Countries. We're Not Inherently More Prone To Mental Health Problems. The Main Difference That Sets Our Nation Apart Is What Makes Us So Susceptible To So Many Mass Shootings Is That We Don't Do Enough, We Don't Take The Basic Commonsense Actions To Keep Guns Out Of The Hands Of Criminals And Dangerous People. What's Different In America Is It's Easy To Get Your Hands On A Gun.

We Were Just At The Beginnings Of A Recovery [in 2010]. And The, You Know, Whoever Is President At That Point Is Gonna Get Hit And His Party's Gonna Get Hit. That Then Means That Suddenly You've Got A Redistricting In Which A Lot Of State Legislatures Are Now Republican. They Draw Lines That Give A Huge Structural Advantage In Subsequent Elections.

Its Important For People To Know That I Will Make Many Promises To Get Their Votes.

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.

Campaigning Is Different From Governing.

I've Said To [donald Trump], And I Think Others Have Said To Him That The Day That He Is The President Of The United States, There Are World Capitals And Financial Markets And People All Around The World Who Take Really Seriously What He Says, And In A Way That's Just Not True Before You're Actually Sworn In As President.

It [is] That Courage That Africa Most Desperately Needs.

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.

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

I Insist On The Dignity And God- Given Potential And Work Of Every Child, Regardless Of Race Or Gender Or Sexual Orientation Or What Zip Code They Were Born In.

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