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Rather Than Double-down On The Top-down Economics That Let A Fortunate Few Play By Their Own Rules, Let’s Embrace An Economic Patriotism That Says We Rise Or Fall Together, As One Nation, And As One People.

-Barack Obama

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Rather Than Double-down On

Barack Obama

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Rather Than Double-down On The Top-down Economics That Let A Fortunate Few Play By Their Own Rules, Let’s Embrace An Economic Patriotism That Says We Rise Or Fall Together, As One Nation, And As One People.

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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.

...as Parents, We Have To Find The Time And The Energy To Step In And Help Our Children Love Reading. We Can Read To Them, Talk To Them About What They're Reading, And Make Time For This By Turning Off The Television Set Ourselves. Libraries Are A Critical Tool To Help Parents Do This.

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

For Decades, Our Differences With Iran Meant That Our Governments Almost Never Spoke To Each Other. Ultimately, That Did Not Advance America's Interests.

After A Century Of Striving, After A Year Of Debate, After A Historic Vote, Health Care Reform Is No Longer An Unmet Promise. It Is The Law Of The Land.

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

I Do Think That I Am Generally Optimistic.

Now Is The Time For All Of Us To Take Our Share Of Responsibility For A Global Response To Global Challenges.

I Am Reminded Every Day Of My Life, If Not By Events, Then By My Wife, That I Am Not A Perfect Man.

Long Before Being Nerdy Was Cool, There Was Leonard Nimoy. Leonard Was A Lifelong Lover Of The Arts And Humanities, A Supporter Of The Sciences, Generous With His Talent And His Time. And Of Course, Leonard Was Spock. Cool, Logical, Big-eared And Level-headed, The Center Of Star Trek’s Optimistic, Inclusive Vision Of Humanity’s Future. I Loved Spock.

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.

But At A Time When Our Discourse Has Become So Sharply Polarized - At A Time When We Are Far Too Eager To Lay The Blame For All That Ails The World At The Feet Of Those Who Think Differently Than We Do - It's Important For Us To Pause For A Moment And Make Sure That We Are Talking With Each Other In A Way That Heals, Not A Way That Wounds.

At The Constitutional Level, What We Of Course Have Assured Is That Women Have The Ability To Make These Reproductive Decisions Up To The Point Of Viability.

As You Might Imagine, If You're A Teenager Having A Couple Of People With Microphones And Guns Always Following You Around, That Could Grate On Them. But You Know, They've Handled It With Grace And I Give Michelle [obama] Most Of The Credit For How Well They've Done, But I Also Just Think They Are Graceful, Good Young, Young Women.

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

The Biggest Threat That We Face Right Now Is Not A Nuclear Missile Coming Over The Skies. It's In A Suitcase. This Is Why The Issue Of Nuclear Proliferation Is So Important. It Is The - The Biggest Threat To The United States Is A Terrorist Getting Their Hands On Nuclear Weapons.

The Recovery Act, Which Helped Saved The Economy And Prevented Us Going Into The Great Depression, Was The Largest Investment In Green Technology, The Largest Investment In Education. We Rebuilt Roads And Bridges.

On My Recent Trip To Israel, I Had The Opportunity To Visit Yad Vashem, Israel's National Holocaust Memorial, And Reaffirm Our Collective Responsibility To Confront Anti-semitism, Prejudice, And Intolerance Across The World. On This Yom Hashoah, We Must Accept The Full Responsibility Of Remembrance, As Nations And As Individuals-not Simply To Pledge "never Again," But To Commit Ourselves To The Understanding, Empathy And Compassion That Is The Foundation Of Peace And Human Dignity.

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

On The Other Hand, It Is Also Undeniable That The Palestinian People - Muslims And Christians - Have Suffered In Pursuit Of A Homeland.

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

I Think [ Unpopular Presidential Candidates ] Indicates, At Least On The Democratic Side, That We've Got More Work To Do To Strengthen Our Grassroots Networks.

Throughout American History, There Have Been Moments That Call On Us To Meet The Challenges Of An Uncertain World, And Pay Whatever Price Is Required To Secure Our Freedom.

If I Were German And I Had A Vote, I Might Support Angela Merkel.

The Worst Thing That Colonialism Did Was To Cloud Our View Of Our Past.

The Quicker You Resolve The Problems With Banks And There's Transparency In That Process, The Faster They Recapitalize And Are Able To Make Investments.

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

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 Will Set Big Goals For This Country As President - Some So Large That The Technology To Reach Them Does Not Yet Exist.""i Will Recruit New Teachers And Make New Investments In Rural Schools, We'll Connect All Of America To 21st Century Technology And Telecommunications.

And Yes, My Plan Will Continue To Reduce The Carbon Pollution That Is Heating Our Planet - Because Climate Change Is Not A Hoax. More Droughts And Floods And Wildfires Are Not A Joke. They're A Threat To Our Children's Future. And In This Election, You Can Do Something About It.

It's The Reason Why I Am Always Interested In Engaging In People Who Are Pushing Us And Pushing Against The Status Quo. But Having Been An Activist, The Only Thing That I'm Always Encouraging Activists To Do Is, Once You Have Raised The Issue, And Even Through Controversial Means, You Have To Come Behind It With An Agenda And The Possibility Of Reconciliation If Power Meets Your Demands.

What I Think Is Fair To Say Is That, Coming Out Of The Republican Camp, There Have Been Efforts To Suggest That Perhaps I'm Not Who I Say I Am When It Comes To My Faith - Something Which I Find Deeply Offensive, And That Has Been Going On For A Pretty Long Time.

We're Leaving Behind A Sovereign, Stable And Self-reliant Iraq With A Representative Government That Was Elected By Its People. We're Building A New Partnership Between Our Nations And We Are Ending A War Not With A Final Battle But With A Final March Toward Home. This Is An Extraordinary Achievement

If You Want To Right-size Executive Power Relative To The Other Branches Of Government, The Best Way To Do That Is To Have A Healthy Congress In Which The Two Parties Are Debating, Disagreeing, But Also Occasionally Working Together To Pass Legislation.

Whether Our Forebears Were Strangers Who Crossed The Atlantic Or The Pacific Or The Rio Grande, We Are Here Only Because This Country Welcomed Them In And Taught Them That To Be An American Is About Something More Than What We Look Like, Or What Our Last Names Are, Or How We Worship.

With Only 2 Percent Of The World's Oil Reserves, Oil Isn't Enough. This Country Needs An All-out, All-of-the-above Strategy That Develops Every Available Source Of American Energy. A Strategy That's Cleaner, Cheaper, And Full Of New Jobs.

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

Third, We Will Continue To Draw On Our Substantial Counterterrorism Capabilities To Prevent Isil Attacks. Working With Our Partners, We Will Redouble Our Efforts To Cut Off Its Funding; Improve Our Intelligence; Strengthen Our Defenses; Counter Its Warped Ideology; And Stem The Flow Of Foreign Fighters Into - And Out Of - The Middle East. And In Two Weeks, I Will Chair A Meeting Of The Un Security Council To Further Mobilize The International Community Around This Effort.

How Do We Transform Mere Power Into Justice, Mere Sentiment Into Love?

Winston Churchill Used To Say That We, Americans, Try Every Other Option Before We Finally Do The Right Thing. After Everything Else Is Exhausted We Eventually Do The Right Thing And I Think That's True For Congress As Well. And It's Important For Americans To Remember That Politics Has Always Been Messy.

I Think Our Basic Principle That This Is A Free Market System And That That Has Worked For Us, That It Creates Innovation And Risk Taking, I Think That's A Principle That We've Gotta Hold To As Well. But What I Don't Wanna Do Is Get Bottled Up In A Lot Of Ideology And Is This Conservative Or Liberal. My Interest Is Finding Something That Works.

We're Not Going To Deputize A Whole Bunch Of American Citizens To Start Grabbing People Or Turning Them In, In Part Because The Ordinary American Citizen May Not Know Whether Or Not This Person Is Illegal Or Not. But, You Know, The Notion That We're Going To Criminalize Priests, For Example, Or Doctors Who Are Providing Services To Individuals, And Throw Them In Jail For Doing What Their Calling Asks Them To Do, Which Is To Provide Help And Service To People In Need, I Think That Is A Mistake. I Think That's Out Of America's Character.

For The United States Of America, The Best Is Yet To Come.

Best Is Yet To Come

So My Biggest Fun Has Been Watching My Daughters Grow Up. Now, Unfortunately They're Hitting The Age Where They Still Love Me, But They Think I'm Completely Boring. And So They'll Come In, Pat Me On The Head, Talk To Me For 10 Minutes, And Then They're Gone All Weekend. Right? They Break My Heart! So Now I've Got To Start Thinking, Well What's Going To Replace That Fun?

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.

What I've Seen In My Own Life Is That When I Get Something Important Done It's Because Of A Lot Of Other People - Some Who Get Credit, Some Who Don't.

One Of The Challenges Of A Democratic Government Is Making Sure That Even In The Midst Of Emergencies And Passions, We Make Sure That Rule Of Law And The Basic Precepts Of Justice And Liberty Prevail.

The President Does Not Have Power Under The Constitution To Unilaterally Authorize A Military Attack In A Situation That Does Not Involve Stopping An Actual Or Imminent Threat To The Nation.

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.

There Is A Big Part Of Me That Has A Writer's Sensibility. And So That's How I Think. That's How I Pursue Truth. That's How I Hope To Communicate Truth To People.

I Went Through Six Years Of Battles On Health Care Because I Didn't Have $100 Million Worth Of Advertising Saying How It Would Never Work.

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

Freedom Of Speech

Turns Out I'm Really Good At Killing People. Didn't Know That Was Gonna Be A Strong Suit Of Mine.

I Think Republicans Now Are Recognizing That [obamacare Cancellation] May Not Be What The American People, Including Even [donald] Trump Voters, Are Looking For. And My Hope Is That The President-elect, Members Of Congress From Both Parties Look At, "where Have We Objectively Made Progress, Where Things Are Working Better?" Don't Undo Things Just Because I Did Them. I Don't Have Pride Of Authorship.

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

[we Should Beware] That Our Democracy Stays Healthy. And Making Sure That We Maintain That Sense Of Solidarity.

It's Easier To Make Negative Attacks And Simplistic Slogans [in Social Media] Than It Is To Communicate Complex Policies.

Let Me Be Absolutely Clear. Israel Is A Strong Friend Of Israel's. It Will Be A Strong Friend Of Israel's Under A Mccain Administration. It Will Be A Strong Friend Of Israel's Under An Obama Administration. So That Policy Is Not Going To Change.

I Believe That Marriage Is The Union Between A Man And A Woman. Now, For Me As A Christian - For Me - For Me As A Christian, It Is Also A Sacred Union. God's In The Mix.

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.

The World Is Less Violent Than It Has Ever Been.

In The End, That's What This Election Is About. Do We Participate In A Politics Of Cynicism Or A Politics Of Hope?

You Know, It's Fashionable Right Now For People To Be Cynical. We Go In Cycles Like This And Right Now A Lot Of People Are Saying, 'oh, America Is Doing Terribly' And 'what Are We Going To Do?'

That Is The True Genius Of America-a Faith In Simple Dreams, An Insistence On Small Miracles.

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

For The Sake Of Our Security, Our Economy And Our Planet, We Must Have The Courage And Commitment To Change.

My Family, Frankly, They Weren't Folks Who Went To Church Every Week. My Mother Was One Of The Most Spiritual People I Knew But She Didn't Raise Me In The Church, So I Came To My Christian Faith Later In Life And It Was Because The Precepts Of Jesus Christ Spoke To Me In Terms Of The Kind Of Life That I Would Want To Lead.

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!

Young Men Need To Show Women The Respect They Deserve And Recognize Sexual Assault And To Do Their Part To Stop It.

Domestic Violence

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

My Hope And Expectation Is That Regardless Of What Donald Trump Said During The Campaign, He's Going To Have To Look Carefully At The Realities When He Moves Forward.

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

There Are Few Things In Life That Are Harder To Find And More Important To Keep Than Love. Well, Love And A Birth Certificate.

Now, At Times This Issue Has Tended To Degenerate Into An 'either-or' Type Of Debate. Either We Protect Our People From Terror Or We Protect Our Most Cherished Principles. But That Is A False Choice. It Asks Too Little Of Us And Assumes Too Little About America.

I'm Kind Of A Night Owl.

For Everywhere We Look, There Is Work To Be Done. The State Of Our Economy Calls For Action: Bold And Swift. And We Will Act Not Only To Create New Jobs But To Lay A New Foundation For Growth. We Will Build The Roads And Bridges, The Electric Grids And Digital Lines That Feed Our Commerce And Bind Us Together. We Will Restore Science To Its Rightful Place And Wield Technology's Wonders To Raise Health Care's Quality And Lower Its Costs.

Cutting The Deficit By Gutting Our Investments In Innovation And Education Is Like Lightening An Overloaded Airplane By Removing Its Engine. It May Make You Feel Like You're Flying High At First, But It Won't Take Long Before You Feel The Impact.

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.

There's A Whole Generation Coming Up Behind Us That Was Engaged, Inspired, Worked For Change During The Course Of My Presidency, Saw What Was Possible.

Everybody Knows Politics Is A Contact Sport.

I Am Very Proud Of The Fact I Do Not Cheat When I'm Playing Golf.

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.

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.

And We Can See The Positive Impacts Right Here At Solyndra. Less Than A Year Ago, We Were Standing On What Was An Empty Lot. But Through The Recovery Act, This Company Received A Loan To Expand Its Operations. This New Factory Is The Result Of Those Loans.

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. That We Can Have An Idea And Start Our Own Business Without Paying A Bribe Or Hearing A Sudden Knock On The Door. That We Can Participate In The Political Process Without Fear Of Retribution, And That Our Votes Will Be Counted.

It’s Important To Make Sure That We’re Talking With Each Other In A Way That Heals, Not In A Way That Wounds." - Barack Obama, 44th U.s. President

Together We Can Change Our Culture For The Better By Ending Violence Against Women And Girls, Artists Have A Unique Power To Change Minds And Attitudes And Get Us Thinking And Talking About What Matters, And All Of Us, In Our Lives, Have The Power To Set An Example. Join Our Campaign To Stop This Violence.

When I Ran For The U.s. Senate The Assumption Was That Anyone's Name That Was Close To "osama" Doesn't Stand A Chance. So If Somebody Thought That Tacking On "hussein" In There Would Be A Killer, Then I Think They Underestimate The American People And The Seriousness Of The Problems We Face.

It Requires Enormous Energy For Us To Cut The African American Uninsured Rate By A Third. A Lot Of Scars.

African American

The Silence Killed Your Faith.

Even Limited Military Actions End Up Carrying With Them Great Costs And Unintended Consequences.

Each Path To Knowledge Involves Different Rules And These Rules Are Not Interchangeable.

No One Nation Can Or Should Try To Dominate Another Nation.

We Remember, We Rebuild, We Come Back Stronger.

There Are Legitimate Concerns And Anxieties That The Forces Of Globalisation Are Leaving Too Many People Behind - And We Have To Take Those Concerns Seriously And Address Them. But The Answer Isn't To Turn Inward And Embrace Protectionism. We Can't Just Walk Away From Trade.

We Live In A Moment When The Dream Of Equal Opportunity Is Within Reach.

My Parents Shared Not Only An Improbable Love, They Shared An Abiding Faith In The Possibilities Of This Nation. They Would Give Me An African Name, Barack, Or Blessed, Believing That In A Tolerant America Your Name Is No Barrier To Success.

I'm A Big Football Fan, But I Have To Tell You If I Had A Son, I'd Have To Think Long And Hard Before I Let Him Play Football.

This Visit [to Singapore] Is An Occasion To Mark The 50th Anniversary Our Bilateral Relationship With Singapore, Which Is One Of Our Strongest And Most Reliable Partners In South-east Asia.

50th Anniversary

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

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

It Is My Judgment That Had I Spent The First Two Years Trying To Get A Single-payer System, All Those Folks Who Now Have Health Insurance That Didn't Have It Would Still Be Uninsured. And Those Are Millions Of People Whose Lives Are Impacted Right Now.

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.

If You Want A Model For What Is Possible, If You Want To See How To Build A Peaceful And Prosperous And Dynamic Society, Then Look At Berlin And Look At Germany.

The Thing That Has Disturbed Me Most About The Russian Hacking Episode Is - And The Thing That Surprised Me Most Has Not Been The Fact Of Russian Hacking. The Cyber World Is Full Of Information Gathering, You Know, Propaganda, Et Cetera. I Have Been Concerned About The Degree To Which, In Some Circles, You've Seen People Suggest That Vladimir Putin Has More Credibility Than The U.s. Government. I Think That's Something New.

The Conservative Revolution That Reagan Helped Usher In Gained Traction Because Reagan's Central Insight - That The Liberal Welfare State Had Grown Complacent And Overly Bureaucratic, With Democratic Policy Makers More Obsessed With Slicing The Economic Pie Than With Growing The Pie - Contained A Good Deal Of Truth.

I Know Cnn Has Taken Some Knocks Lately But The Fact Is, I Admire Their Commitment To Covering All Sides Of The Story, Just In Case One Of Them Happens To Be Accurate.

If In Fact The Republicans Make Some Modifications [of Obamacare], Some Of Which I May Have Been Seeking Previously, But They Wouldn't Cooperate Because They Didn't Wanna Make The System Work, And Re-label It As Trumpcare, I'm Fine With That.

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.

Look, We Live In A Celebrity Culture And Sometimes You Get Caught In The Wave And The Buzz And A Lot Of It's Flattering But, You Know, One Of The Things That I Try To Remind People Of Is, Is That I Was In Politics As A State Senator Operating In Obscurity For Many Years. Before That I Was A Community Organizer Working In Low Income Communities In Chicago And Nobody Knew My Name Then. And So, Having Involved Myself In Public Service For A Pretty Long Time Without Getting Too Much Attention, Hopefully I Can Keep Some Of The Attention That I'm Getting Now In Perspective.

For The Sake Of Our Children And Our Future, We Must Do More To Combat Climate Change. Now, It's True That No Single Event Makes A Trend. But The Fact Is The 12 Hottest Years On Record Have All Come In The Last 15. Heat Waves, Droughts, Wildfires, Floods-all Are Now More Frequent And More Intense. We Can Choose To Believe That Superstorm Sandy, And The Most Severe Drought In Decades, And The Worst Wildfires Some States Have Ever Seen Were All Just A Freak Coincidence. Or We Can Choose To Believe In The Overwhelming Judgment Of Science-and Act Before It's Too Late.

I Am Convinced That Whenever We Exaggerate Or Demonize, Oversimplify Or Overstate Our Case, We Lose. Whenever We Dumb Down The Political Debate, We Lose. For It's Precisely The Pursuit Of Ideological Purity, The Rigid Orthodoxy And The Sheer Predictability Of Our Current Political Debate, That Keeps Us From Finding New Ways To Meet The Challenges We Face.

Globalization Is A Fact, Because Of Technology, Because Of An Integrated Global Supply Chain, Because Of Changes In Transportation. And We're Not Going To Be Able To Build A Wall Around That.

[about His Marijuana Use] I Did. It's Not Something That I'm Proud Of. It Was A Mistake As A Young Man, But You Know? I Mean Not Going To -- I Never Understood That Line. The Point Was To Inhale. That Was The Point.

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

It Will Be Up To Each Of You To Make Sure That Young People, African Americans, Latinos And Women Who Powered Our Victory In 2008 Stand Together Once Again.

African American

The World Is Complicated And Full Of Grays, But There's Still Truth There To Be Found.

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

If You Think That Running Your Economy Into The Ground And Having To Send Troops In In Order To Prop Up Your Only Ally Is Leadership, Then We've Got A Different Definition Of Leadership.

I Know That The Politics Around Trade Can Be Very Difficult - Especially In An Election Year.

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.

What I Remember Thinking At That Point, Having Gone Through Both The Ups And Downs Of My First Four Years, And Seeing The Sea Of People Was, "what A Remarkable Country This Is And How Lucky Am I That We Live In A Place Where The Son Of A Single Mom, Not Born Into Any Kind Of Fame Or Fortune, In A Pretty Remote State Somehow Can End Up Be In A Position To - To Make A Difference."

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.

I'm Inspired By The People I Meet In My Travels--hearing Their Stories, Seeing The Hardships They Overcome, Their Fundamental Optimism And Decency. I'm Inspired By The Love People Have For Their Children. And I'm Inspired By My Own Children, How Full They Make My Heart. They Make Me Want To Work To Make The World A Little Bit Better. And They Make Me Want To Be A Better Man.

We Have To Acknowledge The Progress We Made, But Understand That We Still Have A Long Way To Go. That Things Are Better, But Still Not Good Enough.

Not Good Enough

When Michelle And I Decided That I Would Run For President, It Was Because Of A Shared Belief In The Power Of Community And Connection, A Commitment To The Idea That We Are Our Brothers' Keepers.

The Degree Of Polarization That Currently Exists In Washington Is Such Where I Think It's Fair To Say If I Presented A Cure For Cancer, Getting Legislation Passed To Move That Forward Would Be A Nail-biter.

Ultimately There Is No Dividing Line Between Main Street And Wall Street. We Will Rise Or We Will Fall Together As One Nation.

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

I Would Say This, I'll Go Back To Those Black Ladies I Was Talking About Who Love Them Some Barack And Love Michelle Even More - And By The Way, They Are Not Middle-aged Anymore, Because I'm Now Middle-aged. So They're A Little Bit Older. As Fervent As They Were, As Excited And Happy As They Were When I Was Elected, They Had To Go To Work The Next Morning. They Still Had Trouble Paying Those Bills. They Might Have Still Had A Son Who Was In Trouble With The Law Or Couldn't Get A Job Because Of A Felony Record. They Didn't Stop Being Grounded.

The Government Has To Treat All Citizens Equally. I Am A Strong Supporter Not Of A Weak Version Of Civil Unions, But Of A Strong Version, In Which The Rights That Are Conferred At The Federal Level To Persons Who Are Part Of The Same-sex Union Are Compatible. When It Comes To Federal Rights, The Over 1,100 Rights That Right Now Are Not Being Given To Same-sex Couples, I Think That's Unacceptable.

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

I Am Confident That We Will One Day End The Scourge Of Modern Slavery, Because I Believe In Those Committed To This Issue.

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.

We Have Known For Decades That Our Survival Depends On Finding New Sources Of Energy. Yet We Import More Oil Today Than Ever Before.

Now, I Know That He's Taken Some Flak Lately, But No One Is Prouder To Put This Birth Certificate To Rest Than The Donald. Now He Can Get To Focusing On The Issues That Matter. Like, Did We Fake The Moon Landing? What Really Happened In Roswell? And Where Are Biggie And Tupac?

The Problem Was, And We Saw Some Of This In The Immigration-reform Issues As Well, Was They Hadn't Done Sufficient Homework To Know That I Didn't Have All The Capacity They Thought I Did In Order To Just Execute This Through The Stroke Of A Pen.

One Of The Things I've Learned About Being President Is That We'll Work On Issues For Long Periods Of Time, Sometimes In Obscurity.

Mr Speaker, Mr Vice President, Members Of Congress, Distinguished Guests, And Fellow Americans, Last Month I Went To Andrews Air Force Base And Welcomed Home Some Of Our Last Troops To Serve In Iraq. Together, We Offered A Final, Proud Salute To The Colors Under Which More Than A Million Of Our Fellow Citizens Fought, And Several Thousand Gave Their Lives. We Gather Tonight Knowing That This Generation Of Heroes Has Made The United States Safer And More Respected Around The World.

My Hope Is That More And More Investors Around The World See An Opportunity To Do Business In Greece.

By So Many Measures, Our Country Is Stronger And More Prosperous Than It Was When We First Got Here. And I'm Hopeful We'll Build On The Progress We've Made In The Years To Come.

It's Time To Recognize That Under The Equal Protection Clause Of The United States [constitution], Same-sex Couples Should Have The Same Rights As Anybody Else.

Generally Speaking, People Who Know Me Will Tell You That My Public Persona Is Not That Different From My Private Persona.

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.

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.

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

On This Day, We Gather Because We Have Chosen Hope Over Fear, Unity Of Purpose Over Conflict And Discord.

You Can Put Lipstick On A Pig. It's Still A Pig.

I'm Not Going To Wall Street [after The Presidency]. The Amount Of Time That I'll Be Investing In Issues Is Going To Be High. But It'll Be Necessarily In A Different Capacity.

Young People Recognize The Big Challenges That Are Coming Up.

America's Strong Bonds With Israel Are Well Known - This Bond Is Unbreakable.

I Thought I Could Start Over, You See. But Now I Know You Can Never Start Over. Not Really. You Think You Have Control, But You Are Like A Fly In Somebody Else's Web. Sometimes I Think That's Why I Like Accounting. All Day, You Are Only Dealing With Numbers. You Add Them, Multiply Them, And If You Are Careful, You Will Always Have A Solution. There's A Sequence There. An Order. With Numbers, You Can Have Control.

Now Is The Time To Keep The Promise Of Equal Pay For An Equal Day's Work, Because I Want My Daughters To Have Exactly The Same Opportunities As Your Sons.

Short Term, The Most Important Thing Is To Put People Back To Work ... If They're Working, That Means They're Paying Taxes, That Means That They're Buying Goods And Services - And The Economy, Instead Of Being On A Downward Spiral, Starts Back Up On An Upward Spiral.

So Many Of My Staff Is Young Enough That They're Going To Do Amazing Things. And I'm Going To Be Helping Them Try To Do Them.

We Can’t Afford To Be So Worried About Losing The Next Election That We Lose The Battles We Owe To The Next Generation. The Real Gamble In This Election Is Playing The Same Washington Game With The Same Washington Players And Expecting A Different Result. And That’s A Risk We Can’t Take.

I Think We've Set The Bar With Respect To The Notion That It Is Possible To Provide Health Care For People. Now I Know That The Incoming Congress And Administration Talks About Repealing It. But We've Set A Bar That Shows That This Can Be Done. And That Core Principle Is One That The Majority Of Americans, Including Supporters Of Donald Trump Believe In.

We Right Now Give $15 Billion Every Year As Subsidies To Private Insurers Under The Medicare System. Doesn't Work Any Better Through The Private Insurers. They Just Skim Off $15 Billion.

I Think There Are A Lot Of People Who Are Involved In The Tea Party Who Have Very Real And Sincere Concerns About Spending That's Out Of Control Or Generally Philosophically Believe That The Government Should Be Less Involved In Certain Aspects Of American Life Rather Than More Involved. And They Have Every Right And Obligation As Citizens To Be Involved And Engaged In This Process.

Of All The Rocks Upon Which We Build Our Lives, We Are Reminded Today That Family Is The Most Important.

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

All I Want To Do, If You've Already Got Health Care, Is Lower Your Costs.

I've Said Repeatedly That Where We See Terrorist Organizations Like Al-qaeda Or Isil, They Have Perverted And Distorted And Tried To Claim The Mantle Of Islam For An Excuse, For Basically Barbarism And Death. These Are People Who Kill Children, Kill Muslims, Take Sex Slaves - There's No Religious Rationale That Would Justify In Any Way Any Of The Things That They Do.

We'll Build New Ties Of Trade And Of Commerce, Culture And Education That Unleash The Potential Of The Iraqi People.

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

Oftentimes, Misunderstandings And Antagonism Surfaces Most Strongly When Economic Times Are Tough. And That's Not Surprising. If Everybody Is Working And Feeling Good And Making Money And Buying A New House And A Big Screen Tv, You're Less Worried About What Other Folks Are Doing.

One Of The Great Qualities Of Chancellor Merkel Is That She Is Steady. She Analyzes A Situation. She's Honest. Sometimes We've Had Disagreements, But When We Do, It's Very Constructive. And We Are Consistently Open With Each Other About How We Should Approach These Issues.

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

I Think The Irony ... Is That I Actually Would Like To See A Relatively Light Touch When It Comes To The Government.

And So Our Goal On Health Care Is, If We Can Get, Instead Of Health Care Costs Going Up 6 Percent A Year, It's Going Up At The Level Of Inflation, Maybe Just Slightly Above Inflation, We've Made Huge Progress. And By The Way, That Is The Single Most Important Thing We Could Do In Terms Of Reducing Our Deficit. That's Why We Did It.

One Of The Gratifying Things, I Think, About The End Of My Presidency Even Though Admittedly My Successor Ran Against A Lot Of What We Stood For, Is When You Look At The Individual Issues And The Progress That We've Made On A Lot Of Those Issues, We Got The Support Of A Pretty Decent Majority.

My Relationship With Silicon Valley And The Tech Community Historically Has Been Really Good. Many Of These Folks Are My Friends.

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

I Think We Need Missile Defense. But I Want To Make Sure It Works, That It's Cost Effective, That The Technologies Are Operable, That It's Our Best Possible Strategy, And That Hasn't Been Shown.

In The Wake Of 9/11, My Meetings With Arab And Pakistani Americans, For Example, Have A More Urgent Quality, For The Stories Of Detentions And Fbi Questioning And Hard Stares From Neighbors Have Shaken Their Sense Of Security And Belonging. They Have Been Reminded That The History Of Immigration In This Country Has A Dark Underbelly; They Need Specific Reassurances That Their Citizenship Really Means Something, That America Has Learned The Right Lessons From The Japanese Internments During World War Ii, And That I Will Stand With Them Should The Political Winds Shift In An Ugly Direction.

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

We Are A Nation Of Christians And Muslims, Jews And Hindus, And Nonbelievers.

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 Promised To Bring Change To Washington. The Underlying Reason For The Economic Mess We're In Has Been Building For Years. It's A Fundamental Imbalance In Which The Top 1 Percent Now Gets Almost A Quarter Of All National Income. We Haven't Seen Income And Wealth This Concentrated Since The Late Nineteen Twenties, And We All Know What Happened Then - The Great Depression. We'll Never Really Get Out Of The Gravitational Pull Of The Great Recession Until We Fix This Basic Problem.

Great Depression

We Should Be More Modest In Our Belief That We Can Impose Democracy On A Country Through Military Force.

We Will Kill Bin Laden. We Will Crush Al Qaeda. That Has To Be Our Biggest National Security Priority.

I Think If You Worked At The Community Level In Chicago And Then A Politician On The South Side Of Chicago, And Worked At The State Level, Then You're Pretty Familiar With All The Variations Of Politics In The African American Community And Criticisms You May Get. If You're Not Familiar With Those Or You Don't Have A Thick Enough Skin To Take It, Then You Probably Wouldn't Have Gotten Here.

African American

Love And Hope Can Conquer Hate.

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

But Race Is An Issue That I Believe This Nation Cannot Afford To Ignore Right Now. We Would Be Making The Same Mistake That Reverend Wright Made In His Offending Sermons About America - To Simplify And Stereotype And Amplify The Negative To The Point That It Distorts Reality.

When It Comes To Our Military, What We Have To Think About Is Not, You Know Just Budgets, We've Got To Think About Capabilities.

Senator Joe Biden Is Pretty Clean And Articulate For A White Guy.

We've Come To Be Consumed By A 24-hour, Slash-and-burn, Negative Ad, Bickering, Small-minded Politics That Doesn't Move Us Forward. Sometimes One Side Is Up And The Other Side Is Down. But There's No Sense That They Are Coming Together In A Common-sense, Practical, Nonideological Way To Solve The Problems That We Face.

I Do Think That Saving The Economy Was A Pretty Big Deal. We Did A Lot Of Stuff Early That Ended Up Having An Impact. I Believe That The Work We've Done In Moving Our Energy Future In A Cleaner Direction Is Going To Stick Even If Some Of The Individual Steps That We Took Are Reversed By Future Administrations. I Think That It's Embedded Itself In The Economy.

We Have To Think About Affirmative Action And Craft It In Such A Way Where Some Of Our Children, Who Are Advantaged, Aren't Getting More Favorable Treatment Than A Poor White Kid Who Struggled More.

Do Not Tell Me That We're Not Drilling. We're Drilling All Over This Country. I Mean, I Guess There's Some - There Are A Few Spots Where We're Not Drilling. We're Not Drilling In The National Mall. We're Not Drilling At Your House. I Guess We Could Try To Have Like, You Know, 200 Oil Rigs In The Middle Of Chesapeake Bay.

My Sister Is A Teacher, So I Am A Strong Support Of Teachers, But I'm Not Going To Be Bound By Just A Certain Way Of Talking About These Things, In Order For Us To Move Forward On Behalf Of Our Kids.

If You Can Look Back And Say, "the Economy's Better. Our Security's Better. The Environment's Better. Our Kids' Education Is Better," If You Can Say That You've Made Things Better, Then Considering All The Challenges Out There, You Should Feel Good. But I'm The First To Acknowledge That I Did Not Crack The Code In Terms Of Reducing This Partisan Fever.

The Us And Australia Have A Lot In Common. One Of The Things We Have In Common Is We Produce A Lot Of Carbon.

The Men And Women Of America's Homeland Security Apparatus Do Important Work To Protect Us, And Republicans And Democrats In Congress Should Not Be Playing Politics With That.

One Of The Great Things About Our Democracy Is It Expresses Itself In All Sorts Of Ways. And That Includes People Protesting. I've Been The Subject Of Protests During The Course Of My Eight Years And I Suspect That There's Not A President In Our History That At Some Point Hasn't Been Subject To These Protests.

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.

Here At This Site, Solyndra Expects To Make Enough Solar Panels Each Year To Generate 500 Megawatts Of Electricity. And Over The Lifetime Of This Expanded Facility, That Could Be Like Replacing As Many As Eight Coal-fired Power Plants.

I Think That I'm A Better Speechwriter Than My Speechwriters. I Know More About Policies On Any Particular Issue Than My Policy Directors. And I'll Tell You Right Now That I'm Gonna Think I'm A Better Political Director Than My Political Director.

Mitt Romney Is Familiar With Jobs Being Shipped Overseas Because He Invested In Companies That Were Shipping Jobs Overseas.

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