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There Is A Theory That Basically Says That We Can Shred Regulations And Consumer Protections And Give More And More To The Most, And Somehow Prosperity Will Trickle Down. It Hasn't Worked. And I Think That The Fundamentals Of The Economy Have To Be Measured By Whether Or Not The Middle Class Is Getting A Fair Shake.

-Barack Obama

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There Is A Theory

Barack Obama

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There Is A Theory That Basically Says That We Can Shred Regulations And Consumer Protections And Give More And More To The Most, And Somehow Prosperity Will Trickle Down. It Hasn't Worked. And I Think That The Fundamentals Of The Economy Have To Be Measured By Whether Or Not The Middle Class Is Getting A Fair Shake.

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Our Hearts Are Broken Today For The Parents And Grandparents, Sisters And Brothers Of These Children And The Families Of The Adults We Lost....may God Bless The Memory Of The Victims And In The Words Of Scripture Heal The Broken Hearted And Bind Up Their Wounds.

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I'm Named Barack Hussein Obama. I'm African-american.

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I Agree With The Basic Principle That Anybody Who Wants To Serve In Our Armed Forces And Make Sacrifices On Our Behalf, On Behalf Of Our National Security, Anybody Should Be Able To Serve. And They Shouldn't Have To Lie About Who They Are In Order To Serve.

Don't Just Buy A New Video Game, Make One. Don't Just Download The Latest App, Help Design It. Don't Just Play On Your Phone, Program It.

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

Islam Has Always Been Part Of America

You're The Reason Why Selfless Soldiers Won't Be Kicked Out Of The Military Because Of Who They Are Or Who They Love.

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What You Saw Was The People Of New York Having A Debate, Talking Through These Issues. It Was Contentious. It Was Emotional. But Ultimately, They Made A Decision To Recognize Civil Marriage. And I Think That's Exactly How Things Should Work.

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The Promotion Of Human Rights Cannot Be About Exhortation Alone. At Times, It Must Be Coupled With Painstaking Diplomacy. I Know That Engagement With Repressive Regimes Lacks The Satisfying Purity Of Indignation. But I Also Know That Sanctions Without Outreach -- Condemnation Without Discussion -- Can Carry Forward Only A Crippling Status Quo. No Repressive Regime Can Move Down A New Path Unless It Has The Choice Of An Open Door.

So Long As I'm Commander-in-chief, We Will Sustain The Strongest Military The World Has Ever Known. When You Take Off The Uniform, We Will Serve You As Well As You've Served Us - Because No One Who Fights For This Country Should Have To Fight For A Job, Or A Roof Over Their Head, Or The Care That They Need When They Come Home.

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.

You Have To Be Organized, That You Have To Vote Even When It's Not Exciting.

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.

Where We Get Into Problems, Typically, Is When Our Personal Religious Faith, Or The Community Of Faith That We Participate In, Tips Into A Sort Of Fundamentalist Extremism, In Which It's Not Enough For Us To Believe What We Believe, But We Start Feeling Obligated To, You Know, Hit You Over The Head Because You Don't Believe The Same Thing. Or To Treat You As Somebody Who's Less Than I Am.

So Just To Be Clear, I'm Not Going To Sign Any Package That Somehow Prevents The Top Rate From Going Up For Folks At The Top 2 Percent.

I Have To Say That My Kids, Like Every Child In America, Is Completely Absorbed With Harry Potter. And So, I Have Gotten Sucked Into It, Too; I Can't Wait For The Next One To Come Out. I Am Trying To Figure Out What Happens With Harry And Voldemort. So We Have Been Reading That.

Peace Is Not Merely The Absence Of Visible Conflict.

We Can Make Sure That People Who Don't Have Health Insurance Can Buy Into An Insurance Pool That Gives Them Better Bargaining Power.

If You Look At Libya, I Was Deeply Concerned About What Would Happen After Qaddafi Was Gone.

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

People Will Still Be Looking To The United States. Our Example Will Still Carry Great Weight.

The Question We Ask Today Is Not Whether Our Government Is Too Big Or Too Small, But Whether Government Works.

Focusing Your Life Solely On Making A Buck Shows A Certain Poverty Of Ambition. It Asks Too Little Of Yourself. Because It's Only When You Hitch Your Wagon To Something Larger Than Yourself That You Realize Your True Potential.

We Stand With Israel As A Jewish Democratic State Because We Know That Israel Is Born Of Firmly Held Values That We, As Americans, Share: A Culture Committed To Justice, A Land That Welcomes The Weary, A People Devoted To Tikkun Olam. ... So America's Commitment ... And My Commitment To Israel And Israel's Security Is Unshakeable. It Is Unshakeable. ... I Am Proud To Say That No U.s. Administration Has Done More In Support Of Israel's Security Than Ours. None. Don't Let Anybody Else Tell You Otherwise. It Is A Fact.

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.

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

I Can No More Disown (jeremiah Wright) Than I Can Disown The Black Community. I Can No More Disown Him Than I Can My White Grandmother - A Woman Who Helped Raise Me, A Woman Who Sacrificed Again And Again For Me, A Woman Who Loves Me As Much As She Loves Anything In This World, But A Woman Who Once Confessed Her Fear Of Black Men Who Passed By Her On The Street, And Who On More Than One Occasion Has Uttered Racial Or Ethnic Stereotypes That Made Me Cringe.

We Were Very Effective, And I Was Very Effective, In Shaping Public Opinion Around My Campaigns. But There Were Big Stretches, While Governing, Where Even Though We Were Doing The Right Thing, We Weren't Able To Mobilize Public Opinion Firmly Enough Behind Us To Weaken The Resolve Of The Republicans To Stop Opposing Us Or To Cooperate With Us. And There Were Times During My Presidency Where I Lost The Pr Battle.

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Working Full-time Should Mean Enough To Support A Family.

This Week I've Travelled More Than 15,000 Miles From America To China To Burma To Australia. I Have No Idea What Time It Is Right Now.

We Will Not Engage In An Endless Process Of Negotiations.

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.

Assault Weapons Ban Reintroduced.

Assault Weapons

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.

In The Muslim World, This Notion That Somehow Everything Is The Fault Of The Israelis Lacks Balance - Because There's Two Sides To Every Question. That Doesn't Mean That Sometimes One Side Has Done Something Wrong And Should Not Be Condemned. But It Does Mean There's Always Two Sides To An Issue. I Say The Same Thing To My Jewish Friends, Which Is You Have To See The Perspective Of The Palestinians. Learning To Stand In Somebody Else's Shoes To See Through Their Eyes, That's How Peace Begins. And It's Up To You To Make That Happen.

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

I Think That The Fda Has Not Been Able To Catch Some Of These Things As Quickly As I Expect Them To Catch And So We’re Going To Be Doing A Complete Review Of Fda Operations. At Bare Minimum, We Should Be Able To Count On Our Government Keeping Our Kids Safe When They Eat Peanut Butter. That’s What Sasha Eats For Lunch. Probably Three Times A Week...

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

I Will Sign A Universal Health-care Bill Into Law By The End Of My First Term As President That Will Cover Every American And Cut The Cost Of A Typical Family’s Premium By Up To $2,500 A Year.

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.

For We Have Always Understood That When Times Change, So Must We, That Fidelity To Our Founding Principles Requires New Responses To New Challenges, That Preserving Our Individual Freedoms Ultimately Requires Collective Action.

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.

Our Government Shouldn't Make Promises We Cannot Keep, But We Must Keep The Promises We've Already Made.

During The Course Of My Presidency, It Feels As If A Couple Times A Year, I End Up Having To Speak To The Country And To Speak To A Particular Community About A Devastating Loss. The Grieving That The Country Feels Is Real, The Sympathy, The Prioritizing, The Comforting Of The Families, All That’s Important. But I Think Part Of The Point That I Wanted To Make Was That It’s Not Enough Just To Feel Bad.

Most People Who Serve In Washington Have Been Trained Either As Lawyers Or As Political Operatives--professions That Tend To Place A Premium On Winning Arguments Rather Than Solving Problems.

We Are Not Entitled To Success We Have To Earn It

Let It Be Said To Our Children's Children That When We Were Tested We Refused To Let This Journey End, That We Didn't Turn Our Back Nor Did We Falter; And With Eyes Fixed On The Horizon And God's Grace Upon Us, We Carried Forth That Great Gift Of Freedom And Delivered It Safely To Future Generations.

The Pain I Felt Was My Father's Pain.

Change Will Not Come If We Wait For Some Other Person Or Some Other Time. We Are The Ones We've Been Waiting For. We Are The Change That We Seek.

All The Strands Of My Life Came Together And I Really Became A Man When I Moved To Chicago.

Immigration Is Part Of The Reason Why Our Economy Is Stronger And Better Positioned Than Most Of Our Other Competitors, Is Because We've Got A Younger Population That's More Dynamic When It Comes To Trade.

Our Resources May Be Finite, But Our Will Is Infinite, And I Am Confident That If We Come Together And Summon That Great American Spirit Once Again, We Will Meet The Challenges Of Our Time And Write The Next Great Chapter In Our American Story.

If You Don't Have Good People, And You Don't Have A Good Process And You Don't Have, At Some Level, The Basic Reverence For [presidential] Office, And An Understanding Of The Incredible Responsibilities And Obligations, Then, I Think You Can Get Into Trouble.

The United States Is Doing Our Part By Increasing The Number Of Refugees We Resettle And I Want Again To Commend Angela [merkel], And More Importantly, The German People For The Extraordinary Leadership And Compassion That You Have Shown In The Face Of What I Know Is A Very Difficult Challenge.

Sometimes It May Seem As If Progress Is Stalled But What History Of Post-war Germany Shows Is That Strength And Determination And Focus And Adherence To The Values That We Care About Will Result In A Better Future For Our Children And Our Grandchildren.

Islam Has A Proud Tradition Of Tolerance.

If I Did Not Love America, I Wouldn't Have Moved Here From Kenya.

Like No Other Illness, Aids Tests Our Ability To Put Ourselves In Someone Else's Shoes - To Empathize With The Plight Of Our Fellow Man. While Most Would Agree That The Aids Orphan Or The Transfusion Victim Or The Wronged Wife Contracted The Disease Through No Fault Of Their Own, It Has Too Often Been Easy For Some To Point To The Unfaithful Husband Or The Promiscuous Youth Or The Gay Man And Say This Is Your Fault. You Have Sinned. I Don't Think That's A Satisfactory Response. My Faith Reminds Me That We All Are Sinners.

Those Are The Ladies Sitting In Church. And In The Same Way That They Might Feel A Joy And Release On Sunday, They Are Still Going To Work On Monday. And That's Who I Was Listening To During This Process. And If At The End Of My Presidency They Feel Like I Did A Pretty Good Job, Then I'll Feel Pretty Good.

We Also Recommit To Supporting Tribal Self-determination, Security, And Prosperity For All Native Americans. While We Cannot Erase The Scourges Or Broken Promises Of Our Past, We Will Move Ahead Together In Writing A New, Brighter Chapter In Our Joint History.

Native American

We Did Not Come To Fear The Future. We Came Here To Shape It.

Health Care Got Done Because There Were A Lot Of People Out There Who Aren't Professional Politicians, But Are Citizens, Who Pushed For It Even When The Politics Was Hard.

I Think I Did In The Sense That 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. And That Generation, It's Coming.

I Know Starting Careers In Troubled Times Is A Challenge, But It Is Also A Privilege. Because It's Moments Like These That Force Us To Try Harder, Dig Deeper And To Discover Gifts We Never Knew We Had. To Find The Greatness That Lies Within Each Of Us. So Don't Ever Shy Away From That Endeavor. Don't Stop Adding To Your Body Of Work. I Can Promise That You Will Be The Better For That Continued Effort As Will Be This Nation That We All Love.

That May Prevent Us From Getting A Deal Done, It Is There To Be Had. Whether Ultimately Iran Can Seize That Opportunity - We Will Have To Wait And See, But It Is Not For Lack Of Trying On Our Part.

When You've Got Little Kids, And You're Tucking Them In. When You Open A Door And They're In Their Pajamas And They're, You Know, Wrestling With You And Asking You, You Know, To Read To Them And Stuff, [the White House] Starts Feeling Like Home Pretty Quick. Not To Mention Having A Mother-in-law Upstairs, And The Dog, And Now Two.

Ninety-eight Percent Of All American Companies Have Fewer Than 100 Employees. Over Half Of All Americans Work For A Small Business. Small Businesses Are The Backbone Of Our Nation’s Economy And We Must Protect This Great Resource.....helping American Small Business Is Part Of Our Movement For Change And The End Of Politics As Usual.

Today, Women Make Up About Half Our Workforce. But They Still Make 77 Cents For Every Dollar A Man Earns. That Is Wrong, And In 2014, It’s An Embarrassment. Women Deserve Equal Pay For Equal Work.

If You Were Successful, Somebody Along The Line Gave You Some Help... Somebody Helped To Create This Unbelievable American System That We Have That Allowed You To Thrive. Somebody Invested In Roads And Bridges. If You’ve Got A Business - You Didn’t Build That. Somebody Else Made That Happen.

What I Said To Donald Trump Was That What May Work In Generating Enthusiasm Or Passion During Elections May Be Different Than What Will Work In Terms Of Unifying The Country And Gaining The Trust Even Of Those Who Didn't Support Him.

America Remains The One Indispensable Nation. And The World Needs A Strong America.

It Was The Labor Movement That Helped Secure So Much Of What We Take For Granted Today. The 40-hour Work Week, The Minimum Wage, Family Leave, Health Insurance, Social Security, Medicare, Retirement Plans. The Cornerstones Of The Middle-class Security All Bear The Union Label.

There Is Enough Oil Out There For World Demand. It Is True That A Lot Of What's Driving Oil Prices Up Right Now Is Not The Lack Of Supply. There's Enough Supply.

There Is No Military Solution To The War In Iraq. Our Troops Can Help Suppress The Violence, But They Cannot Solve Its Root Causes. And All The Troops In The World Won't Be Able To Force Shia, Sunni, And Kurd To Sit Down At A Table, Resolve Their Differences, And Forge A Lasting Peace. In Fact, Adding More Troops Will Only Push This Political Settlement Further And Further Into The Future, As It Tells The Iraqis That No Matter How Much Of A Mess They Make, The American Military Will Always Be There To Clean It Up.

Never Read Who Moved My Cheese In The Workplace When You Can Read The Joy Of Not Working.

I Have The Authority To Address The Threat From Isil, But I Believe We Are Strongest As A Nation When The President And Congress Work Together. So I Welcome Congressional Support For This Effort In Order To Show The World That Americans Are United In Confronting This Danger.

I Just Miss - I Miss Being Anonymous.

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

But We Reject The Belief That America Must Choose Between Caring For The Generation That Built This Country And Investing In The Generation That Will Build Its Future.

I Consider It Part Of My Responsibility As President Of The United States To Fight Against Negative Stereotypes Of Islam Wherever They Appear.

The Walls Between Old Allies On Either Side Of The Atlantic Cannot Stand. The Walls Between The Countries With The Most And Those With The Least Cannot Stand. The Walls Between Races And Tribes; Natives And Immigrants; Christian And Muslim And Jew Cannot Stand. These Now Are The Walls We Must Tear Down. We Know They Have Fallen Before.

I Think It Was Not A Bad Idea To Wrap Barack Obama In The Mantle Of Teddy Roosevelt. He`s Been Assuming A Sort Of Progressive Mantle, And He Ticked Off Some Large And Systemic Problems That This Country Faces.

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.

I Will Stand With Israel If They Are Attacked.

What I Worry About Would Be That You Essentially Have Two Chambers, The House And The Senate, But You Have Simply, Majoritarian, Absolute Power On Either Side. And That's Just Not What The Founders Intended.

I Just Want To Repeat That There's Nothing That We've Proposed That Would Make It Harder For You To Purchase A Firearm.

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

Believe It Or Not, Entertainment Is Part Of Our American Diplomacy, It Is Part Of What Makes Us Exceptional, Part Of What Makes Us Such A World Power. Hundreds Of Millions Of People May Never Set Foot In The United States, But Thanks To You, They've Experienced A Small Part Of What Makes Our Country Special. They've Learned Something About Our Values. We Have Shaped A World Culture Through You...in A Way That Has Made The World Better.

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Ramana Maharshi

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