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.
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.
We are not going to have a situation where our education spending goes back to its lowest level since the year 2000 despite a larger population and more kids to educate. We know that the single most important thing in terms of how well we can compete around the world is the quality of our workforce. We can't do that to our kids.
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.
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.
We have to create that bridge for the future. And that means making sure we're paying attention to the wages of workers in countries, making sure that we're investing in their education and their skills.
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.
You bomb ISIL. You're not trying to bomb innocent people. And that requires intelligence and confidence in our military to be able to develop the kinds of targets that we need. We're already doing Special Forces, who are going to help us gather that intelligence and help advise and assist and train local forces so that they can go after ISIL in areas like Raqqah and Mosul.
Let's remember that our leadership is defined not just by our defence against threats, but by the enormous opportunities to do good and promote understanding.
They assert that their program is purely peaceful. . . . We want them to demonstrate clearly in the actions they propose that they have truly abandoned any nuclear weapons ambition.
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'd like to help struggling homeowners who can't pay their mortgages, I'd like to invest in our crumbling infrastructure, I'd like to reform the tax system so multimillionaires can't pretend their earnings are capital gains and pay at the rate of 15 percent. I'd like to make public higher education free, and pay for it with a small transfer tax on all financial transactions. I'd like to do much more - a new new deal for Americans. But Republicans are blocking me at every point.
The problem is, that we've got a position, often times by the NRA that says any regulation whatsoever is the camel's nose under the tent. And that, I think, is not where the American people are at.