John F. Kerry
Thank you very much for contacting me to express your support for the actions of President Bush in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. From the outset of the invasion, I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis and the policy goals he has established with our military deployment in the Persian Gulf.Collection: Military
We are being Americans when we hold our government to account. We are being false to our troops when we send them to a needless war, betraying their trust when we shortchange them on protective equipment, and cheating them when we silently cut their benefits.Collection: Cheating
Unlike Washington, which is stuck in ideological gridlock, Americans feel the impact of climate change in their own hometowns and they know something must be done.Collection: Change
What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States.Collection: Change
Even as a supporter of Roe v. Wade, I am compelled to acknowledge that the language both sides use on this subject can be unfortunately misleading and unconstructive.... Everyone is worse off for it.Collection: Abortion
It is the duty of any president, in the final analysis, to defend this nation and dispel the security threat. Saddam Hussein has brought military action upon himself by refusing for 12 years to comply with the mandates of the United Nations. The brave and capable men and women of our armed forces and those who are with us will quickly, I know, remove him once and for all as a threat to his neighbors, to the world, and to his own people, and I support their doing so.Collection: Military
I heard Katty Kay's name and I know Katty Kay said we didn't have a plan. Well, there is a plan, and the President [Barack Obama] is moving forward with any number of options and ways to augment our efforts on ISIL.Collection: Moving
Middle class Americans don't ask for special favors, they just want basic fairness, and a President who fights for that ideal.Collection: Fighting
So my judgment is that Syria will move; Syria will change, as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States and the West and economic opportunity that comes with it and the participation that comes with it.Collection: Moving
When I was in Vietnam I learned a lot about the promises that soldiers make to each other. The Marines have a promise to never leave behind their dead. In this country, as citizen soldiers, we need to make the commitment to each other that we will never leave our veterans behind.Collection: Country
Just the fact that we can't pass budgets in our Congress, just the fact that we are gridlocked in our own democracy, the fact that everybody who travels can see that we're not investing in our airports, in our rail, in our infrastructure and so forth, people are noticing a United States that is not getting the job done in some ways.Collection: Jobs
I think it's time we had a President who will provide the only real economic security: good jobs. A President who will provide middle class payroll tax relief to get money in the pockets of workers who will spend it, not more tax giveaways for those at the top to stimulate the economy in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. A President who will index the minimum wage to inflation and raise it from a 30 year low, not increase the tax burden on the middle class and those struggling to join it.Collection: Jobs
This President has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment. And judgment is what we look for in the president of the President of the United States of America.Collection: Regret
Sunni are the majority of the [Syria], 60 to 65 percent. They've been ruled by [Bashar] Assad, who represents a minority Alawite element, which is about 12, 13 percent. And because of the choices Assad made, it's very difficult to see how you resolve this without buy-in from the Sunni world.Collection: Choices
Governor Dean has no policy on Iraq evidently, except 'no.' 'No' is not a policy.Collection: Iraq
Martin Luther King challenged the conscience of my generation, and his words and his legacy continue to move generations to action today at home and around the world. His love and faith is alive in millions of Americans who volunteer each day in soup kitchens or in schools, or who refused to ignore the suffering of millions they'd never met in far-away places when a tsunami brought unthinkable destruction. His vision and his passion is alive in churches and on campuses when millions stand up against the injustice of discrimination anywhere, or the indifference that leaves too many behind.Collection: Kings
I accept that friends of ours have decided that the President's non-strike has somehow impacted perceptions of us. But I believe they are dead wrong and I think the critics are dead wrong, and here's why. The President [Barack Obama] made his decision to strike. He announced his decision to strike publicly. And the purpose of the strike was to get the chemical weapons out of Syria. That's the purpose.Collection: Believe
America must always be the world's paramount military power. But we can magnify our power through alliances.Collection: Military
The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last 4 years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for 4 years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation.Collection: Real
For those of us who are fortunate to share an Irish ancestry, we take great pride in the contributions that Irish-Americans.Collection: Pride
This revolution began with young people in Syria demonstrating because they wanted a future. They wanted opportunity, education, and so forth. They went out and they did it. Thugs came out and beat them up. The parents got angry that the thugs beat the kids up, and they went out and demonstrated, and they were met with bullets. They were killed. That's how this began.Collection: Kids
Regime change has been an American policy under the Clinton administration, and it is the current policy. I support the policy. But regime change in and of itself is not sufficient justification for going to war--particularly unilaterally--unless regime change is the only way to disarm Iraq of the weapons of mass destruction pursuant to the United Nations resolution.Collection: War
At every step of the way, George W. Bush has put the narrow interests of the few ahead of the interests of most Americans.Collection: Way
So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real.Collection: Real
Those localized efforts take a long time and they don't deal with the larger issue of ISIL and the question of what you're going to do to really have a solution here. We have to save Syria.Collection: Issues
I'm Going To Make Available To Every American The Same Health Care Plan That Senators And Congressmen Give Themselves.Collection: Giving
I don't think losing 3 million jobs, having deficits as far as the eye can go, having 2 million people lose their health insurance, turning your back on kids in schools and not funding No Child Left Behind represents a vision.Collection: Jobs
It's hard to believe that in the greatest democracy in the world, we need legislation to prevent the government from writing and paying for the news.Collection: Believe
I refuse to stand by while our democracy is trampled by politicians more concerned about amassing power than helping the people who sent them to Washington in the first place.Collection: People
I think that for many of us, the years of the Civil Rights movements - Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy running for president in 1968 to end the war and so forth - these were defining moment in terms of trying to hold government accountable and have a level of responsibility and truth-telling.Collection: Running
I think the question of abortion is one that should be left for the states to decide.Collection: Thinking
I think there has been an exaggeration [of the terrorist threat].Collection: Thinking
I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations.Collection: Use
I will never conduct a war or start a war because we want to; the United States of America should only go to war because we have to. And if you live by that guidance, you'll never have veterans throwing away their medals or standing up in protest.Collection: War
I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did. I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium...Collection: War
I defended this country as a young man, and I will defend it as president.Collection: Country
The problems of health care can be solved if we stop giving tax cuts to those who have the most, and start making health care affordable for those working harder and harder for too little.Collection: Cutting
It's the [George Bush] president's fiscal policies that have driven up the biggest deficits in American history. He's added more debt to the debt of the United States in four years than all the way from George Washington to Ronald Reagan put together.Collection: Years
I believe America's best days are ahead of us because I believe that the future belongs to freedom, not to fear.Collection: Believe
I know something about aircraft carriers for real.Collection: Real
I’ve often said that global climate change is an issue where no one has the luxury of being “half-pregnant.” You either are or you aren’t. And so it is with climate change. You either understand and accept the science – or you don’t. Folks this isn’t a cafeteria where you can pick and choose and accept the science that tells us what is happening, but then reject the science that warns us what will happen.Collection: Luxury
I'm going to be a president who believes in science.Collection: Believe
There are issues of war and peace. And then, there are issues of life and death like this one that are no less morally compelling than war itself.Collection: War
We cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.Collection: Fighting
So we can do a better job of homeland security. I can do a better job of waging a smarter, more effective war on terror and guarantee that we will go after the terrorists. I will hunt them down, and we'll kill them, we'll capture them. We'll do whatever is necessary to be safe.Collection: Jobs
We can't change minds without knowing what's in them.Collection: Inspiring
This is deeply disturbing. Congress provided loans to help businesses hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks, not to be used as an accounting gimmick to cover up this administration's failure to provide for small businesses.Collection: Hurt
In American elections there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates win or lose, the next morning we wake up as Americans.Collection: Morning
I want to fully fund education, No Child Left Behind, special-needs education. And that's how we're going to be more competitive, by making sure our kids are graduating from school and college.Collection: Children