Barack Obama/Podcasts

“ I guess the final point I just want to make is how proud I am of the US troops there. One of the things that I continually emphasized to them was that regardless of how any of us feel about the administration's decision to go into Iraq, all of us are extraordinarily proud of the work that they're doing. What the US military accomplishes on a day-to-day basis, in just setting up and rebuilding portions of the country that have been destroyed and in carrying out extraordinarily difficult tasks on a day-to-day basis is amazing. ”

“ All of us agree that we need to make it harder for them to organize and strategize and get flight licenses and sneak across our borders - every single America wants that to happen.
But soon after the Patriot Act passed, I began hearing concerns from people of every background, every political leaning that this law - the very purpose of which was to protect us - was also threatening to violate our rights and our freedoms as Americans. That it didn't just provide law enforcement the powers it needed to keep us safe, but powers that it didn't need to invade our privacy without cause or suspicion. ”

“ That's part of Rosa Park's legacy, but part of Rosa Park's legacy is also listening to this young girl, Mireya, saying that she is hoping for something else. That seems to be the essence of the American dream that in some ways described what Rosa Parks was all about. She refused the given of her reality and insisted that we could do better for herself, for her people and for the nation. And it seems to me that as we think about what kind of legacy we are going to leave behind, how we are going to commemorate Rosa Parks, it shouldn't just be lofted eulogies. ”

“ And for those of you who aren't veterans, I hope that you will continue to be supportive of our veterans. Many of them have a very difficult time adjusting when they first come back home. I think any of us who can imagine being on the battlefield in a place like Baghdad, perhaps seeing one of your friends injured or killed, seeing yourself lose a leg or an arm, experiencing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, you can only imagine the difficulties in making the adjustment to civilian life. ”

“ For more than two years now, we have been watching a rolling genocide take place in Darfur, western Sudan. Many of you I'm sure are aware of the tragedy that has been unfolding there. For those of you who are not, essentially what we have seen is a systematic targeting on the part of the Khartoum government and the Janjaweed Arab militia that have systematically uprooted, killed, murdered, pillaged, raped, Africans, driven them from their homes into enormous displaced-person camps. Refugee camps, within Sudan. It's estimated that at least 300,000 people have been killed. ”

“ Point number two: we should just replace the use of oil altogether as America's fuel of choice. This doesn't mean singing the praises of ethanol, and hoping that it finds its way into our fuel supply on its own. It means taking some serious steps now to put a national bio-fuel infrastructure into place. Already some cars on the road have flexible fuel tanks necessary for them to run on E85, which is a cheaper, cleaner blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. But millions upon millions of cars still don't have these tanks. ”

“ The recent scandals have shaken the very foundation of the American people's faith in a government that will look out for their interests and uphold their values.
Because they don't just lead to morally offensive conduct on the part of politicians. They lead to morally offensive legislation that hurts hardworking Americans. ”

“ Some of you may recall, if you've been following the work that we've been doing, that I'm on the Veterans Affairs Committee and however you feel about the war in Iraq, however you feel about past wars, I think all of us, Republican, Democrat, urban, rural, whatever your demographic, should share in the belief that when a young man or woman goes off and serves our country in the military, that they should be treated with the utmost dignity and respect when they come home. ”

“ Allowing the Bells and cable companies to act as gatekeepers with control over internet access would make the internet like cable. A producer-driven market with barriers to entry for website creators and preferential treatment for specific sites based not on merit, the number of hits, but on relationships with the corporate gatekeeper. If there were four or more competitive providers of broadband service to every home, then cable and telephone companies would not be able to create a bidding war for access to the high-speed lanes. ”

“ You know four years ago, following 9/11, this body that I serve in, the United States Senate, passed the USA Patriot Act in order to give our nation's law enforcement the tools they needed to track down terrorists - terrorists who possibly right now are looking to exploit weaknesses in our laws and our security and carry out even deadlier attacks than we saw back then.
All of us agree that we need legislation to make it harder for suspected terrorists to go undetected in this country. ”

“ One of the colonels that we met in Fallujah, who is in charge of intelligence, pointed out that you've got 50% unemployment rates in many of the western portions of Iraq. And what that means is that the insurgency is going to continually grow unless the central government pays attention to the concrete needs of the people in that area. It also means that despite the work of the US military in apprehending the leaders of the insurgency in that area, there are always young men who are willing to fill the shoes of those who are apprehended. ”

“ I also hope voters who went to the polls this week had accurate information about what's on the ballot, what they're supposed to vote on, what our nations voting laws are.
The fact of the matter is that even in this awesome age of technical advancement and easy access to information, there are folks who will stop at nothing to deceive people and keep them away from the polls. We've got deceptive practices that all too often target and exploit vulnerable populations: African Americans, senior citizens, the poor, the disabled. ”

“ When big oil companies are invited into the White House for secret energy meetings, it's no wonder they end up with billions in tax breaks while Americans still struggle to fill up their gas tanks and heat their homes. ”

“ If you start seeing more and more failed states, more and more displaced persons, more and more refugees, all of that becomes a breeding ground for terrorist activity, it becomes a breeding ground for disease, and it creates refugees that put pressure on our own borders. In an inner-connected world we can't insulate ourselves from these tragedies. So, we're going to, over time, have to develop some strategy as the world's remaining super-power to address these issues, and Darfur is an important test case. ”

“ The effort in Iraq is just an unbelievable logistical task.
We flew into Baghdad and then I was helicoptered into the Green Zone. And when you visit the Green Zone, which is several miles wide and long in the center of Baghdad, you really get a sense that US military operations have built an entire city within a city. There are thousands of US military personnel and coalition forces - everything from embassy personnel to logistical support to troops that are about to be deployed into other areas of the country. ”

“ When the halls of Congress are filled with high-priced lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry - some who used to be members of Congress - it's hardly a surprise that they get taxpayer-funded giveaways in the same Medicare bill that forbids seniors from banding together to negotiate for better drug prices.
When the people running Washington are accountable only to the special interests that fund their campaigns, of course they'll spend your tax dollars with reckless abandon ”

“ If we had taken all these steps decades ago, like Brazil did when the call for energy independence was first issued, we'd be immune right now to the whims of oil-rich dictators and surging gas prices. ”

“ So, I am hopeful that we get an extension on the existing Patriot Act for three months; we can work out a compromise that ensures our civil liberties are protected; that provides for the critical judicial oversight that's at the core of most of our law enforcement processes; that still gives law enforcement the tools that they need in order to protect our homeland. ”

“ Today they are 111 facilities in the country where a catastrophic chemical release could threaten more than one million people. These plants represent some of the most attractive targets for terrorists looking to cause wide spread death and destruction. Despite this fact, security at our chemical plants is voluntary. It's left to the individual plant owners. While many chemical plant owners have taken steps to beef up security, there are a lot who haven't. ”

“ But, the real victims have not been rebel sympathizers, or the rebels themselves, they've been innocent men, women and children.
For more than a year now, I've been working with other Senators to see what we can do to really push the Administration to take this as seriously as it warrants. To the Administration's credit, the United States government has probably paid more attention to this issue than some of our European allies. We have been a major contributor of aid to the region; we have helped to finance the African Union, to provide peace-keeping forces in the Darfur area. ”

“ It turns out that in Illinois, for a wide range of reasons, you had veterans who had been injured getting paid much lower disability payments than veterans in some other states - and these differences were substantial. Illinois veterans, for example, were receiving 42 percent less per year than some of the leading states. So, to give you an example, an average disability payment to Illinois veterans would be $6,961. In New Mexico, the top ranked state - same veteran, same disability - on average, was getting $12,000 a year. ”

“ The other day I went to the gas station. Gas was $3.08 a gallon in the station where I stopped. It is rough on Americans across the country right now. Chicago has some of the highest gasoline prices in the country. I'm fortunate that I am able to afford spending $50 on a tank of gas; there are a lot of families out there that can't. People who have to drive to work long distances, people who don't have the money to buy more fuel-efficient cars right now and they've seen their standard of living drop substantially as a consequence of higher gas prices. ”

“ And it seems to me that if we commit ourselves to carrying on that fight one solitary act at a time for something bigger, something brighter, something bolder for ourselves and for this country then we are really living up to her example and giving her the kind of remembrance that she deserves. ”

“ The feeling was that there was a great opportunity for the first time in sometime to create a national unity government that actually had some claim of legitimacy with the Iraqi people.
I had a meeting then with Ambassador Khalilzad, the US Ambassador to Iraq, who discussed the meaning of the most recent election. His belief is that there is an opportunity to create a government that unifies Shiite, Sunni and Kurd, but that it's not going to be easy. That the election in and of itself doesn't create that unity. ”

“ I won't lie to you, every time we try to move forward with election reform there are those who block it. They think that they are advantaged in some way by preventing people from going to the polls. That's why it's so important I think that all of you who are listening get on my website make sure that you know the bill, send it around to your friends. ”

“ As most of you know, I'm from Chicago - a city that hasn't always had the cleanest reputation when it comes to politics in this country. In fact, one of the most famous moments in Chicago political life came back in the 50s, when one of Chicago's old-time ward bosses, a guy named Paddy Bauer, was reported to have danced on his chair after the Chicago machine defeated a reform candidate and shouted out for the entire chamber to hear, that "Chicago ain't ready for reform." ”

“ The internet today is an open platform where the demand for websites and services dictates success. You've got barriers to entry that are low and equal for all comers. And it's because the internet is a neutral platform that I can put on this podcast and transmit it over the internet without having to go through some corporate media middleman. I can say what I want without censorship. I don't have to pay a special charge. But the big telephone and cable companies want to change the internet as we know it. ”

“ At some point there's not going to be a tax rebate that's big enough or a tax holiday that's long enough to solve these problems. The American people shouldn't have to wait for this day to come. When it comes to reducing our dependence of foreign oil, the resources are there, the technology is there, the demand is there. ”