Showing posts with label Barack Obama Quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama Quotes. Show all posts

Marijuana quotes from Politicians and others you might know


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"420 day" or the "National Weed Day"

In recognition of "420 day" or the "National Weed Day" for the kids in California that would always meet at 4:20pm to smoke weedMarijuana Vending Machine in California...Here are a list of quotes that Presidents or Presidential hopefuls as well as other government entities and celebrities have said about marijuana. These quotes range from the effects of marijuana, legalization of marijuana, and some marijuana facts.





  1. "I now have absolute proof that smoking even one marijuana cigarette is equal in brain damage to being on Bikini Island during an H-bomb blast"
    ~Ronald Reagan
  2. "When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it, and I didn’t inhale, and I never tried again."
    ~Bill Clinton
  3. "I smoked pot in college and in the Army..."
    ~Al Gore
  4. "So what if it's risky? It's the right thing to do. What we're talking about is 160 people in deep pain. It only affects them."{to George Bush about medical marijuana}
    ~Bill Richardson
  5. "When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point."
    ~Barack Obama

    Barack Obama Smoking a Cigarette before he quit
  6. "I would absolutely never use the federal government to enforce the law of using marijuana"
    ~Ron Paul
  7. "Pot is not a drug"
    ~Arnold Schwarzenegger - Governor of California
  8. "You bet I did and I enjoyed it." {on whether he has smoked marijuana}
    ~Michael Bloomberg - New York City Mayor
  9. "I think that marijuana should not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry. It would be wonderful for the state of Maine. There's some pretty good homegrown dope. I'm sure it would be even better if you could grow it with fertilizers and have greenhouses."
    ~Stephen King
  10. "If we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education"
    ~Thomas Jefferson
  11. "When even one American who has done nothing wrong is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril."
    ~Harry S. Truman - Former U.S. President
  12. "I enjoy smoking cannabis and see no harm in it"
    ~Jennifer Aniston
  13. "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."
    ~Biblical - Genesis 1:29
  14. "Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn't like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton."
    ~Jay Leno
  15. "Make the most of the Indian Hemp Seed and sow it everywhere."
    ~George Washington
  16. "The drug is really quite a remarkably safe one for humans, although it is really quite a dangerous one for mice and they should not use it."
    ~J.W.D Henderson Director of the Bureau of Human Drugs, Health and Welfare, Canada
  17. "The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."
    ~Albert Einstein "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921
  18. "Our youth can not understand why society chooses to criminalize a behavior with so little visible ill effect or adverse social impact... These young people have jumped the fence and found no cliff. And the disrespect for the possession laws fosters a disrespect for laws and the system in general... On top of this is the distinct impression among the youth that some police may use the marihuana laws to arrest people they don't like for other reasons, whether it be their politics, their hair style or their ethnic background." "Federal and state laws (should) be changed to no longer make it a crime to possess marijuana for private use." ; "State laws should make the public use of marijuana a criminal offense punishable by a $100 fine. Under federal law, marijuana smoked in public would merely be subject to seizure."
    ~President Richard M. Nixon's National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding" March 1972
  19. "Congress should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana... We should concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are a menace to society."
    ~Dan Quayle U.S. Representative and Vice president under President Bush March 1977
  20. "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce [28g] of marihuana."
    ~Jimmy Carter U.S. President Message to congress 1977
  21. "The amount of money and of legal energy being given to prosecute hundreds of thousands of Americans who are caught with a few ounces of marijuana [1 ounce = 28g] in their jeans simply makes no sense - the kindest way to put it. A sterner way to put it is that it is an outrage, an imposition on basic civil liberties and on the reasonable expenditure of social energy."
    ~William F. Buckley "Legalization of Marijuana Long Overdue" Albuquerque Journal June 8, 1993
  22. "The greatest service that can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture."
    ~Thomas Jefferson
  23. "In any civilized society, it is every citizen's responsibility to obey just laws. But at the same time, it is every citizen's responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
    ~Martin Luther King Jr.
  24. "How many murders, suicides, robberies, criminal assaults, holdups, burglaries and deeds of maniacal insanity it causes each year, especially among the young, can only be conjectured...No one knows, when he places a marijuana cigarette to his lips, whether he will become a joyous reveller in a musical heaven, a mad insensate, a calm philosopher, or a murderer..."
    ~HARRY J ANSLINGER Commissioner of the US Bureau of Narcotics 1930-1962
  25. "...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."
    ~Harry J. Anslinger
  26. "Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."
    ~Harry J. Anslinger
  27. "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men."
    ~Harry J. Anslinger
  28. "You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."
    ~Harry J. Anslinger
  29. "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."
    ~Harry Anslinger, 1937 testimony to Congress in support of the Marijuana Tax Act.
  30. ~If people let government decide which foods they eat and medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."
    ~Thomas Jefferson
  31. "I presume, like the rest of us in the country, you are in the habit of household manufacture, and that you will not, like too many, abandon it on the return of peace, to enrich our late enemy, and to nourish foreign agents in our bosom, whose baneful influence & intrigues cost us so much embarrassment & dissension. the shirting for our laborers has been an object of some difficulty. flax is so injurious to our lands, and of so scanty produce, that I have never attempted it. hemp, on the other hand, is abundantly productive and will grow for ever on the same spot, but the breaking and beating of it, which has always been done by hand, is so slow, and so laborious, and so much complained of by our laborers, that I have given it up, and purchased & manufactured cotton for their shirting, the advance price of this however now makes it a serious item of expence; and in the mean time a method of removing the difficulty of preparing hemp occurred to me, so simple & so cheap, that I return to its culture and manufacture.

    To a person having a threshing machine, the addition of a hemp break will not cost more than 12. or 15. D. you know that the first mover in that machine is a horizontal horsewheel with cogs on it's upper face. on these is placed a wallower and shaft which give motion to the threshing apparatus. on the opposite side of this same wheel I place another wallower and shaft, thro' which, and near it's outer end, I pass a cross-arm of sufficient strength, projecting on each side 15. I. in this form, nearly under the cross arm is placed a very strong hemp-break, much stronger & heavier than those for the hand, it's head block particularly is massive, and 4. f. high, and near it's upper end, in front, is fixed a strong pin (which we may call it's horn). by this time the cross arm lifts & lets fall the break with hemp stalks, and a little person holds under the head block a large twist of tobacco but larger, where it is more perfectly beaten than I have ever seen done by hand. if the horse wheel has 144. cogs, the wallower 11. rounds, and the horse goes 3 times round in a minute, it will give about 80. strokes in a minute.

    I had fixed a break to be moved by the gate of my sawmill, which broke & beat at the rate of 200. lb. a day. but the inconveniences of interrupting that induced me to try the power of a horse, and I have found it answer perfectly, the power being less, so also probably will be the effect, of which I cannot make a fair trial until I commence on the new crop. I expect that a single horse will do the breaking & beating of 10 men. something of this kind has been so long wanted by the cultivators of hemp , that as soon as I can speak of it's effect with certainty, I shall probably describe it anonymously in the public papers, in order to forestall the prevention of it's use by some interloping patentee."
    ~Thomas Jefferson, Letters, December 29, 1815 (To George Fleming)
  32. "They forbid marriage and inculcate abstinence from certain foods, though God created them to be enjoyed with thanksgiving by believers who have inward knowledge of the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected when it is taken with thanksgiving."
    ~1 Timothy 4:3-4
  33. "Be on the watch for the false prophets that come to you in sheep's covering, but inside they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will recognize them. Never do people gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they? Likewise every good tree produces fine fruit, but every rotten tree produces worthless fruit; a good tree cannot bear worthless fruit, neither can a rotten tree produce fine fruit. Every tree not producing fine fruit gets cut down and thrown into the fire. Really, then, by their fruits you will recognize those [men]."
    ~Matthew 7:15-20
  34. ''We did not view marijuana as a significant health problem--as it was not....Nobody dies from marijuana. Marijuana smoking, in fact, if one wants to be honest, is a source of pleasure and amusement to countless millions of people in America, and it continues to be that way.''
    ~Peter Bourne, President Carter's Drug Czar {Source: PBS's Frontline: ''Drug Wars,'' October 2000}
  35. "The commission has come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp drugs is practically attended by no evil results at all. ... ...moderate use of hemp... appears to cause no appreciable physical injury of any kind,... no injurious effects on the mind... [and] no moral injury whatever."
    ~Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894
  36. looks like another weed bust from a Florida State Trooper that did nothing but drive the prices up
  37. "Having reviewed all the material available to us we find ourselves in agreement with the conclusion reached by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission appointed by the Government of India (1893-94) and the New York Mayor's Committee (1944 - LaGuardia)that the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no harmful effects" "the long-asserted dangers of cannabis are exaggerated and that the related law is socially damaging, if not unworkable"
    ~1968 UK ROYAL COMMISSION, THE WOOTTON REPORT
  38. "Cannabis is remarkably safe. Although not harmless, it is surely less toxic than most of the conventional medicines it could replace if it were legally available. Despite its use by millions of people over thousands of years, cannabis has never caused an overdose death."
    ~Testimony of Professor Lester Grinspoon, M.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, before the Crime Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., October 1, 1997
  39. "Marijuana is beneficial to many patients"
    ~Jocelyn Elders, USA Surgeon General
  40. "The major health and psychological effects of chronic cannabis use, especially daily use over many years, remain uncertain"
    ~The Report of the Australian Government 1996
  41. "There are no long lasting ill-effects from the acute use of marijuana and no fatalities have ever been recorded ... there seems to be growing agreement within the medical community, at least, that marijuana does not directly cause criminal behaviour, juvenile delinquency, sexual excitement, or addiction."
    ~Dr J. H. Jaffe, The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. L.Goodman and A Gillman, 3rd edn. 1965
  42. "... as a multipurpose plant, ganga is used medicinally, even by non-smokers. ....There were no indications of organic brain damage or chromosome damage among smokers and no significant clinical psychiatric, psychological or medical) differences between smokers and controls."
    ~US Jamaican Study 1974
  43. The U.S. federal government has failed to make public its own 1994 study that undercuts its position that marijuana is carcinogenic - a $2 million study by the National Toxicology Program. The program's deputy director, John Bucher, says the study "found absolutely no evidence of cancer." In fact, animals that received THC had fewer cancers. Bucher denies his agency had been pressured to shelve the report, saying the delay in making it public was due to a personnel shortage.

    The Boston Globe reported Thursday (1-30-97) that the study indicates not only that the main ingredient in marijuana, THC, does not cause cancer, but also that it may even protect against malignancies, laboratory tests on animals show.

    The report comes on the heels of an editorial in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine that favors the controlled medical use of marijuana, and calls current federal policy "misguided, heavy-handed and inhumane."

    The Clinton administration has said that doctors prescribing marijuana could be prosecuted for a federal crime.

    Marijuana has been reported to ease the pain, nausea and vomiting in advanced stages of cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses, but the federal government claims other treatments have been deemed safer than what it calls "a psychoactive, burning carcinogen."

    However, The Boston Globe says the government's claim appears to be undercut by its own $2 million study.
    ~BOSTON, Jan. 30, 1997 (UPI)
  44. "Users in our matched-pair sample smoked marijuana in addition to as many tobacco cigarettes as did their matched non-using pairs. Yet their small airways were, if anything, a bit healthier than their matches. We must tentatively conclude either that marijuana has no harmful effect on such passages or that it actually offers some slight protection against harmful effects of tobacco smoke"
    ~Cannabis in Costa Rica: A Study of Chronic Marijuana Use; Institute of Human Issues
  45. "The use of marijuana does not lead to morphine or heroin or cocaine addiction and no effort is made to create a market for these narcotics by stimulating the practice of marijuana smoking"
    ~The LaGardia sub-committee of New York 1944
  46. "Most marijuana users do not go on to use other drugs."
    ~"Marijuana: Facts for Teens." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Washington, D.C. 1995, p.10.
  47. "Simulated driving scores for subjects experiencing a normal social "high" and the same subjects under control conditions are not significantly different. However, there are significantly more errors for alcohol intoxicated than for control subjects"
    ~Crancer Study, Washington Department of Motor Vehicles
  48. "THC's adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small"
    ~U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (DOT HS 808 078), Final Report, November 1993
  49. "Compared to alcohol, which makers people take more risks on the road, marijuana made drivers slow down and drive more carefully.... Cannabis is good for driving skills, as people tend to overcompensate for a perceived impairment."
    ~Professor Olaf Drummer, a forensic scientist the Royal College of Surgeons in Melbourne in 1996
  50. "Medicines often produce side effects. Sometimes they are physically unpleasant. Cannabis too has discomforting side effects, but these are not physical they are political"
    ~The Economist March 28th 1992
  51. "I'm quite impressed by what's happened to (MS) patients who have used it"
    ~Dr. James Malone-Lee, consultant St. Pancras Hospital, London
  52. "Measurements and main results. Exposed and nonexposed neonates were compared at 3 days and 1 month old, using the Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale, including supplementary items to capture possible subtle effects. There were no significant differences between exposed and nonexposed neonates on day 3. At 1 month, the exposed neonates showed better physiological stability and required less examiner facilitation to reach organized states. The neonates of heavy- marijuana-using mothers had better scores on autonomic stability, quality of alertness, irritability, and self-regulation and were judged to be more rewarding for caregivers."
    ~Prenatal Marijuana Exposure and Neonatal Outcomes in Jamaica: An Ethnographic Study Melanie C. Dreher, PhD; Kevin Nugent, PhD; and Rebekah Hudgins, MA
  53. "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself"
    ~President Jimmy Carter
  54. "Cannabis never killed anybody and it's use is widespread. You can"t stop it. The law defeats itself because all the efforts to stop drugs coming in only drives up the prices and then gangsters move in to push the drugs. If they legalised there wouldn't be gangsters and huge profits...The police are gradually decriminalising the possession of cannabis because they realise there's not much point prosecuting"
    ~Judge James Pickles, UK
  55. "Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans' appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was founded"
    ~President Abraham Lincoln (December 1840)
  56. ''From the Colombian point of view legalization is the easy solution. I mean, just legalize it and we won't have any more problems. Probably in five years we wouldn't even have guerrillas. No problems. We would have a great country with no problems.''
    ~Jaime Ruiz, Senior Adviser to the Colombian President {Source: Ottawa Citizen, September 6, 2000}
  57. ''I say legalize drugs because I want to see less drug abuse, not more. And I say legalize drugs because I want to see the criminals put out of business.''
    ~Edward Ellison, former Head of Scotland Yard's Antidrug Squad {Source: London's Daily Mail, March 10, 1998}
  58. "I am here because I am the first judge in this country to say, in 1990, that the war on drugs was racist. It still is and that hasn't changed"
    ~Judge Pamela Alexander at the DPF Conference, November 1996
  59. "I, as a responsible adult human being, will never concede the power to anyone to regulate my choice of what I put into my body, or where I go with my mind. From the skin inwards is my jurisdiction, is it not? I choose what may or may not cross that border. Here I am the Customs Agent. I am the Coast guard. I am the sole legal and spiritual government of this territory, and only the laws I choose to enact within myself are applicable"
    ~Alexander Shulgin, PhD, Chemist and author, at the DPF Conference, November 1996
  60. "I support decriminalisation. People are smoking pot anyway and to make them into criminals is wrong. It's when you're in jail you really become a criminal."
    ~Sir Paul McCartney, Independent on Sunday, 28th September 1997
  61. "It is certainly no longer true to say if it ever was, that smoking cannabis is a sign of affiliation to an "alternative" lifestyle. Clearly, in the light of its popularity and to a degree its apparent social acceptability questions are raised about the legalisation of cannabis"
    ~The Misuse of Drugs, Office of Health Economics
  62. From: Outside View: Let science decide about pot
    By Paul Armentano (NORML)

    Currently more than 30 percent of the U.S. population lives in a place where some type of marijuana decriminalization is the law. According to the federal government, this policy "has had virtually no effect on either the marijuana use or on the related attitudes and beliefs about marijuana use among young people."

    Since the 1970s, more than a dozen government-appointed committees -- in the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia as well as in other countries -- have issued recommendations regarding marijuana policy. These include the Shafer Commission, appointed by former President Richard Nixon, Canada's Le Dain Commission, and Britain's Wooten Report, all of which concluded that marijuana prohibition causes far more social damage than marijuana use, and the possession of marijuana for personal use should no longer be a criminal offense.

    The passage of time has done little to sway the minds of these nonpartisan experts. Consider the conclusions of the Wooten Report, originally issued in 1968: "In considering the scale of penalties, our main aim, having regard to our view of the known effects of cannabis, is to remove for practical purposes, the prospect of imprisonment for possession of a small amount and to demonstrate that taking the drug in moderation is a relatively minor offense."

    Parallel those findings with the recent recommendations of the conservative British Police Foundation, which in a 2001 report concluded: "The law's implementation damages individuals in terms of criminal records and risks to jobs and relationships to a degree that far outweighs any harm that cannabis may be doing to a society. Prison should no longer be a penalty for possession." The millennium may be different, but their analysis remains the same.

    Scientific inquiries on this side of the Atlantic have yielded equally consistent results. In 1972, Nixon's handpicked Shafer Commission recommended Congress remove criminal penalties for the possession of marijuana for personal use as well as on the "casual distribution of small amounts of marijuana."

    Ten years later, researchers at the U.S. National Research Council, a division of the National Academy of Sciences, reaffirmed that prohibition was ineffective and should be "seriously reconsidered." Most recently, a special Canadian House of Lords committee concluded, "The consequences of conviction for possession of a small amount of cannabis for personal use are disproportionate to the potential harm associated with that behavior."
    ~Source THC
  63. "It really puzzles me to see Marijuana connected with Narcotics - Dope and all that crap…it's a thousand times better than whiskey - it's an Assistant - a friend."
    ~Louis Armstrong
  64. "Make the most of the help India hemp seed, sow it everywhere!"
    ~George Washington
  65. "We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption."
    ~John Adams
  66. "The greatest service which can be rendered any country is the add a useful plant to its culture!"
    ~Thomas Jefferson
  67. One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does.

    Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night.
    Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people.
    Marijuana does not suppress medical research.
    Marijuana does not peek in bedroom windows.

    Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.
    ~Richard Cowan, Former head of NORML, Now editor of http://www.marijuananews.com/
  68. "Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."
    ~DEA's Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young. Source: US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Agency, "In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition," [Docket #86-22], (September 6, 1988), p. 57.
  69. "I do not believe that the federal government should treat adults who choose to smoke marijuana as criminals," Frank said in a statement, adding that it's "not appropriate in a free society."
    ~Rep. Barney Frank
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Did Obama did call for ‘immediate withdrawal’

Obama did call for ‘immediate withdrawal’
Did Obama did call for ‘immediate withdrawal?

Barack Obama. Quote: “Let me be clear. There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq’s leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or a year — now.”
~President Barack Obama from one of his campaign speeches

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Under Obama, `war on terror' catchphrase fading

Under Obama, `war on terror' catchphrase fading
Under Obama, `war on terror' catchphrase fading...

Speaking at the State Department on Jan. 22, Obama told his diplomatic corps, 'We are confronted by extraordinary, complex and interconnected global challenges: war on terror, sectarian division and the spread of deadly technology. We did not ask for the burden that history has asked us to bear, but Americans will bear it. We must bear it.'"

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The Power of One Voice...

I guess a few people have been receiving these shirts from Barack Obama for contributions that they made on his run to the White House...

Slogan on the front says: "One voice can change the world...


Slogan on the back says:

The Power of One Voice

If one voice change a room

Then it can change a City

If once voice can change a City

Then it can change a State

If it can change a State

Then it can change a Nation

If it can change a Nation

Then it can change the World

Barack

Obama

2008




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Inaugural Ball 2009

Inaugural Ball 2009

The guests began arriving early. There are no place cards and no name tags. Everyone knows everyone else here. Now, there's a grand foursome - Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz sharing laughs with Martin and Coretta Scott King. Looks like Hosea Williams refused the limo again, keeping it real. And my goodness; is that Rosa Parks out there on the dance floor with A. Phillip Randolph? Seated at a nearby table, Frederick Douglass has a captive audience in W.E.B. DuBois and Fannie Lou Hamer, and Medgar Evers has just joined them.

Marian Anderson was asked to sing tonight, but she only agreed to do it if accompanied by Marvin Gaye, John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix. Look, there's Harriet Tubman. No one knows how she arrived, but there she is. And my guess is that, when the time comes, no one will see her leave.

There's Jackie Robinson swiftly making his way through the hall as the crowd parts like the Red Sea to the unmistakable sound of applause. "Run, Jackie, run!" Along the way he is embraced by Jessie Owens. Three beautiful young women arrive with their escorts - Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney. Ms. Viola Liuzzo flew in from Michigan, exclaiming, "I could not miss this." Richard Pryor promised to be on his best behavior.

"But I can't make any guarantees for Redd Foxx and Moms Mabley," he chuckled. Joe Louis just faked a quick jab to the chin of Jack Johnson, who smiled broadly while slipping it. We saw Billy Eckstine and Nat King Cole greet Luther Vandross. James Brown and Josh Gibson stopped at Walter Payton's table to say hello. I spotted Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of Harlem having a lively political discussion with Eldridge Cleaver. Pearl Harbor WWII hero Dorie Miller shared a few thoughts with Crispus Attucks, a hero of the Revolutionary War. And there is Madam C.J. Walker talking with Marcus Garvey about exporting goods to Africa.

General Benjamin O. Davis flew into Washington safely with an escort from the 99th Fighter Squadron - better known as The Tuskegee Airman. At the table on the left are three formidable women – Shirley Chisholm, Sojourner Truth, and Barbara Jordan - gathered for a little girl-talk... about world politics. As usual, all the science nerds seem to have gathered off in a corner, talking shop.

There's Granville T. Woods and Lewis Latimer needling each other about whose inventions are better. Someone jokingly asked Benjamin Banneker if he had needed directions to Washington. And George Washington Carver was overheard asking, "What, no peanuts?" Dueling bands, anyone? Anytime Duke Ellington and Count Basie get together, you know the place will be jumping. Tonight is special, of course, so we have Miles, Dizzy, and Satchmo sitting in on trumpet, with Coltrane, Cannonball, and Bird on sax. Everyone's attention is directed to the dance floor where Bill "Bojangles" Robinson is tap dancing. Right beside him is Sammy Davis Jr., doing his Bojangles routine. And behind his back, Gregory Hines is imitating them both. Applause and laughter abound! The Hollywood contingent has just arrived from the Coast. Led by filmmaker Oscar Micheau, Paul Robeson, Canada Lee, and Hattie McDaniel, they find their way to their tables. Dorothy Dandridge, looking exquisite in gold lamé, is seen signaling to her husband, Harold Nicholas, who is standing on the floor with brother Fayard watching Gregory Hines dance. "Hold me back," quips Harold, "before I show that youngster how it's done." Much laughter!

Then a sudden hush comes over the room. The guests of honor have arrived...The President and Mrs. Obama looked out across the enormous ballroom at all the historic faces. Very many smiles, precious few dry eyes.
Someone shouted out, "You did it! You did it!"

And President Obama replied, "No sir, you did it; you all - each and every one of you - did it.
Your guidance and encouragement; your hard work and perseverance. "

Obama paused, perhaps holding back a tear. "I look at your faces - your beautiful faces - and I am reminded that The White House was built by faces that looked just like yours. On October 3, 1792, the cornerstone of the White House was laid, and the foundations and main residence of The White House were built mostly by both enslaved and free African Americans and paid Europeans. In fact, most of the other construction work was performed by immigrants, many of whom had not yet become citizens. Much of the brick and plaster work was performed by Irish and Italian immigrants. The sandstone walls were built by Scottish immigrants. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that The White House is, ultimately, The People's House, with each President serving as its steward. Since 1792 The People have trimmed its hedges, mowed its lawn, stood guard at the gate, cooked meals in the kitchen, and scrubbed its toilet bowls. But 216 years later, The People are taking it back!

"Today, Michelle and I usher in a new era. But while we and our family look toward the future with so much hope, we know that we must also acknowledge fully this milestone in our journey. We want to thank each and every one of you for all you have done to make this day possible. I stand here before you, humbled and in awe of your accomplishments and sacrifice, and I will dedicate my Presidency, in your honor, to the principles of peace, liberty and freedom.
If it ever appears that I'm forgetting that, I know I can count on you to remind me." Then he pointed to me near the stage..."Kenyada, isn't it time for you to wake up for work? Isn't it time for all of us to wake up and get to work?"

Suddenly I awake and sit up in bed with a knowing smile. My wife stirs and sleepily asks if I'm OK. "I've never been better," I replied, "Never better. It's gonna be a good day."
by Kenyada: http://kenyada.dailykos.com

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More Barack Obama Quotes as he talks to the western states

Here are some nice Barack Obama Quotes that he made while campaigning in Montana.

Barack Obama quotes

  1. "There are people saying Obama wins all these little states, all these caucus states, these small little Western states. I don't know about you, but I think they're pretty important," ~Barack Obama
  2. "I know Montana's a coal state. My home state, Illinois, is a coal state, but we've got to make sure that we are investing in technologies that capture carbon because we can't sustain the planet the way that we're doing it right now," ~Barack Obama
  3. "Look at this incredible landscape around you. We've got to pass that on." ~Barack Obama
  4. "Here's the thing, Missoula — I just like saying Missoula, by the way. It's a good name. Missoula. A lot of vowels,"~Barack Obama {talking about learning to fly fish}

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Top 41 Barack Obama quotes ...picked by me.

These are my favorite quotes by Barack Obama in no particular order.







1. 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.

2. I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war.

3. Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.

4. There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there's the United States of America.

5. 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.

6. Americans ... still believe in an America where anything's possible -- they just don't think their leaders do.

7. Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts

8. Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.

9. If we aren't willing to pay a price for our values, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.

10. It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.

11. “Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy,” he said in the statement. “I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue.” {on denouncing his preachers statements days before his big speech 3/14/08}

12. “a typical white person, who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know, well there’s a reaction that’s in our experiences that won’t go away and can sometimes come out in the wrong way.” {obama said on a Philly sports radio station about his grandmother 3/23/08}

13. "If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that," {in an interview with the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal.}

14. "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." {Barack told a group at a town hall in san francisco}

15. "political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true, which is that there are a whole bunch of folks in small towns in Pennsylvania, in towns right here in Indiana, in my hometown in Illinois, who are bitter," {Barack told a group at a town hall at Ball State University after his comments hit the national media}

16. "They are angry. They feel like they have been left behind. They feel like nobody is paying attention to what they're going through. {see above}

17. "So I said, well you know, when you're bitter you turn to what you can count on. So people, they vote about guns, or they take comfort from their faith and their family and their community. And they get mad about illegal immigrants who are coming over to this country."{see #15}

18. "The truth is that these traditions that are passed on from generation to generation, those are important. That's what sustains us. But what is absolutely true is that people don't feel like they are being listened to." {see #15}

19. any quotes you would like to see added...leave it in the comments section

20. "This is something that I have not, I think, come to a firm resolution on. I think it's very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So I don't presume to know the answer to that question." {On abortion and life at conception}

21. "You know, if I'm acting in an ethical way, if I am working to make sure that I am applying what I consider to be a core value of Christianity, but also a core value of all great religions, and that is that I am my brother's keeper and I am my sister's keeper, then I will be doing my part to move his agenda forward." { On his personal faith}

22. "We are going to put in place a cap-and-trade system that controls the amount of greenhouse gases that are going into the atmosphere. ... We've got to be less wasteful, both as a society and in our own individual lives." {On the environment}

23. "We've got to shore up the mortgage market to make sure that we don't have millions of people who are losing their homes. We're going to have to, I think, change our tax code." {On poverty}

24. "It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." {San Francisco Private fund-raising event 4/6/08}
Barack Obama in Wayne, Pa waves to voters on his train ride through town
25. "I may not be perfect but I will always tell you what I think, and I will always tell you where I stand,"{Barack told Wynnewood, Pa voters}

26. "She's taken different positions at different times on issues as fundamental as trade, or even the war, to suit the politics of the moment. And when she gets caught at it, the notion is, well, you know what, that's just politics. That's how it works in Washington. You can say one thing here and say another thing there."

27. "Senator Clinton's essential argument in this campaign is you can't change how the game is played in Washington. Her basic argument is that the slash-and-burn, say-anything, do-anything special interest-driven politics is how it works.... Senator Clinton has internalized a lot of the strategies, the tactics, that have made Washington such a miserable place."

28. "She's got the kitchen sink flying and the china flying, the buffet is coming at me ... constant distractions, these petty, trivial, slash and burn, back and forth, tit for tat, politics." {barack told voters in Downington, Pa} ..but really isn't this what he is doing?

29. "What's she not telling you about her health care plan?" the ad asks. "It forces everyone to buy insurance even if you can't afford it, and you pay a penalty if you don't." {on an ad that clinton is running in Pa...see her response to this quote}-->"Instead of attacking the problem, he chooses to attack my solution," {per hillary clinton}

30. "You've always got to measure if somebody throws an elbow at you, and after three or four times of gettin' elbows in the ribs, you know, at what point do you sort of say, 'OK, you know, we, we, we've gotta put a stop to that'?"{he told ABC News' Robin Roberts on "Good Morning America" his attacks are necessary, being careful not to change his repeated promise of a "new kind of politics." }

31. "To all the forces of division and distraction that has stopped us from making progress for the American people, I've got one question: Do you smell what Barack is cooking?" {Barack said on Monday night's WWE Raw, Hillary also had a message too}

32. "This is not a decision I come to lightly ... and it is one I make with some sadness," {after barack resigned from his church, trinity united church in chicago where he has been a member for over 30 years.}

33. "I'm not denouncing the church and I'm not interested in people who want me to denounce the church," he said, adding that the new pastor at Trinity and "the church have been suffering from the attention my campaign has focused on them."

34. "I suspect we'll find another church home for our family," Obama said.

35. "It's clear that now that I'm a candidate for president, every time something is said in the church by anyone associated with Trinity, including guest pastors, the remarks will imputed to me even if they totally conflict with my long-held views, statements and principles,"

36. "I have no idea how it will impact my presidential campaign but I know it was the right thing to do for me and my family,"

37. "This was a pretty personal decision and I was not trying to make political theater out of it,"

38. "deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric, which doesn't reflect the country I see or the desire of people across America to come together in common cause."

39. "This was one I didn't see coming," Obama said Saturday when he asked if he had anticipated the firestorm that would erupt over his relationship with Wright. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080601/ap_on_el_pr/obama

40. "These are the same guys who helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11," the presumed nominee told reporters aboard his campaign plane. "This is the same kind of fear-mongering that got us into Iraq ... and it's exactly that failed foreign policy I want to reverse."

41. "And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo," Obama said. "What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center — we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated.



You have just read my favorite quotes from Barack Obama...thanks for reading, what do you think about Barack Obama?











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