"[J]ust because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right."
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Mean quotes
Mean
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"These days, the House Republicans actually give John Boehner a harder time than they give me. Which means orange really is the new black."
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"Michelle [Obama] never fully took to the scrutiny. I mean, she's thrived as a first lady, but it's not her preference."
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"Nobody's madder than me about the website not working as well as it should, which means it's going to get fixed."
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"I think that the Democratic Party is a big tent, which means that there are positions I may not agree with."
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"American politics is always somewhat fluid. In this age of social media, it means that voters can swing back and forth."
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"I said to one young activist who herself was the daughter of an undocumented worker, and so could speak from a very personal and legitimate perspective - I remember saying to her: I agree with you, from a moral perspective, that a child from Honduras is worth the same as my daughter. God is not a respecter of boundaries; he's not saying that American kids deserve a better life than Honduran kids. But I'm the president of the United States, and the nation-state by definition means that boundaries mean something and borders mean something."
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"One thing both men have in common is a love of golf and a shared knowledge of the word "mulligan," which means a do-over to replace a lousy shot."
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"The Supreme Court nominations [example]. I mean, the fact that Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republicans, was able to just stop a nomination almost a year before the next election and really not pay a political price for it, that's a sign that the incentives for politicians in this town to be so sharply partisan have gotten so outta hand that we're weakening ourselves."
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"I started as a community organizer. Every one of my campaigns was premised on getting new people involved. And if there's a theme in my public career it's that if ordinary people get involved then good things happen. So I want to see the Democratic Party move in that direction. And what that means is that we aren't just micro-targeting to eke out presidential victories; it means that we're showing up in places where right now we're not winning a lot."
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"[People] are looking for some means of control and what that means is is that the politics in all of our countries is gonna require us to manage technology and global integration and all these demographic shifts in a way that makes people feel more control, that gives them more confidence in their future."
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"You always hear about waste and abuse in Washington. And usually it doesn't mean much, because nobody ever finds where that waste and abuse is."
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"The American people want to make sure that the rules of the game are fair. And what that means is that if you look at surveys around Americans' attitudes on trade, the majority of the American people still support trade. But they're concerned about whether or not trade is fair, and whether we get the same access to other countries' markets that they have with us. Is there just a race to the bottom when it comes to wages, and so forth."
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"The Internet and Twitter and all these things are very powerful, but it also means sometimes that instead of having a dialogue we just start calling folks - calling each other names. And that's true on the left or the right."
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"Just because Iran and Syria may recognize Assad's weaknesses doesn't necessarily mean that Assad recognizes his weaknesses."
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"When I talked to [Donald Trump] about - our intelligence agencies, what I've said to him is - is that there are gonna be times where you've got raw intelligence that comes in and in my experience, over eight years, the intelligence community is pretty good about saying, "Look, we can't say for certain what this means." But there are gonna be times where the only way you can make a good decision is if you have confidence that the process is working, and the people that you put in charge are giving you their very best assessments."
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"The Balkanization of the media means that nobody is having a single conversation with a single set of agreed-upon facts and assumptions the way you had as recently as the 90s."
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"Does that mean that all vestiges of past discrimination would be eliminated, that the income gap or the wealth gap or the education gap [between Afro-Americans and white] would be erased in five years or 10 years? Probably not, and so this is obviously a discussion we've had before when you talk about something like reparations."
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"One of the thing about being President - that can't be taught, you have to experience, is - there is the sheer weight of decision making. And when I make a decision to send 17,000 young Americans to Afghanistan - you can understand that intellectually. But understanding what that means for those families, for those young people - when you end up sitting at your desk, signing - a condolence letter to one of the family members of a fallen hero - you're reminded each and every day, at every moment, that - the decisions you make count."
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"We need more responsibility, but we need it not just when there's a crisis. I mean, we've had years in which the reigning economic ideology has been what's good for Wall Street, but not what's good for Main Street."
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