If you look at the current Mosul campaign against ISIL, for example the few thousand troops that we have there to support that effort allows the Iraqi military to move forward in an effective way.

The men and women of America's homeland security apparatus do important work to protect us, and Republicans and Democrats in Congress should not be playing politics with that.

In a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people. Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country alarmed at one common danger came forth to meet it.

It ought to concern every person, because it is a debasement of our common humanity. It ought to concern every community, because it tears at our social fabric. It ought to concern every business, because it distorts markets. It ought to concern every nation, because it endangers public health and fuels violence and organized crime. I’m talking about the injustice, the outrage, of human trafficking, which must be called by its true name - modern slavery.

We can't afford more top-down economics. What we need are policies that will grow and strengthen the middle class.

I promised to bring change to Washington. The underlying reason for the economic mess we're in has been building for years. It's a fundamental imbalance in which the top 1 percent now gets almost a quarter of all national income. We haven't seen income and wealth this concentrated since the late nineteen twenties, and we all know what happened then - the Great Depression. We'll never really get out of the gravitational pull of the Great Recession until we fix this basic problem.

We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.