Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. And it leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them - that our elected representatives aren't looking out for the interests of most Americans.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old - is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home that's no excuse ... Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect. We won't know what to fight for.

It's important to make sure that governments have some checks on what they do, that people can oversee what's being done so the government doesn't abuse it.

I think it's useful to keep in mind I've been now President for over seven years and gun sales don't seem to have suffered during that time.

I think it is important that we are targeting HIV/AIDS resources into the communities where we're seeing the highest growth rates. That means education and prevention, particularly with young people.