It's a terrible and tragic and counterproductive policy to avoid communicating with people who disagree with us.

As a Christian, a trained engineer and scientist, and a professor at Emory University, I am embarrassed by Superintendent Kathy Cox's attempt to censor and distort the education of Georgia's students.... There is no need to teach that stars can fall out of the sky and land on a flat Earth in order to defend our religious faith.

I come out of the environment of the Deep South, where I had seen the millstone of racial discrimination weighting down my people, both the black people and the white people; and I had seen the enormous progress that we were able to make after we removed the legal restraints of a two-class society, with the whites superior and blacks inferior. So I was very convinced before I became President that basic human rights, equality of opportunity, the end of abuse by governments of their people, was a basic principle on which the United States should be an acknowledged champion.

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

The special relationship between the United States and Israel still stands. Our total committments to Israel's security and our hope for peace is still preeminent among all the other considerations that our Nation has in the Middle East ... But there need be no concern among the Israeli people nor among Jews in this country that our Nation has changed or turned away from Israel.

I thought a lot about our Nation and what I should do as President. And Sunday night before last, I made a speech about two problems of our countryenergy and malaise.

We've got to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start praying. The strength we need will not come from the White House, but from every house in America.