The most presidential lorem ipsum in history.
More to do for the father that I met who was losing his job and choking back the tears, wondering how he would pay $4,500 a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits that he counted on. Because whether it's poverty or racism, the uninsured or the unemployed, war or peace, the challenges we face today are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten-point plan. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time? I don't know about you, but I'm not ready to take a ten percent chance on change. We measure progress in the 23 million new jobs that were created when Bill Clinton was President - when the average American family saw its income go up $7,500 instead of down $2,000 like it has under George Bush. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. That is why we are forging service projects in America that bring together Christians, Muslims, and Jews.
We need to heed the biblical call to care for "the least of these" and lift the poor out of despair. The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms.
But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me. But as Americans, we also know that this is a nation of laws, and we cannot have those laws broken when more than 2,000 people cross our borders illegally every day. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known.
Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don't want their tax money wasted, by a welfare agency or by the Pentagon. It should help us, not hurt us. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.
And he knows that it's not enough for just some of us to prosper. And I've found that no matter where I am, or who I'm talking to, there's a common theme that emerges. But somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. This is the hope of all humanity. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end.
God bless you.