World News Korner

President Obama's speech from yesterday, plus a Q and A on all kinds of things.

Here are some of the highlights from the transcript.

On Heathcare.gov:

The health care website problems were a source of great frustration. I think in the last press conference I adequately discussed my frustrations on those. On the other hand, since that time I now have a couple million people, maybe more, who are going to have health care on January 1st. And that is a big deal.

On the NSA:

As you know, the independent panel that I put together came back with a series of recommendations, 46 in total. I had an extensive meeting with them down in the Situation Room to review all the recommendations that they've made. I want to thank them publicly because I think they did an excellent job and took my charge very seriously, which is I told them, I want you to look from top to bottom at what we're doing and evaluate whether or not the current structures that we have and the current programs that we have are properly addressing both our continuing need to keep ourselves secure and to prevent terrorist attacks or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or other threats to the homeland, and are we also making sure that we're taking seriously rule of law and our concerns about privacy and civil liberties.

So what we're doing now is evaluating all the recommendations that have been made. Over the next several weeks I'm going to assess, based on conversations not just with the intelligence community but others in government and outside of government, how we might apply and incorporate their recommendations. And I'm going to make a pretty definitive statement about all of this in January, where I'll be able to say, here are the recommendations that we think make sense, here are ones that we think as promising but still need to be refined further, here's how it relates to the work we're doing not just -- not just internally but also in partnership with other countries.

On struggles this last year and hope for the next:

And when I look at the landscape for next year, what I say to myself is: We're poised to do really good things. The economy is stronger than it has been in a very long time. Our next challenge then is to make sure that everybody benefits from that and not just a few folks. And there's still too many people who haven't seen a raise and are still feeling financially insecure. We can get immigration reform done. We've got a concept that has bipartisan support. Let's see if we can break through the politics on this.

You know, I think that hopefully folks have learned their lesson in terms of brinksmanship coming out of the -- coming out of the government shutdown. You know there have been times where I've thought about, were there other ways that I could have prevented that -- those three, four weeks that hampered the economy and hurt individuals families who were not getting a paycheck during that time? Absolutely, but I also think that in some ways, given the pattern that we have been going through with House Republicans for a while, we might have needed just a little bit of a bracing sort of recognition that this is not what the American people think is acceptable.

They want us to try to solve problems and be practical, even if we can't get everything done.

So, you know, the end of the year is always a good time to reflect and see what can you do better next year. That's how I intend to approach it. I am sure that I will have even better ideas after a couple days of sleep and sun.

On the delegation that he is sending to he Olympics and the message that sends:

I think the delegation speaks for itself. You've got outstanding Americans, outstanding athletes, people who will represent us extraordinarily well. And, you know, the fact that we've got folks like Billie Jean King or Brian Boitano, who themselves have been world-class athletes that everybody acknowledges for their excellence but also for their character, who also happen to be members of the LGBT community, you should take that for what it's worth, that when it comes to the Olympics and athletic performance we don't make distinctions on the basis of sexual orientation. We judge people on how they perform, both on the court and off the court, on the field and off the field. And that's a value that I think is at the heart of not just America but American sports.

In other words "Screw you and your homophobic bullshit Putin!"

I though the President addressed some very tricky questions about Obamacare, the NSA, Edward Snowden, his poll numbers, and Iran. There were certainly some questions that he did not elaborate on in any great deal, but there were also plenty that he did. And some of them were the tougher ones.

Oh and he also said "Merry Christmas" quite a few times.

Just thought I should mention that.

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