Here are some of the highlights courtesy of Vox:
And I know that after so much war, many Americans are asking whether we are confronted by a cancer that has no immediate cure.
Well, here's what I want you to know. The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it. We will destroy ISIL and any other organization that tries to harm us. Our success won't depend on tough talk or abandoning our values or giving into fear. That's what groups like ISIL are hoping for. Instead, we will prevail by being strong and smart.
The President then laid out a four step approach to stopping the terrorists.
These included going after terrorist plotters, providing training and equipment to those fighting Daesh on the ground, working with friends and allies to disrupt terrorist groups, and finding a resolution to the war in Syria.
Of course this address has already come under attack from those on the Right, who desperately want to start another war, or restart the ones the President is trying to end, but then again what would we expect from them at this point?
The President also said this which really agitated the conservatives:
There are several steps that Congress should take right away. To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semiautomatic weapon? This is a matter of national security.
We also need to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino. I know there are some who reject any gun safety measures, but the fact is that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, no matter how effective they are, cannot identify every would-be mass shooter, whether that individual was motivated by ISIL or some other hateful ideology. What we can do and must do is make it harder for them to kill.
For some reason. according to conservatives, the fact that the shooting in San Bernardino was done by Muslims means that it has NOTHING to do with guns, or access to guns.
Magically the fact that they are linked to a terrorist group outside of America, means that the methods by which they killed are simply no longer worthy of concern. Somehow I think that if they had blown their victim up, instead of shooting them, that this would not be the case.
And finally the President reminded us of this fact:
We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like ISIL want. ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers. Part of a cult of death. And they account for a tiny fraction of a more than a billion Muslims around the world, including millions of patriotic Muslim-Americans who reject their hateful ideology.
Moreover, the vast majority of terrorist victims around the world are Muslim. If we're to succeed in defeating terrorism, we must enlist Muslim communities as some of our strongest allies rather than push them away through suspicion and hate.
Yeah, that didn't go over very well either.
Especially for the Republican presidential candidates who are relying on the fear by the American people, and the ability to manipulate that fear into voter turnout, that is now at the center of many of their campaign strategies.
THAT is why they are attacking this speech so aggressively.
The President is calling for calm, when the Republicans want anything but.
President Obama's Address to the Nation in full.
1:11 PM
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