As we continue to build up carbon in the atmosphere to unprecedented levels, we never know when the next emitted carbon molecule will tip over some ecosystem and trigger a nonlinear climate event — like melting the Siberian tundra and releasing all of its methane, or drying up the Amazon or melting all the sea ice in the North Pole in summer. And when one ecosystem collapses, it can trigger unpredictable changes in others that could alter our whole world.

I have had sex with women who work for me on this show. My response to that is: Yes I have. (clapping) I’ve had sex with women who work on this show.

Medicare is part of the social fabric of America; to say that I support it is not to say that it’s the best program that it can be. The government is not a fair competitor, it’s a predator.

My family’s seen it up close too much with assassinations and violence in political life. It’s a terrible thing when people think that in order to get their point across they have to go to the edge of violent rhetoric and attack people personally. It’s fine for people to debate the issue and attack the issue, but when they go and stoop to the level of the vitriolic rhetoric that we’ve seen this debate turn up, it’s very, I think, dangerous to the fabric of our country.

…

I will note that there were a number of prominent security people in this country who spoke very openly this past week that … that there are consequences in terms of trying to protect public officials. There are consequences to violent rhetoric. Some people can see through TV ratings and right-wing talk show hosts that just try to create some theater, but unfortunately, there are some that can’t see through it. And that’s the danger in it. There is definitely freedom of speech, but freedom of speech does not allow yelling ‘fire’ in the middle of a crowded movie theater.

It’s very, very dangerous. We put a lot of people in jail around the world for threatening our country’s security. But this atmosphere of attack that doesn’t attack the issue, but attacks the people, is very disruptive to the institution of democracy, which relies on a respect for the opposition.

George Wallace didn’t need a gun to pull a trigger. We just need to be mindful of the wisdom of people … who have been through these ugly periods in American history. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long… We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis, and the nations will accept the New World Order.

This is what they do. O’Reilly inspires people to go kill doctors who provide private abortion services, legal services to his patients; and then O’Reilly stands there with that dung-eating look on his face — what a SOB he is. ‘It wasn’t me; of course it was you, you thug!’ And the suicide-prone Glenn Beck rails against Census workers, and inspires his people to kill one for sport; I bet you O’Reilly and Beck and the rest of these monsters on the neo-fascist right in this country love this stuff. It gives them something else to talk about. It’s sport.

[Communication Diversity] … there’s nothing more difficult than this. Because we have really, truly good white people in important positions. And the fact of the matter is that there are a limited number of those positions. And unless we are conscious of the need to have more people of color, gays, other people in those positions we will not change the problem.

We’re in a position where you have to say who is going to step down so someone else can have power.

The politicians who are making nuclear weapons are backward, retarded.

It should be clear by now that my focus here is not freedom of speech or the press. This freedom is all too often an exaggeration. At the very least, blind references to freedom of speech or the press serve as a distraction from the critical examination of other communications policies.

… [T]he purpose of free speech is warped to protect global corporations and block rules that would promote democratic governance.

I laugh when I see people from Fox News. I laugh at you. You know how Sean Penn calls you? ‘The stupid people from Fox News’ — not you, of course – not you, of course not. I laugh when I see people from Fox News. I laugh at you. You know how Sean Penn calls you? ‘The stupid people from Fox News’ — not you, of course – not you, of course not.