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The Barack Obama Portal
Barack Hussein Obama II (i/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961), is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned after his election to the presidency in November 2008.
A native of Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.
Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he ran for United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Democratic primary and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 general election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009.
As president, Obama signed economic stimulus legislation in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009. Other domestic policy initiatives include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a major piece of health care reform legislation which he signed into law in March 2010, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which forms part of his financial regulatory reform efforts, which he signed in July 2010. In foreign policy, Obama began a gradual withdrawal of troops from Iraq, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, and signed an arms control treaty with Russia. On October 8, 2009, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
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Stanley Ann Dunham (November 29, 1942 – November 7, 1995), the mother of Barack Obama, was an American anthropologist who specialized in economic anthropology and rural development. Dunham was nicknamed Anna, later known as Dr. Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro, and finally Ann Dunham Sutoro. Born in Kansas, Dunham spent her childhood in California, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas and her teenage years in Mercer Island, Washington, and much of her adult life in Hawaii and Indonesia.
Dunham studied at the University of Hawaii and the East-West Center and attained a bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. in anthropology. Dunham's research focused on women's work in cottage industries on the island of Java and blacksmithing in Indonesia. To address the problem of poverty in rural villages, she created microcredit programs while working as a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development. Dunham was also employed by the Ford Foundation in Jakarta and she consulted with the Asian Development Bank in Pakistan. Towards the latter part of her life, she worked with Bank Rakyat Indonesia where she helped apply her research to the largest microfinance program in the world.
After her son assumed the presidency, interest renewed in Dunham's work: The University of Hawaii held a symposium about her research; an exhibition of Dunham's Indonesian batik textile collection toured the United States; and in December 2009, Duke University Press published Surviving against the Odds: Village Industry in Indonesia, a book based on Dunham's 1992 dissertation. Obama also credits his political views to his mother's lessons to him in his formative years.
Did you know...
- ... that the performance of Air and Simple Gifts (pictured) at the inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20, 2009, was the first performance of a classical music quartet at a United States presidential inauguration?
- ... that Million Fax on Washington is a petition to the transition administration of Barack Obama organized by the UFO community to put the extraterrestrial issue on the new administration's agenda?
- ... that the National Review called David Mendell's biography Obama: From Promise to Power "the single best source of background information on our new president"?
- ... that Zeituni Onyango is the half-aunt of U.S. President Barack Obama and a political asylum claimant from Kenya whose case was disclosed in the final days of the 2008 U.S. presidential election?
- ... that during his days as a community organizer in Chicago, Barack Obama worked as a consultant and trainer for the Gamaliel Foundation?
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“ | We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of those boys who have little; who've been told that they cannot have what they dream; that they cannot be what they imagine. | ” |
—Barack Obama, Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: Super Tuesday (2008) |
In the news
- April 28: Darcy Richardson suspends Democratic Party presidential campaign
- April 19: US Secret Service agents face investigation for Colombian sex scandal
- April 15: Wikinews Shorts: April 14, 2012
- April 13: Kentucky men plead not guilty in gay hate crime case
- April 4: On the campaign trail, March 2012
- March 14: Sandra Fluke insists she will not be silenced
- March 10: Super Tuesday 2012: President Obama loses a delegate to Randall Terry
- February 14: Wikinews Shorts: February 14, 2012
- February 3: On the campaign trail, January 2012
- January 17: Jon Huntsman ends U.S. presidential campaign, endorses Mitt Romney
- December 23: U.S. Congress reaches deal on payroll tax cut extension
- December 21: Remaining US troops exit Iraq
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Presidency: Timeline (2009) • Timeline (2010) • First 100 days • Foreign policy • Political positions • Public image • Judicial appointments • Presidential transition • Cabinet confirmations • Supreme Court candidates • Speech to Congress (2009) • Inauguration • Unofficial inauguration events • We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial
2008 campaign: 2008 presidential election • 2008 presidential election timeline • 2008 Campaign endorsements • 2008 presidential primary campaign • Victory speech (2008) • Jeremiah Wright controversy • Bill Ayers controversy • Endorsement by Oprah Winfrey • Republican and conservative support • Newspaper endorsements • Inauguration invitations • 2008 Democratic National Convention • "A More Perfect Union" • 2008 campaign staff members • Endorsements from state, local and territory officials • Results of the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries • Opinion polling for 2008 election • Comparison of candidates • Congressional endorsements • International reaction • Opinion polling for 2008 Democratic Party candidates • South Carolina Democratic primary, 2008 • United States presidential election in Iowa, 2008
Career: Electoral history of Barack Obama • Early life and career • U.S. Senate career • Illinois Senate career • Illinois Senate elections • Bills sponsored in U.S. Senate • 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address • United States Senate election in Illinois, 2004 • Illinois's 1st congressional district election, 2000
Family: Michelle Obama • Marian Shields Robinson • Bo • Ann Dunham • Barack Obama, Sr. • Lolo Soetoro • Madelyn Dunham • Maya Soetoro-Ng • Stanley Armour Dunham • Zeituni Onyango • Craig Robinson • Capers Funnye
Books: The Audacity of Hope • Dreams from My Father • The Speech: Race and Barack Obama's "A More Perfect Union" • Barack Obama – Der schwarze Kennedy • The Obama Nation • The Case Against Barack Obama
Miscellaneous: List of places named after Barack Obama • Barack Obama Academy • Caloplaca obamae • Obama Day • Barack Obama "Hope" poster • Obama logo • Barack Obama (comic character) • 2008 Barack Obama assassination scare • "There's No One as Irish as Barack O'Bama" • "Yes We Can" • Nyang’oma Kogelo • Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories
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