Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we?ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Gotta Love American Politics
When it comes to politics, it?s a he said, she said situation. Statistics can be spun just about any way you want to promote your ideas and positions. Nonetheless, regardless of your political thoughts, you must agree that President Barack Obama is a classic example of the ability of American citizens to excel and reach the top.
View the first two videos below to see what we mean!
On this day in 1961 our 44th President was born in Honolulu. In this article we take a look at how he earned his way to The White House and some of his major accomplishments.
As our 44th President Barack Obama is the first African American to hold the office as well as the first from Hawaii. His prior national political experience came from serving as an Illinois U.S. Senator representing the state from January 2005 to November 2008.
Early Life
Obama was born to relative newly-weds, Barack Obama, Sr. and Stanley Ann Dunham who met in 1960 in a Russian class at the University of Hawaii. The couple married on February 2, 1961 but separated right after Obama was born six months later. Dunham moved with her newborn son to Seattle, Washington in late August 1961. She attended the University of Washington for one year while Obama Sr. completed his undergraduate economics degree in Hawaii. They were divorced in March 1964. Obama Sr. returned to Kenya in 1964 and only visited his son once in 1971. He died in an automobile accident in 1982.
Dunham remarried in 1965 and eventually moved to Indonesia following her husband who left 16 months earlier. From age six to 10, Obama attended local Indonesian-language schools supplemented by home schooling by his mother. In 1971, Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents and thanks to a scholarship attended Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, from fifth grade until he graduated in 1979. Dunham spent most of the 1970?s in Indonesia before divorcing Lolo in 1980. She earned a Ph.D. in 1992. Dunham died in 1995 in Hawaii following treatment for ovarian cancer and uterine cancer.
One interesting memory of his early childhood was recalled by Obama, ?That my father looked nothing like the people around me ? that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk?barely registered in my mind.? Hawaii afforded him the opportunity to reconcile his multiracial heritage, as he reflected later, ?The opportunity that Hawaii offered?to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect ? became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear.?
College
Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to attend Occidental College, where he made his first public speech. In 1981, he transferred to Columbia University to major in political science with a specialty in international relations. He graduated with a BA in 1983. Following a couple of years working as a community organizer in Chicago, Obama left to attend Harvard Law School graduating in 1991 with a J.D. magna cum laude. Obama?s election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review became a national media event and led to his first book deal. Dreams from My Father was published in 1995. Afterwards, he returned to Chicago and worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago.
Serving his State
Obama served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation that reformed ethics and health care laws. He also was bipartisan in his support of Republican Governor Ryan?s payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures.
Obama sponsored and had enacted unanimous, bipartisan legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained and also mandated videotaping of homicide interrogations. Police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement in enacting death penalty reforms.
The U.S. Senate
Obama was sworn in as Senator in 2005 becoming the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He became involved in sponsoring legislation to strengthen transparency including the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which authorized the establishment of USAspending.gov, a web search engine on federal spending and the Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008. Obama also contributed provisions to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which was signed into law in September 2007.
In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act, making it the first Federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor.
Obama also sponsored legislation pertaining to military issues. He added an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act to safeguard soldiers discharged with diagnosed personality-disorders. He sponsored the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran?s oil and gas industry and co-sponsored legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism. Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children?s Health Insurance Program, providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries.
As President
Several events brought him to national attention during 2004 including his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July. His presidential campaign began in February 2007 in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois. His choice was viewed as symbolic because it was where Abraham Lincoln delivered his historic ?House Divided? speech in 1858. Obama emphasized issues of rapidly ending the Iraq War, increasing energy independence and providing universal health care in a campaign that projected themes of ?hope? and ?change.? After a close campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton he won his party?s nomination. He went on to defeat Republican nominee John McCain and became President. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
As president, Obama signed economic stimulus legislation in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 in response to the late 2000?s recession. Other major domestic policy initiatives include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd?Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell Repeal Act of 2010, and the Budget Control Act of 2011. In foreign policy, Obama ended the Iraq War, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered U.S. military involvement in Libya and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. In May 2012, he became the first sitting U.S. president to openly support legalizing same-sex marriage.
Legacy
Obama is an exceptional orator. He has won two Grammys for Best Spoken Word Album for the abridged audiobook versions of Dreams from My Father in 2006 and for The Audacity of Hope in 2008.
His concession speech after the New Hampshire primary was set to music by independent artists as the music video ?Yes We Can?, which was viewed 10 million times on YouTube in its first month (see it below). In 2008, Time magazine named Obama as its Person of the Year for his historic candidacy and election that it described as ?the steady march of seemingly impossible accomplishments.?
Obama is a big sports fan. He supports the Chicago White Sox and he threw out the first pitch at the 2005 ALCS when he was still a senator. In 2009, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the All Star game wearing a White Sox jacket. He also enjoys Chicago Bears football but as a child cheered for the Pittsburgh Steelers and rooted for them ahead of their Super Bowl XLIII victory 12 days after he took office as President. In 2011, Obama invited the 1985 Chicago Bears to the White House; the team had not visited the White House after their 1986 Super Bowl win due to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
The Obama?s 2009 tax return disclosed annual household income of $5.5 million, up from $4.2 million in 2007 and $1.6 million in 2005. The increases came about primarily from sales of his books. It is also worth noting that the Obama?s support a number of non-profit organizations, including once giving $131,000 to Fisher House Foundation, a charity allowing the families of wounded veterans to reside near where the veteran is receiving medical treatment. Based on his 2012 financial disclosure, Obama may be worth as much as $10 million.
Obama is Christian and his religious views developed as an adult. Obama described his mother as detached from religion, yet ?in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known?. He described his father as a ?confirmed atheist? and his stepfather as ?a man who saw religion as not particularly useful?. Through working with black churches as a community organizer Obama came to understand ?the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change.?
In his words Obama stated, ?I am a Christian and I am a devout Christian. I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I believe that that faith gives me a path to be cleansed of sin and have eternal life.? Later, he added, ?I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead ? being my brothers? and sisters? keeper, treating others as they would treat me.?
Obama was baptized at the Trinity United Church of Christ in 1988, and was an active member there for two decades. Obama resigned from Trinity during the Presidential campaign after controversial statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright became public. After a prolonged effort to find a church to attend regularly in Washington, Obama announced in June 2009 that his primary place of worship would be the Evergreen Chapel at Camp David.
About Our Quotester: Barack Obama
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. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
Several events brought him to national attention during 2004, most notably his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July. His presidential campaign began in February 2007 and after a close campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton he won his party?s nomination. He went on to defeat Republican nominee John McCain and became President. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Our Quotester Image is linked from dmwmedia.com.
This biography was adapted from wikipedia.com. Learn more about Barack Obama by reading the original article here.
Americans? still believe in an America where anything?s possible ? they just don?t think their leaders do.
Resources
Barack Obama?s Official Web Site
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Article source: http://myfundamerica.com/2012/you-didnt-build-that-barak-obama/
Source: http://genabit.com/you-didnt-build-that-barak-obama-mark-collins-real-estate-and/
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