» Barack Obama's dad. Barack Obama - Biography

Barack Obama's dad. Barack Obama - Biography

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is the current (since January 20, 2009) 44th President of the United States of America. Nobel Peace Prize Winner 2009. Before being elected president, he was a U.S. Senator from Illinois.

First African American to be nominated for President of the United States by one of the two major parties; unlike most black Americans, Obama is not a descendant of slaves, but the son of a student from Kenya.

The brothers have to pull up their pants. You are walking next to your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is visible. Here's my take on it: I think it's a waste of time to pass a law to ban low-slung pants... But that doesn't mean that people can't show some common sense and some respect for other people. You know, some people may not want to look at your underwear, and I am one of them.

Obama Barack

Born August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii. His parents met at the University of Hawaii. His father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a black Kenyan, came to the US to study economics. Mother, white American Stanley Ann Dunham (Stanley Ann Dunham) studied anthropology. When Barack was still a baby, his father went to continue his studies at Harvard, but due to financial difficulties he did not take his family with him. When his son was two years old, Obama Sr. left alone for Kenya, where he received a position as an economist in the government apparatus. He divorced his wife.

When Barack was six years old, Ann Dunham remarried, again to an international student, this time an Indonesian. Together with his mother, half-sister and stepfather Lolo Soetoro (Lolo Soetoro), the boy went to Indonesia, where he spent four years. He studied at one of the public schools in Jakarta. Then he returned to Hawaii, lived with his mother's parents.

In 1979, he graduated from Punahou School, a privileged private school in Honolulu. A school that is proud of its famous graduates - actors and athletes. During his high school years, Obama's big passion was basketball. As part of the Punahaou team, he won the state championship in 1979. In the same 1979, Barack Obama graduated from high school, and now honorably takes not the last place in the lists of famous graduates of this school. In a memoir published in 1995, Obama himself recalled that in high school he used marijuana and cocaine, and his academic performance declined.

After high school, Obama studied at Western College (Occidental College) in Los Angeles, then transferred to Columbia University, graduating in 1983, where Obama began to emerge as a politician and public figure.

In 1983, with a Bachelor's degree, Barack Obama began working for a large International Business Corporation as an editor in the financial information department. Obama will work there for a year, his first post-college job.

After that, in 1985 he settled in Chicago and worked in one of the church charity groups. As a "social organizer" he helped residents of disadvantaged areas of the city. It was his experience in philanthropy that made him realize that in order to improve people's lives, changes in legislation and policy are needed.

McCain recently called me a socialist for wanting to repeal Bush's tax cuts for the richest Americans. By the end of the week, he will be accusing me of being a secret communist, because in kindergarten I shared toys, I shared my peanut butter and jam sandwich.

Obama Barack

In 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School, where he became the first black editor of the university's Harvard Law Review in 1990. These were not all of Obama's successes at Harvard in 1990. The New York Times will write about the news that he has become the first black president of the Harvard Lawyers' Club in its hundred and four year history. In 1991, Obama graduated and returned to Chicago. Engaged in legal practice, mainly defending victims in court different types discrimination. In addition, Obama worked at the headquarters of the Democratic Party, taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, worked on suffrage issues at the small law firm of Miner, Barnhill and Galand. Obama became known as a liberal, an opponent of the creation of NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Area (North American Free Trade Area), a fighter against racial discrimination, a supporter of the universal health insurance system.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii. His parents met at the University of Hawaii. His father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a black Kenyan, came to the US to study economics. Mother, white American Stanley Ann Dunham (Stanley Ann Dunham) studied anthropology. When Barack was still a baby, his father went to continue his studies at Harvard, but due to financial difficulties he did not take his family with him. When his son was two years old, Obama Sr. left alone for Kenya, where he received a position as an economist in the government apparatus. He divorced his wife.

When Barak was six years old, Ann Dunham remarried, again to an international student, this time an Indonesian. Together with his mother, half-sister and stepfather Lolo Soetoro (Lolo Soetoro), the boy went to Indonesia, where he spent four years. He studied at one of the public schools in Jakarta. Then he returned to Hawaii, lived with his mother's parents. In 1979, he graduated from Punahou School, a privileged private school in Honolulu. A school that is proud of its famous graduates - actors and athletes. During his high school years, Obama's big passion was basketball. As part of the Punahaou team, he won the state championship in 1979. In the same 1979, Barack Obama graduated from high school, and now honorably takes not the last place in the lists of famous graduates of this school. In a memoir published in 1995, Obama himself recalled that in high school he used marijuana and cocaine, and his academic performance declined.

After high school, Obama studied at Western College (Occidental College) in Los Angeles, then transferred to Columbia University, graduating in 1983, where Obama began to emerge as a politician and public figure.

In 1983, with a Bachelor's degree, Barack Obama began working for a large International Business Corporation as an editor in the financial information department. Obama will work there for a year, his first post-college job.

After that, in 1985 he settled in Chicago and worked in one of the church charity groups. As a "social organizer" he helped residents of disadvantaged areas of the city. It was his experience in philanthropy that made him realize that in order to improve people's lives, changes in legislation and policy are needed.

In 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School, where he became the first black editor of the university's Harvard Law Review in 1990. These were not all of Obama's successes at Harvard in 1990. The New York Times will write about the news that he has become the first black president of the Harvard Lawyers' Club in its hundred and four year history. In 1991, Obama graduated and returned to Chicago. Engaged in legal practice, mainly defended victims of various types of discrimination in court. In addition, Obama worked at the headquarters of the Democratic Party, taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, worked on suffrage issues at the small law firm of Miner, Barnhill and Galand. Obama became known as a liberal, an opponent of the creation of NAFTA - the North American Free Trade Area (North American Free Trade Area), a fighter against racial discrimination, a supporter of the universal health insurance system.

In 1993, Barack Obama will begin teaching the course "Constitutional Law" at the University of Chicago Law School. Obama will work there until 2004. Until the year of his election to the US Senate.

In 1995, Obama will write and publish his first book, Dreams from a Father. A book that will bring glory to the future senator.

In 1996, Obama will win elections to the Illinois State Senate. And later, doing a political review of the work of the senator, the Washington Post article will note Obama's ability to unite the Democratic and Republican opposing parties in the work.

Obama's political career began in the Illinois State Senate, where he represented the Democratic Party for eight years, from 1997 to 2004. In 2000, Obama attempted to run for office in the House of Representatives, but lost the primary to incumbent black Congressman Bobby Rush, a former member of the Black Panther movement. In the state Senate, Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans: representatives of the two parties worked together on state programs to support low-income families through tax cuts. Obama acted as an active supporter of the development of preschool education. Supported measures to tighten control over the work of the investigating authorities. In 2002, Obama condemned the George W. Bush administration's plans to invade Iraq.

In 2004, Obama entered the race for the nomination for one of the Illinois seats in the US Senate. In the primaries, he managed to win a convincing victory over six opponents. Obama's chances of success increased when his Republican opponent Jack Ryan (Jack Ryan) was forced to withdraw his candidacy, the reason was the scandalous accusations against Ryan during the divorce proceedings.

On July 29, 2004, during the campaign, Obama delivered an address to the Democratic National Convention. His televised speech made Obama widely known in the United States. The senatorial candidate urged listeners to return to the roots of American society and re-make the US a country of "open opportunity": he illustrated the ideal of open opportunity through his own biography and that of his father.

In the Senate elections, Obama won by a large margin (70% to 27%) Republican Alan Keyes (Alan Keyes). He took office on January 4, 2005 and became the fifth African-American senator in US history. Obama served on several committees: on issues environment and Community Service, Veterans Affairs, and Foreign Relations.

As previously in the state Senate, Obama has worked with Republicans on a number of issues, including legislation on government transparency. In addition, together with the well-known Republican Senator Richard Lugar (Richard Lugar), Obama visited Russia: the trip was devoted to cooperation in the field of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In general, Obama voted in the Senate in accordance with the liberal line of the Democratic Party. He paid special attention to the idea of ​​developing alternative energy sources.

Senator Obama managed to win the sympathy of the press unusually quickly and become one of the most visible figures in Washington. By the fall of 2006, observers already considered it quite possible for him to be nominated in the next presidential election. In early 2007, Obama was second only to Senator Hillary Clinton on the list of Democratic Party favorites. In January, Obama created an evaluation committee to prepare for running in the presidential election. As of early February 2007, Obama was ready to support 15 percent of Democrats, and Clinton - 43 percent. The data at the beginning of June 2007 surpassed the most optimistic forecasts of Obama's supporters - the gap was only 3 percent in favor of Hillary Clinton.

In January 2007, Obama faced controversial allegations. Information began to spread in the press that during his life in Indonesia, he allegedly studied at an Islamic school-madrasah, where representatives of the radical Muslim sect of Wahhabis preached. These accusations were denied, but left a significant negative imprint on the image of Obama.

On February 10, at a rally in Springfield, Illinois, Obama announced his entry into the presidential race. If he wins, he promised to withdraw American troops from Iraq by March 2009. Along with the Iraq campaign, he has criticized the Bush administration for its lack of progress in combating oil dependency and developing the education system. Soon, on February 13, at another rally in Iowa, Obama made a rash statement. Criticizing Bush's Iraqi policy, he said that the lives of US soldiers who died in Iraq were "wasted". He had to repeatedly apologize and explain that he unsuccessfully expressed his thought. Obama's position on Iraq and his plans to withdraw troops were critically received by Bush supporters not only in the US but also abroad. One of the president's allies, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, announced that Obama's plans play into the hands of terrorists.

In February 2007, Obama was supported by David Geffen, co-founder of the DreamWorks film company and formerly a prominent supporter of Bill Clinton. Geffin said that Hillary Clinton is too controversial a figure and will not be able to unite Americans in a difficult time for the country. Together with other Hollywood celebrities, Geffin organized a campaign to collect donations in favor of Obama - the collected amount reached $ 1.3 billion. Geffin's tough comments about Clinton have been linked to the narrowing of the gap between the former first lady and Obama: at the end of February, the difference was 12 percent. 36 percent of Democrats were ready to vote for Clinton, and 24 percent for Obama.

One of the vulnerabilities of Obama as a candidate was the question of his belonging to "African-Americans". As it turned out, some representatives of the black population, including the most influential representatives of this minority, were in no hurry to recognize their own in Obama. The fact is that, unlike the "real" American Negro, Obama is not a descendant of slaves brought to the American continent from West Africa. In addition, the senator did not have a chance to participate in the struggle for the rights of blacks - unlike most American African-American politicians. The situation worsened when, in early March 2007, the press reported that in the Obama family, maternal line were slave owners.

Obama has been married to lawyer Michelle Robinson Obama since 1992. They have two daughters: Malia (Malia) and Sasha (Sasha). Official biographies report that Obama and his wife are parishioners of one of the Christian churches in Chicago - Trinity United Church of Christ.

Barack Obama is the author of two books: in 1995, he published the memoir Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, which we have already mentioned, and in 2006, the book The Courage of Hope ( The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream). The audio version of the first book in 2006 won the Grammy Award. Both of Obama's books have become bestsellers.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. (Eng. Barack Hussein Obama II, pronounced - American statesman and politician, 44th President of the United States of America (since January 20, 2009). Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009. Before being elected president, he was a US Senator from Illinois. Was re-elected to a second term in 2012. First African American to be nominated for the presidency of the United States by one of the two major parties.Zodiac sign - Leo.

Childhood

Barack Obama was born August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His parents met in 1960 while studying at the University of Hawaii at Manoa; father - Barack Hussein Obama Sr. (1936-1982) - the son of a healer from the Luo people. The missionary school paid for his studies in Nairobi and sent him to study econometrics at the University of Hawaii, where he organized the Association of Foreign Students and became the best in his class.

Obama's mother - Stanley Ann Dunham (1942-1995) - was born on a military base in Kansas in a family of Christian Americans, but later became an agnostic. Obama's own religion is Protestantism.

Stanley Ann Dunham - English, Scottish, Irish and German descent; through her mother, Madeleine Lee Payne, Barack also has Cherokee ancestry. The surname Dunham belongs to the American aristocracy and comes from the first settler Richard Singleterie and his son Jonathan (1639/40-1724), who for unclear reasons changed his surname to Dunham (family legend traces him to the owners of Dunham Castle in Scotland, who was criminally deprived in infancy inheritance relatives). Stanley Ann was studying anthropology at the University of Hawaii when she met Obama Sr.

Obama Sr.'s father and Dunham's parents were opposed to the marriage, but they married on February 2, 1961. For 25-year-old Kenyan Barak, this was the second marriage.

And on August 4, 1961, in the city of Honolulu, in the Hawaiian Islands, the fifth child of Obama Sr. was born, but from the 18-year-old American Ann Dunham - the first. Obama is mulatto but, unlike most black Americans, not a descendant of slaves.

The young couple was happy, but their union lasted only 3 years. Two years after the birth of his son, his father went to continue his studies at Harvard, but Dunham and Obama Jr. soon returned to Hawaii. Barack's parents divorced in January 1964.

While studying at Harvard University, Obama Sr. met the American teacher Ruth Nidesand, with whom, after graduating from his studies in the United States, he left for Kenya. This was his third marriage, which produced two children. In total, the father was married 4 times.

Subsequently, the fate of Obama Sr. was tragic. At first, success awaited him - he worked in an oil company, and then received a position as a senior economist in the apparatus of the Kenyan government at the Ministry of Finance. For criticizing the economic actions of the President of the country, Obama Sr. fell out of favor with him, and his career came to an end. Obama began to drink and fell into poverty. He saw his son for the last time when Barak was 10 years old. In Kenya, Obama Sr. got into a car accident, as a result of which he lost both legs.

After his parents divorced, Barack Obama lived in Hawaii with his grandparents. His mother starred in candid photo shoots, and therefore her parents disowned her. Grandma Madeleine Lee raised the boy for a long time. Barak's grandfather, dissident and revolutionary; like Obama's father, he fought against the political system in Kenya, but unsuccessfully. Torture, disability and two years in prison ended Hussein Onyango Obama's struggle with British colonial policy in his country. Soon his grandson will spread this policy around the world...

Ann Dunham divorced her husband when he started having problems, remarried an Indonesian foreign student Lolo Sutoro. In 1967, Ann left with him and little Barack for Jakarta. From this marriage, Barak had a half-sister, Maya.

Education, early career

In Jakarta, Obama Jr. attended public school from age 6 to 10. After that, he returned to Honolulu, where he lived with his mother's parents until graduating in 1979 from the prestigious Panahow Private School.

In 1982, Obama Sr. died in a car accident. He left eight children from four wives. Obama described his childhood memories in his book Dreams of My Father.

Obama is left-handed. His autograph:

After high school, Obama attended Western College in Los Angeles for two years before transferring to Columbia University, where he majored in international relations. By the time he received his bachelor's degree in 1983, he had already worked for the International Business Corporation and the New York Research Center.

In 1985, after moving to Chicago, Barack Obama worked as a community organizer in disadvantaged areas of the city.

In 1988, he entered Harvard Law School, where in 1990 he became the first-ever African American editor of the university's Harvard Law Review.

Obama taught constitutional law at the Chicago Law Institute from 1992 to 2004. He also worked as a civil rights attorney. At the same time, Obama met his future wife, Michelle (born 1964).

In 1995, Barack's mother died of ovarian cancer.

Illinois State Senator

In 1996, Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate from the 13th congressional district. His predecessor in this post was Alice Palmer and his successor was Kwame Raul.

Obama served as a senator from January 8, 1997 to November 4, 2004, represented the US Democratic Party: was re-elected twice: in 1998 and 2002. As a senator, Obama worked with Democrats and Republicans: he worked with representatives of both parties on programs to support low-income families through tax cuts; acted as a supporter of the development of preschool education, supported measures to tighten control over the work of investigative bodies.

In 1998, Obama had a daughter, Malia Ann.

In 2000, Barack made an unsuccessful attempt to run for the US House of Representatives, but lost the primary to incumbent black congressman Bobby Rush.

In 2001, his second daughter Natasha ("Sasha") was born.

In January 2003, B. Obama ran for the US Senate.

After winning the March 2004 primary, Obama delivered the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in July of that year. He entered the race for the nomination for one of the Illinois seats in the US Senate. Obama won a landslide victory over six opponents in the primaries, gaining 70% of the vote. He was elected to the Senate in November 2004.

Obama, as a member of the 109th Democratic Minority in Congress, helped create laws to regulate conventional weapons and increase transparency in the use of the state budget. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Senate in Washington

Barack Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator on January 4, 2005, becoming the 5th African American Senator. His predecessor was Peter Fitzgerald and his successor was Roland Burris. The non-partisan Congressional Quarterly described Obama as a "loyal Democrat" based on an analysis of all Senate votes from 2005-2007.

As part of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, Obama flew to Russia to inspect Russian nuclear facilities along with Republican Senator Richard Lugar. During the trip on August 28, 2005, an incident occurred during a flight at Perm's Bolshoye Savino airport: the senators were detained for three hours due to their refusal to "follow the requirements of the border guards" to inspect the aircraft, which had diplomatic immunity. Later, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed regret "in connection with the misunderstanding that had arisen and the inconvenience caused to the senators." In his book, Obama referred to the incident as one of the moments during his journey "that were reminiscent of Cold War days."

Political views and statements

As a senator, Obama has been to the White House on numerous occasions at the invitation of President George W. Bush. Barak was an early opponent of President George W. Bush's Iraq policy. In his book The Audacity of Hope (2006), Obama wrote: “From the beginning of my Senate tenure, I have been a consistent and sometimes fierce critic of the policies of the Bush administration. I consider tax breaks for wealthy citizens not only ill-conceived, but also very questionable from the point of view of morality.

During his time in the 110th Congress, Obama helped create laws dealing with election fraud, lobbying, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and demobilized US military personnel.

US presidential race and elections

Obama announced his desire to run for President of the United States on February 10, 2007 in front of the old Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. The place had a symbolic character, it was there that Abraham Lincoln in 1858 delivered the historic speech “A House Divided”. Throughout the campaign, Obama advocated a quick end to the Iraq War, energy independence, and universal health care. His campaign slogans are "Change we can believe in" and "Yes we can!" (The song Yes We Can, recorded by a number of famous artists using words from Obama's speech, received great fame and a Webby Award).

During the first half of 2007, the Obama campaign raised $58 million. Small donations (less than $200) accounted for 16.4 million of that amount. This number set a record for fundraising by a presidential campaign in the first six months of the calendar year leading up to the election. The size of the small part of the donation was also quite significant.

In January 2008, the campaign set another record with $36.8 million, the most ever raised by a presidential candidate in a Democratic primary. Obama was formally nominated at the 2008 Democratic National Convention along with the vice presidential nominee, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden.

Iraqi War and War in Afghanistan

As a presidential candidate, Obama said that the war in Iraq was the Bush administration's mistake and that Afghanistan should be the central front in the fight against terrorism. He stated that Afghanistan "is slipping into chaos and threatens to turn into a narco-terrorist state." In mid-2008, he advocated that by the summer of 2009 there would be no American combat units left in Iraq. At the stage of the pre-election intra-party struggle for the nomination of the presidential candidate from the Democratic Party, supporters of the war in Iraq (she herself voted for it in the Senate) grouped around Clinton, and opponents around Obama.

The course of the election campaign

Barack Obama became the sole Democratic nominee after Hillary Clinton officially announced her resignation from the election race on June 7, 2008 and supported Obama's candidacy. And already on June 25, the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, supported Obama for the first time, through official representative Matt McCann, declaring that he would do everything in his power to make Barack Obama win the presidential election.

Obama admitted that he smoked marijuana at school, took light drugs (cocaine) and alcohol, he told the press and voters about this at the Presidential Campaign Civic Forum on August 16, 2008 and described it as his lowest moral fall.

Preliminaries. Democratic primary results by state. (purple shows the states that supported Obama, green - Clinton)

Obama was a strong winner in states with a high urbanization and education level, but at the same time really hit hard by the 2008 crisis; the most difficult for Barack were the states in which the white population predominates, these are West Virginia, Florida. He has won victories in the traditionally Republican states of Alaska and Mississippi, where Republicans have been supported since 1980, as well as in the traditionally liberal states of Washington and Minnesota and in some shifter states.

Obama interrupted his presidential campaign to visit his grandmother in the hospital, they were very attached to each other; Madeleine Lee Payne Dunham passed away on November 2, 2008.

On November 4, Obama secured the support of 338 out of 538 electors with the required 270 votes, which meant his coming to power. At the same time, voter turnout reached a record - 64%. In the 2008 presidential election, Obama edged out the ruling Republican candidate, John McCain, with 365 votes in the Electoral College (52.9% of the popular vote) to McCain's 173.

Resonance in the US and elsewhere

Obama won the fewest votes in the US South; in Alabama, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas, where up to 60% of those participating in the elections voted for McCain; and in one of those states, only one in ten white voters, according to exit polls, voted for Obama.

According to the Associated Press, cases of religious and racial intolerance have increased in the United States since Barak's victory in the presidential election. Director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Mark Potok said: "There are a large number of people who feel that they are losing their usual way of life, that they seem to have been stolen from the country that their ancestors built."

Obama's victory caused euphoria in a number of countries around the world - a phenomenon called "Obamamania", the symptoms of which began to appear even during the election campaign. Kenya and other countries of Africa and the Middle East were especially strongly affected by it.

Activities as president-elect

On November 10, 2008, Obama met with George W. Bush to discuss the state of affairs in the country and the world. The next day, Obama and his wife visited the White House, where he was received by President George W. Bush and his wife, which was presented by the US media as "the beginning of the transfer of power."

On November 16, 2008, the International Herald Tribune wrote about Obama's political views as they were articulated by him during the election campaign: "Obama did not define himself in clear ideological terms, although his track record and program are to the left of the center." On the same day, Obama left the Senate office.

Obama has spoken out in favor of allowing artificial termination of pregnancy, including late-term abortions. During a discussion in the United States about the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, he wrote that if he were elected, he would tirelessly defend this method of abortion as a legitimate medical procedure. He has also been involved in the development of teen pregnancy prevention programs, including through the distribution of contraceptives and sex education programs for teens.

On November 17, 2008, Obama met with Republican Senator John McCain; together with the latter, he issued a statement proclaiming his intention to "start a new era of reform" in Washington and "bring back prosperity" to American families. The next day, Obama reaffirmed his commitment to working towards significant global climate change goals. And also in a video message to the participants of the environmental conference in Los Angeles, he condemned the current administration for "refusing to lead" the United States in environmental conservation; pledged $15 billion a year for energy savings and will work to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 to 1990 levels. On the same day, the media reported unofficial information about his intention to appoint a black lawyer, Eric Holder, who was the US Deputy Attorney General under Clinton, to his future administration as Attorney General.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, November 19, 2008, wrote: "It came as a surprise to many believers that a black Democrat, a defender of women's right to abortion and a supporter of stem cell research, won the majority of religious votes." The publication cited Pew Research Center statistics, according to which 53% of US believers voted for Barack Obama, 46% for John McCain; while four years ago John Kerry lost to George W. Bush for the vote of religious Americans: 48% to 51%.

On November 24, 2008, Obama introduced several members of his "team, The President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board", who would go on to take important positions and develop the future administration's policy on the global economic crisis. On November 26, Obama appointed former US Federal Reserve Chairman (1979-1987) Paul Volcker to head his team of economic advisors.

On December 1, 2008, in Chicago, Obama officially announced Senator Hillary Clinton as a candidate for the post of US Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates for the position of Secretary of Defense. That same year, Congress.org ranked Obama the 11th most powerful senator.

Presidency of Barack Obama

On January 20, 2009, during the inauguration ceremony next to the Capitol building, Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States; The ceremony attracted a record number of spectators - over a million people. The oath was taken on the Bible, on which Abraham Lincoln swore at the inauguration. The President's first swearing-in act was the issuance of a Proclamation declaring January 20, 2009, "National Day of Renewal and Accord."

In his speech, Obama called for a "new era of accountability."

According to CNN on January 21, 2009, the cost of Barack Obama's inauguration and inaugural celebrations is the highest in US history, spending more than $160 million. The next day, late in the evening, on the advice of constitutional lawyers, in the White House as a precaution, Obama re-taken the oath of the head of state, due to the fact that the day before there was an error in reading the text of the oath established by the US Constitution. US Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts erroneously placed the word "faithfully" after the words "to act as President of the United States."

Many believe that Obama in his parameters is very similar to the Antichrist, that is, the man who comes at the end of time to take power over the world. All these statements would seem ridiculous. If not for one but. It will seem incredible, but in the biography of the 44th President of the United States, there are indeed many mystical coincidences that cannot be explained.

During the inauguration, Obama, by a strange coincidence, did not manage to take the oath on the Bible: he misread the text, stumbled.

It was Mitt Romney, a true Mormon, who first noticed that during his own inauguration, Obama was the only one wearing gloves. It would seem that there is nothing special about this. If you do not remember the biblical tradition that when the Antichrist is crowned, he will put on gloves to hide his claws. According to legend, the Antichrist must come from the tribe of Dan. From the point of view of the Orthodox tradition, and generally Christian, the Antichrist must be born from a harlot from the tribe of Dan, from the lost descendants, from the lost Jewish tribes.

It is also curious, Obama's opponents continue, that his name is translated from Hebrew as - "Lightning from a height." In the Gospel of Luke, this expression occurs: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

Activities as President

On January 22, 2009, Obama signed an executive order to close within a year the prison for terrorist suspects at the American military base in Guantanamo Bay (Cuba).

Immediately after Obama's inauguration, Russian-American political scientist Nikolai Zlobin noted: “The closer the day of the transfer of powers from Bush to the new president of the country, the more favorably and positively Barack Obama speaks of his predecessor. This is a stark change from Obama's highly critical anti-Bush rhetoric during the recent campaign. “... It seems that such a change in the public attitude of the new president towards his predecessor is largely due to the fact that as Obama delve into the affairs, familiarizes himself with the real situation in which George W. Bush had to act and in which Obama himself will now have to act, the latter increasingly began to understand that his predecessor pursued a fairly rational policy, taking into account all possible factors and limitations.

And in Vedomosti on January 28, 2009, Zlobin wrote about the Kremlin's reaction to Obama's victory: Obama and very disappointed."

On January 29, 2009, the US Congress supported the US economic stimulus plan proposed by the President. The plan called for an injection of $819 billion.

As a presidential candidate, Obama said that on the first day after his inauguration he would give the order to end the war in Iraq. But immediately after coming to power, he revised his views on the timing of the end of the war, saying in February 2009 that military operations there would be completed in 18 months.

On February 9, 2009, US President Barack Obama held his first press conference. The next day, the US Senate approved Obama's $838 billion emergency bailout plan. When implementing the plan, up to 4 million new jobs should be created in 2 years. The plan also contained provisions for direct investment in the healthcare, energy, and education industries.

On February 17, 2009, Obama sent an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, and also signed a $787 billion anti-crisis plan adopted by the US Congress in Denver.

America's "first grandmother," 72-year-old Marian Robinson, Obama's mother-in-law, was a former secretary for a healthy home goods magazine. Since March 2009, she has been permanently living in the White House, and at the same time she practices witchcraft - santeria - one of the African varieties of the occult Voodoo religion.

Speaking at Georgetown University on April 14, 2009, Barack Obama made the following argument in defense of the consumer society and explained the reason for government intervention in the free market: “If all families and all firms in America simultaneously cut their spending, then no one will spend money, the number of consumers, which in turn will lead to new layoffs and the situation in the economy will worsen even more. That's why the government had to step in and temporarily increase spending to stimulate demand. That is what we are doing now,” the American president said. (“Obama sees light at the end of the tunnel,” Euronews).

From 6 to 8 July 2009, Barak made an official working visit to Moscow. During the visit, bilateral agreements were signed, including on the transit of US military cargo to Afghanistan through Russia.

Obama is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which he received on October 9, 2009 with the wording "for extraordinary efforts in strengthening international diplomacy and cooperation between people." Barack became the third US president, after Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, to receive the Nobel Peace Prize during their tenure (the prize was also awarded to former President Jimmy Carter).

In 2009, at a press conference in Japan, Obama twice evaded a direct question and refused to defend the wisdom of the United States atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

During 2009, Obama twice reinforced the American contingent in Afghanistan. In December, Obama announced the dispatch of another 30,000 troops, while stressing that the United States had no interest in occupying Afghanistan. At present, the American contingent in Afghanistan already has about 70 thousand troops, and after the arrival of reinforcements it reached 100 thousand, which is comparable to the size of the Soviet contingent at the peak of the Soviet war in Afghanistan (about 109 thousand people).

The escalation of US participation in the hostilities in Afghanistan, as well as the stabilization of the situation in Iraq, led to the fact that if in 2008 American losses in Afghanistan were half those in Iraq, then in 2009 the situation changed in a mirror image - in a year twice as many soldiers as in Iraq. In general, 2009 was the bloodiest year for US forces in Afghanistan since the beginning of the counterterrorist operation. During the first year and a half of Obama's presidency, as many American soldiers died in Afghanistan as during both presidential terms of George W. Bush (from the beginning of the war in 2001 to the end of 2008). But US casualties remain below the annual losses of the Soviet contingent at the height of the 1979-1989 war.

In 2010, Obama, despite the resistance of the Republicans, achieved the passage of a law on health care reform.

On April 4, 2011, Barack Obama confirmed his desire to run for a second presidential term, began raising money for the election campaign and announced the start of the presidential race.

In 2011, the US military, on the orders of Obama, participated in the NATO intervention in Libya. In the same year, the Washington Post published a report that the president himself shared a strange fascination with Voodoo dolls. As it turns out, Obama has more than 250 magic dolls - Haitian, Hawaiian and Cuban. These dolls represent an invisible force that can interfere in human affairs at any moment.

Obama is the first and, as of 2012, the only US presidential candidate to withdraw from public campaign funding.

During the US election campaign, rumors circulated that Barak was born outside of the US, which would have made him ineligible for the presidency. On March 1, 2012, Arizona Sheriff Joseph Arpaio announced that Barack Obama's birth certificate may be a computer generated forgery; he made a similar statement in regard to the conscription form filled out by the future president in 1980.

In the 2012 presidential election, Obama edged out Republican candidate Mitt Romney with 332 electoral college votes (51.1% of the popular vote) to Romney's 206. Barack Obama was re-elected for a second term.

Mitt Romney accused Obama of supporting the idea of ​​income redistribution. Romney calls Obama voters "unable to provide for themselves and living off the state." According to Obama, Romney is a supporter of the idea of ​​a world without nuclear weapons.

On August 1, 2014, a telephone conversation took place between the presidents of Russia and the United States, Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama, in which they discussed the situation around Ukraine. Putin described Washington's policy of increasing sanctions pressure as counterproductive, causing serious damage to bilateral cooperation and international stability in general. The presidents agreed that the current state of affairs does not meet the interests of both states. In this context, an exchange of views took place on the prospects for Russian-American dialogue,” the Kremlin press service said.

In Honolulu, the capital of the state of Hawaii.

His parents . Father - Barack Hussein Obama Sr. came to the United States from Kenya to study economics.

Mother, American Stanley Ann Dunham, studied anthropology. Parents separated when Barak was two years old. My father went to continue his studies at Harvard, and then went back to Kenya. Ann Dunham remarried - to an Indonesian student.

In 1967, Barack Obama moved to Indonesia, and in 1980 he returned to Hawaii, where he graduated from a private school. After high school, Obama attended Los Angeles Western College, from where he transferred to Columbia University, graduating in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in political science and international relations.

After graduating from college, Obama worked as a consultant for Business International Corporation and then for the New York Public Interest Research Group.

In 1985, he moved to Chicago, where he worked in one of the church charity groups, helping residents of disadvantaged areas of the city.

In 1988, Barack Obama entered Harvard Law School.

After graduating, he returned to Chicago and worked for a law firm for nine years. At the same time, he taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School.

In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate, where he represented the Democratic Party for eight years, from 1997 to 2004.

In 2004, he ran for the vacant seat in the US Senate from Illinois and was able to score 70% of the vote. Obama became the fifth black senator in US history.

On January 10, 2007, Democratic Senator Barack Obama officially announced the start of the race for the presidency of the United States.

His announcement about entering the presidential race was made in the capital of Illinois, the city of Springfield. The place was symbolic, since it was here, in the Illinois legislature, that the career of the youngest US senator, 45-year-old Barack Obama, began.

Obama spoke in front of the old state capitol building, where almost 150 years before him, in 1858, Lincoln delivered his famous "House Divided" speech, which spoke about the opposition of the free North and the slave South and that, being divided, the country will not stand - it is impossible to be in a state of "half-slavery and half-freedom". Obama's choice of the moment to enter the presidential marathon was also significant: exactly one year remained before the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.

On August 27, 2008, the US Democratic National Convention in Denver officially approved Illinois Senator Barack Obama as a presidential candidate.

On November 4, 2008, Obama won the US presidential election with the support of 338 out of 538 electors with the required 270 votes.

He took the oath of the President of the United States and became the first black head of the American state in history.

Barack Obama was re-elected to the presidency with 332 electoral votes against the required 270 votes.

Barack Obama - . In 1995, he published a memoir, Dreams from My Father, and in 2006, the book Audacity of Hope. Both books became bestsellers. In November 2010, the 31-page children's book Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters was published, which Obama wrote before he became head of state.

On October 9, 2009, the Nobel Committee announced US President Barack Obama as the winner of the Peace Prize for his "extraordinary efforts" in strengthening international diplomacy to create a world without nuclear weapons.

After graduating from high school in his biography, Obama spent two years at Western College in Los Angeles. He then moved to Columbia University in the department of international relations. In 1983 he received a bachelor's degree. By that time, he managed to get a job at the International Business Corporation, a research center in New York.

Over time, when Barack Obama moved to Chicago in his biography, he began to work as a public organizer. He did not leave training, he began to study law at the school of Harvard University, where he also worked as an editor of a law journal.

In January 2005, he became a senator, and by 2008 he had already earned the title of the 11th most influential US senator. He left his post in November. In February 2007, he announced his candidacy for the presidency of the Democratic Party. Being the first candidate to refuse state funding of the campaign, he carried out the election race with the help of donations. In the photo, Obama looked confident during his campaign speeches, and in his speeches there were ideas of a quick end to the war with Iraq, building universal health care, and energy independence.

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