Barack Obama

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. (born in Nyanza Province, Kenya) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas). Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party.

Obama grew up in culturally diverse surroundings. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while still an Illinois state legislator. Since announcing his candidacy in February 2007, Obama has emphasized ending the Iraq War and implementing universal health care as campaign themes.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama co-sponsored the enactment of conventional weapons control and transparency legislation, and made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. His father went to Harvard University to pursue Ph.D. studies, then returned to Kenya, where he died in an auto accident when the younger Obama was twenty-one years old.

[1]NATION IN BRIEF

SEATTLE -- A woman who spent eight days trapped in a wrecked vehicle has severe injuries, but her brain function is normal and she can move her arms and legs, her physician said Friday.

link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092802031.html?nav=rss_print/asection

Post Sat, 29 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT

[1] <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/28/AR2007092802031.html?nav=rss_print/asection>

I've been chewing Nicorette strenuously. Following Obama's statement, opinion polling organizations added his name to surveyed lists of Democratic candidates. "The announcement followed months of speculation on whether Obama would run in 2008. In 2003, Obama began his run for the U.S. Senate open seat vacated by Peter Fitzgerald. In a June 2006 podcast, Obama expressed support for telecommunications legislation to protect network neutrality on the Internet, saying: "It is because the Internet is a neutral platform that I can put out this podcast and transmit it over the Internet without having to go through any corporate media middleman. " Obama writes: "It was because of these newfound understandings—that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved—that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized. Questioning the Bush administration's management of the Iraq War, Obama spoke of an enlisted Marine, Corporal Seamus Ahern from East Moline, Illinois, asking, "Are we serving Seamus as well as he is serving us?" He continued: When we send our young men and women into harm's way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they're going, to care for their families while they're gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never, ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world. " He describes his Kenyan father as "raised a Muslim," but a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met, and his Indonesian step-father as "a man who saw religion as not particularly useful.

Asked to name a "hidden talent," Obama answered: "I'm a pretty good poker player.

In the fall of 2002, during an anti-war rally at Chicago's Federal Plaza, Obama said: I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

His opponent in the general election was expected to be Republican primary winner Jack Ryan. 55 million for candidates he supports and his own 2010 re-election fund. Obama was sworn in as a Senator on January 4, 2005. As an associate attorney with Miner, Barnhill & Galland from 1993 to 1996, he represented community organizers, discrimination claims, and voting rights cases.