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.



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today's papers Back, Back, Forth, and Forth By Daniel Politi Posted Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008, at 6:28 AM ET In the least surprising news since Barack Obama's victory last week, the Treasury Department officially announced that it has switched gears and will no longer be using the $700 billion bailout package to buy toxic securities. Instead, the money will continue to be used to inject capital into financial institutions with a stepped up emphasis on efforts to loosen up the frozen consumer credit market. The Los Angeles Times deftly recognizes the no-duh aspect of the announcement and leads with an analysis while relegating the straight-up news story to its inside pages. "The surprise content of the announcement today is precisely zero," a finance professor tells the LAT. "This is not a change of policy, but a recognition of a policy that's already happened." The New York Times points out that, confusingly, the "program is still called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, but it will not buy troubled assets." At a news briefing yesterday, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson emphasized that the consumer credit market "has for all practical purposes ground to a halt," which is "raising the cost and reducing the availability of car loans, student loans, and credit cards." The Washington Post puts this in perspective by pointing out average interest rates on car loans "almost doubled from July to September ... and borrowers were required to make much larger down payments, an average of $2,000 more down on a $20,000 car." USA Today points out that many were quick to criticize the Treasury's "herky-jerky approach, noting such changes were leading to reduced confidence that the government would help thaw frozen credit markets and prop up the economy." Indeed, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 4.7 percent yesterday. The Wall Street Journal notes that investors blamed the Treasury making for at least part of the decline, "as the bailout's widening focus underscores the depth of the economy's problems as well as new strains on the government's rescue net." To continue reading, click here. Daniel Politi writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@slate.com. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE \| READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Lithwick: The Supreme Court's Deeply Goofy Free-Speech Case Has New-Media Guru Jeff Jarvis Gone Too Far? Good News: Another Guy Got His Mother-in-Law Pregnant	Advertisement
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Obama encouraged "others in public life to do the same" to show "there is no shame in going for an HIV test. " Speaking in November 2006 to members of Wake Up Wal-Mart, a union-backed campaign group, Obama said: "You gotta pay your workers enough that they can actually not only shop at Wal-Mart, but ultimately send their kids to college and save for retirement.

However, Hull's popularity declined following allegations of domestic abuse. But the big telephone and cable companies want to change the Internet as we know it. In July 2005, Samantha Power, Pulitzer-winning author on human rights and genocide, joined Obama's team. 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. Obama has divested US$180,000 in personal holdings of Sudan-related stock, and he has urged divestment from companies doing business in Iran. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. The donations came from 104,000 individual donors, with US$6.9 million raised through the Internet from 50,000 of the donors. Former presidential candidate Gary Hart describes the book as Obama's "thesis submission" for the U.S. presidency: "It presents a man of relative youth yet maturity, a wise observer of the human condition, a figure who possesses perseverance and writing skills that have flashes of grandeur. And they want that choice. Former presidential candidate Gary Hart describes the book as Obama's "thesis submission" for the U.S. presidency: "It presents a man of relative youth yet maturity, a wise observer of the human condition, a figure who possesses perseverance and writing skills that have flashes of grandeur. But in a December 2006 Wall Street Journal editorial headlined "The Man from Nowhere," former Ronald Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan advised Will and other "establishment" commentators to get "down from your tippy toes" and avoid becoming too quickly excited about Obama's still early political career. He has responded to and personally participated in online discussions hosted on politically-oriented blog sites. In Ukraine, they toured a disease control and prevention facility and witnessed the signing of a bilateral pact to secure biological pathogens and combat risks of infectious disease outbreaks from natural causes or bioterrorism.