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 Labor's Loss By Arthur Delaney Posted Saturday, Nov. 8, 2008, at 5:58 AM ET Yesterday was the first Friday of the month. That means the lead stories in today's newspapers are all about the Department of Labor's latest monthly statistics, bad ones for the tenth time in a row: The U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 6.5 percent as American employers cut more than 240,000 jobs. The New York Times highlights the fact that unemployment has reached its highest level in 14 years. The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times focus on President-elect Barack Obama's call for a new economic stimulus package. The Wall Street Journal says the hurting auto-industry is Obama's most pressing challenge. The NYT reports that almost one-third of the unemployed today receive government benefits, far fewer than their counterparts of the 1950s, half of whom received checks while jobless. To put a face on today's recipients of unemployment benefits, the Times finds a looking-for-work guy who gets $562 a month from his Uncle Sam. Nevertheless, the guy's girlfriend is paying the rent, he has a tumor in his foot, and soon he will be unable to afford health insurance. To continue reading, click here. Arthur Delaney is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE \| READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Microsoft Thinks the Next President's Name Is "Barracks Boatman" Why College Football Is More Cutthroat Than the NFL Finally, Legit Medical Evidence That Marijuana Is a Wonder Drug	Advertisement
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He used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years, Obama writes, to "push questions of who I was out of my mind.

President Bush signs the "Coburn-Obama" Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. They were married in 1992 and have two daughters, Malia, born in 1999, and Natasha ("Sasha"), born in 2001. In a May 2006 letter to President Bush, he joined four other Midwest farming state Senators in calling for the preservation of a US$0.54 per gallon tariff on imported ethanol. "A theme of Obama's keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and the title of his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, was inspired by his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Lugar and Obama inspected a Nunn-Lugar program-supported nuclear warhead destruction facility at Saratov, in southern European Russia. In 1990, The New York Times reported his election as the Harvard Law Review's "first black president in its 104-year history.

After graduating from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama worked as a community organizer, university lecturer, and civil rights lawyer before entering politics. " Reviewer Michael Tomasky writes that it does not contain "boldly innovative policy prescriptions that will lead the Democrats out of their wilderness," but does show Obama's potential to "construct a new politics that is progressive but grounded in civic traditions that speak to a wider range of Americans. I've been chewing Nicorette strenuously. Obama traveled to Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan in August 2005 with Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.