Barack Hussein Obama II (born
August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United
States, and the first African American to hold the office.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama
is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School,
where he served as 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 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, running
unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in
2000.
In 2004,
Obama received national attention during his campaign to represent
Illinois in the United States Senate with his victory in the
March Democratic Party primary, his keynote address at the Democratic
National Convention in July, and his election to the Senate in November.
He began his presidential
campaign in 2007, and in 2008, after a close primary campaign against Hillary
Rodham Clinton, he won sufficient delegates in the Democratic Party primaries to
receive the presidential nomination.
He then defeated Republican nominee John
McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated as president on
January 20, 2009. Nine months after his election, Obama was named the 2009
Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
During
his first two years in office, Obama signed into law economic stimulus legislation
in response to the Great Recession 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.
Other major domestic initiatives
in his first term include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,
often referred to as "Obama care"; the Dodd–Frank Wall Street
Reform and Consumer Protection Act; and the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal
Act of 2010. In foreign policy, Obama ended U.S. military involvement in
the Iraq War, increased U.S. 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 November 2010, the Republicans regained control of
the House of Representatives as the Democratic Party lost a total of 63
seats, and after a lengthy debate over federal spending and whether or not to
raise the nation's debt limit,
Obama signed the Budget
Control Act of 2011 and the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012.
Obama was re-elected
president in November 2012, defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney,
and was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2013.
During his second term, Obama has
promoted domestic policies related to gun control in response to the Sandy
Hook Elementary School shooting, has called for full equality for LGBT
Americans, and his administration filed briefs which urged the Supreme
Court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 and
California's Proposition 8 as unconstitutional. In foreign policy,
Obama has continued the process of ending U.S. combat operations in
Afghanistan.
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