Barrack Hussain Obama

Nominee

44^th President

Of

United States of America

Messages to Look for Peace

Brothers and Sisters!    

Assalam o Alleyykum

Profile

Brothers and Sisters! As below the data in respect of profile of Barrack Hussain Obama the 44^th President of USA, has been derived from Google Network:

·                 Barack Hussein Obama II^[a] (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017.

·                 As a member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president in U.S. history.

·                 Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004.

·                 Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.

·                 He graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and later worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988,

·                 Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.

·                 He became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.

·                 He also went into elective politics; Obama represented the 13th district in the Illinois Senate from 1997 until 2004, when he successfully ran for the U.S. Senate.

·                 In the 2008 presidential election, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, he was nominated by the Democratic.

·                 Party for president. Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate and defeated Republican nominee John McCain.

·                  

·                 Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a decision that drew a mixture of criticism and praise.

·                 His first-term actions addressed the global financial crisis and included a major stimulus package to guide the economy in recovering from the Great Recession, a partial extension of George W. Bush‘s tax cuts,

·                 legislation to reform health care, a major financial regulation reform bill, and the end of a major U.S. military presence in Iraq.

·                 Obama also appointed Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the former being the first Hispanic American on the Supreme Court.

·                 Obama defeated Republican opponent Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.

·                 Obama also presided over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and other legislation passed in his first term.

·                 He negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran and normalized relations with Cuba.

·                 Since leaving office, Obama has remained politically active, campaigning for candidates in various American elections, including Biden’s successful presidential bid in 2020. Outside of politics,

·                 Obama has published three books:

o   Dreams from My Father (1995),

o    The Audacity of Hope (2006), and

o   A Promised Land (2020).

Early Life and career

·                 Obama (right) with grandfather Stanley Armour Dunham, mother Ann Dunham, and half-sister Maya Soetoro, mid-1970s in Honolulu.

·                 Barack Obama was born on August 4, 1961,^[2] at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu, Hawaii.^[3][4][5][6]

·                 He is the only president born outside the contiguous 48 states.^[7]

·                 He was born to an 18-year-old American mother and a 27-year-old Kenyan father.

·                 In late August 1961, a few weeks after he was born, Barack and his mother moved to the University of Washington in Seattle, where they lived for a year.

·                 Obama’s parents divorced in March 1964.^[23]

Education

·                 Obama’s Indonesian school record in St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Elementary School.

·                 Obama was enrolled as “Barry Soetoro” (no. 1), and was wrongly recorded as an Indonesian citizen (no. 3) and a Muslim (no. 4).^[30]

·                 At the age of six, Obama and his mother had moved to Indonesia to join his stepfather.

·                 From age six to ten, he was registered in school as “Barry”^[30] and attended local Indonesian-language schools:

·                 Sekolah Dasar Katolik Santo Fransiskus Asisi (St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Elementary School) for two years and Sekolah Dasar Negeri Menteng 01 (State Elementary School Menteng 01) for one and a half years,

·                 supplemented by English-language Calvert School home-schooling by his mother.^[31][32]

·                 As a result of his four years in Jakarta, he was able to speak Indonesian fluently as a child.^[33] During his time in Indonesia, Obama’s stepfather taught him to be resilient and gave him “a pretty hard-headed assessment of how the world works”.^[34]

·                 In 1971, Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham.

·                 He attended Punahou School—a private college preparatory school—with the aid of a scholarship from fifth grade until he graduated from high school in 1979.^[35]

·                 In high school, Obama continued to use the nickname “Barry” which he kept until making a visit to Kenya in 1980.^[36] Obama lived with his mother and half-sister, Maya Soetoro, in Hawaii for three years from 1972 to 1975 while his mother was a graduate student in anthropology at the University of Hawaii.^[37]

·                 Obama chose to stay in Hawaii when his mother and half-sister returned to Indonesia in 1975, so his mother could begin anthropology field work.^[38]

·                 His mother spent most of the next two decades in Indonesia, divorcing Lolo Soetoro in 1980 and earning a PhD degree in 1992, before dying in 1995 in Hawaii following unsuccessful treatment for ovarian and uterine cancer.^[39]

·                 Of his years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: “The opportunity that Hawaii offered — to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect — became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear.”^[40]

College and Research Jobs

·                 After graduating from high school in 1979, Obama moved to Los Angeles to attend Occidental College on a full scholarship.

·                 In February 1981, Obama made his first public speech, calling for Occidental to participate in the disinvestment from South Africa in response to that nation’s policy of apartheid.^[44]

·                 Obama worked for about a year at the Business International Corporation, where he was a financial researcher and writer,^[48][49] then as a project coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group on the City College of New York campus for three months in 1985.^[50][51][52]

Community Organizer and Harvard Law School

·                 Two years after graduating from Columbia, Obama moved from New York to Chicago when he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project,

·                 He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988.^[51][53]

·                 He helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants’ rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.^[54]

·                 Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.^[55]

·                 In mid-1988, he travelled for the first time in Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time.^[56][57]

External Veos

·                 Despite being offered a full scholarship to Northwestern University School of Law, Obama enrolled at Harvard Law School in the fall of 1988, living in nearby Somerville, Massachusetts.^[59]

·                 He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year,^[60]

·                 president of the journal in his second year,^[54][61]

·                 and research assistant to the constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe. During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.^[63]

·                 Obama’s election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention^[54][61] and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations,^[64] which evolved into a personal memoir.

·                 The manuscript was published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father.^[64] Obama graduated from Harvard Law in 1991 with a Juris Doctor magna cum laude.^[65][60]

University of Chicago Law School

·                 In 1991, Obama accepted a two-year position as Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School to work on his first book.^[64][66]

·                 He then taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, first as a lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and then as a senior lecturer from 1996 to 2004.^[67]

·                 From April to October 1992, Obama directed Illinois’s Project Vote, a voter registration campaign with ten staffers and seven hundred volunteer registrars; it achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain’s Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of “40 under Forty” powers to be.^[68]

Family and Personal Life

·                 In June 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson when he was employed at Sidley Austin.^[79] Robinson was assigned for three months as Obama’s adviser at the firm, and she joined him at several group social functions but declined his initial requests to date.^[80]

·                 They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992.^[81]

Religious Views

·                 Obama is a Protestant Christian whose religious views developed in his adult life.^[103]

Civil Rights Attorney

·                 He joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 13-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighbourhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004.

·                 From 1994 to 2002, Obama served on the boards of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago—which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund the Developing Communities Project—and of the Joyce Foundation.^[51]

·                 He served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995 to 2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995 to 1999.^[51] Obama’s law license became inactive in 2007.^[115][116]

LEGISLATIVE CAREER

Illinois Senate (1997–2004)

·                 Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding Democratic State Senator Alice Palmer from Illinois’s 13th District,

·                 He was re-elected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, defeating Republican Yesse Yehudah in the general election, and was re-elected again in 2002.^[123][124]

·                 In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary race for Illinois’s 1st congressional district in the United States House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.^[125]

·                 In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority.^[126]

·                 He sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained, and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.^{[120][127][128][129]}

·                 During his 2004 general election campaign for the U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.^[130] Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the U.S. Senate.^[131]

2004 U.S. Senate campaign

·                 In May 2002, Obama commissioned a poll to assess his prospects in a 2004 U.S. Senate race. He created a campaign committee, began raising funds, and lined up political media consultant David Axelrod by August 2002. Obama formally announced his candidacy in January 2003.^[132]

·                 Obama was an early opponent of the George W. Bush administration’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.^[133]

·                 On October 2, 2002, the day President Bush and Congress agreed on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War,^[134] Obama addressed the first high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally,^[135] and spoke out against the war.^[136]

·                 He addressed another anti-war rally in March 2003 and told the crowd “it’s not too late” to stop the war.^[137]

·                 In the March 2004 primary election, Obama won in an unexpected landslide—which overnight made him a rising star within the national Democratic Party,

U.S. Senate (2005–2008)

·                 Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 3, 2005,^[145] becoming the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus.^[146]

·                 On June 3, 2008, Senator Obama—along with Senators Tom Carper, Tom Coburn, and John McCain—introduced follow-up legislation: Strengthening Transparency and Accountability in Federal Spending Act of 2008.^[149] He also cosponsored the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act.^[150]

·                 In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act, marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor.^[151][152]

·                 In January 2007, Obama and Senator Feingold introduced a corporate jet provision to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which was signed into law in September 2007.^[153][154]

·                 Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works, and Veterans’ Affairs through December 2006.^[160]

·                 In January 2007, he left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labour and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.^[161]

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS

2008

·                 2008 electoral vote results. Obama won 365–173. Official portrait, 2009.

·                 On February 10, 2007, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois.^[165][166]

·                 On June 2, 2008, Obama had received enough votes to clinch his nomination.

·                 After an initial hesitation to concede, on June 7, Clinton ended her campaign and endorsed Obama.^[170]

·                 On August 23, 2008, Obama announced his selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden as his vice presidential running mate.^[171]

·                 Hillary Clinton called for her supporters to endorse Obama, and she and Bill Clinton gave convention speeches in his support.^[172][173]

·                 Obama delivered his acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High stadium to a crowd of about eighty-four thousand; the speech was viewed by over three million people worldwide.^{[174][175][176]}

·                 On November 4, Obama won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by McCain.^[180]

·                 Obama won 52.9 percent of the popular vote to McCain’s 45.7 percent.^[181]

·                 He became the first African-American to be elected president.^[182]

·                 Obama delivered his victory speech before hundreds of thousands of supporters in Chicago’s Grant Park.^[183][184]

·                 He is one of the three United States senators moved directly from the U.S. Senate to the White House, the others being Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy.^[185]

2012

·                 2012 electoral vote results. Obama won 332–206.

·                 On April 4, 2011, Obama filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission and then announced his reelection campaign for 2012 in a video titled “It Begins with Us” that he posted on his website.^{[186][187][188]}

·                 On November 6, 2012, Obama won 332 electoral votes, exceeding the 270 required for him to be re-elected as president.^{[192][193][194]}

PRESIDENCY (2009–2017)

First 100 days

·                 Obama takes the oath of office administered by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. at the Capitol, January 20, 2009.

·                 The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th president took place on January 20, 2009.

·                 In his first few days in office, Obama issued executive orders and presidential memoranda directing the U.S. military:

o   to develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq.^[200]

o   He ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp,^[201] but Congress prevented the closure by refusing to appropriate the required funds^[202][203] and preventing moving any Guantanamo detainee.^[204]

Domestic policy

·                 The first bill signed into law by Obama was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, relaxing the statute of limitations for equal-pay lawsuits.^[207]

·                 Five days later, he signed the re –  authorization of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover an additional four million un – insured children.^[208]

·                 In March 2009, Obama reversed a Bush-era policy that had limited funding of embryonic stem cell research and pledged to develop “strict guidelines” on the research.^[209]

·                 Obama delivers a speech at a joint session of Congress with Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on February 24, 2009.

·                 Obama appointed two women to serve on the Supreme Court in the first two years of his presidency. He nominated Sonia Sotomayor on May 26, 2009, to replace retiring Associate Justice David Souter.

·                 Obama nominated Elena Kagan on May 10, 2010, to replace retiring Associate Justice John Paul Stevens.

·                 She was confirmed on August 5, 2010,

·                 In July 2009, Obama launched the Priority Enforcement Program, an immigration enforcement program that had been pioneered by George W. Bush, and the Secure Communities fingerprinting and immigration status data-sharing program.^[213]

·                 In a major space policy speech in April 2010, Obama announced a planned change in direction at NASA, the U.S. space agency.

·                 Obama visits an Aurora shooting victim at University of Colorado Hospital, 2012.

·                 On January 16, 2013, one month after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, Obama signed 23 executive orders and outlined a series of sweeping proposals regarding gun control.^[215]

·                 In 2011, Obama signed a four-year renewal of the Patriot Act.^[218] Following the 2013 global surveillance disclosures by whistle-blower Edward Snowden, Obama condemned the leak as unpatriotic,^[219] but called for increased restrictions on the National Security Agency (NSA) to address violations of privacy.^[220][221]

·                 Obama continued and expanded surveillance programs set up by George W. Bush, while implementing some reforms.^[222]

Racial issues

·                 In his speeches as president, Obama did not make more overt references to race relations than his predecessors,^[223][224] but according to one study, he implemented stronger policy action on behalf of African-Americans than any president since the Nixon era.^[225]

Economic Policy

·                 On February 17, 2009, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion (equivalent to $1118 billion in 2023) economic stimulus package aimed at helping the economy recover from the deepening worldwide recession.^[249]

·                 The act includes increased federal spending for health care, infrastructure, education, various tax breaks and incentives, and direct assistance to individuals.^[250]

·                 Deficit and debt increases, 2001–2016

·                 Obama intervened in the troubled automotive industry^[252] in March 2009, renewing loans for General Motors (GM) and Chrysler to continue operations while reorganizing.

·                 Over the following months the White House set terms for both firms’ bankruptcies, including the sale of Chrysler to Italian automaker Fiat^[253] and a reorganization of GM giving the U.S. government a temporary 60 percent equity stake in the company.^[254]

·                 In June 2009, dis – satisfied with the pace of economic stimulus, Obama called on his cabinet to accelerate the investment.^[255]

·                 He signed into law the Car Allowance Rebate System, known colloquially as “Cash for Clunkers”, which temporarily boosted the economy.^{[256][257][258]}

·                 The Bush and Obama administrations authorized spending and loan guarantees from the Federal Reserve and the Department of the Treasury.

·                 These guarantees totalled about $11.5 trillion, but only $3 trillion had been spent by the end of November 2009.^[259]

·                 On August 2, 2011, after a lengthy congressional debate over whether to raise the nation’s debt limit, Obama signed the bipartisan Budget Control Act of 2011.

·                 The unemployment rate rose in 2009, reaching a peak in October at 10.0 percent and averaging 10.0 percent in the fourth quarter.

·                 Following a decrease to 9.7 percent in the first quarter of 2010, the unemployment rate fell to 9.6 percent in the second quarter, where it remained for the rest of the year.^[262]

·                 During 2014, the unemployment rate continued to decline, falling to 6.3 percent in the first quarter.^[266]

·                 GDP growth returned in the third quarter of 2009, expanding at a rate of 1.6 percent, followed by a 5.0 percent increase in the fourth quarter.^[267]

·                 Growth continued in 2010, posting an increase of 3.7 percent in the first quarter, with lesser gains throughout the rest of the year.^[267]

·                 In July 2010, the Federal Reserve noted that economic activity continued to increase, but its pace had slowed, and chairman Ben Bernanke said the economic outlook was “unusually uncertain”.^[268] Overall, the economy expanded at a rate of 2.9 percent in 2010.^[269]

·                 U.S. unemployment rate and monthly changes in net employment during Obama’s tenure as president^[270][271]

·                 Job growth during the presidency of Obama compared to other presidents, as measured as a cumulative percentage change from month after inauguration to end of his term.

·                 The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and a broad range of economists credit Obama’s stimulus plan for economic growth.^[272][273]

·                 The CBO released a report stating that the stimulus bill increased employment by 1–2.1 million,^{[273][274][275]} while conceding that “it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.”^[272]

Environmental Policy

·                 Obama at a 2010 briefing on the BP oil spill at the Coast Guard Station Venice in Venice, Louisiana

·                 On April 20, 2010, an explosion destroyed an offshore drilling rig at the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, causing a major sustained oil leak.

·                 Obama visited the Gulf, announced a federal investigation, and formed a bipartisan commission to recommend new safety standards,

·                 In December 2016, Obama permanently banned new offshore oil and gas drilling in most United States-owned waters in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans using the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Act.^{[290][291][292]}

·                 Obama emphasized the conservation of federal lands during his term in office.

·                  He used his power under the Antiquities Act to create 25 new national monuments during his presidency and expand four others, protecting a total of 553,000,000 acres (224,000,000 ha) of federal lands and waters, more than any other U.S. president.^{[293][294][295]}

Health care Reform

·                 Obama called for Congress to pass legislation reforming health care in the United States, a key campaign promise and a top legislative goal.^[296]

·                 He proposed an expansion of health insurance coverage to cover the uninsured, cap premium increases, and allow people to retain their coverage when they leave or change jobs.

·                 His proposal was to spend $900 billion over ten years and include a government insurance plan, also known as the public option, to compete with the corporate insurance sector as a main component to lowering costs and improving quality of health care.

·                 It would also make it illegal for insurers to drop sick people or deny them coverage for pre-existing conditions, and require every American to carry health coverage.

·                 The plan also includes medical spending cuts and taxes on insurance companies that offer expensive plans.^[297][298]

·                 On July 14, 2009, House Democratic leaders introduced a 1,017-page plan for overhauling the U.S. health care system, which Obama wanted Congress to approve by the end of 2009.^[296]

·                 After public debate during the Congressional summer recess of 2009, Obama delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9 where he addressed concerns over the proposals.^[300]

·                 In March 2009, Obama lifted a ban on using federal funds for stem cell research.^[301]

·                 On November 7, 2009, a health care bill featuring the public option was passed in the House.^[302][303]

·                 On December 24, 2009, the Senate passed its own bill—without a public option—on a party-line vote of 60–39.^[304]

·                 On March 21, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, colloquially “Obamacare”) passed by the Senate in December was passed in the House by a vote of 219 to 212. Obama signed the bill into law on March 23, 2010.^[305]

Foreign policy

·                 June 4, 2009 − after his speech A New Beginning at Cairo University, U.S. President Obama participates in a roundtable interview in 2009 with among others Jamal Khashoggi, Bambang Harymurti and Nahum Barnea.

·                 In February and March 2009, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made separate overseas trips to announce a “new era” in U.S. foreign relations with Russia and Europe, using the terms “break” and “reset” to signal major changes from the policies of the preceding administration.^[315]

·                 Obama attempted to reach out to Arab leaders by granting his first interview to an Arab satellite TV network, Al Arabiya.^[316]

War in Iraq

·                 On February 27, 2009, Obama announced that combat operations in Iraq would end within 18 months.^[330]

Afghanistan and Pakistan

·                 Obama after a tri – lateral meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai (left) and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari (right), May 2009

·                 In his election campaign, Obama called the war in Iraq a “dangerous distraction”

Relations with Cuba

·                 Since the spring of 2013, secret meetings were conducted between the United States and Cuba in the neutral locations of Canada and Vatican City.^[358]

·                 In December 2014, after the secret meetings, it was announced that Obama, with Pope Francis as an intermediary, had negotiated a restoration of relations with Cuba, after nearly sixty years of détente.^[361]

·                 President Obama announced that formal diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States would resume, and embassies would be opened in Washington and Havana.^[363]

Cultural and political image

·                 Obama acknowledged his youthful image in an October 2007 campaign speech, saying: “I wouldn’t be here if, time and again, the torch had not been passed to a new generation.”^[420]

·                 Additionally, Obama has frequently been referred to as an exceptional orator.^[421]

·                 During his pre-inauguration transition period and continuing into his presidency, Obama delivered a series of weekly Internet video addresses.^[422]

Job Approval

·                 According to the Gallup Organization, Obama began his presidency with a 68 percent approval rating,^[423] the fifth highest for a president following their swearing in.^[424]

·                 His ratings remained above the majority level until November 2009^[425] and by August 2010 his approval was in the low 40s,^[426] a trend similar to Ronald Reagan’s and Bill Clinton’s first years in office.^[427]

·                 His approval rating fell to 38 percent on several occasions in late 2011^[431] before recovering in mid-2012 with polls showing an average approval of 50 percent.^[432]

·                 After his second inauguration in 2013, Obama’s approval ratings remained stable around 52 percent^[433] before declining for the rest of the year and eventually bottoming out at 39 percent in December.^[428]

·                 Obama has maintained relatively positive public perceptions after his presidency.^[441] In Gallup’s retrospective approval polls of former presidents, Obama garnered a 63 percent approval rating in 2018 and again in 2023, ranking him the fourth most popular president since World War II.^[442][443]

Foreign Perception

·                 Polls showed strong support for Obama in other countries both before and during his presidency.^{[444][445][446]}

·                 In a February 2009 poll conducted in Western Europe and the U.S. by Harris Interactive for France 24 and the International Herald Tribune, Obama was rated as the most respected world leader, as well as the most powerful.^[447]

·                 In a similar poll conducted by Harris in May 2009, Obama was rated as the most popular world leader, as well as the one figure most people would pin their hopes on for pulling the world out of the economic downturn.^[448][449]

·                 On October 9, 2009—only nine months into his first term—the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that Obama had won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”,^[450] which drew a mixture of praise and criticism from world leaders and media figures.^{[451][452][453][454]}

·                 He became the fourth U.S. president to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the third to become a Nobel laureate while in office.^[455]

·                 He himself called it a “call to action” and remarked: “I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations”.^[456]

Thanks, Obama

·                 In 2009 the saying “thanks, Obama” first appeared in a Twitter hashtag “#thanks Obama” and was later used in a de – motivational poster. It was later adopted satirically to blame Obama for any socio-economic ills. Obama himself used the phrase in video in 2015 and 2016. In 2017 the phrase was used by Stephen Colbert to express gratitude to Obama on his last day in office. In 2022, President Joe Biden’s Twitter account posted the phrase.

Post-presidency (2017–Present)

·                 Obama’s presidency ended on January 20, 2017, upon the inauguration of his successor, Donald Trump.^[457][458]

·                 The family moved to a house they rented in Kalorama, Washington, D.C.^[459]

·                  On March 2, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum awarded the Profile in Courage Award to Obama “for his enduring commitment to democratic ideals and elevating the standard of political courage.”^[460]

·                 His first public appearance since leaving the office was a seminar at the University of Chicago on April 24, where he appealed for a new generation to participate in politics.^[461]

·                 On September 7, Obama partnered with former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush to work with One America Appeal to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in the Gulf Coast and Texas communities.^[462]

·                 From October 31 to November 1, Obama hosted the inaugural summit of the Obama Foundation,^[463] which he intended to be the central focus of his post-presidency and part of his ambitions for his subsequent activities following his presidency to be more consequential than his time in office.^[464]

·                 Barack and Michelle Obama signed a deal on May 22, 2018, to produce docu-series, documentaries and features for Netflix under the Obamas’ newly formed production company, Higher Ground Productions.^[465][466]

·                 Higher Ground’s first film, American Factory, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2020.^[467]

·                 On October 24, a pipe bomb addressed to Obama was intercepted by the Secret Service. It was one of several pipe-bombs that had been mailed out to Democratic lawmakers and officials.^[468]

·                 In 2019, Barack and Michelle Obama bought a home on Martha’s Vineyard from Wyc Grousbeck.^[469]

·                 On October 29, Obama criticized “wokeness” and call-out culture at the Obama Foundation’s annual summit.^[470][471]

·                 Obama was reluctant to make an endorsement in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries because he wanted to position himself to unify the party, regardless of the nominee.^[472]

·                 On April 14, 2020, Obama endorsed Biden, the presumptive nominee, for president in the presidential election, stating that he has “all the qualities we need in a president right now.”^[473][474]

·                 In May, Obama criticized President Trump for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling his response to the crisis “an absolute chaotic disaster”, and stating that the consequences of the Trump presidency have been “our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”^[475]

·                 On November 17, Obama’s presidential memoir, A Promised Land, was released.^{[476][477][478]}

·                 In February 2021, Obama and musician Bruce Springsteen started a podcast called Renegades: Born in the USA where the two talk about “their backgrounds, music and their ‘enduring love of America.'”^[479][480] Later that year, Regina Hicks had signed a deal with Netflix, in a venture with his and Michelle’s Higher Ground to develop comedy projects.^[481]

·                 Obama with president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris in the White House, April 5, 2022.

·                 On March 4, 2022, Obama won an Audio Publishers Association (APA) Award in the best narration by the author category for the narration of his memoir A Promised Land.^[482]

·                 On April 5, Obama visited the White House for the first time since leaving office, in an event celebrating the 12th annual anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act.^{[483][484][485]}

·                 In June, it was announced that the Obamas and their podcast production company, Higher Ground, signed a multi-year deal with Audible.^[486][487]

·                 In September, Obama visited the White House to unveil his and Michelle’s official White House portraits.^[488] Around the same time, he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narrator^[489] for his narration in the Netflix documentary series Our Great National Parks.^[490]

·                 In 2022, Obama opposed expanding the Supreme Court beyond the present nine Justices.^[491]

·                 In March 2023, Obama travelled to Australia as a part of his speaking tour of the country. During the trip, Obama met with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and visited Melbourne for the first time.^[492] Obama was reportedly paid more than $1 million for two speeches.^[493][494]

·                 In July 2024, Obama expressed concerns about Biden’s campaign viability.^[497]

Legacy and recognition

·                 He has been described as one of the most effective campaigners in American history (his 2008 campaign being particularly highlighted) as well as one of the most talented political orators of the 21st century.^{[498][499][500]}

·                 Historian Julian Zelizer credits Obama with “a keen sense of how the institutions of government work and the ways that his team could design policy proposals.”

·                 Zeitzer notes Obama’s policy successes included the economic stimulus package which ended the Great Recession and the Dodd-Frank financial and consumer protection reforms, as well as the Affordable Care Act.

·                 Zeitzer also notes the Democratic Party lost power and numbers of elected officials during Obama’s term, saying that the consensus among historians is that Obama “turned out to be a very effective policymaker but not a tremendously successful party builder.” Zeitzer calls this the “defining paradox of Obama’s presidency”.^[501]

·                 The Brookings Institution noted that Obama passed “only one major legislative achievement (Obamacare)—and a fragile one at that—the legacy of Obama’s presidency mainly rests on its tremendous symbolic importance and the fate of a patchwork of executive actions.”^[502]

·                 David W. Wise noted that Obama fell short “in areas many Progressives hold dear”, including the continuation of drone strikes, not going after big banks during the Great Recession, and failing to strengthen his coalition before pushing for Obamacare. Wise called Obama’s legacy that of “a disappointingly conventional president”.^[503]

·                 Obama’s most significant accomplishment is generally considered to be the Affordable Care Act (ACA), provisions of which went into effect from 2010 to 2020.

·                 Many attempts by Senate Republicans to repeal the ACA, including a “skinny repeal”, have thus far failed.^[504]

·                 However, in 2017, the penalty for violating the individual mandate was repealed effective 2019.^[505]

·                 Together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act amendment, it represents the U.S. healthcare system’s most significant regulatory overhaul and expansion of coverage since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.^{[506][507][508][509]}

·                 Many commentators credit Obama with averting a threatened depression and pulling the economy back from the Great Recession.^[504]

·                 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics, the Obama administration created 11.3 million jobs from the month after his first inauguration to the end of his second term.^[510]

·                 In 2010, Obama signed into effect the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Passed as a response to the financial crisis of 2007–2008, it brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the United States since the regulatory reform that followed the Great Depression under Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt.^[511]

·                 In 2009, Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, which contained in it the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first addition to existing federal hate crime law in the United States since Democratic President Bill Clinton signed into law the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996.

·                 The act expanded existing federal hate crime laws in the United States, and made it a federal crime to assault people based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.^[512]

·                 Obama left office in January 2017 with a 60 percent approval rating.^[522][523] He gained 10 spots from the same survey in 2015 from the Brookings Institution that ranked him the 18th-greatest American president.^[524]

·                 In Gallup’s 2018 job approval poll for the past 10 U.S. presidents, he received a 63 percent approval rating.^[525]

Presidential library

·                 The Barack Obama Presidential Center is Obama’s planned presidential library. It will be hosted by the University of Chicago and located in Jackson Park on the South Side of Chicago.^[526]

Awards and Honours

·                 Obama received the Norwegian Nobel Committee‘s Nobel Peace Prize in 2009,

o   The Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education’s Ambassador of Humanity Award in 2014,

o   the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2017,

o   and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award in 2018.

o   He was named TIME Magazine‘s Time Person of the Year in 2008 and 2012.

o   He also received two Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word Album for Dreams from My Father (2006),

o   and The Audacity of Hope (2008) as well as two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Narrator for Our Great National Parks (2022),

o    and Working: What We Do All Day (2023). He also won two Children’s and Family Emmy Awards.

Wass’a’lam

Call for Peace

Messages to Look for Peace

PS:

Sponsorship

Brothers and Sisters! Please read the Post: Sponsorship in the Navigation Bar as to why it is need to keep conveying the Messages to Look for Peace until the Day of Resurrection and how it will be expended until the Day of Resurrection.

Wass’a’lam

[May Allah Bless You]