Barack Obama

Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States and the first African-American president in American history. Barack Obama was born on August  4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Barack Obama is from multicultural background: his father was from Kenya, his mother from Kansas, and they met at the University of Hawaii. After his parents divorced, his father returned to Africa, Obama stayed with his mother and was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.
He earned an undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1983 and a law degree from Harvard in 1991. He then associated the Chicago law firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland, which expert in civil rights legislation. He also trains constitutional law for 12 years at the University of Chicago. Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, and then to the U.S. Senate in 2004, beating Republican candidate Alan Keyes.
Barack Obama married the former Michelle Robinson in 1992. They have two daughters: Malia (born in 1998) and Sasha (born in 2001).
In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, later than a decade in the minority, regained a popular. He sponsored and led undivided, 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. During his 2004 general election campaign for U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms. Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the U.S. Senate.
Obama was confirmed in as a senator on January 3, 2005, becoming the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus. CQ Weekly characterized him as a "loyal Democrat" based on study of all Senate votes in 2005–2007. Obama announced on November 13, 2008, that he would resign his Senate seat on November 16, 2008, before the start of the lame-duck session, to focus on his transition period for the presidency.
The induction of Barack Obama as the 44th President, and Joe Biden as Vice 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 to develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq. He ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp "as soon as practicable and no later than" January 2010, but during his first two years in office he has been unable to persuade Congress to appropriate funds required to accomplish the shutdown. Obama reduced the secrecy given to presidential records and changed procedures to promote disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. He also reversed George W. Bush's ban on federal funding to foreign establishments that allow abortions.
On December 22, 2010, Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, a bill that provides for repeal of the Don't ask, don't tell policy of 1993 that has prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces. Repealing "Don't ask, don't tell" had been a key campaign promise that Obama had made during the 2008 presidential campaign.
On January 25, 2011, in his 2011 State of the Union Address, President Obama focused strongly on the themes of education and innovation, stressing the importance of innovation economics in working to make the United States more competitive globally. Among other plans and goals, Obama spoke of a enacting a five-year freeze in domestic spending, eliminating tax breaks for oil companies and tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, banning congressional earmarks, and reducing healthcare costs. Looking to the future, Obama promised that by 2015, the United States would have 1 million electric vehicles on the road and by 2035, clean-energy sources would be providing 80 percent of U.S. electricity.