The 44th President, Barack Obama

President Barack Obama

Birthday: August 4, 1961

Birthplace: Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital (now Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children) in Honolulu, Hawaii

Term: January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2017, 9:00 AM PST

Spouse: First Lady Michelle Obama 

Children: Malia Ann (July 4, 1998), Natasha "Sasha" Obama (June 10, 2001)

Parents: Ann Dunham from Wichita, Kansas and Barack Obama Sr. from Nyang'oma Kogelo, Kenya

Siblings: Maya Soetoro-Ng (half-sister) and seven half-siblings from his father

Twenty Facts About Barack Obama

1. He was raised with help from his grandmother as well as his grandfather, who served in General George Patton's army.
2. He was the first African-American President of the United States.
3. Obama excelled in basketball and graduated with academic honors in 1979 from Punahou Academy.
4. Obama struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage with his own sense of self:

   "I noticed that there was nobody like me in the Sears, Roebuck Christmas catalog and that Santa was a white man," he once wrote. "I went into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror with all my senses and limbs seemingly intact, looking as I had always looked, and wondered if something was wrong with me."

5. Obama studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University. He graduated in 1983 with a degree in political science. In 1988, he enrolled at Harvard Law. 
6. Obama was elected the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review.
7. He helped organize voter registration drives during Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign.
8. Obama ran for a seat in the Illinois State Senate. He ran as a Democrat and won election in 1996. Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans to draft legislation on ethics, as well as expand health care services and early childhood education programs for the poor. He also created a state earned-income tax credit for the working poor. Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases after a number of death-row inmates were found to be innocent.
9. The Obama family has two Portuguese Water Dogs. One of them is a male named Bo. Bo was given as a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy.
10. Barack Obama was against the Iraq War.
11. In 2005, Obama was sworn into the U.S. Senate. He worked on a bill that expanded efforts to destroy weapons of mass destruction in Eastern Europe and Russia. He also partnered in the creation of a website to track all federal spending. Obama also spoke out for victims of Hurricane Katrina, pushed for alternative energy development and championed improved veterans' benefits.
12. Obama used to smoke cigarettes but reportedly had quit as of 2010.
13. Obama once worked for Baskin Robbins.
14. His favorite books are Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon. He also has read every Harry Potter book!
15. Kenya dedicated a beer called “Senator Keg” to Barack Obama, an affordable and highly popular beer.
16. Some of his favorite movies are Casablanca, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Godfather. 
17. Obama loves collecting comics. Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian are his favorite comic series.
18. Obama owns a pair of autographed boxing gloves owned by Muhammad Ali.
19. Genealogists have claimed that President Obama is the 9th cousin of actor Brad Pitt and 8th cousin of outgoing vice-President Dick Cheney.
20. Obama has been on Jimmy Fallon. (Keep reading for some links to my favorite videos from Obama's Jimmy Fallon experience)
    

His Presidency

Since President Barack Obama first took office:

• Homicides have dropped 13 percent, but gun sales have surged.
• The economy has added more than 9 million jobs, and the jobless rate has dropped to below the historical median.
• The number of long-term unemployed Americans has dropped by 614,000 under Obama, but it is still 761,000 higher than at the start of the Great Recession.
• Corporate profits are up 166 percent; real weekly wages are up 3.4 percent.
• There are 15 million fewer people who lack health insurance.
• Wind and solar power have nearly tripled, and now account for more than 5 percent of U.S. electricity.
• The federal debt has more than doubled — rising 116 percent — and big annual deficits have continued.
• Marriage equality was passed, allowing homosexual couples to marry.

A lot of people have different opinions on Barack Obama as President. The statistics will continue to come out for his last two years of presidency (since they are released two years later, i.e. statistics in 2014 are released in 2016). As of now, these are the statistics that are available to us and the research shows that the above statements are true. I'm thankful that we had a president who did the best he could with what he had (constant fight from Congress, budget problems, threats of terrorism constantly affecting the U.S., etc.). Below is his farewell address from January 2017.

What's Next?

Right now, Barack Obama is focusing on taking his wife, Michelle Obama, on a vacation. He is looking forward to spending some time with his wife in general. He is also beginning the hard work of standing up the Obama Center that will open in 2021.

In past interviews, Obama has hinted that he will spend more time working with My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, an initiative which improves the lives of poor black and Latino boys. He has said that the Alliance “will remain a mission for me and for Michelle not just for the rest of my presidency, but for the rest of my life”. This will probably not be his only hand in charity and community service after his president as his wife has many projects going on right now and in the future.

The Obama family just purchased a house in Washington, D.C. Obama will be the first former president to remain in Washington since Woodrow Wilson in 1921. The Obama family plans to stay in Washington until Sasha, now 15, finishes high school in 2019.

                                                                                                    

I conducted a survey about President Barack Obama and public opinion. The survey was voluntarily and anonymously. 16 people participated in it. Here are the results:

                                                                                                     

As previously mentioned, President Obama was on Jimmy Fallon. I wanted to end this blog post with something funny or cheerful. So below, you will find a few videos from Obama's time on Jimmy Fallon as well as one that is not from Jimmy Fallon (but is my favorite one). And I would like to end the written part of this blog post with one thing: #ThanksObama.