Diederik karsten biography of barack obama

The rifle-shot topic which has long been of great interest to me is the question of what makes a great president and how would one really attempt to go about comparing presidents from different eras who each faced a variety of dissimilar challenges. Like Loading Steve said: February 18, at pm. Many thanks for the project, for your reviews.

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Diederik karsten biography of barack obama

John said: February 28, at pm. Steve said: February 28, at pm. Richard M Dasheiff said: December 2, at pm. Steve said: December 2, at pm. Diana Batzel said: December 20, at pm. Steve said: December 21, at am. The US recovery proved quicker than comparable economies in Europe, but growth was uneven — with low wage growth. In , Obama also passed the Dodd—Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act , which sought to reform the banking and financial sector, in the aftermath of the credit crunch.

See also: US Economy under Obama. Despite concerns about the economy, in , Obama was able to win re-election, defeating the Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Enrollment in the program began in October Despite some initial technical difficulties, it has led to an increase in the percentage of Americans with health insurance. Obama describes himself as a Christian.

He was raised as Christian, though not as a regular churchgoer — saying that he made that choice in adult life. He also believes that different faiths and religions can share the same values and lead to the same goals. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.

However, he has spoken up on issues, such as civil rights, the rights for non-documented dreamers and also the importance of civil discourse. Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan. Updated 11 January Including presidents, authors, musicians, entrepreneurs and businessmen. Famous Black People. The legislation has faced numerous challenges in court and wound up at the U.

Supreme Court three times. In the summer of , the Supreme Court upheld part of the Act regarding health care tax subsidies. Without these tax credits, buying medical insurance might have become too costly for millions of people. The latest Supreme Court decision about the Affordable Care Act began in when Congressional Republicans dropped the individual mandate tax penalty to zero.

Texas and 17 other Republican states quickly sued to strike down the Affordable Care Act, mainly based on their opposition to its individual mandate. A Texas federal judge ruled in favor of the suit, saying that because there was no longer a tax, the law was unconstitutional. The case was sent to an appeals court. A final ruling came in June when the U.

Supreme Court voted , , to uphold the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that the objecting states were not required to pay anything under the mandate provision and thus had no standing to bring the challenge to court. As of January , nearly On May 2, an elite team of U. There were no American casualties, and the team was able to collect invaluable intelligence about the workings of al-Qaeda.

Armed Forces. He became the first president to voice support for same-sex marriage in May As he did in , during his campaign for a second presidential term, Obama focused on grassroots initiatives. Representative Paul Ryan. On November 6, , Obama won a second term as president, capturing more than 60 percent of the Electoral College. Obama officially began his second term on January 21, , when U.

Chief Justice John Roberts administered the oath of office. In his second inaugural address, Obama called the nation to action on such issues as climate change, health care, the federal deficit, and marriage equality. Obama stated that the program had helped stop roughly 50 threats. However, the president suffered a significant drop in his approval ratings, to 45 percent, partially due to the revelations.

In August , Obama ordered the first airstrikes against the Islamic State on targets in Syria, though the president pledged to keep combat troops out of the conflict. Several Arab countries joined the airstrikes against the extremist group. However, U. As of December , more than 1, people have died, according to military officials. Outside watchdog organizations, like Airwars, estimate the number of casualties could be as many as several thousand.

In September , Obama made diplomatic strides with Iran. He spoke with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the phone, which marked the first direct contact between the leaders of the two countries in more than 30 years. This groundbreaking move by Obama was seen by many as a sign of thawing in the relationship between the United States and Iran.

In July , Obama announced that, after lengthy negotiations, the United States and five world powers had reached an agreement with Iran. The deal allowed inspectors entry into Iran to make sure the country kept its pledge to limit its nuclear program and enrich uranium at a much lower level than would be needed for a nuclear weapon. In return, the United States and its partners removed the tough sanctions imposed on Iran and allowed the country to ramp up sales of oil and access frozen bank accounts.

That year, Obama also traveled to India and reached a civilian nuclear agreement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi that opened the door to U. Elsewhere, Obama moved to reestablish diplomatic ties with Cuba in December He and Cuban President Raul Castro announced the normalizing of diplomatic relations between the countries for the first time since The policy change came after the exchange of American citizen Alan Gross and another unnamed American intelligence agent for three Cuban spies.

However, the long-standing U. Kennedy , remained in effect. On March 20, , Obama became the first sitting American president to visit Cuba since , as part of his larger program to establish greater cooperation between the two countries. Just prior to the trip, on March 10, , Obama met at the White House with newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the first official visit by a Canadian leader in nearly 20 years.

In August , the Obama administration announced the Clean Power Plan, a major climate change policy that included the first national standards to limit carbon pollution from coal-burning power plants and called for more renewable energy from sources like wind and solar power. Ultimately, the plan never took effect after facing backlash and lawsuits from business groups, companies, 27 states, and Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell , who was then the Republican minority leader.

In February , the Supreme Court ruled, , to block the plan by putting a hold on regulations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, mostly from coal power plants. Obama also worked to respond to climate change on the global level. The agreement requires all participating nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to limit the rise of global temperatures and also to allocate resources for the research and development of alternative energy sources.

Obama pledged that the United States would cut its emissions more than 25 percent by Did you know? Not only was Obama the first African American president, he was also the first to be born outside the continental United States. Obama was born in Hawaii in He would see his son only once more before dying in a car accident in Ann remarried in She and her new husband, an Indonesian man named Lolo Soetoro, moved with her young son to Jakarta in the late s, where Ann worked at the U.

At age 10, Obama returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents. He attended the Punahou School, an elite private school where, as he wrote in his memoir, Dreams from My Father , he first began to understand the tensions inherent in his mixed racial background. After two years at Occidental College in Los Angeles, he transferred to Columbia University in New York City, from which he graduated in with a degree in political science.

He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in Learn about the events surrounding the historical election of how Barack Obama became the Democratic presidential contender against Hillary Clinton and how he ultimately beat John McCain to become the first black president in U. An excerpt from Barack H. Despite tight Republican control during his years in the state senate, Obama was able to build support among both Democrats and Republicans in drafting legislation on ethics and health care reform.

He helped create a state earned-income tax credit that benefited the working poor, promoted subsidies for early childhood education programs and worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.