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President of the United States

President Barack Obama

Biography:

President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4th, 1961, to his mother, Ann Duhman, and father, Barack Obama Sr. He was raised in Hawaii by his mother and his grandparents. President Obama moved to New York, attended Columbia University and graduated in 1983 with a degree in Political Science with an emphasis on International Relations.

After his undergraduate career, President Obama worked with a group of Chicago churches to rebuild communities devastated by the closure of local steel plants. It was there that President Obama realized that in order to create positive change to improve the lives of his fellow Americans, it would take more than working at the local community level, he needed to look towards changing laws and policies on a state and national level. President Obama attended the Harvard Law School and received his Juris Doctor in 1991. While at Harvard Law School he was an editor and eventually the president of the Harvard Law Review. Upon graduation, he returned to Chicago to help lead a voter registration drive, teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and remain active in his community.

It was in 1996 that President Obama was first elected to public office in the Illinois State Senate. While in the Illinois State Senate he worked to help pass the first major ethics reform in twenty-five years, cut taxes for working families, and expanded healthcare for families with children. In 2004 President Obama was elected to the United States Senate where his efforts were directed at passing lobbying reform, opening up transparency by putting federal spending information online, and worked towards non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world. President Obama also served on the Veterans' Affairs Committee working to help Illinois veterans receive the disability pay that they deserve, while working to prepare the Veterans' Affairs for the return of thousands veterans from overseas.

He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4th, 2008, and sworn in on January 20th, 2009. President Obama and Michelle Obama are the proud parents of two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.

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