Topic Reminder Service (TRS) is a publicly-funded non-political organization founded to update Forum Users with accurate factual reminders. This particular Topic could be - indeed has been - deemed out-of-date or "dead" since November 4th, 2008. However, persuant of common OPINION, it has remained one of the more-popular Topix to this day. At this point in time, over four years after the topic's origin and considering none of the facts will change for another four years (making for an estimated eight-year lifecycle), TRS is presenting the following reminders of FACT-
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii USA on August 4, 1961, he served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 2000.
He began his first presidential campaign in 2007, defeating Republican nominee John McCain in the general election, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Obama was re-elected president in November 2012, defeating Republican nominee Mitt Romney. He is the first two-term Democrat POTUS since Franklin D. Roosevelt to win two presidential elections with a majority of the popular vote. During his second inaugural address on January 21, 2013, Obama called for full equality for gays: "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law- for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."
On February 17, 2009, Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787,000,000,000 economic stimulus package aimed at helping the economy recover from the deepening worldwide recession, thereby continuing an economic aid policy first instituted under the preceding (Republican) President George W. Bush.
Domestic policy items include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act AKA Obama Care, signed into law on March 23, 2010. Barack Obama appointed two women to serve on the Supreme Court in the first two years of his Presidency. Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by Obama on May 26, 2009, was confirmed on August 6, 2009, becoming the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. Elena Kagan, nominated by Obama on May 10, 2010, was confirmed on August 5, 2010, bringing the number of women sitting simultaneously on the Court to three, for the first time in American history.
On January 16, 2013 President Obama outlined a series of sweeping gun control proposals, urging Congress to reintroduce an expired ban on "military-style" assault weapons, impose limits on ammunition magazines to 10 rounds, introduce background checks on all gun sales, pass a ban on possession and sale of armor-piercing bullets, as well as additional measures.
Notable foreign policy items include the draw-down of troops in Afghanistan and the end of military operations in Iraq as of August 31, 2010. On March 16, 2011, he authorized the U.S. Military to engage in air strikes against Libya's governmental air defense capabilities in order to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone. On May 1, 2011, Obama authorized a "surgical raid" by United States Navy SEALs in Abbottabad, Pakistan, resulting in the death of international terrorist and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the seizure of papers, computer drives and disks from bin Laden's compound.
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