President Barack Obama will need to act fast to begin his plans for a set of more drastic measures to extricate the United States from its present weakening economic condition. This is what Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria wrote in his February 2 Newsweek essay entitled “I Got It Bad (And That Ain’t Good)”. “The American financial system is effectively broken. Major banks are moving toward insolvency, and credit activity remains extremely weak. As long as the financial sector remains moribund, American consumers and companies — who collectively make up 80 percent of GDP — will not have access to credit, and economic activity cannot really resume on any significant scale. We have not turned the corner. In fact, we can’t even see the corner right now,” Zakaria writes.

No relief in sight – yet

Under normal conditions, the presidency of Barack Obama would bring a lot of great benefits for your billfold. During his campaign, he promised to transfer the tax load toward the moneyed sector, provide the uninsured with health coverage and subject financial products to more stringent rules.

The country, however, is not under normal conditions, not by a long stretch of the imagination. The big financial establishments have virtually vanished overnight. American carmakers are just about ready to follow suit. Retirement funds are nearly depleted and last year alone, job losses have run into the millions. There is no relief in sight as yet for the current economic crunch which is getting worse by the day.

Runaway train

Obama’s “change you can believe in” should more likely be “change we hope that Obama can sustain”. President Obama and a Congress controlled by the Democrats will have to roll up their sleeves as they have more to do, and more taxpayer money to spend, than anyone would have foreseen several months back.

Former International Monetary Fund chief economist Kenneth Rogoff in a statement said that the current recession is like a runaway train and Obama’s effort is all about preventing it from running off a cliff. According to Zakaria, President Obama “faces a terrible dilemma. He needs to act quickly and on a massive scale.”

Massive scale action needed

Large scale action is needed to keep the financial system from bleeding to death. The general American public, however, believes that far too much money have already been spent on bailing out the ailing banks.

Zakaria believes that the U.S. has not spent enough. According to him, the present economic crisis has caused an extreme degradation of American power. Even during the Iraq war, when much of the global community was infuriated by ex-President Bush’s unilateral stance, it was highly held that America possessed the world’s most advanced economy and its financial system were the most advanced and developed.
That system is now perceived globally as a fraud, and the reactions of political and business sector range from utter disbelief to rage at the image the U.S. now projects.

Senior Editor Daniel Gross writes of how an alarming number of firms and companies are giving up their finance-restructuring work and instead sell off their inventory and shut down. “Rather than soldier on, many operators have opted to simply fold, returning money to investors.

Companies, homeowners and money managers willing to quit rather than fight is both a symptom of the nation’s deep economic woes and emblematic of the challenge the Obama administration faces,” Gross writes. “Our ‘Yes, We Can’ president is going to have to fix a ‘No, We Can’t’ economy.”

President Barack Obama has just completed his first 100 days in the White House as President of the United States of America. He is not only popular among the public, he is also gracing the pages of comic books. Comics have been written about his life, his life as President so far, and his journey through the presidential candidacy. He has made short appearances in Spider Man and has even been the star character in a comic called Youngblood. I’m sure that he was excited to appear in Spider Man because he told people that he used to collect Spider Man comic books.

In the Youngblood comic book, Barack Obama was a tough guy character. He character even carried a gun throughout the comic story. The plot of the story was that the White House was under attack and President Barack Obama was on his own to defend it. His secret service men were shot and killed, which left him running for his life. Although he carries a gun on him, he never shoots the gun in the comic. He saves his own life by safely hiding under a large clock. A lot of readers thought this comic was very controversial simply because he was featured with a gun. However, the main idea of the story is that he defends the White House from the bad guys.

In a series of comic books by IDW Publishing, Presidential Material, he will also be featured. IDW Publishing has featured other political candidates in their comic book series such as John McCain. Last year, IDW publishing wrote comics during the height of the presidential campaign. The comic helped in the media frenzy that gained both Barack Obama and John McCain a lot of attention. The comics written about them were biographies. Having a comic book biography is a great way to get people who are interested in comics also interested in the presidential election. And it works the other way as; people who are really involved with the elections will start to like reading comics. The series during the election became so popular, especially about Barack Obama, that they printed five in the series. Now that Barack Obama is our President, the Presidential Material series will cover his life during the inauguration and his first 100 days in office.

President Barak Obama is comparable to superheroes we read in comics. He defends the nation while making sacrifices against his own life. He never stops working to protect us and do what’s best for us. That is the job of the President, and the more you read about superheroes, you will also know it’s their job to protect, defend and do what’s best for their cities.

Barack Hussein Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. His father was a black man (also named Barack Hussein Obama) born in Africa and his mother was a white woman born in Kansas.

Obama’s father and his mother separated and divorced when Obama was a young child. His mother remarried in 1967 when Obama was 6 years old to a man named Lolo Soetoro.

His family moved to Soetoro’s home country which was Indonesia. Obama lived there until he was 10 years old when he returned to live in Hawaii with his maternal grandparents who raised him from then on.

Obama moved to Los Angeles for college. After two years he transferred to Columbia University in NYC. Obama graduated from Columbia in 1983.

Obama then moved to Chicago where he worked as a community organizer for three years until the age of 27 when he moved to Massachusetts so that he could attend Harvard Law School. In 1990, during his second year, he was elected President of the Harvard Law Review. He was the first black person elected President of the Harvard Law Review. This remarkable feat was widely reported upon. He graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude in 1991.

He moved back to Chicago at that time and married Michelle Robinson in 1992. They have had two daughters, the first Malia Ann was born in 1998 and the second Natasha was born in 2001.

Obama began teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School in 1992 and continued doing so for 12 years. During this time he also directed the Illnois’ Project Vote which registered 150,000 African Americans in the state.

In 1996 Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate. While a State Senator Obama was able to gain support for ethics reform and health care laws. Obama re-elected twice and held the position until he was elected as one of Illinois two US Senators in 2004.

In 2000 Obama unsuccessfully ran for congress. He lost in the primary to Bobby Rush who is an African American Democrat who has been a congressman since 1993. He is still in the House today. Although they were rivals in 2000, Rush has supported Obama in his run for the Senate in 2004 and in his campaign for the Presidency in 2008.

In 2004 Obama easily defeated Republican Alan Keyes to become a US Senator. In fact his 70% to 27% defeat of Keyes set the Illinois record for margin of victory in a statewide election. The election between Obama & Keyes was also noteworthy as it was the first Senatorial election in US history in which the two major candidates were both African Americans.

During that 2004 campaign Obama was selected to be the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention and the speech is considered by most to be responsible launching his national political career. His speech was so well received that he was immediately considered to be a rising star in the Democratic party.

On February 10, 2007 Obama announced his candidacy for the 2008 Democratic nomination. At the time Hillary Clinton was considered a huge favorite to win the nomination.

The race for the Democratic primary became a battle between Obama & Clinton as the other challengers quickly fell by the wayside. The battle continued on into June as Clinton would not give in until the very end despite Obama’s clear mathematical advantage beginning in February.

In the general election Obama selected Joe Biden as his Vice Presidential running mate and they faced Republican John McCain who made a huge mistake by selecting the unqualified Sarah Palin as his running mate.

On November 4th Obama easily defeated McCain became the first black person (biracial to be more accurate) to be elected as President of the United States.

Barack Obama is scheduled to become the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009.

This January, Barack Obama became the President of the United States.

It was truly a remarkably moment in our history, for a wide variety of reasons. Obama’s inauguration marked a dramatic reversal in our national politics, likely ending a generation of conservative Republican domination in Washington. It brought a successful conclusion to a new kind of campaign, one based in savvy use of the internet for political fundraising and organizing. It captured the collective imagination of a whole generation of young Americans, inspiring youth political engagement in ways not seen in this country since the era of John F. Kennedy half a century ago.

But more than anything, Barack Obama’s inaugural was remarkable—amazing, astounding, almost unbelievable, considering the long arc of American history—because a black man just became the President of the United States.

The sheer enormity of the moment almost dwarfed the particulars of the day—the words of Obama’s excellent speech, the pageantry of the inaugural spectacle, even the immense numbers of people who turned out in Washington to watch the event in person.

The sheer enormity of the moment was borne of the long and difficult history of race in this country. That story, of course, is much bigger than Barack Obama. Much movement toward racial progress occurred before Obama ever arrived on the scene, and much more remains to be made in the future. But it’s hard not to wonder whether what happened this year changed the meaning of race in America, forever.

The youngest of Obama’s voters, those in their late teens and early twenties, may be the least surprised about what happened this year. They grew up in a world in which the rigid racial boundaries of our past were just that—a part of our past – something that they primarily learned about in school while studying the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or experiencing the segregated South through the eyes of children in To Kill a Mockingbird. (Not to say that they didn’t confront vexing racial issues of their own, but the lines weren’t drawn quite as sharply as they were in earlier eras.)

But we don’t have to look too far into our nation’s past to begin to see the dark racial legacy that made Obama’s election such a stunning revelation to anyone older than about 35.

As recently as the 1990s, hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur rhymed, without generating much controversy, that “although it seems heaven sent / we ain’t ready to see a black president”; the country divided bitterly along racial lines when a jury found former football star OJ Simpson not guilty of murdering his white wife.

As recently as the 1970s and 1980s, white citizens rioted over school desegregation in supposedly liberal northern cities like Boston, while widespread demonization of black people loomed large in public debates over welfare, crime, and affirmative action.

As recently as the 1960s, it was illegal, in many southern states, for whites and blacks to marry each other, to share the same hotels or restaurants, to use the same bathrooms or water fountains. Before 1965, black people who tried to vote in many parts of this country faced violent intimidation or even death.

All of this in Barack Obama’s own lifetime.

All of this, without even mentioning the even deeper past of slavery – a debate which helped spark The Civil War – and abolition, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, the three-fifths compromise and the “twenty negars” sold into servitude in Virginia in 1619—that’s one year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

And yet, despite all this—or perhaps, in a strange way, because of it—a black man named Barack Obama this year became our president. This year, perhaps, American history changed.

Barack Hussain Obama……

Who doesn’t recognize this name?

America’s first black president has been welcomed. With this, Martin Luther King’s dream has been fulfilled sooner than anyone had imagined.

Obama rose from a small time community worker to the most powerful man in the world. It marks a huge political transformation in a country with a racist past.

Obama rightly deserves to be the most powerful president in the world. He has great oration skills, leadership qualities, he is very responsible & most importantly, he has worked very hard to accomplish his goal. With all of these qualities, he is the new president of America.

My parents, friends, teachers and almost all Indians and myself support the view that he can bring a very positive change in the world. It is a very grand historical event for my motherland India. With the increase in number of terrorist attacks, we are greatly worried about our country. Obama has promised to help us tackle against the terrorist attacks.

The most special thing I like about him is his belief in all religions. Although he is Christian, he has not removed “Hussain” from his name. In his speech, he made it clear that he believes in all religions whether it’s Christian, or Muslim, or Hindu, or any other religion.

I was extremely happy when I came to know that he has a very deep faith on’Hanumanji’ -our Hindu God. We Indians have gifted him an Idol of hanumanji with best wishes

.

I was very thrilled to see him with Abraham Lincoln’s Bible during the inauguration. He has faith in God, Faith in himself & his country.

The Afro-Americans still remember Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech.

I too believe that his dream has finally come true. And with this, ‘racism’ society’s one of the biggest problems can be tackled.

He has said that he’ll end the wars with Iraq. Thus, he’ll establish the kingdom of peace and harmony throughout the world.

I honor him for his noble thoughts and his hard work. I’ve dedicated a poem for him, that I’d like to share…..

The sunrise has come.

                    Hip-hip hurray! Cheers for the new president of America,

May he bring happiness in the world, help fight terrorists in my home sweet home India,

                    Let the storm go away, let the golden sunrays beat the sorrow,

                 Martin Luther King’s dream is fulfilled, so let’s thank our lord,

                           Let the wars be forgotten & the new era of peace begin,

Let’s all unite together to say hello to the new mighty president-Barack Hussain Obama.

President Barack Obama “There is not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America, there is the United States of America”
Barack Hussein Obama (Honolulu (Hawaii), August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current president of the United States and a first black American in this position. A member of the Senate and Illinois state representative and state senator between January 3, 2005 and November 16, 2008 before he was in the assembly of his home state. After defeating Republican candidate John McCain during the U.S. presidential election 2008 Obama was on January 20, 2009 at the inauguration at the Capitol was sworn in as president.

President Obama in his early life:
Obama’s father, Barack Obama Sr., was a Luo from Kenya. His mother, Ann Dunham, was an American from Kansas. His parents divorced in 1964 when Obama was two years old. His father returned to Kenya. Obama has him then only once. After the divorce his mother remarried Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian student who studied in Hawaii. In 1967 the family moved to Jakarta. During this period, followed Barry Soetoro for two years teaching at a Catholic elementary school. He was registered as Muslim. When Obama was ten, he returned to Honolulu and went live with the parents of his mother. Here he attended school until 1979. When Obama was 21 years, came to his father in a car accident in Kenya. His mother also turned back to Hawaii, but eventually went back to Indonesia. She died of cancer in 1995, a few months after the appearance of Obama’s book Dreams from My Father. Obama is using his mother related to Jefferson Davis, president of Confederate States of America during the Civil War (1861-1865) fought for slavery.

After high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where two years he studied at Occidental College. He continued his studies at Columbia University in New York in 1983 where he graduated in political science with a specialization in International Relations. After graduation he worked as a researcher at the New York Public Interest Group.

In 1988 Obama began his law studies at Harvard University. In 1990 he received the news when he became the first African-American appointed president of the Harvard Law Review.

A Road to Presidential Chair (Presidential Election 2008):
On January 16, 2007 Obama was known to have formed an exploratory committee in preparation for his participation in the Democratic primaries for the U.S. presidential election of 2008. On February 10, 2007 he made his candidacy official in Springfield (Illinois) and his main opponent in the Democratic primaries was Hillary Clinton
January 20, 2009 Barack Obama in Washington DC sworn to 44th president of the United States. The oath was administered by Chief Justice Roberts to him using the same bible was used during the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln.

President Obama Private Life:
Obama and his wife Michelle Robinson met in 1989 while working for a law firm and married in 1992. They have two daughters: Malia Ann and Natasha. Michelle Obama is now vice president for community affairs of the University of Chicago Hospitals.

Awards:
In 2009 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his exceptional efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

WTF: ‘Little Obama’ Trailer Promises a Karate Kid President
This doesn’t quite top yesterday’s WTF, the Sir Billi sizzle reel with an animated Sean Connery, but it comes pretty close. Little Obama is a film loosely (very loosely) based on the part of President Barack Obama’s childhood spent in Indonesia. And it comes complete with sequences in which he’s bullied by local kids, then trains up and becomes a man. Damien Dematra directed the film, and also …

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