Barack Obama

Decriminalization or to not decriminalize. That is the big question. Will the decriminalization of marijuana be the next revolution of America? Marijuana prohibition has been in effect since 1937, with trends that closely resemble those of alcohol prohibition-meaning an increase in crime, distrust, and dissension. If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to stop Americans from using it, then it has failed, just like the other prohibition failed to make America a “dry” country.

It is important to go back and look at the factors leading to marijuana prohibition-especially the stages of exaggeration, silence, and the imposition of severe penalties-before looking at the effects of prohibition during the last half-century. Let me first point out that I am an advocate of marijuana, and will not argue that marijuana is not harmless. Research shows that marijuana damages short term memory, distorts perceptions, impairs judgment and complex motor skills, alters heart rates, and has the potential to trigger severe anxiety, paranoia, and lethargy (www. ndsn. com).

Yet I also feel its effects are in many ways less harmful than those of alcohol and tobacco-for instance, alcohol’s potential to cause cirrhosis and tobacco’s links to lung cancer and heart disease. Both are considered carcinogenic. In addition, alcohol is cited as a factor in half of this country’s highway fatalities, half of all arrests made for any criminal charge-including homicides-and one-fourth of all suicides. In 1972 the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse estimated the social costs of America’s alcohol habit to be $15 billion a year (www. ndsn. com); it has steadily increased since then.

When comparing tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, there is strong evidence that marijuana has the least addictive power (www. peretto. com). However, this does not hide the fact that all three can have a strong impact on an individual. As with all drugs, they are capable of disrupting home life, affecting job performance, and causing withdrawal from society. In my opinion, all drugs share this power on equal terms because of the emotional problems of the people who use them; no single drug has more potential for harm than any other in terms of social impacts.

While hemp has been grown in America since 1611 (Grinspoon, 1971, p. 1), the practice of smoking marijuana did not become widespread until the 1920’s-a period of strong drug intolerance during the “great social experiment” of alcohol prohibition. Marijuana use was highest among people who also used opiates, primarily recent immigrants. In the 1930’s, the common belief that immigrants were inhumane and violent included a strong belief that marijuana was part of the cause. Since it was associated with opiates, marijuana was quickly defined as a narcotic (Thies, C. F. , 1993 p. 71), and by 1931 all but two states had passed anti-marijuana legislation.

The final two did so by 1937, the same year the federal government created the Marijuana Tax Act . For which no tax stamps were ever issued. Not once during this period of prohibitive legislation was any research conducted on marijuana and it’s effects, nevertheless it was almost universally assumed that marijuana was a narcotic, caused psychological dependence, provoked violent crime, and led to insanity. The first of three strategies used to fight marijuana was silence. It was believed that if youth didn’t hear about marijuana, they wouldn’t become curious and experiment with it.

Therefore, in the 1930’s discussion about marijuana was forbidden in all public schools, and from 1934 to 1956 the Motion Picture Association of America banned all films showing the use of narcotics (www. legalize. com). The strategy did not work as well as hoped, so anti-marijuana groups adopted the next strategy: exaggeration. The goal was to scare potential marijuana users. Even such respected periodicals as the American Journal of Medicine went along with this strategy, publishing such warnings as: “Marijuana users will suddenly turn with murderous violence upon whoever is nearest to them.

They will run amuck with a knife, axe, gun, or anything else that is close at hand, and will kill or maim without reason”. F. T. Merrill of the Opium Research Committee wrote: “While numerous crimes [have been] traced to its abuse, its peculiar virulent effect, leading sometimes to insanity, makes its use dangerous to the individuals and to society in general . . . [it] leads to uncontrollable irritability and violent rages, which in most forms cause assault and murder” (Grinspoon, 1971, p. 17).

During my research I found a medical handbook written in 1970 that continued to report these myths as fact, going so far as to imply that the words “hashish” and “assassin”–which do have a common root in terms of word history–have a cause and effect relationship. In the same manual the word “amuck” was associated to a characteristic of the drug; according to its author, the word, which means “to kill,” “was the word the natives of Malay would shriek as they dashed down the street, maddened by hashish, in a murderous frenzy” (Williams, 1970, p. 140).

From the official California police officers’ guide of the same period came this warning: “Marijuana is the immediate and direct cause of the crime committed . . . the user is very often dangerous to handle or control, has no fear, feels no pain, and may commit crimes of violence. Penalties for marijuana use fluctuated with popular belief regarding its level of danger. If people believed the effects were particularly bad, the penalties were stiff, but during some decades public attitudes were more lenient, therefore penalties were reduced. Drug use declined, fear increased, and so did penalties throughout the 1950s.

One of the first federal mandatory prison sentences was established at that time: 10 years minimum for marijuana possession, and a mandatory death sentence for selling marijuana to a minor (Theis, C. F. ,1993 p. 46). During the 1960s and 70s, penalties declined as use increased, with eleven states decriminalizing possession for personal use (Thies and Register, 1993, p. 389). Then, in the 1980s, drug use declined and penalties rose. The “three strike” program was established, under which a mandatory life sentence without parole must be given for third-time offenders.

Judges no longer have the power to use their own discretion in sentencing, but are required to base their punishment on the “most serious readily provable charge”, including a mandatory death sentence for anyone found guilty of managing a major marijuana plantation of 60,000 plants. It appears that the current attitude toward marijuana prohibition is based on the belief that relaxed policies lead to greater use. Statistics argue otherwise: nationwide, marijuana use in 1984 was measured at 26. 3%, and in the eleven states that decriminalized marijuana, it was 27. 3%. In 1988 the percentages were 15. and 16. 1, respectively.

In those eleven states, decriminalization meant that individuals were no longer arrested for simple possession. In ten of those states there is a $0-100 fine for possession-the result of a threat by the federal government to withhold highway money for states that did not have minimum punishment standards (Thies and Register, 1993, p. 387). Going outside the country for another example of how legalization does not lead to greater use, Holland has witnessed a 40% decrease in marijuana use since the Dutch government legalized it in 1976 (Grinspoon, L. 1971, p. 4).

During the same time period, marijuana use has decreased in the United States, so it cannot be definitively argued that either stronger penalties or decriminalization is better at affecting the number of people who use marijuana. It seems clear that social policy, and not legal policy, had the greater effect in Holland. Accusations of marijuana’s addictive powers are also under attack from well-designed research studies. During the Nixon administration (1972), the federal government reviewed existing studies and concluded that marijuana did not possess physically addictive traits.

The great majority of articles published in medical journals since that time have agreed. For example, Dr. Jack Henningfield of the Addiction Research Center (part of the National Institute on Drug Abuse) and Dr. Neal Benowits of the University of California ranked heroin, cocaine, nicotine, alcohol, caffeine, and marijuana in terms of their power to induce psychological dependence. Nicotine was first, marijuana last. Marijuana also ranked last in terms of producing a physical tolerance to the drug, and was deemed least likely to produce signs of withdrawal upon quitting (Theis, C. F, 1993, p. 92).

It seems as though the primary result of the three-pronged attack using strict penalties, silence, and exaggeration has been increased ignorance. Regardless of research findings refuting long-held claims about marijuana addiction since 1972, the old arguments of the 1930s continue to be used when establishing new soft drug laws. People’s tendency to hold onto their initial beliefs means that most of their knowledge on the topic of marijuana is based on what their parents taught them.

While it is the responsibility of all parents to teach their children values, this is not an acceptable basis for creating law. If the purpose of prohibition is to eliminate the use of a substance, then marijuana is certainly another example of how prohibition fails. In 1979, 68. 2% of all 18-25 year olds had tried marijuana at least once, and 35% said that they were regular users (U. S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1991). While those respective numbers have decreased to 50% and 13%, its clear that marijuana is still readily available and used by a large number of Americans.

Two other detrimental effects of marijuana prohibition are the large amounts of money spent on enforcement and prosecution, and prison overcrowding. The percentage of the American population living in prison has increased from . 061 in 1880 to . 1 in 1920 to . 35 in 1995, with an associated tripling of real tax dollars required to house inmates. Today, 62% of all inmates are in prison for drug offenses-the result of a 1,100% increase in drug arrests between 1980 and 1992, even though marijuana use dropped from 35% to 13% during the same period. The increase in violent offenders incarcerated during that time was only 50%.

Of felons convicted of crimes related to marijuana possession, production and trafficking during this period, 58% had no prior arrest history, 91% were not identified as organizers, leaders, managers or supervisors of drug-oriented organizations, and 92% did not own or possess a gun. In other words, the large majority of these felons should not be viewed as individuals endangering our society. I believe the main point of these statistics is that an enormous amount of money is spent each year on incarcerating non-violent and otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Not including the money spent on prison management and construction, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) now spends $1. 3 billion a year “fighting” marijuana. Overall, federal anti-marijuana efforts have cost taxpayers $30 billion. The result: $2 billion worth of cannabis being seized and destroyed, 4 million people being arrested, and 250-thousand individuals being jailed for more than one year–but no basic change in usage patterns from the 1970″s (www. bergen. com). Is it worth it? Mark Young is a victim of a US District Attorney’s overzealous efforts to enforce federal marijuana laws.

Young, a resident of Illinois, went on a fishing trip in Florida with some old friends, bringing along some marijuana for everyone to enjoy privately. His Florida friends asked Young to introduce them to the grower, which he did, then was cut out of the deal from that point onward. He was later arrested and charged with conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. He had two strikes against him-minor possession charges that were twenty years old-so he faced a life sentence with no possibility of parole, even though he did not benefit at all from the transaction.

The District Attorney offered Young a reduced charge if he testified against his friends and others whom he had no prior knowledge of. He refused, and the DA won his case without having to inform the jury about Young’s two-strike status. The judge had no choice but to pass down a sentence of life without parole. In a prison interview, Young was quoted as saying, “They’ve only proved I’m capable of smoking a joint, or of introducing a guy to another guy who needs some pounds. That’s the most they’ve proved me capable of.

What they [the prosecutors] are doing, they’re destroying these families and passing out life sentences, taking people’s lives, putting children on the street-I mean horrendous acts. I don’t know of anyone that would do anything that malicious for a salary” (Williams J. B. , 1970, p. 46). It is my opinion that the state has no right to interfere with anyone’s private conduct, especially under the guise of protecting anyone from our own folly. The government is free to educate people as much as it wishes on the effects of using marijuana, education being the best way to alter behavior.

However, it must not dictate what behavior an individual can or cannot practice in private. This opinion is the same one given in the 1972 report published by the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse; in their summary, the authors of that report argued that private production and consumption of marijuana should be made legal (National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, 1972, p. 152). They also recommended continued efforts to arrest anyone involved in trafficking or in the commercial production of marijuana.

The report was accepted by the President, Speaker of the House, and President of the Senate, and the argument was later given support by President Jimmy Carter (Theis, C. F. , 1993, p. 45). However, political pressure prevented him from making concerted effort to reform marijuana laws. The original motivation for marijuana prohibition was based on a lack of knowledge. Nevertheless, the hate and fear resulting from initial attitudes still echo in current arguments against marijuana. Despite research to the contrary, a significant number of people refuse to have their beliefs challenged.

And so billions of tax dollars continue to be spent on enforcement and prosecution, while use patterns remain the same-a return on an investment that no private business would ever tolerate. And it is important to remember that statistics describe many casual marijuana users such as M. Y. , and families that are affected by overly strict laws. Prohibition was established due to a misunderstanding, has not achieved its goal, and goes against an American philosophical approach. I believe it is time to reconsider its consequences.

Senator Barack Obama (D, Illinois) said that nowhere else is his “story even possible. ” The junior senator is a candidate for his party’s 2008 presidential nomination. Born Barrack Hussein Obama on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack, Sr. and Ann Dunham. Barack Sr. was a goat herder like his own father, a servant in the home of the British. The Obamas were from the Luo ethnic group of Nyanza Province in Kenya. Ann was a White American from Wichita, Kansas whose father was an oil rigger during the Depression. At the outbreak of World War II he enlisted in the army of General Patton.

Her mother worked in the production line of bombers. At the end of the war, they pursued their studies through the G. I. Bill. With the Federal Housing Program they purchased their house and settled in Hawaii. In the 1950s, the Obamas’ Luo ethnic group was a frontrunner in Kenya’s struggle for independence. The Dunhams, on the other hand, were against slavery as early as the 1800s. Barack Obama’s parents met at the East-West Center, Manoa Campus of the University of Hawaii. Barack’s father was on a scholarship and was the first ever from a country in Africa. The marriage did not last, as interracial unions were not accepted.

In some states it was illegal. It was not much of a problem to the Dunhams but it was to the Obamas, who found it difficult to have a White American for a daughter in law. Under the circumstances, they had to divorce when Barack was two years old. Barack Sr. moved to Harvard on another scholarship for a Doctorate in Economics. Father and son met again when Barack was ten. They kept in touch through letters until Barack Sr. ’s return to Kenya and his death by car accident in the early 1980s. Barack’s mother remarried. Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian student of the East-West Center became her husband.

In 1967 when Barack was six they moved to Jakarta where Lolo got a job in an oil company. Barack’s half-sister Maya was born. Barack went to school in Jakarta where lessons were conducted in Indonesian. Barack or Barry returned to Hawaii when he was 10. He joined his grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Dunham. His mother lived with them later until her death in 1995 due to ovarian cancer. In 1979, Barack graduated with honors at the renowned Punahou Academy. They were only 3 Black students in Punahou. It was at this time that became conscious as well as concerned about mixed racial heritage.

He was troubled about racism and his African-American background. He could not deal with his being African-American having a White American family. He turned to cocaine, marijuana and alcohol. Just like most teens of his background they needed an outlet for their inner rage and in the process tended to self-destruct. After Punahou, he transferred to Occidental College in Los Angeles where he got his act together. After two years he moved to the esteemed Columbia University in New York. He got to visit Kenya for the first time and renewed ties with his relatives.

He graduated from Columbia with a Degree in Political Science. For a while he involved himself in community work in Harlem. He decided he could not live to support himself with so little pay. He decided to leave New York and move to Chicago. The South Side of Chicago is an impoverished community. Barack worked as a community organizer for the poor residents of Roseland and the development of public housing for Altgeid Gardens. Law school beckoned. This time his application was accepted by Harvard Law School, one of the best in the country. He became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review Journal.

It opened doors of opportunities for him upon graduation. He graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1991. True enough, top Manhattan law firms came knocking on his door. $100,000 annual pay offers were turned down by Barack. He opted to return to Chicago to work for Miner, Barnhill & Galland as a civil rights lawyer. He handled housing and labor discrimination cases, taught at the Law School of the University of Chicago and organized voter registration drives. The large turnout of registered Black voters in Chicago, helped bring Bill Clinton straight to the White House in 1992. Chicago has a special place in Obama’s heart.

In 1988 while working as a summer associate in Sidley & Austin, a Chicago Law Firm, Michelle Robinson was assigned as his mentor. Michelle was also a graduate of Harvard Law School. She was from a Black, working-class family on the South Side. She and a brother who excelled in Basketball went to Princeton University. Michelle obtained her undergraduate degree at Princeton. Michelle became Mrs. Obama, when he married her in October 1992. They have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. Michelle and the girls have remained in Kenwood on Chicago’s South Side instead of moving to Washington. Michelle still works as an executive in a hospital.

In 1996 Barack Obama ran for and won a senate seat from Hyde Park, his home district. Hyde Park is the neighborhood around the University of Chicago. The community even with its upscale side has a high rate of crime and unemployment. Among Obama’s accomplishments are: tax breaks for the low-incomed, a state insurance to include uninsured children, increase health care services as well as education programs in early childhood for the poor, and tracking stops and speed of drivers by law enforcers. The latter was supposed to reduce discriminatory profiling by police patrol officers.

Another significant legislation was for police to videotape confessions on homicide cases. In 2000 he made a try for a congressional seat against Bobby Rush, a Black former member of the Chicago City Council. Rush was the founder of the Black Panther Party, Illinois Chapter. The Black Panther was the 1960s nationalist party of the revolutionary, radical Blacks. Rush capitalized on his experience and criticized Obama’s wealthy and white votes. Obama experienced his first major defeat garnering only 30% of the votes. In 2004 when Peter G. Fitzgerald (R, Illinois) bared plans of retirement, Obama made a bid for a senate seat.

When supporters thought it premature for him to aim for a position that high, they were certainly in for a big surprise. Obama garnered 53% of the votes in the primary, against 6 other challengers. This appeared to be a record high among African-Americans who figured prominently in white-populated precincts. These made the Democrats take him and his campaign more seriously. In the 2004 senate elections, he faced Jack Ryan of the Republicans. Ryan was a good-looking parochial school teacher, who used to be an investment banker. His former wife was Jeri Ryan, the star of Boston Public.

There were issues on the Ryans’ divorce that did not sit well with the Republican’s platform with regards to family values. Jack Ryan withdrew from the race. Alan Keyes, the talk show host from Maryland moved to Illinois to oppose Obama’s senate bid. Keyes’ adversarial stand on homosexuality and his two unsuccessful white house campaigns did not make him a strong opponent. With free trades that removed tariffs, US industries started to transfer their factories outside of the United States. Such meant great loss of jobs and employment. Obama’s campaign promise was a halt in bringing jobs overseas.

That swayed the votes for Obama. What would happen next would Obama’s defining moment. In the Democratic National Convention of July 2004 Obama delivered the keynote address of the convention as requested by John Kerry who would end up the party’s standard bearer. Much was expected of Obama and he delivered! He earned praises and standing ovations for his well-crafted speech and his eloquent delivery. He spoke about the need for America to unite in order that it may be strong. He reminded everyone of America’s diverse ethnicity and ideologies that made the county rich.

He said that the American way was to provide for all, not for just a few. If there was an elderly who was not at all related to him and was too poor to pay both rent and medicines, Barack Obama said, it made his life poorer. He said the people should mind what injustice is committed to his fellowmen like a brother to a brother. He believed that such acts of concern make America work. Analysts found in Obama’s speech a great amount of positivism, hope and optimism. They all found a promise in Obama, an emerging leader among the Democrats and possibly a near-future president of America.

70% of the votes of Illinois went to the 43 year old Obama with only 27% left for Keyes in the senatorial contest. In the US Senate of 2005, Obama was one of the youngest. His first significant legislation was the Higher Education Opportunity through the Pell Grant Expansion Act of 2005 or the HOPE Act. This was for those students who received financial aid for college from the Federal Government, the legislation aimed for an increase in the amount provided. He crossed party lines to seek support for important legislations. He teamed up with Sen.

Richard Lugar (R, Indiana) for a bill to expand efforts to destroy all weapons of mass destruction in Russia and Eastern Europe. Together with Sen. Tom Corburn (R, Oklahoma) they kept tight watch on government spending through a website they created. He and Sen. Russ Feingold (D, Wisconsin) also sought to stop the lobbyists from giving members of Congress gifts like travel on private jets. He raised vital issues on the senate floor like awareness of Avian flu and its threats, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and its victims, alternative fuel sources and worked for better benefits for the veterans.

As senator he is on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, the Veterans Affairs Committee and the Environment and Public Affairs Committee. In US history, Obama is the fifth African American elected to the senate in 2005 and only the third towards the end of Reconstruction. Obama joined the few other Blacks who made it to the senate, the first ever was Hiram Rhoades Revels of North Carolina in 1870, Blanche K. Bruce of Virginia in 1875, Edward William Brooke III from Massachusetts in 1966, and Carol Moseley Braun from Illinois in 1992.

Braun is also the first African-American woman elected to the senate. Obama was a strong critic of President Bush’ policy on Iraq since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He spoke against using force in Iraq at the Chicago’s Federal Plaza rally of October 2002. Barack Obama opposed what he called “dumb wars” and was particularly concerned with the lives they had cost. He believed that there was a better way to handle Saddam Hussein. He saw Iraq’s economy battered and his military weak and that there was no way for Saddam but down.

He knew that the war in Iraq will be a protracted one with an unpredictable end, costs, and consequences. He warned that it could bring out the worst from the Middle East, the Arab world and the Al-Qaeda. He has authored two books, namely: (1) His autobiography “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” published in 1995, and (2) “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” published in 2008. Obama announced that he is gunning for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. He is up against the Sen.

Hillary Rodham-Clinton. Works Cited “About Barack Obama. ” 2008. United States Senate. 6 May 2008 http://obama. senate. gov/about/ “Barack Obama Biography. ” 2006. Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. 6 May 2008 http://www. notablebiographies. com/news/Li-Ou/Obama-Barack. html “Barack Obama Biography (1961-)” 2008. bio. biographies. com. 6 May 2008 http://www. biography. com/search/article. do? id=12782369&page=1 “Meet Barack. ” 2008. Barack ’08. BarackObama. com. 6 May 2008 http://www. barackobama. com/about/

Barack Hussein Obama jr. was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. He grew up with his father, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., and mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. He went to college first at Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1989, then went to Columbia University, where he graduated in 1983, and finally went to Harvard Law school in 1991, where he met his wife, Michelle Robinson Obama. They had two daughters, Malia Obama and Natasha “Sasha” Obama.

Constitutional Issues

Barack Obama faced many Constitutional Issues during his presidency. One significant issue he faced was in regards to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as Obamacare. Obamacare increases the affordability of healthcare, providing more people with healthcare. It was extremely controversial, with republicans, in general, strongly opposing the reform, and democrats, in general, strongly supporting it.

One of the most controversial and central parts of ObamaCare is that it was required that everyone not receiving healthcare, is required to pay for it, with exceptions for people with enough financial hardships that the insurance would cost more than eight percent of their household income or certain religious groups. This was controversial because there was a tax penalty for all people not exempted, but had remained uninsured, causing the debate over whether or not Congress could penalize people for not buying healthcare. In 2012, this debate ended up in the supreme court, with a 5-4 ruling that it was indeed constitutional.

Another significant issue Obama faced during his presidency was the Iraq war. In addition to Obamacare, ending the Iraq war is one thing that Obama is widely known for. The war began in March 2003 because the Bush administration believed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s tyrannical dictator, was housing terrorists. Even from the beginning, Obama opposed the war, though, at the time, many people disagreed with him.

In August of 2010, Obama announced that the U.S.’s combat mission in Iraq had ended, but the troops were going to stay in order to support the Iraqi soldiers. By June of 2011, 100,000 troops had already left Iraq.

Despite Obamacare and the Iraq war being the largest constitutional issues during Barack Obama’s presidency, there were a number of other issues. These include when, in February of 2015, Obama spoke to the nation about, and in favor of the prospect of legalizing marijuana, in mid-2015, when same-sex marriage was legalized in the U.S., and

First Lady

Michelle Robinson Obama was born on January 17, 1964, in Chicago, Illinois. She always was incredible in school and even skipped 2nd grade. For college, she went to Princeton University and graduated in 1985. She later entered Harvard Law School and graduated. After graduating from Harvard, Michelle Obama joined the Chicago corporate-law firm of Sidley; Austin and mentored Barack Obama who was a Harvard law student at the time and had joined the firm as an intern in 1988. She married Barack Obama in 1992 and was quickly plunged into politics.

During Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Michelle Obama was a crucial part of their campaigning; touring the country with him, and even sometimes made her own appearances to support him. In addition, Michelle Obama had her own goals and was able to work towards them during her husband’s presidency. During Barack Obama’s presidency, Michelle Obama fought the epidemic of obesity in America, promoting physical activity and healthy eating. She started the program Let’s Move! in February 2010, which encouraged everyone to make healthier changes.

Often, she would visit schools and invite children to the white house where they would tend to her vegetable garden in order to promote healthy lifestyles. She traveled to foreign countries with and without the president, with the intent to improve the relationship with those countries. In addition, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden worked together and launched a program that supported the families of military members in April 2011.

Summary of Administration

Barack Obama’s presidency began in November of 2008 and ended in January of 2017. He had 8 years in office. During those years, he did many notable things. In 2009, Obama was very active. In February of 2009, he signed a $787 billion spending plan to prompt the economy, announced a salary limit of $500,000 for top executives that had requested federal bailouts, and started a $75 billion plan to help 9 million Americans faced with mortgage problems. In May, he made the first supreme court nomination, judge Sonia Sotomayor who was the first Latina supreme court justice and third woman on the top court. In the summer, after Obamacare was put into effect, it took over media headlines, causing immense controversy.

Obama’s first act in 2010 was in April, after the explosion of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico when he met with victims of the explosion and established a $20 billion fund for the victims. In May Obama ordered 1,200 National Guard troops to enhance security along the U.S.-Mexican Border, and Fired Stanley A. McChrystal, who was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and replaced him with David Petraeus. In the late Spring, he gave speeches about how education is important to the success of America. In August, he spoke to the nation, marking the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq.

2011 and 2012 were not as eventful as 2009 and 2010. In June of 2011, Obama spoke to the nation, announcing the withdrawal of troops in Afghanistan in July, with 33 thousand people returning home. In May of 2012, he challenged lawmakers to help Americans with a mortgage and to create jobs and disclosed his belief that same-sex marriage should be legalized. On December 14, 2012, Obama faced what he called, “the hardest day of his presidency”.

Students and teachers in Newton were attacked by an armed gunman, taking the lives of six adults and twenty children. Obama traveled to newton to publically speak about the tragic event and privately meet with the families of the victims. On December 31, 2012, the government hit the limit on money allowed to borrow, which left the middle class vulnerable to higher taxes.

2013 began with Obama announcing 23 executive orders about gun control, strengthening all background checks for the purchasing of guns on January 16. His second inauguration took place on January 21, 2013. On the first of February, Hillary Rodham Clinton, the secretary of state, stepped down and was replaced by Senator John Kerry. In September, Congress failed to raise the national borrowing limit as a result of the debt ceiling that was hit on Dec. 31, 2012.

This caused 800,000 government to be forced to take a leave of absence, essentially shutting down the government. As a result of this, republican leaders demanded the defunding of Obamacare, a demand that Obama refused to negotiate with. After 16 days, republicans gave in to president Obama, allowing temporary spending bills to pass. Dr. Janet Yellen was nominated by Obama as chair of the Board of the Federal Reserve in October. She was the first woman to ever be nominated for the position.

Works Cited

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2. “Barack Obama.” Contemporary Black Biography, vol. 74, Gale, 2009. Biography In Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/K1606004418/BIC?u=mlin_c_gibbons;sid=BIC;xid=88f4b098. Accessed 3 May 2018.
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5. “Michelle Obama.” Contemporary Black Biography, vol. 61, Gale, 2007. Biography In Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/K1606003703/BIC?u=mlin_c_gibbons;sid=BIC;xid=bdb31a03. Accessed 3 May 2018.
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The world celebrates victory made by president Barrack Hussein Obama as the 44th president in the United States of America. He was born in August 04, 1961 in Hawaii. After his college education, he moved to Chicago where was recruited as member of community futuristic. He thereafter attended the school of Law in the Harvard University which enabled him to serve as an attorney and law professor in the Chicago.

In 1996, Hussein was elected to join in the Illinois state where he served for a while. Because of his aggressive nature and the desire to know much about politics, he maneuvered his ways and in 2004, obama was elected in the United State Senate (Sherman 307). He served in the senate for four years and in 2008, he became the first black American to be the president. This is quite inspiring and motivating and for this reason, he is an example that anyone can refer to worldwide.

Together with his wife, they are blessed with two daughters, Malia and Sasha. In this regard, this paper aims at pointing out some key elements that impress the society about his leadership. In so doing, the paper scrutinizes on the qualities that made him fit for leadership, some factors that distinguish him from other leaders, the challenges he faced as a leader, the contributions he made to the world during his reign and lessons that the society from his leadership.

Qualities that make Him a Leader

He has a lot of fervor and perseverance. He is a firm believer and if you are convinced that something is right, then you have all the powers to convince the public about it. The public should get your message and you should not be infringed. However much it might take time to be accepted by the people, but it will eventually succeed. When he took his stand on the UN resolution concerning the conflict between Israel and Palestine, everyone involved in the issue believed that he has a valid point for not taking to American and the world at large for granted (Obama 298) In the summit, he talked with lots of logics and facts that made other leaders understand his point. This created a lot of influence to the stakeholders and he won the debate.

He is a risk taker. Many people fear taking risk because taking risk involve accepting any outcome associated with the result, either positive or negative. As a leader and for you to be successful, risk taking is very pivotal. This is a case seen with Obama. In his speech, he says that he took a big stake in 2004 when he vied for presidency for the first time. His allies advised him otherwise, but this did not deter him from soldering on. Despite the failure, he was optimistically driven that he would one day become a president in the most powerful nation worldwide.

The art of communication is also an attribute in him. A leader must be eloquent in his speech. He should be at a position of addressing multitude without creating boredom to them. Mr. Obama is a leader parity excellence (Sherman 308). He knows how to address any person irrespective of age, gender, social background, race among other factors. In this dictum, he deserves all uplifts for being spick and p person who have a perfect art of communication.

Obama as a leader has the ability to turn the ends to become new beginning. Any leader who cannot create way where there seems to be no way is doomed to fail. In many occasion, he turned an end to become new beginning. That is where his leadership skills made great difference to other leaders. When one watches or listens to most of his speeches, he likes using the phrase “let us get back to work”. Most of the occasions, he uses positive public reactions to start new projects that are helpful to people so that he keeps the momentum going and help him in completing new tasks ahead of him.

What makes Him Different from other People

Even the international leaders confirm that president Obama has some distinctive features that make him different from other leaders. The Russian president Dmitry Medvedev during his interview confirms that Obama is a unique leader who does not leave any stone unturned, he creates ways where there is no way.

He has good rules of networking. When he hosted the introductory Obama Foundation Summit in his home town, Chicago, he provided networking opportunities for over five hundred to the civic leaders all over the world (Sherman 310). During his speech, he gave an inspiring talk behind the start of the foundation. It was to create a hub, an avenue, a networking site for the young people from all backgrounds to help them meet, interact and learn more from one another. This would help open job avenues for them.

Challenges he Faced

During his reign, he faced series of challenges. He got a handle on uncontrollable welfare dependency. The US government has a lot of funding to most of the welfare programs, eleven for housing assistance, and twelve for the social services. On the other hand, there are three for energy and utility assistance, twelve for food help and other twelve for education sector (Sherman 309). Lastly, there are nine allocated for vocational training, three for children development, ten are for medical cover and ten are billed towards providing cash help to those in need. All these welfare are to be funded by the government and they require good cash flow. During his era, he used a lot of funds in the welfare since they entirely depend on the state help.

Another challenge he realized is working with corrupt and collapsing banking system. During his ministry, laws were enacted to help the big banks and prevent them from collapsing. Because the banks were very pivotal to the growth of the United States, the government had to solicit money for them so that they don’t collapse. A lot of money was used from the government and five years after his election, they had beholden the federal government. The banking system may have resulted to more economic disasters in the states than before 2008.
Most of the American students owe more loans to the government (Obama 298).

The students owe the government a lot of money and it will be very difficult for the government to plough back the money since during the time they should be working to get their own income, they will be paying the bills to the government. On the some note, the government also encourages students to go to colleges and universities which also require huge amount of money. This has made the government to use a lot of money in sponsoring the students despite the fact of not knowing when the money is to be refunded.

Contributions He Made to the World

During his era, there are series of contributions that he made that make the world celebrate him now and forever. He introduced the affordable care act, which to date is said to be his domestic achievement. In establishing this, his aim was to provide affordable health insurance to many people around the state without huge involvement of money.

He was at the fore front and tirelessly fought for Paris Agreement. The fighting brought about a comprehensive framework that enabled the reduction of global climate change. A celebrated contribution that he also made is that he commanded and supported the Supreme Court in the ruling that was made on same sex marriage. In his argument he said that if everyone was created equally then we should love and commit to each other on the same ground.

He helped in improving the economy of the state during the period when the nation was experiencing great depression. He achieved this by signing the Recovery Act that helped the tax payers pay less. This enabled the business men to do well in their operations since there were heavy taxes charged upon them. On the same note, he helped in creating more industries that provided job opportunities to the citizens. For example, he helped to stimulate the auto industry when the nation was in financial crisis. The industry created over two hundred and fifty thousand jobs too many people since then and this has made their lives change economically.

Lessons He Taught to Others

President Barrack has a lot that people can learn from him. First, through him, the attribute of patience and perseverance is depicted. Whenever one is determined and wants to achieve anything in life, he can do it irrespective of the obstacles. In as much as he got discouragement from allies during his 2004 trial, he was not discouraged, his determination eventually bore him fruits.

Obama`s reputation as the master orator is driven by what he intends to do as an average singer. In many occasions and events, his eloquent speaking and singing motivates and teaches the community about so many issues. For example, he spoke in the funeral of Senator Daniel Inouye. He also spoke in the eulogy of Nelson Mandela. When he sings his beloved song,” The Amazing Grace” before the whole world, he teaches the world that through the grace of the Lord he has been able to be whoever he is. The song instill memorable message in his life which he feels that he should share with the public.

He taught about the importance of believe. He says that belief in change is very instrumental and important quality of a leader (Obama 299). A leader must change a place or an event better than he or she found it. Seeking for change either politically, socially or even economically makes one to grow and have more power to challenge the many people who may be against you. On the same plinth, one should communicate out his petition however good or bad it is. Self-confidence enables one to express himself at a high level that many cannot reach. Among many other lessons, Obama is celebrated as the only black American to be in the white house. Indeed, he is a role model to many.