Barack Obama (Brave New World)

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 previously served as a  United States Senator from  Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; ">.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; line-height: 20px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal;">Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; line-height: 20px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal;">Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. In October 2009, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

<p style="margin-top: 0.4em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; line-height: 20px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal;">As president, Obama signed economic stimulus legislation in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. Other domestic policy initiatives include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 and the Budget Control Act of 2011. In foreign policy, he ended the war in Iraq, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered US involvement in the 2011 Libya military intervention, and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. In April 2011, Obama declared his intention to seek re-election in the 2012 presidential election.

2012 United States presidential election
<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; ">On April 4, 2011, Obama announced his re-election campaign for 2012 in a video titled "It Begins with Us" that he posted on his website and filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; ">.

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; ">Obama's campaign headquarters are in Chicago<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; "> and key members of Obama's successful 2008 campaign<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; ">, such as Jim Messina<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; "> and David Axelrod<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; ">, are returning to staff it. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; "> On the day of the announcement, the campaign released a promotional video showing supporters of Obama organizing for the re-election effort. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-size: 12px; line-height: 11px;"> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; ">As The Guardian<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; "> noted, this was the first U.S. presidential re-election campaign to use Twitter<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; "> and Facebook<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; line-height: 20px; "> for promotion.

Assassination attempt
During a presidential address in Washington D.C. regarding the controversial SOPA bill, President Obama was nearly killed in an assassination attempt by a Viacom employee, as part of a plot by a group of mass media corporations to convert the United States into a corporate-run police state. Obama's head was grazed by one of the employee's bullets, which ultimately sent him into a coma for almost a month. Obama eventually regained consciousness and began to walk and talk normally until he returned to office. The assassination attempt was one of the chief causes of the Second American Civil War.