| November 12, 19:00 PM
, 2020 | - While on vacation with his family in Hawaii, U.S. President Barack Obama released four sea turtles into Hanauma Bay and signed into law a military-spending bill, despite expressing reservations about certain provisions, including one that imposes sanctions on Iranian oil exports.
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| November 11, 6:00 PM
, 2020 | - Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez of Idaho was charged with attempting to assassinate President Barack Obama after it was discovered he had fired nine rounds at the White House, cracking a window, while the First Family was out of town. In an “Oprah” audition tape uncovered by journalists, Ortega-Hernandez said, “I am the modern-day Jesus Christ that you all have been waiting for,” and, “When humans party, they party hard.”
| Source 1:
AP via New York Times
Source 2:
New York Magazine
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| November 3, 17:00 PM
, 2020 | - It was revealed that Fox News's vice president, Bill Sammon, thought that his network's repeated attempts during the 2008 election to brand Barack Obama a “socialist” were “mischievous speculation” that he believed to truly be “rather far-fetched.”
| Source:
dailybeast
|
| December 24, 2015 | - After weeks of infighting, Congress passed a two-month extension of the payroll-tax cut. House Republicans, who had rejected a nearly identical measure days earlier, were left divided over the stopgap measure, which pitted recently elected lawmakers seeking major reforms against party veterans. “When you start making decisions based on elections,” said Representative Mo Brooks (R., Ala.), ”then you run the risk of having the mess we just did." President Barack Obama also signed into law a $1 trillion spending bill, warning that he reserved the right to challenge certain provisions promoted by Republicans, such as a prohibition on using the money to repatriate prisoners from Guantánamo Bay.
| Source 1:
Reuters via Raw Story
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
USA Today
Source 4:
USA Today
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| January 5, 2012 | - The U.S. Labor Department revealed that unemployment had fallen in December to 8.5 percent, the lowest level in almost three years, and President Barack Obama made the first recess appointments during a break of fewer than three days since 1949, nominating three people to the National Labor Relations Board and five-time “Jeopardy!” champion Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “I hope that the Senate has the backbone to say, ‘You will withdraw these nominations or we are doing nothing,’” said Santorum.
| Source 1:
Reuters
Source 2:
Atlantic
Source 3:
Bloomberg
Source 4:
New York Times
Source 5:
Bloomberg
|
| November 25, 2011 | - Two Illinois lawmakers proposed that Chicago become a state, and Scottish students who burned Barack Obama in effigy apologized to the president.
| Source 1:
WAND TV
Source 2:
Daily Mail
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| November 2, 2011 | - After being declared “tobacco free” by his physician, President Barack Obama was reportedly observed chewing nicotine gum at the G-20 summit in Cannes, while scientists at Columbia University discovered that nicotine causes changes in gene regulation that enhance subsequent responses to cocaine, lending credence to the notion of “gateway drugs.” “People think it’s backed by conservative movements to make a case for making marijuana illegal,” said researcher Amir Levine, “when it is simply the sequence of adolescent drug use as found in epidemiological studies.”
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
USA Today
Source 3:
Scientific American
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| October 20, 2011 | - Libyan forces shot and killed deposed leader Muammar Qaddafi after finding him hidden in a drainage pipe in Sirte. Upon being discovered, Qaddafi reportedly raised his hands and begged, “Don't kill me, my sons.” Video footage showed him being taunted, beaten, and sodomized with a weapon, possibly after he had been shot in the head and stomach. His body was mounted on a truck and paraded around Misrata before it was placed in a shopping-center freezer. Crowds said, “We want to see the dog!” as they lined up to view the corpse. “The dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted,” said President Barack Obama. “Wow!” said secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
| Source 1:
Telegraph
Source 2:
AP
Source 3:
AP
Source 4:
GlobalPost via CBS
Source 5:
New York Times
Source 6:
BBC
|
| October 16, 2011 | - At the dedication of a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, President Barack Obama said that were King alive today he “would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonizing all who work there.”
| Source:
Time
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| October 1, 2011 | - Two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, were killed by a CIA drone in Yemen. Awlaki, a cleric whose speeches purportedly inspired young Muslim radicals, had been added to the CIA’s list of terrorist targets in early 2010. According to the U.S. government, Awlaki, who has never been tried or convicted of a crime in the United States, directed several failed terrorist plots. Khan, who edited a jihadi magazine, was never an official U.S. target. “Make no mistake,” said President Barack Obama, “this is further proof that Al Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe haven anywhere in the world.”
| Source 1:
The Hill
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| September 23, 2011 | - At a Republican presidential debate on Thursday, Michele Bachmann pledged to sign the “mother of all repeal bills” to abolish the Department of Education, and Rick Santorum called President Barack Obama “the new King George III.”
| Source:
NY Times
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| September 19, 2011 | -
President Barack Obama proposed a $3 trillion deficit-reduction plan that included the “Buffett Rule,” which would increase taxes for the 0.3 percent of Americans who earn more than $1 million a year. Republicans contended that such an increase would discourage investment in new businesses and further stall job growth. “Class warfare may make for really good politics,” said Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), “but it makes for rotten economics.” “This is not class warfare,” said Obama. “It’s math.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| September 11, 2011 | - The United States observed the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. Thousands of mourners gathered at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Relatives and loved ones read out the names of the victims, bagpipers played, and six moments of silence were observed, one for each airliner and one for each of the twin towers. President Barack Obama visited all three sites in the course of the day. In New York City, he read from Psalm 46, and former president George W. Bush read from a letter to a grieving mother by Abraham Lincoln; the crowd cheered Bush, and Paul Simon performed “The Sound of Silence.” In Pennsylvania, the president and his wife laid a wreath, after which some in attendance chanted “USA! USA!” and a man shouted “Thanks for getting bin Laden!” At his final event of the day, in Washington, Obama spoke about the wars that grew out of 9/11: “Our strength is not measured in our ability to stay in these places,” he said. “It comes from our commitment to leave those lands to free people and sovereign states, and our desire to move from a decade of war to a future of peace.”
| Source 1:
NY Times
Source 2:
AP via Washington Post
Source 3:
NY Times
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| August 31, 2011 | - World markets fell after the Labor Department reported no growth in the number of U.S. jobs in August, while census data showed that local and state governments cut more than 200,000 jobs in 2010. President Barack Obama agreed to delay an address to Congress on employment at the insistence of House Speaker John Boehner, and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency not to enforce new limits on smog emissions.
| Source 1:
Associated Press
Source 2:
Reuters
Source 3:
Detroit Free Press
Source 4:
Huffington Post
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| August 12, 2011 | - A federal appeals court struck down the requirement in U.S. health-care legislation that all Americans be insured, Barack Obama's approval rating dropped below 40 percent for the first time in his presidency, and leftists in Denmark beat up Shepard Fairey, creator of the Obama “HOPE” poster, after calling him “Obama Illuminati.” Fairey declined to file a police report, explaining, “The only thing I could see coming out of it was further media commentary like 'Street artist whiner Shepard Fairey can't hold it down in a fight so he snitches to the cops.'”
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
Los Angeles Times
Source 3:
Guardian
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| July 28, 2011 | -
Barack Obama’s approval rating fell to 40 percent, the lowest mark of his presidency, and Apple Computer Inc. had more cash on hand than the U.S. Treasury.
| Source 1:
LAT
Source 2:
Financial Post
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| July 24, 2011 | - Negotiations collapsed between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner on a deal to raise the nation's debt ceiling before the U.S. Treasury runs out of money. As described by Obama, the deal would have cut discretionary spending by more than $1 trillion and entitlement programs by $650 billion, and would have added $1.2 trillion in revenue from the elimination of tax loopholes and deductions. “It’s hard to understand why Speaker Boehner would walk away from this kind of deal,” Obama said. Boehner countered that “the White House moved the goal posts” by asking for “more money at the last minute — and the only way to get that extra revenue was to raise taxes.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
New York Times
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| July 14, 2011 | -
Congress failed to agree on a plan to avoid sending the United States into default. President Barack Obama warned that if the debt ceiling were not raised by August 2, checks for the 70 million Americans who receive government benefits might not be mailed out. “Don’t call my bluff,” Obama cautioned Republican leaders during the negotiations. “I don’t need to see markets drop 400 points,” said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), “but Republicans may need to see markets drop 400 points.”
| Source 1:
New York Daily News
Source 2:
Daily Mail
Source 3:
The Hill
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| May 28, 2011 | - Fewer than 15 minutes before the expiry of the Patriot Act, President Barack Obama signed an extension to the law from Paris with an autopen, the first time a president has used the instrument to ratify legislation.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 20, 2011 | - Talks with Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, grew tense after Barack Obama called for the country's pre-1967 borders to be the starting point for peace negotiations with Palestinians. Netanyahu rejected the proposal, saying, “Remember that before 1967, Israel was all of nine miles wide; it's half the width of the Washington Beltway. These were not the boundaries of peace. They were the boundaries of repeated wars.” President Obama resolved to continue pressuring the Israelis, but stated, “Obviously there are some differences between us in the precise formulations and language, and that's going to happen between friends.”
| Source:
CNN
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| May 4, 2011 | -
President Barack Obama announced that the government would not release pictures of Osama bin Laden's mutilated corpse, saying, “We don't need to spike the football.”
| Source:
CBS News
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| April 10, 2011 | - Amid word that he will announce his candidacy for president, Donald Trump continued to search for Barack Obama’s birth certificate by sending a team of investigators to Hawaii. “I don’t like to talk about this issue too much,” Trump said on CNN, “because I really would rather talk about China.”
| Source:
Fox News
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| March 17, 2011 | - The confirmed death toll from Japan's earthquake and tsunami rose to about 8,400, and the final death toll was expected to be more than 20,000. President Barack Obama made an unannounced visit to the Japanese embassy in Washington, D.C., to sign a condolence book. As the risk of full-scale meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant became more likely, 750 emergency staff were evacuated, leaving behind only 50 technicians, who either volunteered or were compelled to stay. “I may be a bit too callous about this due to the fact that I was really heavily exposed to radiation,” said seventy-one-year-old Kazuko Yamashita, who was five when her home in Nagasaki was destroyed by an atomic bomb, “but I don't think this is anything to turn pale over.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Talking Points Memo
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
MSNBC
|
| February 22, 2011 | - In a unanimous vote, the United Nations Security Council imposed military and financial sanctions on Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, freezing his assets and placing an arms embargo on Libya. The Security Council also voted to open a war-crimes investigation based on Qaddafi's brutal response to antigovernment protests; estimates of the death toll since protests began on Februay 17 range from hundreds to 2,000. Egyptian cleric Yusuf al Qaradawi, famous for his fatwas, ordered officers in the Libyan army to “shoot a bullet at Mr. Qaddafi,” and President Barack Obama called for Qaddafi to step down. Security forces loyal to Qaddafi reportedly shot protesters and ran them down with cars, while military aircraft were used to bomb rebels. As Qaddafi's security forces comprising police, military, and African mercenaries gathered in Tripoli to defend the leader's stronghold, Libyans hid inside their homes. “They won't just shoot us,” said one Tripoli resident. “Maybe they will get revenge on the whole household, the whole family, even the whole street. These people have no mercy. We have known them for 42 years.” Qaddafi, who referred to protesters as “cockroaches,” appeared in Tripoli's Green Square and promised that his government would “defeat any aggression,” then encouraged his supporters to “dance” and “sing and get ready.” He blamed the unrest on al Qaeda, who he claimed were “exploiting” Libyan youth by “putting hallucinogenic pills in their coffee with milk, like Nescafé.”
| Source 1:
WaPo
Source 2:
Al Jazeera
Source 3:
Haaretz
Source 4:
WaPo
Source 5:
Al Jazeera
Source 6:
MSNBC
Source 7:
BBC
Source 8:
Sky News
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| February 14, 2011 | -
President Barack Obama released his proposed budget for 2012, projecting a deficit of more than $1.6 trillion for the current fiscal year, the largest shortfall since 1945.
| Source:
NYTimes
|
| January 15, 2011 | -
President Barack Obama, speaking at a memorial service in Arizona for the six killed during Jared Loughner's shooting spree, urged Americans to be better people. “I want our democracy to be as good as Christina imagined it,” Obama said, referring to 9-year-old victim Christina Taylor Green. “All of us—we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.” The president then choked up, pausing for 51 seconds. “I had her heart in my hand,” said Dr. Randall Friese, the surgeon who operated on Christina. “We filled it with blood. It still didn’t want to beat. So, it was over. We’re finished.” Sales of Glock semi-automatic pistols, the model of handgun used by Loughner, surged. Four Arizona Republicans resigned from public office, fearing violence from Tea Party activists, and Clear Channel removed a Tucson billboard that described Rush Limbaugh as a “straight shooter.” Gabrielle Giffords opened her eye for the first time since the shooting, and the Safeway where the shooting took place reopened.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
Bloomberg
Source 5:
Raw Story
Source 6:
Raw Story
Source 7:
New York Times
Source 8:
New York Times
|
| December 27, 2010 | - A national poll found President Barack Obama to be the most admired man in America and Glenn Beck to be more admired than the Dalai Lama.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| November 26, 2010 | - Rey Decerega, the Director of Programs for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, elbowed President Barack Obama in the lip during a post-Thanksgiving basketball game, causing the president to receive twelve stitches. “I enjoyed playing basketball with him,” said Decerega.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Talking Points Memo
Source 3:
New York Times
|
| November 13, 2010 | - The Group of 20 met in Seoul. World leaders accepted new policies meant to avoid “currency wars,” but Barack Obama’s proposal of a 4 percent limit on national trade deficits was stymied by China and Germany, and the summit was largely a failure. “Instead of hitting home runs, sometimes we’re going to hit singles,” Mr. Obama said. “But they’re really important singles.”
| Source:
NYTimes
|
| November 3, 2010 | - “It would be hard to argue that we’re going backwards,” said President Barack Obama after the elections. “I think what you can argue is we’re stuck in neutral.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 31, 2010 | -
President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton, and Ohio
Representative John Boehner, who is expected to become the new Speaker of the House, all campaigned in Ohio. “Remember when Ronald Reagan was president?” Boehner asked. “We had Bob Hope. We had Johnny Cash. Think about where we are today. We have got President Obama. But we have no hope and we have no cash.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 3, 2010 | -
President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, announced in a video that he planned to resign from the White House to run for mayor of Chicago, and called for leadership that is “smart enough to know what government should do—and also what it can't do.” Election lawyers suggested that Emanuel may not be able to run for mayor because he is not a legal resident of Chicago, having rented out his house for 18 months. “I've talked to the guy,” said attorney Burt Odelson about Emanuel's tenant, who has refused to break the lease, “and they're pissed.”
| Source 1:
CBS
Source 2:
Chicago Sun-Times
|
| August 1, 2010 | - The cast of MTV's “Jersey Shore” rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice accompanied Aretha Franklin on the piano at a gala benefit for arts education, and while visiting a Michigan auto plant to promote the government's bailout of the auto industry, Barack Obama drove ten feet in a battery-powered Chevrolet Volt. “I hope it has an air bag,” press secretary Robert Gibbs said.
| Source 1:
Huffington Post
Source 2:
The Washington Post
Source 3:
WSJ
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| July 25, 2010 | -
President Barack Obama signed into law the Restoring American Financial Stability Act, which expands federal regulation to derivatives markets and other previously unregulated areas of the financial system and creates a panel to monitor risks to the financial system. “These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history,” Obama said. Analysts estimated that three quarters of the bill's substance would be determined later, and congressional Democrats and labor leaders pushed for Elizabeth Warren, the architect of the consumer financial protection bureau created by the bill, to be named its first head. “Symbolically, it does seem incredibly important to pick somebody who not only invented the idea,” said Stephen Lerner of the Service Employees International Union, “but someone who doesn’t claim to be a neutral.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Forbes
Source 4:
New York Times
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| July 6, 2010 | -
President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Washington, D.C., where they agreed that, after repeated visits by Netanyahu to the United States, Obama would soon travel to Israel to “redress the balance.” The two men also said that peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians would resume before the current moratorium on settlement construction expired in September, though they did not offer a specific date.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 4, 2010 | - “Obama Anak Menteng,” or “Little Obama,” an Indonesian film based on Barack Obama's childhood in the Southeast Asian nation, premiered in Jakarta. The film shows how Obama was able to adapt to life in a new country with the help of his Indonesian stepfather, who taught him to fight, and of Turdi, his transgender nanny. “Thanks should go to Turdi,” said one viewer. “He's the only character who spices up this film.”
| Source 1:
Christian Science Monitor
Source 2:
Jakarta Post
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| June 24, 2010 | - June became the deadliest month thus far for coalition forces in the Afghan war, with at least 80 killed, including 46 Americans. General Stanley McChrystal resigned in disgrace after a magazine article quoted him mocking the civilian leadership and revealing that his favorite beer is Bud Light Lime. President Barack Obama nominated General David Petraeus to replace McChrystal; anonymous sources in the Pentagon said that Petraeus would revise McChrystal's policy of “courageous restraint,” which had been implemented to reduce the killing of Afghan civilians. Anonymous soldiers at one unnamed camp in Afghanistan rejoiced at the news of McChrystal's departure. “I joined the Army,“ explained one junior NCO, ”to find and kill the people who blew up our buildings."
| Source 1:
Telegraph
Source 2:
LAT
Source 3:
Stars and Stripes
Source 4:
NYT
Source 5:
NYT
Source 6:
WP
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| June 16, 2010 | -
President Barack Obama premiered a new political narrative of the BP oil spill during a nationally televised address. Instead of portraying government efforts as a cleanup, Obama described a “battle plan”: the oil flowing from the destroyed BP wellhead was not an industrial accident but a “siege” and an “assault [on] our shores.” BP announced that it would cease paying dividends to shareholders and instead hoard money for use in future lawsuits. Americans remained in favor of offshore drilling, members of Congress sold their shares in oil and gas companies as quickly as they could, and Vice President Joe Biden confirmed that he was a politician and proud of it.
| Source 1:
NY Times
Source 2:
NY Times
Source 3:
NY Times
Source 4:
NY Times
Source 5:
NY Times
Source 6:
Washington Post
Source 7:
Drudge Report
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| May 21, 2010 | - Paul, son of libertarian Congressman Ron Paul and a Tea Party supporter, was lambasted for hosting his victory celebration at a country club. “I think Tiger Woods has helped to broaden that,” said Paul in defense of the private club, “in the sense that he's brought golf to a lot of the cities.” Paul then criticized the Americans With Disabilities Act, federal mining regulations, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and offered his thoughts on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and President Barack Obama's criticism of BP. “This sort of, you know, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP,' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business,” Paul said, adding, “Maybe sometimes accidents happen.”
| Source 1:
Talking Points Memo
Source 2:
Talking Points Memo
|
| May 9, 2010 | -
President Barack Obama nominated solicitor general and former Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. The confirmation of Kagan, a self-described “famously excellent teacher” with an elite liberal pedigree, a scanty scholarly record, and no judicial experience, would make the Court one-third Jewish as well as one-third female.
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
Salon
Source 3:
NYT
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| April 22, 2010 | - Dorothy Height, whom President Barack Obama called “the godmother of the civil rights movement,” died at the age of 98.
| Source:
San Francisco Chronicle
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| April 18, 2010 | - The ash kept many world leaders, including President Barack Obama, from joining the 150,000 mourners at the funeral of Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, who were interred in a crypt in the Wawel Cathedral, which houses the remains of Polish kings, saints, and other national heroes. “This decision has political sense, to use this catastrophe to create, in an artificial way, a new myth or hero,” said Kaczynski's longtime political rival Aleksander Kwasniewski. “But the Polish people are too clever not to see this intention. Putting him at Wawel is a step too far.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 1, 2010 | - The U.S. Department of Labor announced that employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the first increase in more than two years. “We are beginning to turn the corner,” said President Barack Obama, despite the fact that nearly one third of the jobs were temporary hires by the U.S. government for the 2010 Census. The ADP Employer Services report, which does not include government jobs, found that the private sector lost 23,000 jobs in March. “The economic recovery,” said Macroeconomic Advisers Chairman Joel Prakken, “has not been long enough or strong enough along the way yet to produce the kind of rapid employment that people are hoping for.”
| Source 1:
Time
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Washington Post
|
| March 21, 2010 | - With a blue “Tedstrong” bracelet around his wrist and 22 pens (19 to be handed out as souvenirs, two for posterity, and one for himself), President Barack Obama signed a health-care reform bill that will extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. “This is a big fucking deal,” said Vice President Joe Biden. Republican lawmakers, not one of whom voted to pass the law, were outraged. Corey Poitier, a Florida GOP candidate for Congress, compared Obama to a Little Rascal: “Listen up, Buckwheat. This is not how it is done!” Poitier, who is black, defended the remark. “People love Buckwheat,” he said, then looked at his palms to prove he wasn't racist. “This isn't a spray tan. This is real.”
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
Gawker
Source 3:
CBS News
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| February 26, 2010 | -
Democrats and Republicans met for the first-ever health-care summit, a televised event that ran well past its scheduled six hours and in which lawmakers, led by President Barack Obama, debated the merits of health-care legislation. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) complained that Democrats were being given more time to speak, a point Obama conceded. “You're right,” he said, “there was an imbalance on the opening statements because I'm the president.”
| Source:
Washington Post
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| February 14, 2010 | -
Barack Obama's political campaign was looking to hire a Twitterer.
| Source:
Barackobama.com
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| February 1, 2010 | - The Reuters news service withdrew a report that President Barack Obama was “backdooring” the American middle class with hidden taxes.
| Source:
Christian Science Monitor
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| January 27, 2010 | -
President Barack Obama skipped jury duty to deliver his first State of the Union address. In the 70-minute speech, Obama blamed Republicans for “saying no to everything,” Democratic leaders in Congress for “horse-trading,” and the Supreme Court for a recent decision that will allow elections to be “bankrolled by special interests.” Justice Samuel Alito shook his head and mouthed the words “not true.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dozed. Obama also criticized banks, lobbyists, his own political strategy, and, indirectly, root canals; an objection from the American Society of Endodontists was duly noted. The president announced that leftover stimulus money would generate 1.5 million new jobs for the 15 million out-of-work Americans and called for a new bill to create jobs by giving tax credits to small businesses that hire new workers. He planned to cut the federal deficit with a freeze on domestic spending that, if successful, would reduce the United States' expected shortfall by less than 3 percent over the next ten years. Thirty-two minutes into the address, Obama reiterated his commitment to health-care reform. He also said he wanted to end the Iraq war. “Make no mistake,” he said. “All of our troops are coming home.” He also committed 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan for December. MSNBC host Chris Matthews was impressed: “I forgot he was black tonight,” he said.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
UPI
Source 5:
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Source 6:
New York Times
Source 7:
New York Times
Source 8:
New York Times
Source 9:
New York Times
Source 10:
MSNBC
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| January 22, 2010 | -
Democratic senators and representatives were scrambling to find a way to push reforms forward, though many admitted that the health care bill was essentially dead. President Barack Obama said he understood why people “were all in a tizzy trying to figure out what this means for health reform” but did not suggest a plan.
| Source:
CNN
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| January 8, 2010 | -
President Barack Obama addressed the nation with the results of a security review he ordered after the failed Christmas Day underwear bombing. “We are at war against Al Qaeda,” he said, noting also that when it comes to security matters the buck stops with him. Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York during the September 11 attacks, said that Obama's response to terrorism was inadequate. “We had no domestic attacks under Bush,” said Giuliani.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
Politico
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| 0, 2009 | - The U.S. Senate voted 60‒39 to bring the $848 billion health-care plan, with a diminished public option, to the floor for debate, but only after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed to concessions for centrist Democrats, such as providing as much as $300 million in extra Medicare funding to Senator Mary Landrieu's state of Louisiana. No Republicans voted for the measure. A poll found that only 38 percent of Americans support the plan, an all-time low; another poll found that 52 percent of Republicans believe community organization umbrella group ACORN stole the 2008 election for President Barack Obama, with an additional 21 percent undecided.
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
Examiner.com
Source 3:
Talking Points Memo
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| December 18, 2009 | - Nobel Peace laureate Barack Obama ordered the bombing of suspected Al Qaeda camps in Yemen, killing 49 civilians, including 23 children.
| Source 1:
Yahoo News
Source 2:
MSNBC
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| December 10, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo and used his acceptance speech to justify American military dominance, imperial conquest, and the ethical value of violence. The United States, he said, is “morally justified” in attacking other nations, and is in fact the “standard bearer” for wars that have “helped underwrite global security” with “the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”
| Source:
NY Times
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| December 2, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama, after a meal of Chesapeake striped bass and mango sorbet, visited West Point and announced his plan to send 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan in order to “deny Al Qaeda a safe haven,” “reverse the Taliban's momentum,” and “strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's security forces and government”; and then, after eighteen months (more than a year before the 2012 election), to start withdrawing troops. Republicans in Congress worried that the announcement of a withdrawal date would allow the Taliban and Al Qaeda to plan for the American military's departure, while Democrats questioned whether a significant drawdown in U.S. forces would actually occur. “Can any of you tell me, after July 2011, that we won't have tens of thousands of troops years beyond that date?” asked Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey. “We will have 100,000 forces, troops there,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained later in the week. “And they are not leaving in July of 2011. Some handful, or some small number, or whatever the conditions permit, will begin to withdraw at that time.” Representative Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, suggested that the combined escalation and exit strategy was engineered to please critics. “There's an old adage that a camel is a horse designed by committee,” Flake said. “This looks to be a policy designed by committee, a little something for everyone.” Hillary Clinton pointed out that camels are sturdy, ancient, and, though plodding, will get you where you need to go.
| Source 1:
The Atlantic
Source 2:
NYT
Source 3:
NYT
Source 4:
NYT
Source 5:
Politico
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| November 29, 2009 | - News leaked that President Barack Obama would send roughly 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, with the possibility of sending 10,000 more in a year, even as NATO allies spoke about withdrawing their own forces. Both Democrats and Republicans were skeptical of the strategy; Republican Senator Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) said that the call for phased deployment was “reminiscent of Vietnam.” Obama is expected, in a forthcoming speech at West Point, to provide a time frame for when American forces will leave the country and to stress that the goal in Afghanistan is to “defeat” Al Qaeda.
| Source 1:
The Daily Beast
Source 2:
Talking Points Memo
Source 3:
Talking Points Memo
|
| November 16, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama traveled to Shanghai,
China, where he addressed a town-hall meeting attended by members of the Chinese Communist Party Youth League, whose questions were pre-screened. The president described himself as “a big supporter of non-censorship.” The meeting, which the White House called the “marquee event” of Obama's trip to China, was not mentioned in official Chinese government news broadcasts. References to Obama's remarks on Chinese websites were removed within hours.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| November 1, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama caved to pressure from Congress and military contractors and passed a $680,000,000,000 defense bill. Obama also hosted a Halloween event at the White House, where he distributed M&Ms and dried fruit but did not wear a costume. First Lady Michelle Obama appeared as Cat Woman, dressed in a leopard-print top, fuzzy ears, and black eye shadow. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice dressed up as Goofy.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Breitbart
|
| October 12, 2009 | - As the United States marked the eighth anniversary of its war in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal asked President Barack Obama to send 40,000 more troops there. Senator John McCain was in favor of the surge, while Vice President Joe Biden argued for unmanned drones. Within days of Pakistan's announcing a new anti-Taliban offensive in Waziristan, the tribal area that borders Afghanistan, a suicide bomber dressed as a paramilitary officer blew himself up inside a U.N. aid agency in Islamabad, two car bombs killed dozens in markets in Peshawar, and ten gunmen disguised in army fatigues attacked the country's military headquarters, holding 45 hostages until a commando raid freed 42 of them; the remaining hostages and nine of the militants were killed.
| Source 1:
AP via Yahoo News
Source 2:
foxnews.com
Source 3:
AP via Yahoo News
Source 4:
AP via Yahoo News
|
| September 20, 2009 | - A quarter of the votes in Afghanistan's presidential elections were under review for fraud, including hundreds of thousands from polling stations where every vote went to incumbent Hamid Karzai; General Stanley McChrystal, America's top commander there, said that without additional troops the war “will likely result in failure,” adding that Afghans have “little reason to support their government.” President Barack Obama said that sending more troops would put the cart before the horse.
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
The New York Times
|
| September 12, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress and implored Democrats to pass their own health-care legislation. During the speech, the president noted that the bill would not extend health insurance to illegal immigrants, at which South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson shouted, “You lie!” Afterwards, Wilson received $1 million in campaign contributions. Shares in health insurance companies went up, and the number of Americans without health insurance rose to 46.3 million.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
CNN
Source 3:
Marketwatch
Source 4:
CNN
Source 5:
New York Times
Source 6:
The Hill
Source 7:
CNN
Source 8:
Fox News
Source 9:
Politico
|
| September 4, 2009 | - Polls showed that the level of public support for health-care reform was plummeting, a result of both Democratic capitulation--as when Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D., Mont.), after a year of preparation, released a proposal that lacked a public option--and a Republican campaign of lies regarding “death panels,” the cost of medical care, cuts in Medicare benefits, and “rationing.” President Barack Obama indicated that the White House may give up on Congress and draft its own bill; he also telephoned representatives who support the public option, including Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.), to talk about the bill. “I didn't come away from this discussion feeling that we were dead,” said Grijalva. The president scheduled a health-care speech before a joint session of Congress, and FOX News announced that it would not air it. A fight at a pro-health-care rally near Los Angeles ended when a pro-reform protester bit off the finger of an anti-reform protester.
| Source 1:
Who Runs Gov.
Source 2:
Politico
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
New York Times
Source 5:
KTLA
Source 6:
Black Star News
Source 7:
CNN
|
| August 6, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama confirmed a deal with drug companies, promising not to make them cut drug costs by more than $80 billion; drug companies promised to spend more on TV ads supporting Obama's plan than John McCain spent on TV ads in his entire presidential campaign. “Anything that increases coverage,” said CVS CFO David Rickard, “will be good for our company's business.”
| Source 1:
NYT
Source 2:
Bloomberg
Source 3:
NYT
|
| August 1, 2009 | -
Congress defied President Barack Obama and adjourned for the summer without passing a health-care-reform bill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved its own version of the bill 31-28 (with five Democrats and all 23 Republicans voting against it); its bill is one of five already produced or soon to be produced by the House and Senate. President Obama and congressional Democrats planned to tour the country to talk about the issue, while Republicans planned to identify the health-care plan as a failure akin to the $787 billion stimulus package, which after six months has yet to reverse unemployment. Health-insurance companies, described by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “immoral” and “the villains in this,” were spending $1 million a day to lobby lawmakers. A poll found that 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Congress. Thirty-nine million Americans were on food stamps.
| Source 1:
FOXNews.com
Source 2:
CNN
Source 3:
CNN
Source 4:
The New York Times
Source 5:
CQ Politics
Source 6:
Politico
Source 7:
Fox News
Source 8:
Politico
Source 9:
USA Today
|
| July 16, 2009 | - At the convention to honor the hundredth anniversary of the NAACP, President Obama admonished African Americans for their poor parenting, telling them they had to start “putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 16, 2009 | - Some worried that Obama was no longer cool after he appeared at the All-Star baseball game (where he threw a lob ball that didn't clear the plate) wearing “dad jeans.” “I suppose President Obama is indeed a father, so we should allow him such a strike against humanity,” said one blogger. “I thought he was cooler than that, somehow.”
| Source:
Politico
|
| June 22, 2009 | - Protesters supporting Mir Hussein Moussavi clashed with security forces throughout Iran as Moussavi called for further civil disobedience and the nullification of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election as president. “I am ready for martyrdom,” said Moussavi. Hundreds of people were arrested and at least a dozen were killed; Iran blamed the deaths on “armed terrorists” and announced a special court to try the protesters. President Barack Obama called on Iran's leadership to stop its “violent and unjust” response to the protests. Iranian police detained five relatives of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who supports Moussavi, and photographs of pro-Ahmadinejad rallies were manipulated to make crowds seem larger. Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who blamed the unrest on foreign governments and media, called on Iran's Guardian Council to examine some claims of voter fraud but warned that opposition leaders who failed to stop protests “would be responsible for bloodshed and chaos.” An initial election probe revealed that 50 locales had more votes than voters.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Daily News
Source 3:
Yahoo News
Source 4:
New York Times
Source 5:
News Grist
Source 6:
My Way News
Source 7:
New York Times
Source 8:
Los Angeles Times
|
| June 11, 2009 | -
Chicago Reverend Jeremiah Wright claimed that he hadn't spoken with Barack Obama, his former parishioner, since Obama assumed the presidency, because “them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me.” Asked to explain what he meant by “them Jews,” Wright explained that he was referring only to “Zionists.”
| Source 1:
Daily Press
Source 2:
Politico.com
|
| June 5, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama visited Cairo and addressed the Muslim world in a 55-minute speech that the White House arranged to be televised, text-messaged in four languages, and posted to Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter. Obama quoted from the Koran, spoke in Arabic, recognized Palestine, and said that “the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.” He visited the Sphinx and pyramids, then spent a night at the desert stallion farm of Saudi Arabian King Abdullah, who presented him with the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit, a thick gold chain with a very large medallion. “Goodness gracious,” said Obama of the necklace. “That's something there.” He went on to Europe, where he visited Buchenwald with Elie Wiesel, commemorated D-Day in Normandy, and declined a dinner invitation from French President Nicolas Sarkozy in order to eat alone with First Lady Michelle Obama.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
Chicago Tribune
Source 5:
CNN
Source 6:
Times
|
| June 3, 2009 | - With Nancy Reagan, dressed in a bright red pantsuit, beside him, her hand nestled in the crook of his arm, Obama signed a proclamation establishing the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission. Reagan later visited the Capitol rotunda to attend the unveiling of a seven-foot-tall, 500-pound bronze statue of her late husband, which stands atop a marble pedestal that contains a piece of the Berlin Wall.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| May 31, 2009 | -
General Motors filed for bankruptcy, and President Obama unveiled his plan to save the former industrial giant by nationalizing it, closing plants, and firing workers.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| May 29, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a Bronx-born, divorced, childless, diabetic, Hispanic federal judge on the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Analysts studying Sotomayor's decisions were unable to determine whether she would uphold Roe v. Wade, or whether she was distinctly pro- or anti-business, but much was made of a 2001 speech at the University of California at Berkeley in which she expressed hopes that a “wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.” During the speech she also expressed fondness for “platos de arroz, gandoles y pernil,” a dish made with rice, beans, and pork. “Her word choice in 2001 was poor,” offered White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, but many Republicans were unconvinced. “The comments she made about the quality of her decisions being better than those of a white male—I mean, we need to go further into her record to see whether this is a trend,” said Senator John Cornyn (R., Tex.), one of 98 non-Hispanic senators, who was considered for the Supreme Court in 2005 but not appointed. Newt Gingrich, who in 2007 spoke out against bilingual education by suggesting that students should “learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto,” criticized Sotomayor via Twitter. “White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw,” tweeted Gingrich. “Latina woman racist should also withdraw.”
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
The New York Times
Source 3:
The New York Times
Source 4:
The Guardian
Source 5:
The Washington Post
Source 6:
The Los Angeles Times
Source 7:
Fox News
Source 8:
The White House
Source 9:
The New York Times
Source 10:
FJC.gov
Source 11:
Wikipedia.org
Source 12:
Leading the news
|
| May 21, 2009 | -
Democrats in Congress denied President Barack Obama the $80 million he sought to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and move its prisoners to maximum-security prisons in the United States. “We don't want them around,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said of the prisoners. Obama, speaking in the rotunda at the National Archives where the Constitution is kept, insisted that he would move the prisoners despite resistance from Congress and put forth a new policy of “prolonged detention,” whereby terrorism suspects can be held indefinitely without trial. Vice President Joe Biden said that the White House had been evaluating Guantanamo prisoners with a “fine tooth comb.” “It's like opening Pandora's Box,” he said. “We don't know what's inside.”
| Source 1:
Fox News
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Newsweek
|
| May 17, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama delivered the commencement address at the University of Notre Dame despite protests from Catholics. “Let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions,” Obama said. “Let's provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term.” As he spoke, a plane flew over campus towing a banner that depicted the feet of an aborted fetus.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| May 8, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama said that his staff went “line by line” through the $3.4 trillion federal budget and found 121 programs that could be cut to save taxpayers $17 billion, or half a percent of the budget's total. Democratic lawmakers immediately protested the cuts, and Representative Maurice Hinchey (D., N.Y.) vowed to force the White House to accept delivery of a new presidential helicopter even though Obama says he doesn't need or want it.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
|
| April 21, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama convened his first official meeting with his Cabinet and told its members that they must cut spending by $100 million. Few were impressed. “Let's say,” said economist Paul Krugman, “the administration finds $100 million in efficiencies every working day for the rest of the Obama administration's first term. That's still around $80 billion, or around 2 percent of one year's federal spending.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
The Conscience of a Liberal
|
| April 16, 2009 | - The Department of Justice released four Office of Legal Counsel memos, issued in 2002 and 2005, to address CIA concerns that interrogation methods used on some high-level Al Qaeda members in custody were torture. Besides waterboarding, stress positions, slapping, and face-grabbing, the memos permitted “walling,” or repeatedly slamming prisoners into fake, flexible walls specially designed to make a loud noise when people are slammed into them; keeping a prisoner awake and shackled upright for more than a week, if “diapers are checked and changed as needed”; and putting a prisoner who is scared of insects in a box with a harmless insect and telling him that the insect had a stinger. President Barack Obama said that those “who acted reasonably and relied upon legal advice from the Department of Justice” would not be prosecuted.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
Guardian
Source 5:
Miami Herald
Source 6:
AP via Yahoo
Source 7:
DoJ
|
| April 12, 2009 | - and in cities across the United States, people dressed in Boston Tea Party-themed costumes to protest President Barack Obama's economic policies.
| Source:
USA Today
|
| April 2, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama traveled to Europe with his wife, Michelle, for the G-20 summit and the sixtieth anniversary of NATO, and met a number of foreign leaders for the first time, including Queen Elizabeth II (who, the press noted, actually touched the First Lady), Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, and Chinese President Hu Jintao. When Hu and French President Nicolas Sarkozy quarreled and refused to sign the summit's communique, Obama resolved their argument. “I'd suggest,” said one senior official, “we'd still be in there had he not done this.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
EW
Source 3:
ABC
|
| March 27, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama announced new military policies for Pakistan and Afghanistan, reserving, as had George W. Bush, the right to attack the tribal areas of Pakistan, but adding that the United States would create “opportunity zones” for investment in the areas of Pakistan most likely to be shelled. Obama also ordered that 4,000 U.S. military trainers be used to develop a 134,000-man national army in Afghanistan to combat the “uncompromising core of the Taliban.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 21, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama appeared on Jay Leno and described his bowling as so poor that it was “like the Special Olympics or something,” and released a video to the Iranian people, timed to coincide with Nowruz, the Persian New Year. “Let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi,” said Obama, “so many years ago: 'The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence.'” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran, responded to Obama's call for a “new beginning.” “They chant the slogan of change,” he said, “but no change is seen in practice.”
| Source 1:
Source 2:
The San Francisco Chronicle
Source 3:
The International Herald Tribune
Source 4:
Al Jazeera
|
| March 12, 2009 | - The Senate passed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that included more than 8,000 congressional earmarks, among them provisions for improving blueberry products in Georgia and controlling the spread of Mormon crickets in Utah. President Barack Obama, whose inaugural address included the promise that “those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits,” signed the bill into law. “This piece of legislation,” said Obama, “must mark an end to the old way of doing business.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| March 8, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama said the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 8, 2009 | -
President Obama attempted to reassure the nation: “I don't think,” he said, “that people should be fearful about our future.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 26, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama announced that he would pull all combat troops out of Iraq by 2010, and asked Congress for an extra $200 billion for the next eighteen months of war.
| Source 1:
CNN
Source 2:
CNN
|
| February 24, 2009 | -
President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress, offering a broad outline of a massive spending plan paired with $2 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. “Now is the time,” he said, “to jump-start job creation, restart lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education.”
| Source:
NPR.org
|
| February 21, 2009 | - President Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and unveiled a $275 billion plan to help some of the 6 million homeowners facing foreclosure in the next three years. Some Republican governors said they would refuse stimulus aid that required their states to expand unemployment insurance. “If Republican governors do not want this money,” said Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, “Democratic governors will put it to good use.”
| Source 1:
LAT
Source 2:
CNN
Source 3:
CNN
Source 4:
Bloomberg
Source 5:
CBS via CQ
Source 6:
Economist
Source 7:
Chicago Tribune
Source 8:
The Washington Post
Source 9:
The New York Times
Source 10:
The New York Times
Source 11:
The New York Times
|
| February 13, 2009 | - In a speech at the Capitol, President Obama called Lincoln a “singular figure who in so many ways made my own story possible--and who in so many ways made America's story possible.”
| Source:
CNN
|
| February 12, 2009 | - The House and Senate reached agreement on a $789 billion economic-stimulus plan, which President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law despite a lack of support from Republicans.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 9, 2009 | - The Senate passed an $827 billion stimulus package with the help of three Republicans who forced Democrats to cut billions of dollars that would have provided aid to states and education programs. Economists said the cuts were “outrageous” and “disastrous.” “The point is to keep lots of extra Americans from being unemployed for the next two years and have them, instead, do useful things for the country,” said Berkeley economist J. Bradford DeLong. “[Senators Ben] Nelson and [Susan] Collins, well, it's not clear what their objective is.” The House and the Senate were negotiating differences in their packages in the hopes of presenting President Barack Obama with a final bill by Friday. “If this is a harbinger of the future, God save us,” said Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and former director of the Congressional Budget Office. “Here we are shoveling out the goodies and we can't agree on that. What happens when you have to shift the car in reverse, or deal with something like health reform or energy policy?”
| Source 1:
MSNBC
Source 2:
Alternet
|
| January 28, 2009 | - The Navy announced that President Barack Obama's new presidential helicopter was $5.1 billion over budget.
| Source:
The Hill
|
| January 21, 2009 | - Boxing promoter Don King said that of all biblical figures, Barack Obama reminded him most of Joshua. “I would say that he would be Joshua going across to the Promised Land,” said King. “Martin Luther King Jr. went to the mountaintop like Moses, and he said, 'I might not get there with you, but I can see the Promised Land.' ...Joshua carried them across. Martin Luther King, Jr. was prevented from going into the Promised Land.”
| Source:
CNS News via Drudge
|
| January 21, 2009 | - Iranian newspaper Jam-e-Jam said that the American people had shown “their true feelings” by electing Barack Obama,
| Source:
LA Times
|
| January 19, 2009 | - The Obama family prayed at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church. “Martin Luther King walked so that Barack Obama could run,” said one boy. “Barack Obama ran,” said another, “so that all children could fly.”
| Source:
19th St. Baptist's Glory: The Obamas
|
| January 18, 2009 | - At the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., President-elect Barack Obama greeted joyful crowds gathered in anticipation of his inauguration. Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Jon Bon Jovi, Mary J. Blige, and Garth Brooks performed. “Anything,” said Obama, “is possible.”
| Source:
'Anything possible,' Obama tells joyous crowd
|
| January 16, 2009 | - A Mississippi man was arrested for posting his plans to kill the President-elect on a UFO-spotting website. “It's not because I'm racist that I will kill Barack,” wrote the man, “it's because I can no longer allow the Jewish parasites to bully their way into making the American people submit to their evil ways.”
| Source:
Man charged with threatening Obama on website
|
| December 24, 2008 | - A poll found President-elect Barack Obama, who was photographed shirtless while on vacation in Hawaii, to be the man Americans most admire.
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
Chicago Tribune
|
| December 22, 2008 | - President-elect Barack Obama called for an expansion of his economic recovery plan in order to save a half-million more jobs atop the 2.5 million he already hopes to save, at a total cost of $600 billion or $700 billion, then left for vacation in Hawaii, where he stayed with his family in a five-bedroom, $9 million home.
| Source 1:
KHON2
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| December 16, 2008 | - Officials in Washington, D.C., warned that if the two to four million visitors expected for Obama's inauguration actually show up the city's public transportation system will crash.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| December 13, 2008 | -
Illinois Governor Milorad “Rod” Blagojevich was arrested for what U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called a “political corruption crime spree.” The evidence included wiretap recordings in which Blagojevich, who has the power to name President-elect Barack Obama's successor in the Senate, talks about trading the Senate seat for “something real good” and refers to Obama as “that motherfucker.” “Our Milorad was framed,” said Dragan Blagojevic, reportedly a cousin, who invited the governor back to his ancestral native village of Veliki Krcmari, in Serbia. “He can have a cow,” he added, “or a pig or two.”
| Source 1:
Chicago Tribune
Source 2:
Chicago Tribune
Source 3:
TPM
Source 4:
NYT
Source 5:
Politico
Source 6:
NYT
Source 7:
Chicago Tribune
Source 8:
Chicago Tribune
Source 9:
WP
Source 10:
Chicago Tribune
Source 11:
NYT
Source 12:
Chicago Tribune
Source 13:
Blic via Javno
Source 14:
Radio Free Europe
Source 15:
Chicago Tribune
Source 16:
Southtown Star
Source 17:
AP via Google
|
| December 7, 2008 | - “This is a big problem,” said President-elect Barack Obama of the economy, “and it’s going to get worse.”
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| December 3, 2008 | - It was reported that Barack Obama's grandfather was imprisoned and tortured by the British in 1949 during the Mau Mau uprising. “They would sometimes squeeze his testicles with parallel metallic rods,” said Sarah Onyango, 87, called “Granny Sarah” by the president-elect. “That was the time we realized that the British were actually not friends.”
| Source:
The Times
|
| November 29, 2008 | - President-elect Barack Obama announced his national security team, which includes Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Robert Gates as defense secretary, and James Jones, a retired four-star general who bikes nine miles to work twice a week, as national security adviser.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| November 28, 2008 | - A three-bedroom house in northern Virginia was reportedly rented for $57,000 for inauguration week.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| November 24, 2008 | -
Barack Obama's transition team continued to name cabinet members, including former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as the new secretary of health and human services, chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Tim Geithner as the secretary of treasury, and New York Senator Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.
| Source 1:
Roll Call
Source 2:
Telegraph
Source 3:
Boston Herald
|
| November 14, 2008 | -
Barack Obama's chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel, apologized to the Arab community for remarks made by his father, Benjamin Emanuel, who told an Israeli newspaper that his son would “obviously influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to be mopping floors at the White House.”
| Source:
BBC
|
| November 12, 2008 | - In Chicago, a relaxed-looking Obama, who gained 700,000 Facebook friends since his election, met with Senator John McCain, who has lost 1,000 Facebook friends.
| Source 1:
The Guardian
Source 2:
Slate
|
| November 10, 2008 | - The Secret Service assigned official code names to President-elect Barack Obama (“Renegade”), First Lady Michelle Obama (“Renaissance”), and their daughters Malia (“Radiance”) and Sasha (“Rosebud”).
| Source 1:
Source 2:
Chicago Tribune
|
| November 5, 2008 | -
Barack Obama was elected the 44th president, and first African-American president, of the United States, receiving 365 electoral votes in an election that saw perhaps the highest turnout among registered voters in a century. “If there's anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible,” Obama told supporters, “tonight is your answer.” “The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly,” said John McCain in a teary-eyed concession speech. “What an awesome night for you,” President Bush said to Obama. “His choice, basically, is whether he is going to be Uncle Sam... or Uncle Tom,” said Ralph Nader, who received roughly 1 percent of the popular vote.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
Washington Post
Source 4:
New York Times
Source 5:
New York Times
Source 6:
Breitbart
Source 7:
Dallas Morning News
Source 8:
Independent Political Report
|
| November 3, 2008 | - Madelyn Dunham, Obama's 86-year-old grandmother, died of cancer.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 2, 2008 | -
Democrats were outvoting Republicans in all nine states that track the party affiliations of early voters, indicating a likely election victory for Barack Obama.
| Source:
George Mason University
|
| November 1, 2008 | - It was reported that Obama's half-aunt Zeitun Onyango lives in a Boston housing project and is an illegal immigrant--a detail likely leaked by the Bush Administration against the procedures of the Department of Homeland Security.
| Source:
TPM Muckraker
|
| October 31, 2008 | - Novelist John Updike endorsed Obama. “I am so much for Obama,” said the author of “Terrorist,” “it would be hard for me to cook up a character who was for McCain.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 31, 2008 | - A man leaped to his death from the Spaghetti Bowl, in El Paso, Texas, leaving behind a note that read, “Obama take care of my family.”
| Source:
El Paso Times
|
| October 23, 2008 | - Scott McClellan, former White House press secretary for George W. Bush, endorsed Barack Obama.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| October 17, 2008 | -
Obama edged out Apple and Zappos.com to become “Advertising Age” 2008 Marketer of the Year. “It's the fuckin' Web 2.0 thing,” explained BusinessWeek marketing and media columnist Jon Fine.
| Source:
Advertising Age
|
| October 14, 2008 | - General Colin Powell endorsed Obama for president. “I'd have difficulty,” said Powell, “with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court.” He also attended an African culture festival in London, appearing onstage to do the finger-pointing dance to “Yahoozee,” a Nigerian rap song about Internet fraud.
| Source 1:
Yahoo
Source 2:
BBC
|
| October 1, 2008 | - In Brazil, where politicians often adopt new names for elections, six candidates had taken the name Barack Obama. Other candidates called themselves Cattle Ana, Jeep Johnny, Big Charlie Knives, Jorge Bushi, Chico Bin Laden, DJ Saddam, King of the Cuckolds, and Kung Fu Fatty.
| Source:
Telegraph
|
| September 25, 2008 | - Senator John McCain announced that fixing the economy was more important than politicking, suspended his campaign, and attempted without success to postpone his first debate with Senator Barack Obama, although he continued to run campaign advertisements, including one that declared him the winner of the debate, and appeared on CBS with Katie Couric. McCain then joined congressional leaders, including Obama, at the White House to discuss the stimulus package. “I didn't see any sign,” said Representative Barney Frank, “of our Republican colleagues paying any attention to him whatsoever.” “All he has done,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of McCain, “is stand in front of the cameras.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
The New York Times
Source 4:
Politico
Source 5:
The Los Angeles Times
|
| September 12, 2008 | - Joe Biden made public the last ten years of his tax returns, showing that his average annual income was $244,000, of which less than half of one percent went to charity, and suggested to a group in New Hampshire that Hillary Clinton “might have been a better pick” to run with Obama.
| Source 1:
Tax Prof Blog
Source 2:
The Telegraph
|
| September 11, 2008 | -
John McCain and Barack Obama suspended political advertising and appeared together at the World Trade Center site to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| September 10, 2008 | - Former Massachusetts governor Jane Swift, chair of the Palin Truth Squad, demanded that Obama apologize for saying that McCain's promise to change Washington amounted to putting “lipstick on a pig” and insisted that the pig was Sarah Palin. “As far as I know,” said Swift, “she's the only one of the four... who wears lipstick.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| August 25, 2008 | -
Barack Obama announced Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, as his running mate, even though Biden voted for the war in Iraq and for NAFTA and once said that Obama was “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
| Source 1:
Information Week
Source 2:
The Washington Post
|
| August 24, 2008 | - The Obama campaign denied that there was anything wrong with Biden's signing a 2005 bill that eliminated many bankruptcy protections for consumers after Biden's lobbyist son Hunter was retained for $100,000 a year by the financial-services giant MBNA, employees of which have donated $214,000 to Biden over the years.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| August 5, 2008 | - A poll by Lifetime Networks found that women would prefer to carpool or vacation with Barack Obama over John McCain by a factor of two to one.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| July 24, 2008 | -
Barack Obama delivered a speech to a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin.
| Source:
Talking Points Memo
|
| July 12, 2008 | -
Obama admitted that he disliked ice cream.
| Source:
YouTube
|
| July 9, 2008 | - Senator Barack Obama alienated many supporters by voting to authorize the new Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which expands the government's power to spy on Americans without a search warrant and provides retroactive immunity for telecommunications firms that had cooperated with the government's previously illegal wiretaps. Earlier in the campaign, Obama had promised to filibuster any bill that provided such immunity.
| Source:
NYTimes
|
| June 25, 2008 | - The Supreme Court determined that child rapists should not be sentenced to death if their crime “did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim's death.” John McCain disagreed with that ruling and suggested that by executing those found guilty of “the most heinous of crimes” the United States could protect the innocence of its children, while Barack Obama suggested that the rape of a small child, “six or eight years old,” could be punished by death without violating the Constitution.
| Source:
AFP
|
| June 22, 2008 | -
Al Gore endorsed Obama, as did Donatella Versace, whose spring-summer 2009 men's line, which includes slim pants with a “slick techno-fabric sheen,” is dedicated to the candidate.
| Source 1:
The Hill
Source 2:
AP via Yahoo
|
| June 19, 2008 | - Breaking an earlier vow, Senator Barack Obama announced that he will opt out of the public campaign-finance system, in order to be able to spend unlimited amounts of money in the last two months of his presidential campaign, rather than merely $84 million, the amount to which Senator John McCain will be limited under public-funding laws. “It'll be like George Steinbrenner's Yankees in the 90s,” Democratic consultant Chris Lehane said of Obama's campaign, which could spend as much as $500 million, “against the 90s Kansas City Royals.”
| Source 1:
ABC
Source 2:
NYT
Source 3:
IHT
Source 4:
Politico
Source 5:
AP via MSNBC
|
| June 14, 2008 | - The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that detainees held as “enemy combatants” by the United States in Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, have a constitutional right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus petitions in federal courts. “Liberty and security can be reconciled...within the framework of the law,” wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the court's decision. “The Framers decided that habeas corpus...must be...a part of that law.” Dissenting, Chief Justice John Roberts asked, “So who has won? Not the detainees. The Court's analysis leaves them with only the prospect of further litigation.” Defense lawyers for the detainees moved to establish that their clients have the right to other constitutional protections and sought to halt ongoing military-commission trials, which permit hearsay and evidence gained from torture.
John McCain called the ruling “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.” Barack Obama said, “I think the Supreme Court was right.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
cnn
|
| June 14, 2008 | -
Obama, who admitted to smoking cigarettes in recent months, told supporters that he anticipated a “brawl” with McCain and the Republican National Committee: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”
| Source 1:
ABC
Source 2:
Politico
|
| June 5, 2008 | - Senator Barack Obama, having amassed more than the 2,118 delegates needed to secure a majority, was acknowledged as the Democratic presidential nominee and claimed victory before a crowd of almost 20,000 people in St. Paul, Minnesota, knocking knuckles with his wife, Michelle, in a gesture known as “dap.” “It thrilled a lot of black folks,” said author Ta-Nehisi Coates. “He wears his cultural blackness all over the place. Barack is like Black Folks 2.0.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Washington Post
|
| June 4, 2008 | - Senator John McCain delivered a speech to a crowd of a few hundred in Kenner, Louisiana, in which he tried to rebuff Obama's charges that a McCain presidency would be a continuation of Bush policies. “That's not change we can believe in,” said McCain repeatedly. Pundits were surprised by McCain's clumsy rhetoric, by his lack of teleprompter skills, and by the fact that he stood in front of an ugly green backdrop. “Content better than delivery,” said Karl Rove. “John McCain,” said Mort Kondracke of “Roll Call,” “sounded old.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Talking Points Memo
|
| June 1, 2008 | -
Obama broke his ties with Chicago's Trinity Church.
| Source:
The Daily Dish
|
| June 1, 2008 | - It was reported that Obama had offered Clinton a “negotiated surrender” that included a possible post as health secretary in an Obama administration.
| Source:
Telegraph
|
| May 25, 2008 | -
Obama gave the commencement address at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. “You know that feeling when you're so excited you have to pee?” asked Lola Pellegrino, '08. “I'm feeling that. In my heart.” Obama, who spoke in place of Senator Ted Kennedy after Kennedy was diagnosed with a likely fatal malignant brain tumor, called for a “generation of volunteers to work on renewable energy projects.” Twenty-five thousand people attended. “I can't imagine anyone that the Wesleyan student body would possibly be more excited about,” said Sarah Lonning, '06. “Maybe Gandhi, if he weren't dead.”
| Source 1:
The Prereq
Source 2:
Bloomberg.com
|
| May 18, 2008 | - A poem written by Obama in 1981 was discovered and republished:
Under water grottos, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| May 16, 2008 | - At an NRA convention in Kentucky, Mike Huckabee made a joke after hearing a noise off-stage. “That was Barack Obama,” he said. ”Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor."
| Source:
The Hill
|
| May 8, 2008 | - Senator Barack Obama crushed Senator Hillary Clinton in the North Carolina
Democratic primary, lost by a small margin in Indiana, and then took the lead in pledged superdelegates. Clinton pointed out that she still enjoys support from hard workers and white people. “A woman is like a teabag,” she said, quoting Eleanor Roosevelt. “You never know how strong she is until she's in hot water.”
| Source 1:
New Yorker via MSNBC
Source 2:
USA Today
Source 3:
ABC
Source 4:
The Los Angeles Times
Source 5:
The Washington Post
Source 6:
The Hill
Source 7:
Chicago Tribune
Source 8:
The New York Times
|
| May 3, 2008 | - The Democratic National Committee determined that delegates from Michigan and Florida will be allowed half-votes at the party's convention. “At least slaves were counted as 3/5ths a Citizen,” read a sign at a protest by supporters of Hillary Clinton outside the Washington hotel where the decision was made. Demonstrator Larry Sinclair, a Minnesotan who has posted videos on YouTube alleging that he took drugs and had oral sex with Barack Obama in 1999 but failed a polygraph test about his allegations, handed out a pamphlet titled “Obama's DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS: Murder, Drugs, Gay Sex.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
The New Republic
|
| April 28, 2008 | -
Hillary Clinton gained nine more delegates than Barack Obama in the Pennsylvania primary and challenged him to debate without a moderator. Obama, who declined, reportedly seemed “tired” and “brittle” campaigning in Indiana. “Seniors, listen up,” he said. “I'm getting gray hair myself. Running for president will age you quick.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
AP
Source 3:
Telegraph
|
| April 28, 2008 | - All three candidates taped messages for World Wrestling Entertainment's “W.W.E. Raw”: Clinton declared herself “ready to rumble” for the American people; Obama, echoing former wrestler Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, asked, “Do you smell what Barack is cooking?”; McCain, speaking with a surly tone, equated the Iraq war with a wrestling match and said that Americans “do not watch wrestling because we're 'bitter,'” but rather because “wrestling is about celebrating our freedom.”
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 6, 2008 | -
Hillary Clinton and John McCain accused Barack Obama of elitism after Obama commented on the bitterness of working-class people in a speech at an expensive San Francisco fund-raiser. “They cling to guns,” said Obama, “or religion, or antipathy toward people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment, or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations.”
| Source 1:
AFP
Source 2:
NBC11
Source 3:
BBC News
Source 4:
Zombie Times
|
| March 18, 2008 | - In response to fury over a handful of remarks made by Reverend Jeremiah Wright over the course of his 36 years as a pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, Senator Barack Obama delivered a nuanced and serious speech about race in America. “I think it's an obligation of any opponent to use this issue,” said Congressman Peter King (R.-NY), “to make Reverend Wright a centerpiece of the campaign.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Newsday
|
| February 22, 2008 | -
Michelle Obama's Princeton senior thesis was made public. “Further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure,” she wrote, “will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant.”
| Source:
Politico.com
|
| February 14, 2008 | - Senator Barack Obama beat Senator Hillary Clinton by huge margins in primaries in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, and Senator John McCain beat former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. The close Democratic race worried party superdelegates, who will play a decisive role in choosing a candidate. Nancy Larson, a lobbyist and superdelegate from Minnesota, characterized superdelegates in general as “big schmucks.” Alaskan superdelegate Cindi Spanyers received a call from former president Bill Clinton, who recalled his wife's work on a fish cannery slime line there, and Obama was endorsed by the fishing village of Obama, Japan. McCain was endorsed by former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and ex-president George H. W. Bush.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Washington Post
Source 3:
Los Angeles Times
Source 4:
Washington Post
Source 5:
AP via Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Source 6:
Los Angeles Times
Source 7:
Star Tribune
Source 8:
Anchorage Daily News
Source 9:
Guardian
Source 10:
LAT
Source 11:
AP via Google
|
| February 11, 2008 | - Stocks fell sharply after Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, whom Obama called “the chief economic spokesman for my administration,” announced his plans for further bailouts of the financial sector.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 7, 2008 | -
Democratic primaries left neither Senator Barack Obama nor Senator Hillary Clinton with a clear lead over the other, and operatives inside the Clinton campaign speculated that if the Democratic presidential nominee were not chosen until the convention, Al Gore could emerge as a compromise candidate. “There's a 5 percent chance of that happening,” a Clinton source said, “but that's 5 percent too high.” “He can still try next time,” said Obama's Kenyan grandmother, Sarah, of her grandson, “if he doesn't make it this time.”
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
Telegraph
Source 3:
New York Times
Source 4:
Honolulu Advertiser
|
| February 4, 2008 | - A video released by hip-hop musician will.i.am showed Herbie Hancock, John Legend, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kate Walsh, and Scarlett Johansson chanting and singing, “Yes, we can,” in support of Barack Obama, and a representative for John Cougar Mellencamp, a John Edwards supporter, asked John McCain to stop playing Mellencamp's “Our Country” and “Pink Houses” at his campaign rallies.
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
Rolling Stone
|
| January 26, 2008 | - Stanching rumors circulating in a widely forwarded email that he is a radical Muslim, Senator Barack Obama repeatedly professed his faith in an “awesome” Christian God and defeated former President Bill Clinton's wife in the South Carolina Democratic primary.
| Source 1:
Boston Globe
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| January 11, 2008 | - Charges of a rigged presidential election triggered violence along tribal lines in Kenya, leading to more than 700 deaths and the displacement of 250,000 Kenyans. Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who lost the election to incumbent Mwai Kibaki, said that his first cousin Barack Obama had called him twice to express his concern, “despite being in the middle of the very busy New Hampshire primary.”
| Source 1:
AFP.com
Source 2:
Telegraph.co.uk
|
| January 4, 2008 | -
Obama and Mike Huckabee were the surprise winners of the Iowa
caucuses. “None of this worries me,” said Rudy Giuliani, who came in sixth place in the Republican caucus. “September 11, there were times I was worried.”
| Source:
NYDailyNews.com
|
| October 19, 2007 | -
Lynn Cheney announced that her husband and Barack Obama are eighth cousins. “Every family,” said the Obama campaign, “has a black sheep.”
| Source:
BBC
|
| October 19, 2007 | -
Lynn Cheney announced that her husband and Barack Obama are eighth cousins. “Every family,” said the Obama campaign, “has a black sheep.”
| Source:
BBC
|
| October 14, 2007 | - “Nothing is inevitable,” said Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, of a Clinton victory. “Sometimes we wear the same suit even if it’s got holes in it. We need a new suit, not just a new tie or new pants.”
| Source:
Times
|
| September 13, 2007 | - General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker testified to Congress about progress in the war in Iraq; Crocker summarized 2006 as “a bad year,” but blamed ongoing sectarian violence on Saddam Hussein's “social deconstruction” of the country. Petraeus cited progress in the Anbar region as evidence that his surge strategy is working. He suggested that one Army brigade might be home for Christmas, and that the surge might be over by next July. Barack Obama proposed removing at least one brigade per month, starting now, until all troops are out by the end of next year. President Bush supported the Petraeus plan, also citing progress in the Anbar Province and his recent meetings with leaders there.
| Source 1:
WaPo
Source 2:
NYT
Source 3:
Boston Globe
Source 4:
NYT
Source 5:
WaPo
Source 6:
USA Today
|
| August 23, 2007 | - The hip-hop magazine Vibe dubbed Barack Obama “B-Rock.”
| Source:
CNN.com
|
| August 6, 2007 | - It was reported that Rudolph Giuliani's daughter, Caroline, a member of the Harvard class of 2011, was affiliated with the Facebook.com group “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)”; she had recently left the group, but her page maintained that her political views are “Liberal” and that she is single, interested in men, and looking for “Friendship,” “Random play,” or “Whatever I can get.”
| Source:
Slate
|
| August 3, 2007 | - Presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani pledged to invade Pakistan,.
| Source 1:
New York Post
Source 2:
AP
|
| July 3, 2007 | -
Barack Obama was raising more money than Hillary Clinton.
| Source:
BBCnews.com
|
| May 10, 2007 | - In Richmond, Virginia, a painting of Britney Spears was covered up at the request of Barack Obama's campaign.
| Source:
Richmond Times-Dispatch
|
| April 27, 2007 | - The nine Democrats running for president held a debate in South Carolina. Hillary Clinton faulted the people of Iraq for not making good on “the chance to have freedom, to have their own country” provided by the U.S. invasion, and John Edwards suggested that hedge funds could help alleviate poverty. Asked why he was at the debate, Mike Gravel, a 76-year-old who represented Alaska in the Senate from 1969 to 1981, pointed to the rest of the candidates and said, “Some of these people frighten me,” especially “the top-tier ones.” He singled out Joseph Biden for his “arrogance” and asked Barack Obama, “Barack, who do you want to nuke?” Obama replied, “I'm not planning to nuke anybody right now, Mike. I promise.” “Good,” said Gravel, “then we're safe, for a while.”
| Source:
WCNC
|
| February 2, 2007 | -
Delaware
Senator Joseph Biden praised Illinois Senator Barack Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” said Biden. “I mean, that's a storybook, man.”
| Source:
salon.com
|
| January 25, 2007 | - It was revealed that Government Elementary School Number 4, the public school in Indonesia that Barack Obama attended when he was six, had a painting of Jesus on the wall. Fox News acknowledged that they had given too much credence to a claim by Insight Magazine that Hillary Clinton's campaign was investigating the possibility that Obama's public school was a madrassah.
| Source:
ABC
|
| January 22, 2007 | -
Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that she will run for President in 2008, and Barack Hussein Obama released a video on the Internet announcing that he has formed a presidential exploratory committee. It was reported that Obama had concealed that he was raised as a Muslim and had attended a madrassah as a child.
| Source 1:
BBC
Source 2:
Washington Post
|
| January 9, 2007 | - Senator Barack Obama was featured shirtless in People Magazine's Beach Babes issue. “It's embarrassing,” Obama said.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| August 24, 2006 | - In Kenya, U.S. Senator
Barack Obama agreed to be tested for HIV.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| August 15, 2006 | -
Senator
Barack Obama called the Iraq war “dumb.”
| Source:
Harrisburg Daily Register
|
| July 21, 2003 | - Henry Louis Gates Jr., an African-American professor at Harvard, was arrested by Jim Crowley, a white police sergeant, in his Cambridge, Massachusetts home after a passerby saw Gates forcing open his own front door. President Barack Obama said the police had “acted stupidly,” and Sergeant Crowley announced that he had once tried to save the life of (black) Celtics star Reggie Lewis. Neither Obama nor Crowley would apologize, though Obama said that he, Gates, and Crowley may get together at the White House for a beer. Obama did apologize for wearing “dad jeans.” “For people who want a president to look great in tight jeans,” he said, “I'm sorry.”
| Source 1:
Washington Post
Source 2:
New York Post
|
| 0, 2000 | -
President Barack Obama continued his efforts to channel money to Muslim business interests, the United Nations distributed “rugged laptops” to Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip, and a report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom confirmed that Muslims hate Christians, that Christians hate Muslims, and that they all hate the Jews.
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
BBC News
Source 3:
CNN
|
| 0, 2000 | - Recalling September 11, New Yorkers panicked as a spare
Air Force One 747, accompanied by a fighter jet, flew low near the World Trade Center site in Manhattan for a White House photo op. President Barack Obama, who is reading the novel Netherland by Joseph O'Neill, ordered a review of the $328,835 flight.
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
The New York Times
Source 3:
CNN
|
| 0, 2000 | - After President Barack Obama promised to issue an executive order guaranteeing that federal funds will not be used for abortions, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 219-212 to approve the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act. The 2,400-page health-care plan lacks a public option but does provide for state-run health-care “exchanges,” to open in 2014, at which point the uninsured--barring Indian tribes and the very poor--will face fines if they do not have health insurance. The bill also introduces a 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning salons. Representative Paul D. Ryan (R., Wis.), called the bill “a fiscal Frankenstein”; some protesters reportedly screamed “faggot” at Representative Barney Frank (D., Mass.) and “nigger” at Representative John Lewis (D., Ga.).
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
The Wall Street Journal
Source 3:
TPM
|
| 0, 2000 | - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that Barack Obama's speech last June in Cairo “removed all doubts about the United States in the Muslim world.”
| Source:
NY Times
|
| 0, 2000 | -
Barack Obama claimed that the same groups that attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, were “plotting to do so again,” that the eight-year conquest and occupation of Afghanistan were a “necessity,” and that free-spending congressional legislators were conspiring with the military-industrial complex to weaken national security with “exotic” defense projects.
| Source:
NY Times and Yahoo News
|
| 0, 2000 | -
Barack Obama called for firms that create jobs to be rewarded with tax credits and for a moratorium on foreclosures.
| Source:
AFP
|
| November 0, 2000 | - Absentee ballots in Rensselaer County, New York, listed “Barack Osama” as a presidential candidate.
| Source:
Albany Times Union
|
| June 0, 2000 | - Researchers in Ohio, where polls show Obama with a seven-point lead over McCain, said that narcissists are more likely to seek--and to be granted--authority over others. “They are usually charming and extroverted,” explained a psychologist. “But the problem is, they don't necessarily make better leaders.”
| Source 1:
Science Daily
Source 2:
Bloomberg News via Yahoo!
|
| NULL 0, 2000 | - Arguing for his $447 billion jobs bill, President Barack Obama cited a new Congressional Budget Office report stating that the average after-tax income of the top 1 percent of U.S. households had increased by 275 percent over the past three decades, compared with only 18 percent for those in the bottom quintile.
| Source 1:
AP via CBS News
Source 2:
Congressional Budget Office
|
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