President Barack Obama is our current President. He is the 44th President of the US. He is on his second term of presidency. Throughout his previous and current term, he has made some good progress.
During Barack Obama’s first days, he started issuing orders, directing the US military to develop plans to take troops out of Iraq. He wanted the war to in within 18 months. Obama wanted to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, but Congress prevented the closure. The Congress refused to get the required funds, and prevented moving any people from the detention into the US or to other countries. Obama reduced the secrecy given to presidential records. Obama also revoked George W. Bush’s restoration of Ronal Reagan’s Mexico City Policy. This prohibited federal aid to international family planning organizations that reform or provide counseling about abortion.
Barack Obama’s first bill signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. This relaxed the statute of limitations for equal- pay lawsuits. Five days later, he signed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program reauthorization. This covered 4 million more uninsured kids.
In the Supreme Court, in his first two years of his Presidency, he appointed two women to serve. Sonia Sotomayor was nominated to replace the retiring Justice David Souter. She was the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. Elena Kagan was also nominated to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, and brought the number of women sitting on the Court to three, for the first time in American History.
On March 30, 2010, Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. This Act ended the process of the federal government giving subsidies to private banks to give out federally insured loans, increased the Pell Grant scholarship award, and made changes to the Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act.
On January 16, 2013, one month after the Sandy Hook shooting, Obama urged Congress to reintroduce an expired ban on “military- style” weapons. He also wanted to impose limits on ammunition magazines to 10 rounds, introduce background checks on all gun sales, pass a ban on possession and sale of armor- piercing bullets, introduce harsher penalties for gun- traffickers, especially unlicensed dealers who buy arms for criminals and approving the appointment of the head of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for the first time since 2006.
In July 2010, the CIA determined what they thought was the location of Osama bin Laden. He was located in a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Over the next six weeks, Obama had meetings with his national security advisers. He rejected a plan to bomb the compound. He decided to have a surgical raid to be conducted by the US Navy SEALs. On May 1, 2011, the operation to kill bin Laden worked. Bin Laden body was buried at sea several hours later.
During the war in Afghanistan, early in his Presidency, Obama announced an increase to US troop levels. He did this to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. In this area, Obama thought is didn't have the strategic attention that it required. Obama replaced the military commander from General David D. McKiernan, with former Special Forces commander Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. Obama thought that McChrystal had the experience that would facilitate the use of countering urgency tactics in the war. Later, Obama deployed 30,000 military personnel. During this time, he proposed to begin troop withdrawals 18 months from that date.
I think that Obama has had his up and downs, but I think in the end, he will go down as a good President. I think he will go far during his second term.
Comments
Good summary but expand more on personal thoughts.