Dreams From My Father

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Letters From My Father: Writing of Obama Sr. Found

Documents, unread by the president, tell the tale of a deeply complicated man

(Newser) - On this Father's Day, the New York Times takes a look at one of the more notable absentee fathers in modern American history vis a vis a box of his writings found a few years ago in Harlem. "The papers are rich; they tell a fascinating, traditional, self-made...

Obama's Net Worth Is...
 Obama's Net 
 Worth Is... 
May 16, 2014 9:56 AM CDT

Obama's Net Worth Is...

President has up to $7M in assets

(Newser) - Barack Obama may not be Mitt-Romney-rich (or even Al-Gore-rich ), but he's doing all right for himself. The president's latest financial disclosure forms, released yesterday, reveal that he and Michelle had total assets worth somewhere between $1.8 million and $7 million in 2013, the AP reports. (That'...

GOP Rep: Get Obama's 'Drunken Uncle' Down Here

Steve King thinks there's a double standard here

(Newser) - Rep. Steve King thinks President Obama's latest family embarrassment, the boozing Onyango Obama, is getting preferential treatment in his drunk-driving case, so the Iowa Republican wants to give him a little more special attention—in the way of a House hearing. "We have to bring drunken 'Uncle...

Obama's Dad Told Feds Baby Would Be Adopted Out

His father told immigrations officials he'd be given up at birth

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s father once told immigration officials that he and Ann Dunham were planning to give their then-unborn child up for adoption, writes Sally Jacobs for the Boston Globe . The elder Obama had been under scrutiny from federal immigration officials, who feared that he had another wife in Kenya....

In 1995 Memoir, Obama Predicted His Problems as Prez

He remembers being warned that people wouldn't like him

(Newser) - Pundits love to offer up psychological assessments of the president, writes Walter Shapiro on Politics Daily , but few of them think to return to Barack Obama’s own autobiography, Dreams From My Father. Shapiro, reading the book for the first time, finds that no one could have predicted Obama’s...

Obama's Dad Was No 'Radical'
 Obama's Dad Was No 'Radical' 
OPINION
Oct 15, 2010 11:04 AM CDT

Obama's Dad Was No 'Radical'

'Anti-colonialist' accusations misunderstand father and son

(Newser) - Those who suggest Barack Obama is a “rabid anti-colonialist” based on impressions of his father are way off the mark about both father and son, writes Bruce L.R. Smith in the Washington Post . Dinesh D’Souza recently argued that “the president inherited political radicalism from his father....

100 Defining Moments of the '00s

 100 Defining 
 Moments 
 of the '00s 

pop culture
Oct 30, 2009 12:45 PM CDT

100 Defining Moments of the '00s

The iPod, Guitar Hero, Twitter—and some serious moments, too

(Newser) - From the tragic (World Trade Center attacks, Hurricane Katrina) to the seemingly trivial (Stephen Fry's first Tweet), the Telegraph lists the top 100 defining cultural moments of the decade so far:
  • April 2000: Metallica sues music-sharing service Napster.
  • October 2001: The iPod is released.
  • February 2003: Sacha Baron Cohen hits
...

Obama Books Banned for Jailed Terrorist

(Newser) - Prison officials refused to let an al-Qaeda terrorist serving 30 years in Supermax, a prison in Colorado, read Barack Obama's books, the Daily Telegraph reports. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, an American citizen convicted of conspiring to, among other things, assassinate then–President George W. Bush, was told that the books...

Dylan: Obama Will Be Best Prez He Can Be

(Newser) - Barack Obama will be “the best president he can be,” Bob Dylan tells the Times of London, though he has “no idea” if Obama will actually be good at the job. “Most of those guys come into office with the best of intentions and leave as...

Time for Obama to Channel Foul-Mouthed Buddy—Again

Audiobook snippets are surprisingly timely

(Newser) - Now that things are getting nasty in the stimulus fight, the Boston Phoenix has a suggestion for Barack Obama: Channel your potty-mouthed pal Ray. In the audio version of his autobiography, the Phoenix notes that Obama does an impression of his high school friend, complete with f-bombs, racial slurs, and...

Brits Tortured Obama Patriarch in Kenya Revolt

Granddad was jailed, beaten for 2 years in '50s Mau Mau uprising

(Newser) - British jailers tortured Barack Obama's grandfather during the struggle for Kenyan independence, his family tells the Times of London. Hussein Onyango Obama, who worked as a cook for a British army officer, was arrested in 1949, aged 56, and imprisoned for two years. There he was subjected to daily whippings...

GOP Offered $10K to Prove Ayers Authored Obama Book

Goal was to prove Ayers penned 'Dreams From My Father'

(Newser) - A Republican congressman and his brother-in-law approached an Oxford philosophy don in an attempt to prove that Barack Obama's autobiography had been ghostwritten by William Ayers, the Times of London reports. Peter Millican says he was offered $10,000 to analyze Obama's Dreams From My Father and Ayers' Fugitive Days...

Obama Is a Son of Hawaii, but a Man of Chicago

Island looms large among the forces that shaped him

(Newser) - Hawaii and Chicago shaped the Barack Obama we know today in very different ways, David Maranis writes in a detailed look at the candidate's formative years in the Washington Post. Hawaii, multiracial but with its own social stratification, helped form the young Obama's outlook on life, but he found himself...

Obama Inspires Destitute Half-Brother
Obama Inspires Destitute Half-Brother
Aug 21, 2008 11:39 AM CDT

Obama Inspires Destitute Half-Brother

26-year-old George Obama sees role model in powerful bro

(Newser) - Presidential candidate Barack Obama's half-brother isn't on the campaign trail, he's living in a shack in a Kenyan slum, reports the Telegraph. George Hussein Obama, 26, has only spoken to his powerful relative twice in his life, but is crediting Barack for providing the inspiration to lift himself out...

Obama Audio Clips May Hurt Candidacy

Recording of his bestseller details drug use, attitudes on race

(Newser) - GOP activists are salivating over audio clips of Barack Obama reading from his book, Dreams from My Father, detailing his attitudes on race and adventures with drugs. "I attended classes sparingly, drank beer heavily, and tried drugs enthusiastically," Obama says in a reading of the 1993 bestseller. Now...

Obama Senior's Long-Lost Political Writing Surfaces

Elder Barack critiqued Kenyan socialism

(Newser) - A mid-'60s treatise on Kenyan socialism has been causing a stir in the 2008 US presidential election, Politico reports, because of its author—Barack Obama Sr. Titled “Problems Facing Our Socialism,” conservative bloggers believe the paper reveals the elder Obama’s hidden communist leanings. But the scholarly paper...

Obama Drug Use Minimal: Old Friends

Candor about teenage 'bad decisions' may have been overstated

(Newser) - In his memoir Barack Obama makes a rare admission—for a politician—of  “some bad decisions” as a teenager, of indulging in drinking and drugs before political activism led him out of apathy. But friends remember an already-focused Obama: an eloquent, poised young intellectual, active against South African apartheid...

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