Barack Obama's Family

Family

Obama’s younger half sister, Maya, told the New York Times, "My whole family was Muslim."

Actor	Events
Hussein Obama	Barack Obama's grandfather was Hussein Onyango Obama (Grandfather). He was born about 1895 and died in 1979. He worked for the British colonial government and was a prominent and wealthy farmer. Grandfather lived for a time in Zanzibar, where he converted from Christianity to Islam. He was one of the first Muslim converts in his village. Grandfather, for whom Obama was given the middle name, Hussein, was "fiercely devoted to Islam." He had at least 3 wives: Helima, who had no children, Akuma who gave birth to Sarah Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. and Auma Obama. "What your grandfather respected was strength -- discipline." Obama quoted his grandmother, Sarah, as telling him. "This is also why he rejected the Christian religion. "For a brief time, he converted, and even changed his name to Johnson. But he could not understand such ideas as mercy towards your enemies, or that this man Jesus could wash away a man's sins." "To your grandfather, this was foolish sentiment, something to comfort women," she added. "And so he converted to Islam -- he thought its practices conformed more closely to his beliefs." Grandfather had several wives. His first wife was Helima, with whom he had no children. Second, he married Akuma and they had Sarah Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. and Auma Obama. Grandfather's third wife was Sarah, the one often referred to by Obama as his "grandmother." She is not a blood relative and describes herself as a lifelong Muslim. "I am a strong believer of the Islamic faith," she said. Sarah was the primary caregiver for Senior after his mother, Akuma, left the family when her children were still young.
Obama Senior	Barack Hussein Obama Sr. (Senior) was born in Nyangoma-Kogello, Siaya District, Kenya 1936. He was a member of the Luo tribe and grew up in the sleepy village of Alego-Kogello.
Anna	Stanley Ann (Anna) Dunham is born in Wichita, Kansas, 1942, to Stanley and Madelyn Dunham and would eventually live in 13 different places. Stanley Dunham worked on oil rigs during the Depression. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he signed up for service in World War II and marched across Europe in Patton's army. Madelyn Dunham went to work on a bomber assembly line. As an historical aside, Anna Dunham's forebears were slaveholders, one of Obama's great-great-great-great grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 Census in Nelson County, Ky. The same records show that one of Obama's great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves.
Kezia	In 1955, at 18 years of age, Barack Hussein Obama Sr. married a girl called Kezia from the local village. It was Kezia who remained his one true love and to whom he always returned. She was a 16-year-old schoolgirl while Senior, two years older, had just got his first proper job as an office clerk in Nairobi. Kezia said: "It was at a dance in Kendu Bay, my home town. Barack (Senior) was there on holiday with his family. "I went to the dance hall with my cousin William and I saw Barack enter the room. I thought, 'ohhh, wow'. He was so lovely with his dancing. So handsome and so smart. "We danced together and then the next day my cousin came to our house and told me that Barack liked me. "It was December, so I was off school. Each day Barack and my cousin would stop by the house. "Every time I looked they were always there, trying to convince me to go with Barack to Nairobi. "About a week later, William and I took Barack to the station. We were going to say: 'Bye bye, see you next time.' Except there was no bye bye. "When the train arrived William and Barack said, "You are going to Nairobi." I went with him.' Her father, a local driver, was furious. Kezia said: "He did not like Obama. My father and brothers came to Nairobi to bring me back. They said I had to go back to school. "When I wouldn't, they said they would never speak to me again. "Barack was also worried about what his father (grandfather) would think because I was so young, but he gave us his approval. He sent my mother and father 14 cows for my dowry. Kezia and Barack Sr. set up home in Jericho, a section of Nairobi created for government employees, and began a family. First son Roy was born in March 1958. Kezia insisted: "Barack was a good husband." Can you imagine if a Republican was running for president and it came out that his father had bought his first wife for 14 cows???!!!Just wow!! Eventually, Senior will have three wives and one mistress. With them, he will have seven children, although there are some reports of an eighth.
Obama Senior	In 1958, Obama Senior was awarded an American sponsored scholarship in economics to the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He was selected by a former Kenyan cabinet minister, the late Tom Mboya, who was earmarked as the successor to Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first prime minister and leader of the terrorist Mau Mau. The presumption was that Senior would return to Africa and use his "Western-honed skills in a new Kenya." At the age of 23, Obama Sr. left behind his pregnant wife Kezia and their children to become the first African student enrolled at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Kezia, who is pregnant, remains in Kenya. Senior would have two more children with Kezia in subsequent years.
Anna	Anna, Obama's mother and a strong-willed, unconventional member of the Mercer Island High School graduating class of 1960, touted herself as an atheist. She was the curious and precocious daughter of a father who wanted a boy so badly that he named her Stanley -- after himself. The Dunhams moved to Seattle in the mid-50's and Anna was greatly influenced by left-wing and communist teachers in the Mercer Island High School, who had the students read the philosophers Sartre and Kierkegaard, "The Communist Manifesto" and question the existence of God. In 1955, the chairman of the Mercer Island school board, John Stenhouse, testified before the House Un-American Activities Subcommittee that he had been a member of the Communist Party. Madelyn and Stanley shed their Methodist and Baptist upbringing and began attending Sunday services at the East Shore Unitarian Church in nearby Bellevue. "In the 1950s, this was sometimes known as "the little Red church on the hill," said Peter Luton, the church's senior minister, referring to the effects of McCarthyism. Skepticism, the kind that Stanley embraced and passed on to his daughter, was welcomed here. A high school classmate described Anna as "a fellow traveler. . . . We were liberals before we knew what liberals were." The descriptive, "fellow traveler," was first applied to non-communists who were inclined toward the views of the Communist Party by Leon Trotsky.
Anna and Obama Senior	In 1960, Anna's father found a better opportunity at a furniture store in Hawaii and moved his family to Honolulu. Stanley Ann began classes at the University of Hawaii in 1960, where she begins a relationship with Barack Obama Sr. She spent weekends in discussions that seemed to be, in part, a logical extension of the long coffeehouse sessions in Seattle and the teachings of Wichterman and Foubert, Anna's left-wing instructors. The forum involved graduate students from the University of Hawaii. They spent weekends listening to jazz, drinking beer and debating politics and world affairs. Neil Abercrombie, the Democratic congressman from Hawaii, was part of those regular gatherings and described Anna as "the original feminist." Although Anna Dunham is frequently described as an atheist, Obama remembers, "My mother was a deeply spiritual person and would spend a lot of time talking about values and give me books about the world's religions and talk to me about them. Very comprehensive history of Stanley Ann Dunham and her son Barack -- Part 1 and Part 2.
Anna and Obama Senior	Although still married to Kezia in 1960, Senior marries fellow student Anna Dunham. Senior is now legally a bigamist. Over his lifetime and through several wives, Senior eventually returns to Kezia. Dunham is eighteen years old and an anthropology student. They are both students at the East-West Center and they met in a Russian-language course at a time when the Russian language was inextricably mixed up with communism. His own father and mother’s wedding in Hawaii may not have been properly documented. "How and when the marriage occurred remains a bit murky, a bill of particulars that I have never quite had the courage to explore," Obama writes in his memoir.
Hussein Obama	The Dunhams weren't happy with the union, but Barack Senior's father was furious. He wrote the Dunhams "this long, nasty letter saying that he didn't approve of the marriage," Obama recounted his mother telling him in "Dreams." "He didn't want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman." Six months after they wed, another letter arrived in Kenya, announcing the birth of Barack Hussein Obama, born Aug. 4, 1961. Despite her husband's continued anger, Sarah Obama said in a recent interview, she "was so happy to have a grandchild in the U.S."
Anna and Obama Senior	After rejecting a scholarship at the Marxist New School for Social Research in New York City that would have paid for his family to come with him, Senior abandons Anna and Obama for Harvard, claiming there was no allotment for his family.
Anna and Obama Senior	Obama is approximately 2 years old when his father abandons the family. Abercrombie said of Barack Sr., "I know he loved Ann," but "I think he didn't want the impediment of being responsible for a family. He expected great things of himself and he was going off to achieve them." Anna will file for divorce in 1964 and remarry two years later, when her son was 5. Years later, Abercrombie and another grad school friend looked up their old pal during a trip through Africa. At that point, the senior Obama was a bitter man, according to the congressman, feeling that he had been denied due opportunities to influence the running of his country. "He was drinking too much; his frustration was apparent," Abercrombie said. To Abercrombie's surprise, Obama Sr. never asked about his ex-wife or his son.
Obama Senior	In 1963, Jomo Kenyatta, who was arrested in October, 1952 on the charges of "managing and being a member" of the Mau Mau Society, seizes control of Kenya and becomes its first prime minister in May.
Obama Senior	In June, 1963, one month later, Senior leaves Harvard and returns to Kenya, joining the Kenyatta government as a senior economist. Senior is obviously close to Kenyatta, Tom Mboya and the Kenyatta government.
Obama Senior and Ruth	In 1964, Obama Senior married his third wife, an American-born teacher called Ruth, who met at Harvard while still legally married to both Kezia and Ann and who followed him to Africa. Ruth is the third woman Obama Senior "marries" in 10 years. Senior will have two children with Ruth.
Anna and Lolo	Obama's mother married Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo in 1967. Lolo was an official of the Director General's office in the TNI Topography division of the Indonesian Army and later becomes an oil company executive. Lolo, who is also a Muslim, promptly moved his new family to Jakarta, Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim country. Obama lived in Indonesia for nearly five years as a child. He had a pet ape named Tata, and sampled exotic foods -- dog, snake and grasshopper. Lolo and Anna had one daughter, Obama's step-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng. It is she who places Obama in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 1968 through 1973. In Obama's account of this move, he states his mother was shocked to discover how her new husband reverted to chauvinist Indonesian ways as soon as he left America and that Indonesia was a nasty right-wing dictatorship (although the latter doesn’t jibe with her spending much of the rest of her life in that country).
Anna	To Obama, his mother is a Kumbaya-era liberal. He feels that she messed up her life due to naïve faith in Third World countries and Third World men. Years later, when he’s working on Wall Street, he’s creeped out by his visiting mother’s insistence on seeing her favorite film, the 1959 Brazilian art-house classic "Black Orpheus." He belatedly realizes that his very fair-skinned mother is sexually attracted to dark men. He pompously intones, "The emotions between the races could never be pure; even love was tarnished by the desire to find in the other some element that was missing in ourselves. Whether we sought out our demons or salvation, the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart." Wallace-Wells mentions in Rolling Stone: There is an amazingly candid moment in Obama’s autobiography when he writes of his childhood discomfort at the way his mother would sexualize African-American men. "More than once," he recalls, "my mother would point out Harry Belafonte is the best-looking man on the planet." What the focus groups his advisers conducted revealed was that Obama’s political career now depends, in some measure, upon a tamer version of this same feeling, on the complicated dynamics of how white women respond to a charismatic black man. Early in his run for the U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama’s pollsters discovered that women loved him, especially nice white ladies who like personalities more than politics and definitely don’t like political arguments.
Anna and Lolo	In "Dreams," he inadvertently sheds some light on his formative years and the political views of his mother, an anthropologist and Islamophile who hated America and subsequently goes native. "Looking back, I'm not sure Lolo ever fully understood what my mother was going through ... why the things he was working so hard to provide for her seemed only to increase the distance between them ... He landed a job in the government relations department of an American oil company. ... Sometimes I would overhear him and my mother arguing in their bedroom, usually about her refusal to attend his company dinner parties, where American businessmen from Texas and Louisiana would slap Lolo's back and boast about the palms they had greased to obtain the new offshore drilling rights, while their wives complained to my mother about the quality of Indonesian help. He would ask her how it would look for him to go alone, and remind her that these were her own people, and my mother's voice would rise to almost a shout." "They are not my people!"
Maya	Obama's half-sister Maya said, "There was always a joke between my mom and Barack that he would be the first black president." Ten years old and already he wants to be president and it's encouraged in the home.
The Dunhams	In 1972, When Anna divorced from Lolo, she took Barack to live with her parents, Barack's grandparents, in Honolulu. Anna and Obama's half-sister Maya returned to Indonesia. Except for occasional visits to Hawaii, Dunham would remain in Indonesia for the remainder of her life. Shortly before her death of ovarian cancer, Anna returned to Hawaii, where she died in 1995.
The Dunhams	In 1973, Barry Soetoro was enrolled in the Punahou School as Barack Hussein Obama. Obama's classmate and friend, Keith "Ray" Kakugawa, said. "Barry's biggest struggles then were missing his parents. His biggest struggles were his feelings of abandonment. Obama would describe his grandparents, the people who would raise him, as "white folk." Madelyn Dunham raised Barry Obama. It was probably her money that got him admitted to the prestigious Punahou School in Hawaii and paid his fees. Her efforts were formative, perhaps even more so than those of Obama's mother Ann, Madelyn's daughter. And yet Madelyn is being hidden away. And America's media have supinely allows Obama to pretend he has no white relatives. He has paraded his step-grandmother in Kenya, who never saw him until the 1980s, as his "granny," and locked the grandmother who actually raised him away in a closet. Now, the Chicago Tribune reports "the Obama campaign declined to make [his white grandmother] available." All because she is white and Barry Obama is a "black" candidate for president. The "segregation" of Madelyn Dunham, Obama's white grandmother, and only real grandmother, has to be one of the cruelest and most mendacious political kidnappings this nation has ever seen.
Obama Senior	In 1982, Obama Senior was killed in an alcohol-related car accident in Kenya, leaving three wives, one mistress, six sons and a daughter -- there is also the possibility of an eight progeny via a mistress. Although Obama claims Obama Senior was an atheist, Obama Senior was buried as a Muslim and the rival families of Obama's late father are still suing each other over his meager estate. One of Senior's former drinking partners, Kenyan writer Philip Ochieng said that his friend's downfall was his weak character. "Although charming, generous and extraordinarily clever, Obama Sr. was also imperious, cruel and given to boasting about his brain and his wealth," he said. "He was excessively fond of Scotch. He had fallen into the habit of going home drunk every night. His boasting proved his undoing and left him without a job, plunged him into prolonged poverty and dangerously wounded his ego." Ochieng recalls how, after sitting up all night drinking Black Label whisky at Nairobi's famous Stanley Hotel, Obama Sr. would fly into rages if Ruth asked where he had been. Ochieng remonstrated with his friend, saying: "You bring a woman from far away and you reduce her to pulp. That is not our way." But it was to no avail. Ruth sued for divorce after her husband administered brutal beatings. In fact he was a menace to life, said Ochieng. "He had many extremely serious accidents. Both his legs had to be amputated. They were replaced with crude false limbs made from iron. "He was just like Mr Toad [from Wind In The Willows], very arrogant on the road, especially when he had whisky inside. I was not surprised when I learned how he died." Ruth refused to comment on the abuse charges when we tracked her down to the Kenyan school where she now works. She said: "I was married to Barack's father for seven years so, yes, you could say Barack is my stepson. "Barack's father was a very difficult man. Although I was married to him the longest of any of his wives he wasn't an easy person to be around."
Obama Senior	Barack Obama Sr. stakes out the following positions in his attacks on the white paper produced by Mboya’s Ministry of Economic Planning and Development: 1. Obama advocated the communal ownership of land and the forced confiscation of privately controlled land, as part of a forced "development plan." an important element of his attack on the government’s advocacy of private ownership, land titles, and property registration. (p. 29) 2. Obama advocated the nationalization of "European" and "Asian" owned enterprises, including hotels, with the control of these operations handed over to the "indigenous" black population. (pp. 32 -33) 3. Obama advocated dramatically increasing taxation on "the rich" even up to the 100% level, arguing that, "there is no limit to taxation if the benefits derived from public services by society measure up to the cost in taxation which they have to pay" (p. 30) and that, "Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed." (p. 31) 4. Obama contrasts the ill-defined and weak-tea notion of "African Socialism" negatively with the well-defined ideology of "scientific socialism", i.e. communism. Obama views "African Socialism" pioneers like Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Toure as having diverted only "a little" from the capitalist system. (p. 26) 5. Obama advocates an "active" rather than a "passive" program to achieve a classless society through the removal of economic disparities between black Africans and Asian and Europeans. (p. 28) "While we welcome the idea of a prevention [of class problems], we should try to cure what has slipped in .. we .. need to eliminate power structures that have been built through excessive accumulation so that not only a few individuals shall control a vast magnitude of resources as is the case now .. so long as we maintain free enterprise one cannot deny that some will accumulate more than others .. " (pp. 29-30) 6. Obama advocates price controls on hotels and the tourist industry, so that the middle class and not only the rich can afford to come to Kenya as tourists. (p. 33) 7. Obama advocates government owned and operated "model farms" as a means of teaching modern farming techniques to farmers. (p. 33) 8. Obama strongly supports the governments assertion of a "non-aligned" status in the contest between Western nations and communist nations aligned with the Soviet Union and China. (p. 26)
The Obamas	Obama travels to Kenya for the first time in 1986. Obama's 40-year-old cousin Said Hussein Obama commented, "My cousin found it difficult when he came here to learn of his six half-brothers and sisters were born to four different mothers. Obama's left hand is on the shoulder of Kezia, Obama Sr.'s first wife, who said, "The first time I met Barack Jr. was when he came to Kenya in 1985. He was so much like his father, his looks, his voice, everything. It was like seeing my husband all over again." In addition to Obama's half-sister, Auma (Obama's right hand), Kezia has three sons by Barack Sr. Her two youngest, Bernard and Abo, live in Nairobi. They are all Muslims. Not known by many Westerners is the fact that Muslims are forbidden from wearing gold. Notice, no one in that photo is wearing gold.
Michelle	In 1989, Obama was a summer intern at the corporate law firm Sidley Austin LLP in Chicago where he met Michelle Robinson, his summer adviser. Also working at the law firm was unrepentant terrorist and ex-FBI "Most Wanted," Bernadine Dohrn, wife of co-conspirator, and Obama buddy, Bill Ayers.
Obama and Michelle	Obama and Michelle Robinson of Chicago, Illinois are married (October 18, 1992). The ceremony was performed by Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois. Michelle Robinson was born into a working-class family from the South Side of Chicago in 1964. She graduated from Whitney Young High School in 1981 and majored in sociology at Princeton University, graduating cum laude in 1985. She obtained her Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1988. Michelle has also been an associate dean at the University of Chicago and is currently a vice president at the University of Chicago Hospitals. She sits on six boards, including the prestigious Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.
The Brother-in-Law	In 1992, Obama's brother-in-law, Craig Robinson pulled him aside and asked about his plans. "He said, 'I think I’d like to teach at some point in time, and maybe run for public office,'" recalls Robinson, who assumed Senator Obama meant he’d like to run for city alderman. "He said no -- at some point he’d like to run for the U.S. Senate. And then he said, 'Possibly even run for President at some point.' And I was like, 'Okay, but don’t say that to my Aunt Gracie.' I was protecting him from saying something that might embarrass him." Robinson was a two-time Ivy League Player of the Year at Princeton University, graduating in 1983 with an AB in Sociology. He is the fourth highest scorer in school history. He earned an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1992. Robinson was drafted in the fourth round of the 1983 NBA draft, but never played in the league. He played professionally in Europe, returning to the U.S. in 1988 to became an assistant coach at the Illinois Institute of Technology. An assistant for six years at Northwestern University, he became a head coach at Brown University in 2006, where he continues to run a variation of the Princeton offense which he learned from Pete Carril during his years at Princeton University. He was named the Ivy League "Coach of the Year" for the 2006-2007 season by Basketball-U. On April 7, 2008, Robinson was hired as the Oregon State Beavers' new head basketball coach.
The Obamas	Obama’s family connections to Islam would endure, however. For example, his brother Roy opted for Islam over Christianity, as Obama recounted when describing his 1992 wedding. "The person who made me proudest of all," Obama wrote, "was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam, and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol." Abongo "Roy" Obama is a Luo activist and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must "liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture." He urges his younger brother to embrace his African heritage.
Obama and Michelle	Daughter Malia, the Hawaiian form of Mary, is born in 1999 and daughter Sasha, the Russian pet form of Aleksandra, is born in 2001. Both children would be baptized by the Rev. Jeremiah A Wright, hater and racist.
Obama and Michelle	Ethical questions surround Obama's shady real estate deal and relationship with indicted political fundraiser and Arab-American activist Tony Rezko, who befriended Obama during his Harvard days. The 2005 deal involves the purchase of Obama's home, a big Edwardian-era detached house in fashionable Kenwood section of Chicago and home of the acting head of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan. The former owner wasn't willing to sell the house without the large chunk of land next to it, which Obama seemingly couldn't afford. So Obama bought the mansion for $1,650,000 at a gigantic discounted price -- some $300,000 less than the asking price. The same day, Rezko's wife bought the adjoining lot, that can't be accessed from the public street, paying the full $625,000 asking price. Six months later, Obama bought approximately one-sixth of the Rezko property for $104,500, so he could "extend his garden," leaving Rezko with a lot that can't be accessed from the street. Did Tony Rezko and his wife subsidize the purchase of Obama's opulent home? Of the transaction, Obama wrote, "It was a mistake to have been engaged with him at all in this or any other personal business dealing that would allow him, or anyone else, to believe that he had done me a favor. For that reason, I consider this a mistake on my part and I regret it." Mr. Obama turned to Mr. Rezko for help at several important junctures. Records show that when Mr. Obama needed cash in the waning days of his losing 2000 Congressional campaign, Mr. Rezko rounded up thousands of dollars from business contacts. In 2003, Mr. Rezko helped Mr. Obama expand his fund-raising for the Senate primary by being host of a dinner at his Mediterranean-style home for 150 people, including some whose names have since come up in the influence scandal. Beyond that, what does it cost to refurbish, furnish and move into a $2,275,000 home -- another $500,000? At any rate, this is pretty good for a guy earning $165,200 per and who once ran his credit cards up so high that the credit card company denied him access to further use of his card. The video.
Obama and Michelle	Obama and his wife purchased their house in Hyde Park during the month of June 2005. The total purchase price was $1,650,000 and the title was put into a unnamed land trust. The house was reassessed during summer of 2006. All of the surrounding houses were increased by an average of 28%. The Obama residence increased 6%. What is more troubling is that we always attempt to assess houses at about 68% of actual sale prices. The Obama residence is assessed at 90,882 with a market value of $568,012. That is just about one third of the selling price from 2005. When I questioned this assessment, I was transferred to another project in the office. The Obama assessment was then completed by the same person who did the workup for Governor Blagojevich's house, which also was assessed at a lower percentage of surrounding properties and rose at a fraction of the rate of surrounding properties. According to standards set up within the office, the assessment should have been $179,520 and the tax bill should have been almost double in this one assessment cycle alone.
Cousin Odinga	Obama's Criticism Irks Kenyan Government Government Says Obama Is A Stooge For Political Opposition by Mike Flannery, CBS 2 Political Editor In August, 2006, there are signs of tension between Sen. Barack Obama and African leaders. On Monday, Obama stepped up his criticism of government corruption in Kenya. At the University of Nairobi, the senator offered more pointed criticism, something he's done almost every day since arriving last week. After remaining largely silent, the government of President Mwai Kibaki is beginning to respond, suggesting that Obama may have fallen under the spell of opposition leader Raila Odinga, Obama's cousin. Odinga is the son of Senior’s sister, a direct first cousin and nephew of Obama's father. A potential presidential candidate himself, Odinga's been at Obama's elbow here fairly often and is a member of the Obama family's Luo tribe. "Sen. Obama has to look at critically about where he's receiving his advice from," said government spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua. "Just because somebody, somewhere wants to run for president and is using Sen. Obama as his stooge, as his puppet to be able to get to where he wants to get to."
Maya	In an interview with the New York Times, published on April 30th, 2007, Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama’s younger half-sister, told the Times, "My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim. I assume Maya thinks of her brother, Barack, as a member of her family. Although Anna is often described as an atheist, I assume Maya thinks of her mother as a member of her family, also. Original NY Times link -- requires LogIn.
The Obamas	On December 10th, 2007, Obama, speaking about his ability to handle international affairs, said, "If, as president, I travel to a poor country to talk to leaders there, they will know I have a grandmother in a small village in Africa without running water, devastated by malaria and AIDS." "What that allows me to do is talk honestly not only about our need to help them, but about poor countries' obligation to help themselves. There are cousins of mine in Kenya who can't get a job without paying an exorbitant bribe (it's called baksheesh) to some midlevel functionary. I can talk about that." What Obama is less likely you tell you is that his step-grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, is a lifelong Muslim. “I am a strong believer of the Islamic faith,” she says. Obama in dashiki Talk, talk, talk ... one would think that Obama, a wealthy and powerful man, would have done something to directly help his poor relatives.
Cousin Odinga	On December 27, 2007, Raila Odinga, Obama’s cousin, lost the presidential election in Kenya. Obama and Odinga share the same Luo heritage and history and has made it possible for them to share the same spotlight at this defining moment in Kenyan and American histories about hope and fear. Raila Odinga, who is Obama's first cousin, has, in his own words, a "close personal friendship" with Obama. When Obama went to Kenya in August of 2006, he was hosted by Raila and spoke in praise of him at several rallies in Nairobi. Obama’s bias for his fellow Luo was so blatant that a Kenya government spokesman denounced Obama during his visit as Raila’s "stooge." When Raila Odinga lost the presidential election to Mwai Kibaki, he claimed the vote was rigged, whereupon his tribal followers went on murderous rampages, such as in the town of Eldoret, where on New Years Day dozens of Christians were burned to death in a church set on fire. Throughout Kenya, hundreds of people have been politically murdered in the last few days. Islam had picked Raila to win. The Evangelical Alliance of Kenya has posted on its website a photograph copy of a Memorandum of Understanding, dated and signed on August 29, 2007, between Raila Odinga and Shiekh Abdullah Abdi, chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum of Kenya. Here is a summary on the agreement which was signed: * It pledges the support of Kenyan Moslems for Raila’s election. In return, as President of Kenya, Raila agrees to 14 actions, listed a) through n) on page two. * Within 6 months re-write the Constitution of Kenya to recognize Shariah as the only true law sanctioned by the Holy Quran for Muslim declared regions. * Within one year facilitate the establishment of a Shariah court in every Kenyan divisional headquarters. [Note: everywhere in Kenya, not just in "Muslim declared regions."] * Popularize Islam, the only true religion… by ordering every primary school in Kenya in the regions to conduct daily Madrassa classes. * Impose a total ban on open-air gospel crusades by worshippers of the cross… * Outlaw gospel programs… on KBC, the National Broadcaster. * Impose a total ban on the public consumption of alcoholic beverages… * Impose an immediate ban on women’s public dressing styles that are considered immoral and offensive to the Muslim faith… Obama's involvement in Kenyan politics, whether tribal or religious, is bothersome. Especially if it is both.
Cousin Odinga	On January 2nd, 2008, in classic Marxist tradition, Obama's Kenyan 1st cousin, Raila Odinga, accused President Mwai Kibaki of stealing the Dec. 27 election, and rallied his Luo followers in western Kenya, demanding a new election. Kibaki "must step down or there must be a re-election -- in this I will not be compromised. You cannot steal my cow, and I catch you red-handed, and then expect me to share the milk because the cow is mine." More than 1,000 people, mostly Kikuyu Christians, have been killed and 300,000 forced from their homes by Odinga's followers. This is the guy who Obama campaigned for and who made a deal to install an Islamic government in Kenya. Guess he hasn't given up on his goals.
The Obamas	On January 5th, Sarah Hussein Obama, step-grandmother of Barack Obama, was asked on Wednesday about recent attacks on her grandson that include the spreading of rumors that he is secretly a Muslim and the repeated use of his middle name -- "Hussein." "Untruths are told that don't have anything to do with what Barack is about," she said in the local Luo language, her gray hair smoothed neatly under a headwrap. "I am very against it." "In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents," she said. She also said that, she, too, is a Christian. This comment contradicts a statement Sarah made in an April 2007 New York Times profile of Barack Obama, when she described herself as a lifelong Muslim, saying "I am a strong believer of the Islamic faith." Barack and Sarah have this religious adaptability in common. Sarah Obama was the second wife of the candidate's late grandfather, so she is not his biological grandmother. But Auma Obama, Obama's half-sister, said: "By our definition, in our culture, she is his grandmother," she said.