U.S. Government

The United States of America is a Federal Union of fifty states and the District of Columbia with Washington DC as the capital and the seat of Government.
The American Constitution, signed in 1787, is a declaration of the rights and individual liberty of all American citizen and establishes the organization of the Government on three levels: the executive, legislative and judicial.
The Legislative branch is represented by Congress, which like most parliaments, is divided into two houses: the Senate and

The House of Representatives

The Senate has 100 members, two for each State, while the House of Representatives is made up of 435 members.
Congress meets in the Capitol.

The executive branch is represented by the President of the U.S.A. The American Presidents holds enormous powers: he is the head of State and head of the government.
Besides, he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and is in charge of foreign affairs. He also has the power to veto a law and can appoint ministers, ambassadors and federal judges. In a state of emergency, he has decisive power. His residence is the White House in Washington.
He is elected directly by the people every four years at the beginning of November (Election Day). On January 20th, he officially enters the White House.

Political parties

Politically in USA is characterized by a two-party system: the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. They both tend to be moderate in their political policy, so there is a little difference between them. The Republicans, symbolically caricatured by an elephant in the media, are more conservative, while the Democrats, represented in the media as a Donkey, are more liberal and progressive. Within each party, there is a liberal and a conservative wing. Barack Obama, the current president, is a Democrat.

Barack Obama

Barack Obama was born to Barack Obama Sr. from Kenya and Ann Dunham from Kansas on August 4th, 1961 in Hawaii.
Obama’s parents separated when he was only two years old.
After high school, he studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University in New York, where he graduated in 1983 with a degree in Political Science. He obtained a doctorate degree in Law at Harvard law school in 1988. In February 1990, Obama was elected the first African-American editor of the Harvard law review. He married Michelle in 1992 and lather gave birth to two daughters: Malia and Sasha. He was elected U.S. Senator from Illinois, form 2005 to 2008. On January 20, 2009, he became the 44th president of the United States and the first African-American to hold this office.