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Michelle Obama, wearing 'VOTE' necklace, calls Trump 'wrong president'

Michelle Obama called President Donald Trump the "wrong president for our country" during her speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Associated Press, USA TODAY

The claim is illustrated in a Facebook meme that recently went viral. Former President Barack Obama's head was superimposed over the face of a person in a construction worker's outfit. "Obama" stands in front of crowds of fenced-in children who are supposedly migrants detained at the southern U.S. border.

The text above the image reads, "Michelle Obama: Trump is putting kids in cages. Guy who built the cages."

Barack Obama is implied as the "guy who built the cages."

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The meme was posted to the Facebook page Vintage Political Memes. The page is an extension of Being Libertarian LLC, a group that caters to"minarchists, classical liberals, anarchists, independents, Objectivists, capitalists, and right/left-leaning libertarians," according to itswebsite.

The picture in the meme minus the inserted Barack Obama of a crowded enclosure full of migrant children at a border facility in Texas was released by the Office of the Inspector General in 2019, according to a tweet by NBC News correspondent Gadi Schwartz. Schwartz saidasenior manager called the conditions at the facility, "a ticking time bomb."

USA TODAY reached out to Being Libertarian for comment.

During her keynote address at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19, the former first lady made a comment about the Trump administration's policies toward migrant children detained at the border.

"They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages," Mrs. Obama said, according to The Associated Press.

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The entire statement can be found in atranscript posted to CNN.com on Aug. 18.

"They see our leaders labeling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists. They watch in horror as children are torn from their families and thrown into cages, and pepper spray and rubber bullets are used on peaceful (protesters) for a photo-op,"she said.

It is true that Trump administration immigration policies involved separating migrant children from their parents and detaining them in "cages," a practice halted by a federal judge in 2018, according to USA TODAY. During the speech, Obamadid not mention the holdingenclosures were built during her husband's administration.

Fact check: Joe Biden delivered his Democratic nomination acceptance speech live

In a 2019interview with nonpartisan think tank The Aspen Institute, Jeh Johnson, Barack Obama's Homeland Security secretary, told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that the "cages" predate the Trump administration.

"Chain-link barriers, partitions, fences, cages, whatever you want to call them were not invented on January 20, 2017," Johnson said.

Kelly asked Johnson about a 2014 photograph of him touring an Arizona facility for migrants along with former Gov.Jan Brewer. The picture is archived on thewebsite for the Arizona Capitol Times.

Thatimage was also part of another social media meme accusing Michelle Obama of lying about "kids in cages" during her DNC speech. Facebook userEulalia Maria Jimenez posted it to her page on Aug. 18. Johnson is circled in red in the image.

Johnson explained the picture was taken during a spike in unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border of the country.

"The photograph you're referring to was a facility in Arizona I recognize the photograph because Gov. Brewer was with me and it was during the spike ... and we had a lot of unaccompanied kids, we had a lot of family units. And under the law, once they're apprehended by the border patrol, within 72 hours, we have to transfer unaccompanied children to (the Department of Health and Human Services). And HHS then puts them in a shelter, and they find placement for them somewhere in the United States." Johnson explained.

He said the construction of the 72-hour holding facilities was prompted by a sudden influx of migrants.

Local NBC affiliate KVEQ reported on the conversion of aMcAllen, Texas, warehouse into a holding facility for up to 1,000 migrant children in 2014.

"You can't just dump 7-year-old kids on the streets of McAllen or El Paso. And so, these facilities were erected ... they put those chain-link partitions up so you could segregate young women from young men, kids from adults, until they were either released or transferred to HHS. Was it ideal? Of course not," Johnson said.

In 2019, former Trump administration acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan confirmed the migrant holding facilities were builtduring the Obama administration during a panel hosted by The Center for Immigration Studies. The center isa "pro-immigrant, low-immigration" think tank, according to its website.

"The kids are being housed in the same facilities built under the Obama administration. If you want to call them cages, call them cages. But if the left wants to call them cages, and the Democrats want to call them cages, then they have to accept the fact that they were built and funded in FY 15, and I was there," Homan said, according to a transcript.

The Associated Press reportedin late 2019 that an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children were held in U.S. custody overthat year.

But Michelle Obama's assertion that the Trump administration torechildren from their families and threw them into cages alludes to "a frequent and distorted point made widely by Democrats," according to the AP. The facilities designed during the Obama administration to temporarily hold migrants were used for a similar purpose by President Trump, the AP also concluded.

Fact check: Meme is partly false about Republican National Convention speakers

We rate this claimTRUE, based on our research. The initial claim correctly attributes migrant holding facilities to the Obama administration. However, the meme doesn't elaborate on the intended purpose of the facilities:to hold migrantchildren for 72 hours before releasing them to the Department of Health and Human Services for further placement.

Contributing: Associated Press

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Fact check: Obama administration built migrant 'cages ...

EDGARTOWN, MAReflecting on the path his career had almost taken, former President Barack Obama revealed in an interview Monday that he almost passed on the presidency for a chance to direct Leatherheads. It feels kind of silly nowIm obviously pretty satisfied with the decision I made, and I was delighted with what George [Clooney] ended up doing with the film, but I had some great ideas for Leatherheads and it wasnt without sadness that I turned it down to do the presidency instead, said Obama, recalling how Universal Pictures approached him back in 2007 just as the Democratic primary was heating up and how long he wrestled with the decision to abandon the run, as well as his Senate seat, to helm the movie. Put yourself in my shoes: on the one hand, I have this vision to change the American political landscape, and on the other, I have the chance to direct Leatherheads. It was really tough. I mean, when someone drops a script like Leatherheads on your desk and you have the chance to translate [co-screenwriter] Rick Reillys vision to the big screen, youd have to be nuts not to seriously consider it. It was like a door had finally opened and I might actually make something of myself in Hollywood. Id written a script based on my time as a community organizerkind of a dark comedy-slash-drama, Serving Sara meets Proof Of Lifeand Id been shopping it around. It came across someones desk at Universal and they didnt want to produce it, which, whatever, but they felt like I might be the right guy to do Leatherheads. I wont lie, I went to see Leatherheads opening nightit came out in April, when I was pretty far ahead in the delegate countand I thought, Barack, did you really make the right decision? Should you have conceded to Hillary and followed your dreams? No shade against the film, but, you know, Id had a pretty clear vision of my own. I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I hadnt turned down the opportunity to work with John Krasinski to become the commander in chief of the United States. I guess Ill never know. Obama also revealed that he was planning to decline the 2012 Democratic nomination if the studio had accepted his repeated entreaties to direct Playing For Keeps.

Read the original here:
Obama Reveals He Almost Passed On Presidency For Chance To Direct Leatherheads - The Onion

FLINT, MI -- A federal judge says she wont allow testimony about whether employees of two engineering companies being sued by Flint residents drank city water while they worked as consultants here.

U.S. District Judge Judith Levy made the ruling in an opinion filed Sunday, Feb. 13, saying that she will also exclude testimony about whether other government and high-profile public figures, including former President Barack Obama, drank Flint water during the citys water crisis.

The bellwether trial that pits four Flint children who claim they were damaged by Flint water against two water consultants that advised the city on its water system is scheduled to start Tuesday, Feb. 15, in Ann Arbor.

Against this minimal relevance (in support of allowing such evidence), the Court must weigh the substantial potential for delay, confusion, and waste of time that would be risked by the introduction of this evidence, Levy wrote in part of her six-page decision.

Discussion of any employees alleged consumption of Flint River water would inevitably create lengthy factual disputes -- why did they drink the water? How much? How often? Did they believe it to be safe, or did they think the health risk was an acceptable one? Would they have believed it to be safe for chronic consumption by children? What is their tolerance for risk related to nonbiological toxins in water? And so forth.

Such disputes would derail the trial and divert attention away from the real issue of negligence, Levy wrote. The probative value of such evidence, if any, is therefore greatly outweighed by its potential to waste time and cause undue delay.

Attorneys for the four children -- identified in court filings by their initials as A.T., D.W., E.S., and R.V. -- filed the motion in December, asking Levy to preclude any reference to Flint water consumption by employees of Veolia North America and Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam as well as government officials and other high-profile persons.

Veolia, LAN and related companies are defending themselves against the lawsuits after declining to join in a $626-million partial settlement of Flint water litigation brought by attorneys for residents against the state of Michigan, city of Flint, McLaren Regional Hospital and Rowe Professional Services.

Although Veolia does not plan to use any evidence of President Obamas drinking city of Flint water in 2016, according to Levys opinion, the company sought to reserve the right to consider whether the Obama evidence is relevant.

The judges ruling says the issue involving the former president is moot because there is no plan to introduce it. LAN joined VNA in its opposition to the motion by the four children.

During a visit to Flint in May 2016, Obama drank what he said was filtered Flint water, calling the water safe for most of the citys population provided it was filtered.

Related: President Obama drinks filtered Flint water during water crisis visit

VNA and LAN were hired by the city of Flint to advise it on water issues after emergency managers appointed by former Gov. Rick Snyder made a series of decisions that led the city to disconnect from the Detroit water system and to use the Flint River as the citys temporary water supply in parts of 2014 and 2015.

Flint failed to treat the river water to make it less corrosive to lead in transmission pipes and in fixtures inside homes, allowing lead to leach into the citys water supply.

LAN performed work as a consultant as the city transitioned to Flint River water and continued to advise the city on water quality issues during the resulting water crisis. VNA also performed water consultancy work, but only after the transition occurred and only for a limited time -- from early January 2015 to March 2015.

An advisory from the federal court says the jury trial in the bellwether case is expected to last approximately four months and involve testimony from scores of witnesses.

The trial, which will be decided by 10 jurors, is being called a bellwether because it could help others with water crisis claims decide whether to proceed to trial against the engineering companies.

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Originally posted here:
President Obama had a drink of Flint water, but judge says its not relevant to bellwether trial - MLive.com

The portraits, commissioned by the Smithsonians National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., have been on a five-city traveling exhibition since June with stops in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Houston. The tour will now include a stopover at San Franciscos de Young Museum before arriving at the MFA for a two-month exhibition this fall (Sept. 3 Oct. 30). The portraits will then return home to the NPG, which organized the tour.

Kim Sajet, director of the Portrait Gallery, said numerous museums have expressed interest in exhibiting the works since the NPG first unveiled them in 2018.

Ive never had so many friends since these portraits were created, quipped Sajet, who called the MFA a really good match. We, as part of the Smithsonian, feel its our mission to reach as many people across the country as we can. It just seems like a good thing to do.

So how did the MFA make its case?

We phoned them, said MFA director Matthew Teitelbaum, who added the portraits will help foster conversation about leadership, community, and future generations. We were thinking about many of the issues that were dealing with as a nation, but also as an institution, trying to represent, in our case, a museum that belongs to all of Boston.

The large-scale paintings, which diverge dramatically from previous presidential portraits, were widely embraced by critics and the public: According to press accounts, the NPG recorded some 50,000 visitors during the 2018 Presidents Day weekend three times more than had entered the museum that same weekend the previous year.

Wiley and Sherald were the first Black artists ever to receive the NPG commission, and one critic observed that their portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama combine traditional representation with elements that underscore the complexity of their subjects, and the historic fact of their political rise.

In his portrait of Barack Obama, Wiley depicted his subject leaning forward in an ornately carved chair, wearing a blazer but no tie, before a verdant background. Wiley, whose work often invokes elements of heroic European portraiture to depict modern Black subjects, here features a variety of flowers to describe Obamas personal history.

Wiley talked about that at the unveiling, he said [Obama] is in this sort of garden of his biography, said Sajet, who highlighted, among the paintings other flowers, the chrysanthemum, official flower of Chicago, where Obama got his political start.

Much has been made of the fact that [Wiley] really broke with all sorts of traditions, said Sajet. But if you really look closely at it, [he] knows his art history extraordinarily well, she continued, adding that Wiley not so much broke with traditions, but built upon traditions, and then put them on their head.

Similarly, Sheralds portrait of Michelle Obama presents her seated against a light-blue background. She wears a flowing evening gown with a modern geometric pattern designed by Milly, her chin resting upon her right hand, nails painted periwinkle. But perhaps most notable is Sheralds gray-scale treatment of her skin tone, which Sajet said is reminiscent of the black-and-white photographs that first began to democratize portraiture.

Portraiture favored those who could vote: white men who owned land, said Sajet, describing how historical portraits rarely included subjects outside that group. Sherald is very astute on the history of Black portraiture, and how it became democratized and celebrated thanks to camera technology, and so that gray skin tone of Michelle Obamas plays into that tradition.

The portraits star power has endured on the tour, where each venue has presented the paintings alongside complementary exhibitions or programming. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, for instance, organized an exhibition of Black portraiture in conjunction with the Obama paintings.

The paintings are currently on view at Atlantas High Museum of Art, following stops at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, and LACMA. They will then head to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and San Francisco before arriving in Boston.

At the MFA, home to an enviable portraiture collection of its own including Gilbert Stuarts 1796 portrait of George Washington and John Singleton Copleys 1768 portrait of Paul Revere the Obama portraits will play against a rich, complicated tradition.

Thats one of the reasons were very excited for the portraits to go to the MFA Boston, because they have all those traditional portraits, said Sajet, who added it will be impactful to see . . . disrupting the status quo.

While the MFA plans to make a clear path between the Obama portraits and the MFAs own collection, Teitelbaum said the museum is also planning a broader community project to accompany the portraits.

Were going to show them on their own, but in relationship to a community-based project that engages artists of all ages in making portraits of leaders in their communities, he said, adding that the museum is still working out the details. It makes the point that through artistic representation, you can bring alive the values and the meaning of communities today.

Teitelbaum added that the exhibition, which will be presented in the Lois B. and Michael K. Torf Gallery, also will include other programming both on-site and in neighborhoods around Boston.

These are two great artists, he said. Its going to be a very energetic and very engaged moment at the MFA.

Malcolm Gay can be reached at malcolm.gay@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @malcolmgay.

Read more here:
The Obamas presidential portraits are heading to Boston this fall - The Boston Globe

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