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Whether you loved or hated President Barack Obama, you cant deny that the style of leadership and approach to environmental sustainability emanating from the White House has changed dramatically in the past three years compared with his administration. If youre like me, youve been wondering what Obama thinks about the climate crisis and other sustainability issues that have been making headlines as part of presidential campaign coverage.

My curiosity was partially sated last week during the Greenbuild conference, where the former president shared his views about leadership, sustainability and the urgency of climate change.

Below are highlights from Obamas conversation with Mahesh Ramanujam, president of the U.S. Green Building Council. Ive shared several of my takeaways, along with the direct quotes that support them, edited for clarity and length.

Obama: Climate change is an existential issue.

Tax policy, you can have bad tax policy, you can have good tax policy, but if you get that tax policy for four years, for eight years, you can correct it, reverse it. Climate change, its one of those [issues] where you can be too late and find, at least in human understanding and time horizons, it becomes irreversible. So I know of no issue that is more urgent than that.

Now I would combine it, though, with how can we construct a globalized, capitalist economy that actually provides everyone opportunity and is not continually accelerating inequality.

It is hard to figure out how we solve sustainability issues and climate change if you also have huge gaps in wealth and opportunity and education.

So were not going to solve the former unless were also intending to do the latter.

Obama: In a place like California, the way building codes have been constructed, theres almost no low-income housing in certain metropolitan areas. Not just low-income housing, theres no middle-class income housing. So teachers and police officers and others cannot live in those metropolitan areas because building codes there are so onerous it makes construction of affordable housing almost impossible.

Well, over time, those populations are going to push back. Theyre going to think that anything related to creating sustainable building codes is somehow adding to our costs, making our life more expensive.

So if we want to think about sustainability, we have to do it in a way that also is thinking about affordability. And if youre not paying attention to that, youre not going to get enough pick-up.

Obama: I do believe that the way that people are moved is by hearing stories and not facts. Now I am a fact guy, Im all about logic and reason and fact. I think those enlightenment values are really important. Obviously, thats contested these days sometimes. What moves people is stories and connection. And when we consider issues of sustainability, connecting peoples sense of place with the work that youre doing becomes critical.

What moves people is stories and connection. And when we consider issues of sustainability, connecting peoples sense of place with the work that youre doing becomes critical.

Obama: Heres the central principle about organizing communities, and Ill be honest with you, its the principle just about living and trying to have an impact. I always tell young organizers working for us, "Your first job is not to talk, but to listen."

I do think one chronic problem of do-gooders is sometimes we like to tell people what they should think is important, instead of actually asking them, 'Whats important to you?'

Obama: This is a larger cultural point how much is enough? All of you are familiar with the fact that one of the reasons that, despite huge increases in energy-efficient technologies, we still have such a big carbon footprint is our houses have gotten so much bigger.

The question is: How much space do we need?

Were America, were used to a lot of space, we dont want to have constraints, we want big everythings big. Big Macs. Whoppers. Thats big stuff.

And I get that. Thats part of our DNA in America; we like being big.

I talk about this with our daughters all the time. Were now at the point in our lives where we can have sort of as much as we want of anything, and its like a good meal. Sometimes just having a nice meal instead of keeping on going back to the buffet, you feel better at the end of it.

Obama: I think what we should all be striving for as a society is to align what we say were about and our core ideals with what we do. So if we say that our children and the next generation are the most important things, then we have to act in accordance with those values.

I worry that any society where how we live strays too far from what we say we believe in is going to have a problem. And currently, there is more divergence than I would like.

And if I profess that the New Testament says we should be worrying about the poor and the weak and the vulnerable, and you say thats what youre about, then presumably that should be reflected in your policies and the people you support.

I worry that any society where how we live strays too far from what we say we believe in is going to have a problem. And currently, there is more divergence than I would like.

Continued here:
Barack Obama on climate, equity and overconsumption - GreenBiz

The head of the Chick-fil-A Foundation is a donor to both former President Barack Obama's and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential campaigns.

According to records from the Federal Election Commission, Rodney Bullard, the executive director of the Chick-fil-A Foundation, donated $1,000 to Hillary for America in 2016 along with $500 donations to both Obama for America and the Obama Victory Fund in 2008.

Bullard helped the restaurant company start its foundation in 2011, but Chick-fil-A is now being accused of caving to liberals by ending donations from its charitable arm to Christian charities such as the Salvation Army and Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

The company announced the decision earlier this month after pressure from gay rights activists, saying it wanted to clarify its beliefs and focus on education, homelessness, and hunger. Conservatives slammed the organization after the move, with one Republican congressman arguing that it "bowed" to the "harassment lobby" and another sarcastically congratulating "wokescolds who finally bullied Chick-fil-A into stopping donations to the Salvation Army."

The company said it is still open to donating to Christian companies in the future. The move comes after attempts to open restaurants in more liberal markets such as the U.K and Canada, where it faced resistance for its owner's Christian beliefs, including support for traditional marriage.

[ Opinion: Conservatives boycotting Chick-fil-A are silly]

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Chick-fil-A Foundation director donated thousands to Obama and Clinton presidential campaigns - Washington Examiner

The shift crystallized during last weeks debate as Democrats descended on the majority-black city of Atlanta and fanned out afterward in campaign appearances designed to connect with African-American audiences.

Aides and allies of Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker as well as Julin Castro have increasingly sounded alarms about whether any other candidate can beat Trump. And Harris, Booker and Castro have been telegraphing for weeks that they would take their campaigns in a more race-conscious direction.

What we need to talk about right now in this primary is which candidate can actually assemble the coalition we need to win, and thats a big concern right now with who is leading the polls, a Harris official said.

The new orientation is animated by doubts surrounding the durability of Joe Biden a candidate with a broad-based coalition, anchored by his commanding lead with black voters and a desire to blunt the momentum of a younger, white male candidate, Pete Buttigieg. The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has failed to demonstrate any ability to win over voters of color, most starkly in a recent Quinnipiac University poll that pegged his support among African-American Democrats in South Carolina at 0 percent.

Castro, the only Latino in the race, attacked Buttigiegs low polling figures with black voters last week.

If there's a candidate that has a bad track record with the biggest base of our party, Castro said, then why in the world would we put that person at the top of the ticket and risk handing the election over to Donald Trump when we need places like Detroit, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia to help us win Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania?

One day later, Booker implicitly rebuked Buttigieg when he said during the debate that nobody on this stage should need a focus group to hear from African-American voters.

Sen. Cory Booker said during the November debate that nobody on this stage should need a focus group to hear from African-American voters. | Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Harris lamented that for too long I think candidates have taken for granted constituencies that have been the backbone of the Democratic Party primarily black women.

Then came Sen. Bernie Sanders, releasing a plan to provide billions of dollars to historically black colleges and universities. He told Morehouse College students gathered in a plaza with a Martin Luther King Jr. statue at its center that his campaign has helped build and grow the culture of diversity that makes our country what it is today.

On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who from the beginning has explicitly addressed minority communities in her policies and speeches, told a crowd in Atlanta that as a white woman, I will never fully understand the discrimination, pain and harm that black Americans have experienced just because of the color of their skin. But, she said, When I am president of the United States, the lessons of black history will not be lost.

The rhetoric has shifted the debate about electability from an ideological plane where moderates and more progressive Democrats argued for months over policy to one based more on identity, and which candidate is best positioned to reassemble the Obama coalition of young people, women and nonwhite voters that proved instrumental to Democratic successes in the 2018 midterm elections.

It was an electability argument that Booker was making when he said black voters are pissed off, and they're worried.

They're pissed off because the only time our issues seem to be really paid attention to by politicians is when people are looking for their vote, Booker said. And they're worried because in the Democratic Party, we don't want to see people miss this opportunity and lose because we are nominating someone that isn't trusted, doesn't have authentic connection.

In part, the appeals of Harris and Booker are a last effort in a campaign slipping away from them. Both have less than 5 percent in national polls, and along with everyone else, are trailing Biden among black voters by huge numbers.

Part of it is trying to gain traction, said Gilda Cobb-Hunter, an influential South Carolina state lawmaker. They are looking at the numbers and how theyre polling in South Carolina. Im sure they expected to be doing better.

But the overtures by Booker, Harris and Castro also represent a slim opening that they are attempting to exploit.

Biden is slumping in Iowa, and his opponents believe he may shed support in later-voting states, including South Carolina, if he performs poorly there. Buttigieg, on the other hand, is rising in Iowa and New Hampshire, but performs abysmally with black voters outside those overwhelmingly white states.

Less than three months before the Iowa caucuses, its as though Democrats just now realized that the primarys four front-runners are all white, and that three are men.

Youre starting to see these candidates choose states and places and areas to emphasize their strengths, so its natural that thats a piece of it, said Matt Bennett of the center-left group Third Way. Its not just ideological. These coalitions are also demographic.

Race isnt the only issue in the conversation. During last weeks debate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar offered the campaigns sharpest critique to date of sexism in American politics, with a direct appeal to any working woman out there, any woman that's at home who knows exactly what I mean.

Harris has argued since giving a highly billed Detroit speech to the NAACP in May that electability is too often a code word for white, working-class male voters, who have emerged as the archetype of those who swung to Trump. She says a narrative centered around who can win the Midwest and who can beat Trump too often leaves out women and people of color.

In recent weeks, culminating in Wednesdays debate in Atlanta, Harris has made the case for her own candidacy more explicitly in this area, contending that the discussion in the primary should shift to which candidate can pull together the diverse coalition needed to win.

Harris called out Buttigieg as nave for citing his own experience being gay when pressed on his inability to connect with black voters, after which Buttigieg told reporters that Harris had misinterpreted him.

Theres no equating those two experiences, and some people, by the way, live at the intersection of those experiences, Buttigieg told reporters. What I do think is important is for each of us to reveal who we are and what motivates us and it's important for voters to understand what makes me tick, what moves me, and my sources of motivation in ensuring that I stand up for others.

Like Harris, Bookers focus, undergirded by fears of nominating the wrong candidate, is on forging multiracial, multiethnic coalitions that unite the progressive and moderate wings of the party.

The key is really this: We know how to win. Forty-Four showed us how, Bakari Sellers, the former state lawmaker in South Carolina, said of the road Obama carved in 2008. Others may try different paths, but thats unproven.

Its not the first time this cycle that Democrats have forced conversations about their past treatment of black and brown voters and what it will take to recreate the big tent that helped Democrats win in 2008 and 2012 previously, warnings were issued in Detroit, another predominantly black city, when the presidential candidates battled at an earlier debate this summer.

But in recent months, race and gender often became overshadowed by ideological disputes, primarily over health care, and by questions about whether a progressive Democrat or a more moderate one could run a stronger general election campaign against Trump. The partys focus on winning back Rust Belt voters who supported Obama before turning to Trump in 2016 defined much of the early campaign.

Following an event in Iowa this month, Castro said, Sometimes what seems like the safe choice is actually the riskier choice," arguing "we need to nominate a candidate who can appeal to the African-American and Latino communities.

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julin Castro argued "we need to nominate a candidate who can appeal to the African-American and Latino communities. | Joshua Lott/Getty Images

Yet even candidates injecting issues of race and gender into the campaign acknowledge the potential shortcomings of the case they are making. Harris has talked extensively about the electability argument being a barrier for potential White House barrier-breakers like herself, saying, Folks are kind of like, I like that that can happen, Harris said of nominating a black woman. But maybe we got to go with whats safe because we got to get Ole Boy out of office I am well aware of the challenge before us.

Cobb-Hunter said, Its hard to say how effective Harris and Booker might be in raising issues of race.

Even before, she said, Its not like black voters didnt know they were black.

Biden told reporters last week that he is confident he will win both Iowa and New Hampshire. In South Carolina on Friday, Biden spoke of his lead there as durable, saying, Ive always had overwhelming support from African-Americans my whole career and actually, I do feel pretty confident.

A Biden senior campaign adviser spent several minutes in a recent briefing with reporters talking about his steady polling, with the person pointing to the resiliency of his vote.

There has been a resiliency and a stability to his vote both nationally and in individual states and its because he actually has a broad base of support, the adviser said. Unlike some of the other candidates whose votes are based on one demographic group, he actually is strong among almost every demographic group.

Continue reading here:
To defeat Trump, Dems rethink the Obama coalition formula - POLITICO

The former FLOTUS told Marie Claire that the couple both had difficulties paying back their student loans. She was asked by the US magazine about why she had previously complained about the cost of summer camps when she had an income of $4.2m in 2007. Michelle responded: Barack and I were paying off our student loans until a very short time ago.

We're lucky that he's had a couple of best-selling books ... but we didn't come from privileged backgrounds.

We both know what it's like to struggle and work hard, and we're not very far removed from families who are doing everything they can to keep up with rising costs.

The former FLOTUS also revealed her bemusement at the way political opponents tried to smear her husband as elitist and out of touch with ordinary working people.

She pointed out that Barack was brought up by a single mother, who constantly struggled to put food on the table, as well as later in life choosing a career dedicated to helping people.

She said: This is the man who grew up not knowing his father, with a young, single mother who he watched struggle to make ends meet even going on food stamps at one point.

And despite the economic struggles that his family went through, Barack turned down lucrative careers on Wall Street and went to work in communities to help folks in need on the South Side of Chicago, helping families who'd been devastated when the local steel plants shut down.

Michelle also recalled how deeply moved and inspired she was by her roundtable meetings with military wives.

She explained: Another story that touched me was when one woman said that every day, she gets up, puts on her pretty face, puts on nice clothes, holds her head high, and keeps her spirits up.

JUST IN:Michelle Obama posts disastrous singing video with Ellen DeGeneres

Michelle talked about how her daughters sometimes struggled to cope with the long absences of their father, and how this turn affected her.

She recalled how after a speech she made at the Democratic Convention, she decided to surprise her daughters with an appearance by Barack, via satellite, on a huge screen.

Michelle said: Well, when he came up on the big screen, Malia instinctively walked up to it and then stopped.

She knew that he wasn't actually there with us; she just wanted to be closer to her father.

And when we got backstage, she cried, because she really misses him and worries about him when he's away from home for such long periods of time.

Moments like that one are the most difficult for me when it comes to the girls.

Read more here:
Michelle Obama heartbreak: Ex-FLOTUS reveals real struggle she faced with husband Barack - Express.co.uk

With the former president recently making public comments triggering to the radical left including that all that hashtag woke activism isnt actually activism The Washington Post felt compelled togive Americans on the left side of the aisle a little more perspective on the man whose legislative legacy Donald Trump has almost completely wiped out. The reason Democratic presidential candidates have been struggling so hard to figure out how to discuss Barack Obama, David Swerdlick writes for the Post, is that Obama isnt what they think he is.

Perspective: Democratic presidential candidates still cant figure out how to talk about the most popular figure in their party, [Swerdlick] writes, and theres a simple reason, the Post tweeted Sunday. Barack Obama is a conservative.

As Swerdlick highlights, Obama has tweaked some of his fellow progressives in recent public comments about the flawed assumptions and approaches of Democrats and their supporters.

This idea of purity and youre never compromised and youre always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly, the former presidenttold a group of young activist at anObama Foundation Summit in Chicago in late October. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.

As if that wasnt enough to outrage the permanently outraged, Obama added a sobering reality check to those increasingly steering the party toward more overtly socialist policies: The Democratic presidential candidates would be wise to come back more to the center because [t]his is still a country that is less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement.

Its becoming increasingly clear, writes Swerdlick, that the leading Democratic contenders cant quite figure out how to talk about the most popular figure in their party, which poses a major problem because he casts a long shadow over the 2020 primary campaign:

Preserving Obamas legacy is the heart of former vice president Joe Bidens pitch to voters which has allowed his rivals to mark him as complacent. More left-leaning candidates, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), say the next president needs to do more to push for health-care reforms and combat income inequality but lately, shes struggling to sell her proposals. Onetime Obama Cabinet secretary Julin Castro has ripped his former bosss record on immigration and deportation. Meanwhile, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg raced to have a reporter correct a story that misquoted him citing failures of the Obama era. Sen. Kamala Harris (Calif.) said in Wednesdays debate that its crucial to rebuild the Obama coalition because thats the last time we won. Picking and choosing which parts of Obamas tenure to embrace, and how firmly to embrace them, has become a delicate game in the primary season.

So why are they struggling to much to frame both their praise and criticism of The One? Because none of them have accepted what Swerdlick believes to be the hard truth about Obama.

Its because the former president, going back at least to his 2004 Senate race, hasnt really occupied the left side of the ideological spectrum, he insists. While he was of course no Republican, Obama never dramatically departed from the approach of presidents who came before him.

Theres a simple reason: Barack Obama is a conservative, Swerdlick declares. His evidence, that while Obama embraced left-wing positions like the Paris climate accords, Dodd-Frank, pro-choice policies, and same-sex marriage (after opposing it), his constant search for consensus ultimately made him be conservative on key domestic initiatives, like Obamacare and gun control, and foreign policy

The underlying concept for his signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, with its individual mandate, was devised by the right-wing Heritage Foundation and first implemented at the state level by Mitt Romney, then the Republican governor of Massachusetts. Obama wanted to protect Americans from the effects of a prolonged recession, so he agreed, in one of his defining votes as a senator, to a bailout of banks and as president, he prioritized recovery over punishing bankers for their role in the financial crisis. In his first inaugural address, he affirmed the power of the free market to generate wealth and expand freedom.

Until the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012, Obama studiously avoided any push for gun control. Indeed, in his first term, he signed laws that loosened restrictions on bringing firearms to national parks and on Amtrak. Though cast as a dithering peacenik who led from behind, he stuck with his thesis that the imperative to end the war in Iraq is to be able to get more troops into Afghanistan, and he prosecuted a drone war in Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.

Obama was a conservative in the end, suggests Swerdlick, because he believes, fundamentally, that the American model works even if it hasnt been allowed to work for everyone.

Read the Posts Overton window-shifting perspective piece here.

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Washington Post: 'Obama Is A Conservative' - The Daily Wire