Mediaboss Marketing

Former President Barack Obama talked with members of The Economic Club of Chicago, in anticipation of the groundbreaking of the Obama Presidential Center on the city's South Side. AP Domestic

CHICAGO After years of pushback by park preservationists and community groups concerned about displacement, the Obama Presidential Center is expected to break ground this fall,and the former president visited with residents ofthe area this week.

"Traditionally I think presidential libraries can be a little backward-looking ... kind of a mausoleum in the sense that not much is happening," Barack Obama said Friday at a virtual event hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago. "Our thought was, well, lets create an institution that is alive and vibrant and is bringing people together."

The $500 million center, designed by architects Todd Williams and Billie Tsien, is expected to be located in Jackson Park on the city's South Side. The center is expected to consist of a museum, forum, public library, plaza, playground and pedestrian and bicycle paths. The Obama Foundation said it hopes the center brings 700,000 people to the South Side every year.

Obama family dog: Bo dies following battle with cancer, Barack and Michelle Obama post tributes

Barack Obama: Malia, Sasha's time in White House 'shut down their interest in public service'

Former President Barack Obama speaks at a community event on the Presidential Center at the South Shore Cultural Center, Wednesday, May 3, 2017, in Chicago.(Photo: Nam Y. Huh, AP)

The site will be located near where Barack and Michelle Obama first met, settled down and had their daughters. The location is near the University of Chicago Law School, where Obama taught constitutional law. It's also a few miles from where Michelle grew up and several miles from where Obama worked as a community organizer. Obama represented the area in the Illinois Senate from 1997 until 2004.

This week, Obama met with local business owners in surrounding neighborhoodsand made a surprise visit to ayouth football team practice.People who live within a two-mile radius of thesite are predominantly low-income, according to a 2017 report from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and many live in historically disinvested communites.

"Unfortunately, there are communities that have experienced extraordinary trouble and difficulty for decades," Obama said. "Its one of the reasons I think the Obama Presidential Center can be a powerful engine. It gives us an opportunity to locate in a community and have a presence that signifies this is an important part of our city."

Then-Illinois Democratic Senate candidate Barack Obama leaves with his wife Michelle, daughters Sasha, front left, and Malia after voting at Catholic Theological union polling place in Chicago on Nov. 2, 2004.(Photo: NAM Y HUH, AP)

The Foundation announced the location of the center in 2016, but the project was delayed by a lengthy federal review process required because the center's location, Jackson Park, is included in the National Register of Historic Places. The park was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and remodeled for the 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition.

The National Park Service and Federal Highway Administration concluded their four-year review in February, andChicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said physical construction would begin as early as August.

Several local groups, including park preservationists and a coalition of community organizations,have raised concerns about the projectfor years.

Park preservationists have warned about the effects on the historic parkland and have proposed an alternative location for the center. In 2018, a groupled by the nonprofit Protect Our Parkssued the city and the Park District.

"This is a 150-year-old work of art, and it is regarded widely as one of the most magnificent landscaped parks in America," said plaintiff Tom Mitchell, a professorat the University of Chicago who teaches a course on the history of landscape. "Its going to be a very, very ugly moment when the bulldozers arrive and people see these century-old trees carted away."

A photo of Jackson Park in Chicago in May, 2015.(Photo: Paul Beaty, AP)

In 2020, an appelete court whereJustice Amy Coney Barrett sat at the time said the suitlacked standing. Last year, the group asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit the appellate court decision, but the high court denied the petition in April. Barrett was not involved in the consideration, according to the court.

Michael Rachlis, who is part of the Protect Our Parks legal team, said the group planned to filea preliminary injuction motion before the court this month to request work on the center be stayed.

"If youre going to try to seize a huge portion of a public park, you should have a very good reason, and there should be no feasible alternatives," Mitchell said. "In this case, there are feasible and superior alternatives."

Valerie Jarrett, president of the Foundation, acknowledged the expected legal action at the virtual event Friday.

"We expect the same small group will sue us again going forward and try to get a restraining order," she said. "But we are very confident we're on solid legal footing."

The decision to build Barack Obama's presidential library in Chicago's lakefront Jackson Park rather than a nearby impoverished neighborhood has left some residents worried the museum will deliver less of a boost to the South Side. Some say Washington Park, a mile to the west, has greater needs because of poverty and population decline, and the location decision is a missed opportunity to spur development there.(Photo: E. Jason Wambsgans, AP)

Meanwhile, acollection of community organizations under the banner of theObama Community Benefits Agreement Coalition has also voiced concern that longtime residents of the areas surrounding the site are at risk of beingpriced out of their neighborhoods.

"The reason the center is coming to the South Side is because these are the people who elected Barack Obama. These people shouldnt be punished for that. They should be able to benefit from whats going on," said Dixon Romeo, a member of the coaliton and resident of the South Shore neighborhood, where Michelle Obama grew up.

Area residents arepredominantly renters, according to the 2017 report.Nearly half of renters have annual incomes less than $20,000, eviction rates are some of the highest in the city, and rentis rising in newly renovated and new construction units, which the majority of current renters cannot afford, according to the report.

Barack Obama on UFOs: 'We can't explain how they move, their trajectory'

'A clarion call for justice': Tracee Ellis Ross, Michelle Obama, more stars honor George Floyd

The coalition launched a years-long campaign demanding a community benefits agreement to protect residents from displacement, and the city and Foundation have since made a series of promises to address the coalition's concerns.

In September, the city adopted an ordinancefor the Woodlawn neighborhood mandating affordability requirements on all rental and for-sale housing developed on city-owned residential land and appropriating about $4.5 million and leveraginganother $5 million in loan funds to help rehabilitate existing affordable housing.

The ordinance also created a "Right of First Refusal Pilot Program" in the neighborhood that would require an owner of a building with 10 or more units to give tenants an exclusive opportunity to make an offer on the property prior to its sale.

However, several other neighborhoods in the area such as Grand Crossing, South Shore and Hyde Park have not received similar provisions.

"It (the ordinance) isnot enough for Woodlawn, but its better than what every other neighborhood got because we all got nothing," Romeo said. "Were already starting to see the effects and the signs of displacement."

For its part, the Foundation committed to awarding 50% of the subcontracting packages for the center to minority-, women-, or veteran-owned businesses, with 35% of workers living on the South and West Sides. In March, the Foundation created a "We Can Build It Consortium" to get more local residents involved in the building trades and committed $850,000 to train 400 new apprentices from the South and West Sides.

The Foundation also donated up to $3.5 million to the citytocover the cost of construction of the multi-purpose artificial turf field nearby.

"This could mean a transformation of the community, and that transformation is either going to mean equitable development or displacement," Romeo said.

Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/06/04/obama-presidential-center-expected-break-ground-fall/7542351002/

Read the original here:
Obama Presidential Center expected to break ground this fall after years of opposition, concern - USA TODAY

This is 2009 and health care all over again, said Adam Jentleson, who was an aide to Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader that year.

But efforts to find a bipartisan path forward continue to flounder.

Partisan politics are worse now than back in the days of the A.C.A., Mr. Baucus said this week, and they were plenty partisan then.

The template for todays infrastructure stalemate was set in 2009. Then as now, a small group of senators, Democratic and Republican, were empowered to seek a deal.

It was going to be done in a bipartisan way, with a goal of doing like you do other social programs in the United States, like civil rights and Medicare and Medicaid they all pass with wide bipartisan majorities, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, who was then the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a 2014 interview.

Then as now, if no compromise could be reached, Democrats needed every single senator in their party to push through a bill. That meant holding all 60 together in 2009 to beat a Republican filibuster; today, Democrats need all 50 of their members to use a budget maneuver called reconciliation to steer clear of a filibuster and pass legislation with a simple majority.

The reality was there were moderate Democrats who were very uneasy about doing health care, period, and certainly about doing it in a partisan way, Mr. Selib said this week. The only way to go 60-for-60 was to show Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln and Evan Bayh that we were going to do everything to make it bipartisan, that we were not going to leave anything on the field.

Mr. Nelson, a conservative Nebraskan, and Ms. Lincoln, an embattled Arkansan, are long gone, but today, Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona need the same assuaging.

More:
Infrastructure Talks Recall Heated Debate Over Obama Healthcare - The New York Times

Celebrities are paying their respects to Breonna Taylor on what wouldve been her 28th birthday.

On March 13, 2020, the 26-year-old African American woman died after undercover Louisville police officers burst into her home, where she lay asleep with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, and opened fire, striking Taylor five times. The officers Myles Cosgrove, Brett Hankison and Jonathan Mattingly have not been charged in Taylors death.

Taylors killing, in addition to that of George Floyd two months later, sparked protests worldwide calling for an end to police brutality and systemic racism. Taylor became a symbol of Americas failure to protect Black women.

On Saturday, June 5, public figures used Taylors birthday as an opportunity to not only honor the young womans memory but reaffirm their commitment to lasting change.

Beyonc wished Taylor a happy heavenly birthday on her official website, which the popular fan account @BeyLegion then tweeted on Queen Bs behalf. She also included an adorable photo of Taylor as a baby.

Sharing the artwork Amy Sherald created for Vanity Fair last August, former FLOTUS Michelle Obama wrote, Thinking of you today, Breonna.

Academy Award-winning actress Viola Davis also wished Breonna a happy birthday, promising that, We will never forget. We will always keep fighting.

Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., retweeted one of Taylors own celebratory tweets from her 25th birthday, or rather Bre Day, in 2018.

Tennis legend Billie Jean Kings birthday wishes included a solemn reminder, Breonna was an EMT and a first responder. She was killed in March 2020 by Louisville police who broke into her home looking for someone else. To date, the officers have not been charged.

Rosanna Arquette tweeted about how the tragedy of Taylors death was preventable. We want to be celebrating peoples birthday and graduations while they are alive and thriving not because they were killed by gun violence. Today is Breonna Taylors birthday who was killed in her own home by police officers. Rest in power Breonna.

Read the original post:
Beyonc, Michelle Obama and More Remember Breonna Taylor on Her Heavenly Birthday - TheWrap

WASHINGTON Democrats have seen this movie before.

A Democratic president engages in protracted negotiations with Republicans over his top legislative priority. The GOP wants more time. The president gives it to them, holding on to hope he can ink a historic bipartisan deal.

Democratic veterans of the 2009 fight over the Affordable Care Act say it's dj vu watching President Joe Biden hold another meeting Wednesday with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the GOPs point person on infrastructure. And in their experience, it doesn't end well.

Democratic operatives insist that Republicans, led then and now by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, are stringing Biden along as they did then-President Barack Obama.

Jim Messina, Obamas deputy chief of staff from 2009 to 2011, is urging Biden not to make that mistake again, saying that stretching out talks could blow back on Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections.

When you look back on my ACA days, it shouldve been apparent to us at the time. We waited too long, Messina said.

The White House is working to allay the fears within their party of a repeat of 2009 with infrastructure.

Literally every time we have a conversation about bipartisanship, there's someone in the White House saying they've all learned the lessons of the ACA, said a senior House progressive aide, who requested anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

The White House called Wednesday's meeting constructive and frank and said the two sides agreed to reconnect on Friday. The most recent offers found the two sides to be roughly $1.4 trillion apart and unable to agree on a definition of infrastructure. Biden continues to bank on the popularity of his proposals to persuade Republicans.

The 2009 health care effort also began as broadly popular, but as negotiations continued for months, the politics changed and the bill suffered a near-death experience when Democrats lost a Senate seat. By the time Obama signed it in March 2010, the public had turned against it and every Republican in Congress voted against it. The GOP made the law into a rallying cry it in the midterm election, picking up 63 House seats.

Story continues

Messina said he sees parallels between those talks and Bidens infrastructure push.

The biggest thing is that they keep asking for more time. And theyre just running the clock, he said of Republicans. If youre McConnell hes going to talk for as long as we want to talk, because hes just trying to be an obstructionist.

Messina argues Democrats should at least begin the process of bypassing Republicans as talks continue like they did on the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 bill.

Image: Brent Spence Bridge (Jeff Dean / AFP - Getty Images file)

Abandoning bipartisan efforts would require the support of all 50 Democratic senators. And Messina's warning about 2009 on repeat is more targeted at the centrists in his party who have called for GOP outreach, most notably Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.

Just like Obama in 2009, Biden is playing a tough hand, said Dan Pfeiffer, a former top adviser to Obama. Biden can't move forward on a partisan vote until Manchin is OK with it, just as Obama was stymied by (former Democratic Sen.) Max Baucus' insistence on moving a bipartisan bill through the committee.

It's painful because time is a nonrenewable resource, Pfeiffer said, adding that there are no easy outs until Manchin and Sinema see the world as it is.

Democrats are trying to convince the holdouts that McConnell isn't serious about talks by pointing to his recent remarks that 100 percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration. McConnell later qualified the comment and said his opposition depends on what the administration is proposing.

Pfeiffer believes the bipartisan talks are a fool's errand.

The idea of 10 Republicans voting for something significant is farcical, he said.

McConnell has called for continuing the negotiations.

Last week, Republican negotiators made a counteroffer that included $257 billion in new spending, a far cry from the $1.7 trillion Biden requested. The offer was designed by six Republicans, including two McConnell deputies.

But hours later in an appearance on CNBC, the Kentucky Republican said that it wasn't the final offer, and that were going to keep talking.

The top GOP negotiator has been more optimistic.

Sen. Capito reiterated to the president her desire to work together to reach an infrastructure agreement that can pass Congress in a bipartisan way. She also stressed the progress that the Senate has already made, Kelley Moore, a spokeswoman for Capito, said. Sen. Capito is encouraged that negotiations have continued.

Getting 60 Senate votes to advance any agreement would probably require McConnell's sign-off.

Ben Nelson, a former Democratic senator from Nebraska and a moderate who was a key player in the 2009 ACA debate, said Biden should not trust McConnell to negotiate a deal.

Itll be a purely political calculation on his part, Nelson, who is now working as a lawyer, said in an interview. I dont expect McConnell to be there in the end.

What will dictate that, Nelson said of McConnells calculus, is less good public policy but mostly whats the best move in a partisan way to thwart the presidents efforts to get infrastructure legislation passed.

Nelson said Democrats could peel away 10 Republican senators to break a filibuster on a modest infrastructure package, as long as they can agree on a price tag to craft a bill around. But, he said, that would probably need to be done without McConnell.

Charlie Ellsworth, who worked on health care as Nelson's legislative aide in 2009, said McConnell and his party are taking a very similar approach to the infrastructure debate, by dropping bread crumbs along the way to keep Democrats' attention and try to run out the clock.

Every day that we're participating in these so-called negotiations is a day we're not legislating and getting a bill done to help working families and solve climate change, he said.

Read more from the original source:
Wary Democrats watching Biden's negotiations ask: Remember what happened to Obama in 2009? - Yahoo News

Joe Biden is finishing the job begun by Barack Obama, the former president told the New York Times in an interview released on Tuesday.

I think that what were seeing now, is Joe and the administration are essentially finishing the job, Obama said. And I think itll be an interesting test.

Ninety per cent of the folks who were there in my administration, they are continuing and building on the policies we talked about, whether its the Affordable Care Act or our climate change agenda and the Paris [climate deal], and figuring out how do we improve the ladders to mobility through things like community colleges.

Obama also considered why in 2016, after his eight years in power, so many voters plumped for a hard-right successor in Donald Trump.

Its hard to just underscore how much the bank bailouts just angered everyone, including me, Obama said, of the remedy for the 2008 financial crisis he helped lead.

And then you have this long, slow recovery. Although the economy recovers technically quickly, its another five years before were really back to people feeling like, OK, the economy is moving and working for me.

Lets say a Democrat, a Joe Biden, or Hillary Clinton had immediately succeeded me, and the economy suddenly has 3% unemployment, I think we would have consolidated the sense that, Oh, actually these policies that Obama put in place worked.

The fact that Trump interrupts essentially the continuation of our policies, but still benefits from the economic stability and growth that we had initiated, means people arent sure. Well, gosh, unemployments 3.5% under Donald Trump.

Obama also mused about Bidens much-discussed ability to reach voters, particularly in post-industrial midwestern states, who voted Obama then switched to Trump.

By virtue of biography and generationally, Obama said, his vice-president, who is 78 and was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, can still reach some of those folks.

People knew I was left on issues like race, or gender equality, and LGBTQ issues and so forth, Obama said. But I think maybe the reason I was successful campaigning in downstate Illinois, or Iowa, or places like that is they never felt as if I was condemning them for not having gotten to the politically correct answer quick enough, or that somehow they were morally suspect because they had grown up with and believed more traditional values.

In fact Obama famously stirred controversy in 2008 when he said such voters get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who arent like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The New York Times interviewer Ezra Klein did not raise those remarks.

Obama continued: I could go to the fish fry, or the [Veterans of Foreign Wars] hall, or all these other venues, and just talk to people. And they didnt have any preconceptions about what I believed. They could just take me at face value.

The former president noted the drastic effects on such states of the collapse of local newspapers and the proliferation of misinformation via rightwing and social media.

If I went into those same places now, Obama said, or if any Democrat whos campaigning goes in those places now, almost all news is from either Fox News, Sinclair news stations, talk radio, or some Facebook page. And trying to penetrate that is really difficult.

Its not that the people in these communities have changed. Its that if thats what you are being fed, day in and day out, then youre going to come to every conversation with a certain set of predispositions that are really hard to break through. And that is one of the biggest challenges I think we face.

According to recent polling, 53% of Republicans and 25% of Americans accept Trumps lie that his defeat by Biden was the result of electoral fraud, while 15% of Americans believe the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that a cabal of child-murdering cannibals controls the US government.

If you have a conversation with folks, Obama said, you can usually assuage those fears. But they have to be able to hear you. You have to be able to get into the room. And I still could do that back in 2007, 2008. I think Joe, by virtue of biography and generationally, I think he can still reach some of those folks. But it starts getting harder, particularly for newcomers who are coming up.

Obama also said a successful Biden administration will have an impact on a deeply polarised political landscape in which Republican states are restricting voting among communities of color and making it easier to overturn results, while Republicans in Congress block a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack on the US Capitol by Trumps supporters.

Does [success for Biden] override that sort of identity politics that has come to dominate Twitter, and the media, and that has seeped into how people think about politics? Obama asked. Probably not completely. But at the margins, if youre changing 5% of the electorate, that makes a difference.

Read the original post:
Biden finishing the job my administration started, Obama says - The Guardian