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In their effort to break the mold, the planners of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago are taking heat for some less-than-lofty features in the sprawling complex. Namely, a “test kitchen.” Reports first surfaced last fall that the monument to the first black president’s legacy was taking on an activity-center vibe. There would be a museum – but also a basketball court, possibly a room for yoga classes, and a test kitchen to teach visitors “about the full production cycle of nutritious food.”

Looks like Barack Obama is going to have to learn to live with disappointment. He has prepared for his presidential library for years. It’s part of his legacy. When Obama was elected, Chicago treated him literally as if he was the second coming of Christ. He was their favorite son. Nine years later, not so much. They are beginning to see the real Barack Obama at long last. The citizens of Chicago are balking at the plans for Obama’s library. In its initial bid for the right to host the library, put forth on behalf of the city, the University...

Over dinner with convicted felon Peter F. Paul and Stan Lee in 2000, Hillary revealed her motive for the illegal email server she used from 2009 to 2013: to hide from investigators.

Former President Barack Obama embarked on an Asia trip this week, and Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs––a frequent defender of President Trump‘s––went off on Obama tonight for comments aimed at the current president. While in India, Obama offered this advice: “Think before you speak, think before you tweet.” He also invoked his own social media follower numbers compared to “other people who use it more often.” Dobbs slammed Obama for his criticisms of his predecessor, and guest Steve Forbes said Obama doesn’t realize he “doesn’t matter anymore.” Dobbs then said this:

Former President Barack Obama will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an upcoming trip abroad. Obama will visit China and India before making a stop in Paris, according to a spokesperson for the former president. Obama will speak at various summits in the three countries he visits. The Times of India last week reported that Obama would be in India’s capital city of New Delhi on Dec. 1 for an Obama Foundation event, which the spokesperson confirmed in a statement.

If former U.S. first lady Michelle Obama had to pick the words that have guided her over the years, she said she would pick a song by Stevie Wonder or a poem by Maya Angelou. Despite those and many other points of inspirations, Obama said the words she thinks of every day are those of her parents: "When I think about the words that stay in my head, that guide me, what I wake up to every day, it's the voice of Marian and Fraser Robinson," she said in an interview with poet Elizabeth Alexander during the inaugural Obama Foundation...

Though he has stayed active in politics — and reappeared on the campaign trail in New Jersey and Virginia just two weeks ago — Obama said he believes he’s up to something bigger, and thereby more curative for what he believes has gone wrong in elections. “The moment we’re in right now, politics is the tail and not the dog,” he said. “What we need to do is think about our civic culture, because what’s wrong with our politics is a reflection of something that’s wrong with the civic culture, not just in the United States but around the world.”...

For all of their hoopla, and even with Prince Harry as a drawing card, Barack and Michelle Obama could only fill half of the Chicago venue for their first Obama Foundation international summit When the mighty have finally fallen you don’t get to hear it because it’s like not being anywhere near the forest when the tree comes crashing down. In spite of all the hoopla about his $1 billion presidential center being the go-to place where civic youth will be taught how to ‘community organize’ the world, the venue kicking off Barack Obama’s First Obama Foundation international summit, was...

Michelle was back home yesterday – that’s home home, Chicago’s Southside, not her new home in D.C.’s entitled enclave of Kalorama. She was in town to speak at the Obama Foundation summit.  “The Obama Foundation,” wow, that didn’t take long did it? They learned at the feet of the masters how to maximize the grift after leaving office. I wonder what the over/under is for how long it will take them to surpass the market value of the country’s previously largest political slush fund for fun and profit.But I digress. First, as you listen to these clips ask yourself if...

Michelle Obama has a message for the men of the world: Do better, try harder and most importantly, communicate more. On Wednesday, the former first lady sat down with poet Elizabeth Alexander on the second day of the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, the first of an annual event. The topic turned to gender, and Obama had some choice words: She noted that women tend to communicate, reflect and support each other better than men—something she feels needs to change. "Y'all should get you some friends," she laughed...

Ongoing media hype notwithstanding, Harvey Weinstein is so over, but Hollywood casting coaches still exploiting their own. Taking out Trump is so now Get ready for the Second Coming of Barack Hussein Obama. THE COMEBACK! Ready or not, Obama will emerge from the shadows that have been sheltering him as ‘Leader of the Resistance’, for a 2-day Global Summit in Chicago, where he floats the hope that young civic leaders gathered for the Summit call will live on to “change the world”. Note that Resistance Leader Obama, flush with a $60-million plus book deal and a $1-billion, modern, stone-and-glass complex...

The Fox News headline sums up the issue at hand: "No Obama documents in Obama library? Historians puzzled by Chicago center plans." The article continues, "The Obama Foundation is taking an unconventional approach to the presidential center and library being planned in Chicago. It's opting to host a digital archive of President Barack Obama's records, but not keep his hard-copy manuscripts and letters and other documents onsite." The Chicago Tribune broke the story that, to this point, has attracted no major media attention. Its headline raises much the same question Fox News did: "Without archives on site, how will Obama...

Prince Harry will attend the Obama Foundation's first summit in Chicago later this month on Halloween, Kensington Palace announced Thursday.Harry will discuss youth leadership, including his involvement in the Full Effect project, a U.K. initiative that gives opportunities to young people, at the event on Oct. 31. Former President Barack Obama visited with Harry on a trip to London in May. Last month, the two sat together at a wheelchair basketball game for Harry's Invictus Games.Also expected at the event are former first lady Michelle Obama, former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates, among others.

Unlike traditional presidential libraries, the Obama Presidential Center will not actually have library materials. That is—it will not house former President Obama’s manuscripts, documents, letters, and gifts from his tenure in office—items presidential centers around the country all have. Instead, it will include space for outdoor functions and picnics, a basketball court, recording studio, sledding hill, children’s play garden, and more. As for the actual library documents, the center will rely online archives for Obama’s presidential materials as a way to avoid meeting federal standards in construction, raising money for an endowment, and paying the National Archives and Records Administration...

WASHINGTON – The Obama Foundation announced on Friday a search for a “diversity consultant” to enforce minority contracting goals for the future Obama Presidential Center and to police pledges that jobs will flow to South and West Side residents. In a statement the foundation said the “diversity consultant” should “demonstrate a verifiable record of implementing transparent and significant diversity and inclusion programs” working with companies owned by minorities, women, veterans, the disabled and “individuals who identify as LGBTQ.” The “diversity consultant” should have “a history of working with unions and engaging with underemployed populations including ex-offenders and youth to increase...

Former President Barack Obama has announced his organization will host the first-ever Obama Foundation Summit this upcoming fall, meant to bring together young leaders and cultivate change. "When I left office in January, I asked of you the same thing I asked of you way back in 2008 -- I asked you to believe not in my ability to bring about change, but in yours," Obama says in the announcement video. "This October, we’re bringing together hundreds of leaders from all around the world for hands on exchange in my hometown." The two-day event in Chicago will be held at...

Former President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that he plans to invite civic leaders to Chicago next month to exchange ideas and plan ways to solve some of the world’s common problems. The inaugural Obama Foundation leadership summit “will be a place to gather and learn from one another, and then go back to your communities to lead others in the hard work of change,” Obama said in a video and email released to supporters. The former president said he expects the summit, which will be Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, to bring hundreds of leaders from around the world. The...

Why is Obama getting away with a ‘12th of Never’ deadline on fundraising? Look out, America. The burning question of our day: When will Barack Obama have made enough money? When, for instance, will Obama turn off the money tap that is now pouring millions into the Obama Foundation? Not until the ‘12th of Never’, and as Johnny Mathis sings “and that’s a long, long time.”

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Barack Obama’s presidential foundation is barely two years old, but he is taking it down the same controversial — and by some accounts illegal — post-presidency path of his predecessor Bill Clinton, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.Federal law requires tax-exempt entities like the Barack Obama Foundation and the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation to stick closely to their IRS-approved missions. For former chief executives, that mission has been building and operating libraries to house their official papers for posterity.In a relatively unnoticed series of steps during the first six-years of its existence, the Clintons converted their foundation...