Free Republic

The Illinois Republican Party has blasted as "divisive" the hiring language the Obama Foundation is using for the Obama Presidential Center, arguing it shows the privately run project is using public land to advance a political agenda. The Obama Foundation, which is developing the hotly debated center on Chicago’s South Side, recently advertised roughly 150 jobs at the facility, stating that successful applicants are expected to align with the foundation’s "anti-racism" goals. "It’s an Illinois Democrat tradition to insert divisive, far-left policies into the lives of everyday Americans and to balk at the rule of law," Illinois Republican Party Chair...

Before I started writing at PJ Media, I spent about 15 years as an architectural designer. I never really loved the work, mostly because I never worked at a firm that tackled the kind of big, ambitious projects that really excited me. But even if I had, there's one project I would've hated regardless: the Obama Presidential Center. And trust me, it’s not just because it's Obama's vanity project. The building is hideous. The Obama Presidential Center is a 225-foot-tall gray monstrosity rising on Chicago's South Side, and it looks more like a prison than a museum. The project has...

The first community organizer to become president has managed to anger community groups so much with his planned personal monument, aka a "presidential center," that part of the plan was just scrapped. Lolly Bowean of the Chicago Tribune reports: Bowing to community pressure, the Obama Foundation has scrapped its plan for an above-ground parking garage and will instead build an underground facility below the presidential center in Jackson Park, officials said late Monday. The original plan would have grabbed a treasured part of Chicago's park system, the Midway (site of Chicago's World's Fair), for a two-story garage. The group Save...

Barack Obama may be the pride of University of Chicago, but a lot of heavy hitters there are strongly opposing current plans for his library. More than 100 U of C faculty members who say they support the location of an Obama Center near the campus nevertheless are opposing plans for it on economic and preservation grounds. They say the center’s proposed location lacks room to jump-start economic development, and its footprint will consume parts of historic Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance. “Not only are public lands being given to a private entity but the public will pay to...

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...