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HYDE PARK Obama Foundation officials said they no longer want to leave the responsibility of building an underground parking garage to an outside group when they presented the first revisions of plans for the presidential centers grounds to community leaders in a recent closed-door meeting.

At a Tuesday meeting at foundation headquarters, 5235 S. Harper Court, officials said they will build the parking garage, according to nearly a dozen people who attended.

Barack Obama initially said he wanted a parking garage built on the easternmost border of the Midway Plaisance, but the project was not in the foundations budget. The city or another group was expected to take the lead on the funding and building of the garage.

RELATED:Here's Every Huge Change Obama (& Others) Want At Jackson Park, Mapped

Foundation officials now say the foundation will build the 450-space garage, which is about half the size of the Museum of Science and Industrys garage, and expand its project to five buildings from four on 35 acres of parkland.

Thats 14 acres more of parkland than the 21 acres of Jackson Park the city initially offered the foundation in 2016. The site in Jackson Parkhas expanded about 9 acres to include the area that is currently Cornell Drive, which would be closed and converted to parkland under the plan.

Since the Midway Plaisance is technically owned by the Chicago Department of Transportation and leased to the Chicago Park District for use as a park, it also creates additional bureaucratic hurdles for the foundation if it still wants to start the city approval process by the end of the year.

Obama Foundation officials declined to comment.

The meeting was the first chance to see what changes the foundation had made to plans for the presidential centers campus since a series of contentious public meetings in June.

Two pedestrian bridges connecting the garage to the campus and the campus to Wooded Island have now been removed from the plans.

Im glad thats not there, they obviously heard feedback at some point from people that it wasnt a good idea, and thats not there, said Lisa Dichiera, director of advocacy for Landmarks Illinois, who was at the meeting.

Other changes include dropping a curve that was to be added to Stony Island Avenue near a proposed water feature at the northernmost end of the campus.

The water feature had drawn criticism because it was to replace a perennial garden designed by the first woman landscape architect for the Chicago Park District and thats one of the oldest gardens in the city.

The garden still will be altered, adding a depression in the middle, or possibly creating a more formal water garden to collect storm water, according to people at the meeting, but the 300-foot diameter circle garden will remain.

Louis McCurry, president of the Jackson Park Advisory Council, said she was happy to hear that the Womens Bench on the Midway Plaisance, which honors some of the first women from Chicago elected to public office, will remain where it is and will be incorporated into the parking garage, which is proposed to have a landscaped roof with lawns and areas for barbecuing.

Plans for an athletic center, which YMCA and Chicago Park District officials have worried will compete with their athletic facilities less than two blocks away, have gained little structure in their programming or design.

If the athletic center is just going to be there for President Obama to play basketball, it probably shouldnt be in a public park, Juanita Irizarry, executive director of Friends of the Parks, said she told foundation officials.

Others at the meeting said they were told by foundation officials that the athletic center was not yet committed to any specific programming and is still looking for partners.

Community leaders said their colleagues were critical of the plans, but the conversation was constructive and cordial.

There was criticism that the changes to the plans since they were unveiled in May were minor considering the amount of feedback the center has gotten from scores of community groups.

Its the same diagram, but they took the bridges out, said Margaret Schmid of Jackson Park Watch, a group that has been critical of how closed planning for the center has been.

Most community leaders asked said they could not pick out any changes that had been made in response to a specific community concern they had expressed to the foundation or heard expressed by others.

Changes to the landscape design are expected to be brought to the wider public at some point in the coming weeks, but foundation officials declined to say when they would schedule the next round of public meetings.

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Obama Foundation Revises Plan, Will Build Presidential Center Garage Itself - DNAinfo

Former President Obamas Homeland Security secretary said Sunday he doesnt want to see any more defections from President Trumps advisers.

Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said hed tell Trump advisers you have to stay in the administration if any of them asked, he toldABCs This Week.

Johnson specifically named White House chief of staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary James MattisJames Norman MattisTrump to tackle Afghanistan strategy at Camp David Four members of Joint Chiefs denounce racism US, Japan conduct air drills after North Korea issues Guam warning MORE and national security adviserH.R. McMaster.

Id say absolutely not if they asked me if they should resign, Johnson said.

They need to right the ship," he said.

Johnsons comments follow a number of resignations from Trumps business advisory councils as well as among White House senior staff.

Trump announced the disbanding of his Manufacturing Advisory Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum this week after multiple CEOs resigned. Many CEOs in their resignation letters citedtheir conscience over Trumps response to a white supremacistrally that turned violent in Charlottesville, Va., as lacking force or condemnation of the hate groups that organized it.

The White House in the last month also lost chief strategist Stephen Bannon, press secretary Sean Spicer, chief of staff Reince Priebus, communications director Anthony Scaramucci and press aide Michael Short.

Johnson also defended his former boss from a recent wave of criticism that he failed in his previous responses to national crises such as the sometimes violent debate over racism and Confederate monuments currently facing the nation.

A previous appearance by Trump supporter Jerry Falwell Jr. on the ABC program included criticism of Obama for failing to be bold and truthful in naming evil in the past.

Thats an unfair suggestion, according to Johnson.

He talked to all American people particularly at times like this, Johnson said of Obama. His entire career was devoted to bringing people together.

Original post:
Former Obama aide to White House staff: Stay and right the ship - The Hill

When President Obamas record-breaking Tweet came out I did what most people did: liked, retweeted and took some sadistic pleasure in the knowledge that the record-breaking news was going to drive Trump up the wall.

I have since giving it some more thought, and in truth and with all due respect to President Obama and Nelson Mandela, is not that simple, and I believe the response takes more than 140 characters.

In all fairness, people are taught a lot of things, and as any parent or teacher will tell you, they choose to learn some and not others.

The seventeen-year-old kid in Barcelona is a good example, he was born in the most tolerant Muslim country in the world, went to the University of Barcelona, one of the most, liberal and tolerant cities in the world, and whoever thought him to hate, assuming someone did, was prioritized by him.

There is nature, theres nurture, but theres also free will and all it takes is a little bit of imagination and some courage to exercise it. Without free will, without exercising it to select the input we allow in our brains, we are perennial victims, easy prey to hateful influences eager to give us someone to blame for our failures.

This is patently true in white supremacists, you really have to choose to believe nonsense, to feel like a victim when youre a white male in America, yes, youre not born a racist, that might be true, but youre born a coward because you choose to believe someone is to blame for all your failures at every turn. That is a choice. Otherwise we have to believe there were just leaves floating in the wind with no control of our own choosing, pliable victims of bad influences. I dont believe thats true.

And I dont believe that ignorance is to blame, even though it is the usual liberal explanation of evil, the Germans were hardly an ignorant nation and the neo-nazis marching in the United States today went to the same school as their neighbors.

I believe that in the end it comes down to courage, the courage of conceptual thinking, the courage to take responsibility for your own failures, the courage not to be a victim or use others as you excuse, the courage of intellectual honesty as you absorb the influence around you. Racists are not ignorant or misinformed, they are cowards.

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My Response To President Obama's Record-Breaking Tweet - HuffPost

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, August 20, 2017, 9:38 PM

An ex-skinhead who co-founded an organization that focuses on battling far-right extremism says President Trump revoked a federal grant issued by the Obama administration supporting the groups mission.

Under President Obama, my organization, Life After Hate, was awarded a $400,000 grant to help combat far-right extremism, co-founder Christian Picciolini told CBS News John Dickerson Sunday. And when President Trump took office, immediately that grant was rescinded."

We were the only organization of the pool of grantees that was focused on white supremacist, extremists and disengaging people from that movement," Picciolini said.

He told the New York Times that he believes Trump took away his organizations grant because hes critical of the President on social media.

Every day that passes w/ @realDonaldTrump in office will take America 100 yrs to repair, Picciolini tweeted in May.

Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan told the Daily News that Picciolinis claim that Life After Hates grant was immediately" revoked was inaccurate.

The grants initially announced in January were reviewed upon directionand with new guidancefrom then-Secretary (John) Kelly and awardees were announced in late June, Lapan said.

The department had issued grants to 26 law enforcement and community organizations worth $10 million.

Life After Hate was founded in 2011 by former members of the American violent far-right extremist movement, the nonprofits website says. Organizers work with people who want to leave their hate groups and to educate others about racism.

Picciolini, who is of Italian descent, joined the white supremacist movement at 14 years old in 1987. He was then recruited into Americas first neo-Nazi skinhead group.

Everybody at Life After Hate is a former extremist, so we understand the (motivations) of why people join," Picciolini said. But, more importantly, we understand what it takes to get out of these groups.

Originally posted here:
Ex-neo Nazi says Trump revoked federal grant Obama gave his organization to fight hate - New York Daily News

ELKINS A Randolph County resident was ecstatic to receive a response letter from former President of the United States Barack Obama earlier this summer.

Kevin Watson said he sent a letter to Obama in January, when the president was still in office.

Watson sent the letter of appreciation with a thank-you card directly to the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C.

I thanked him and his wife for their service to the country and the world, Watson stated.

He said he didnt expect a reply, but at the end of June, Watson received a letter dated June 23.

In the reply, Obama thanked Watson for his kind message and his words of support.

I am proud of the progress weve made together, Obama wrote in his letter to Watson.

Thanks to the participation and resolve of everyday Americans like you, our country is a better and stronger place today than it was before I took office, Obama said in the letter.

None of our accomplishments were inevitable they were the result of people from every background and station in life stepping forward and embracing the important responsibilities of citizenship.

As long as we continue working in common effort and presuming the inherent goodness in one another, Im confident our brightest days will always lie ahead, the former president wrote.

The letter then went on to thank Watson for taking the time to write a positive and encouraging note.

It closed with the following: It was the honor of my life to serve as your president, and while there are many milestone moments we will always remember, it was my conversations with people like you that kept me going every single day. Theyve stayed with me and they always will. Thanks for everything I wish you the very best.

Obama was elected Nov. 4, 2008, taking office as the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2009. He was elected to a second term and served until Jan. 20, 2017.

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Resident receives correspondence from Obama - The Inter-Mountain