Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category
Does Wes Moore Really Want to Be the Next Barack Obama? – Bloomberg
I realize its still 2024, so indulge me: Grab your crystal ball and set it to 2028. If you see an image of a telegenic Democratic governor with a winning smile, that means Marylands Wes Moore is having a moment.
Hyped as a presidential contender since grade school and often compared to Barack Obama, Moore now finds himself and his state at a crossroads: After the deadly collapse last month of Baltimores Francis Scott Key Bridge, he has become the face of the response. His success may depend more on how well he can emulate a mostly forgotten Midwestern governor instead of the nations first Black president.
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Does Wes Moore Really Want to Be the Next Barack Obama? - Bloomberg
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Opinion | Was the Obama Victory Called Too Early? – The Wall Street Journal
Opinion | Was the Obama Victory Called Too Early? The Wall Street Journal
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Opinion | Was the Obama Victory Called Too Early? - The Wall Street Journal
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The One Dude Who Showed Up for Trump Trial Day 2 Voted for ObamaTwice – The Daily Beast
One lonely supportera reformed Trotskyist with a hard-luck story and a Jan. 6 historystood outside Manhattan Criminal Court as Donald Trump arrived for the second day of his trial on Monday morning.
It was quite a contrast from the scene a day earlier: about 50 MAGA fans waving flags and a 20-person anti-Trump contingent marching down the street. And even that was probably a letdown for the ex-president who loves crowds, and loves to overestimate them.
Gary Phaneuf, 68, didnt even have any reporters talking to him, except for The Daily Beast. He stood in a specially designated protest area across from the entrance to 100 Centre Street, wearing a New York baseball cap and carrying a Trump 2024: Take America Back banner.
People give me 20 bucks for walking around with this, he said proudly, then added, with a tinge of regret: I wish I didn't need the money, but thats a long story.
Phaneuf entertained himself by cracking jokes at passersby and occasionally leading a one-man chant of Fight! Fight! Fight for Trump! and Tara Reade! Say her name!a reference to the woman who claims Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993. (Biden denies the allegations.)
I got pissed off, Phaneuf said of his motivation for being there on Day 2 of jury selection.
I was just watching like everyone else until Tish James pulled her stunt with all that money, he added. That was highway robbery.
Donald Trump loves a crowd. He didnt get one on Tuesday.
James, the New York attorney general, won a $450 million judgment against Trump and his company earlier this year for fraudulently inflating his net worth for personal gain. The facts of the case, and the department charging it, are completely separate from the criminal case underway this week, which was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and accuses Trump of covering up hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Why did Phaneuf think that he was the only one who could be bothered to show support on a gloriously sunny day?
People like to stay in their comfort zone, he theorized. And a lot of people are lazy.
Phaneuf, by his account, is anything but lazy. The Staten Island native said he worked as a history teacher and when that fell throughIts a long story, me and the Board of Ed, he saidany odd job he could find, from shipyards to selling souvenirs on the Brooklyn Bridge.
You name it, Ive done it, he boasted.
But what takes up most of his time these days is protesting. Phaneuf is a fixture in his Staten Island neighborhood, demonstrating against COVID lockdowns and former Mayor Bill De Blasios planned closure of Rikers Island.
On Jan. 6, 2021, he was arrested for a curfew violation after he traveled to Washington, D.C., to protest President Joe Bidens election, which landed him in the pages of The New York Times.
Theyre trying to figure out, Who are the ring leaders? so they pointed a finger at me, he griped. Asked whether he was a ringleader, he smiled conspiratorially and asked: Was I?
Phaneuf volunteered that he used to protest just as avidly for the other side. In 2010, he was escorted out of a New York Landmarks Commission hearing for rowdily demonstrating in favor of a proposed mosque being built near Ground Zero; a year later, he was one of five protesters interviewed by The New Yorker about their participation in Occupy Wall Street. In 2014, he marched against the death of Eric Garner at the hands of a Staten Island cop.
And, he admitted sheepishly, he voted for Barack Obama twice.
I used to be a Trotskyist, he said with a shrug.
Another Trump supporter, who declined to give his name, arrived as Phaneuf was speaking to The Daily Beast and said hed seen him get arrested and hauled away from other pro-Trump rallies. It did not seem that such drama was in the cards on Tuesday. By afternoon, as a handful of other protesters trickled in, Phaneuf was still there, napping on a park bench, his Trump 2024 banner resting beneath him.
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The One Dude Who Showed Up for Trump Trial Day 2 Voted for ObamaTwice - The Daily Beast
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Lawyers: Why further litigation is sadly necessary on Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park – Chicago Tribune
On April 8, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its latest opinion that consciously shielded from any judicial oversight the construction of the Obama Presidential Center in historic Jackson Park.
The opinion guts the guarantee of an 1869 grant from the Illinois legislature providing that the land encompassing Jackson Park would be held, managed and controlled by the (Park Commission) as a public park, for the recreation, health, and benefit of the public, and free to all persons forever, by making three fatal mistakes to insulate the project from all substantive review.
First, the initial creation of a 99-year use agreement for the center flatly violates the public trust doctrine, which prohibits the outright transfer of public lands to private institutions if fair value is not received in return. Transferring possession of the site required that the center has in hand the money both to build and maintain the property. The foundation had neither when it promptly cut down hundreds of mature trees in August 2021 in a project that is late and over budget.
Instead of building the center near underserved communities west of Washington Park the foundation and the city entered a sweetheart deal that delegated to the foundation the ability to pick the Jackson Park site under a 99-year lease of 19.3 acres of prime parkland for $10, an obvious giveaway of public trust lands. How? By relabeling the original lease as a use agreement to avoid judicial scrutiny. The opinion ignores that blatant subterfuge by noting that the title to the center remains with the city, even though virtually 100% of the economic benefits went to the foundation in violation of the terms of the 1869 grant.
How? By engaging in intellectual jiujitsu to conclude that the public was the real beneficiary of a deal whose every detail was dictated by the foundation. The Illinois Supreme Court has long insisted that the public trust doctrine only has meaning and vitality if members of the public have standing to enforce it. But the court sidestepped meaningful review by stating that the citys 2015 ordinance for the center and the 2016 Illinois Museum Act blessed the deal such that it could evade all constitutional constraints that bind the political branches.
Second, matters only get worse when looking at the 2019 Master Agreement between the city and the foundation, which conditioned transfer of that site to the foundation only if it had received enough money for construction and had an endowment for operation and maintenance by the foundation. As of August 2021, the cost of the project ballooned to over $700 million.
At that time, the foundation had received far less than $700 million dedicated to construction. It also indulged in a unique accounting practice that treated a 2021 $1 million contribution as fully endowing that fund, with further fundraising down the road. When the plaintiffs sought to amend their complaint to challenge these maneuvers, the district court took less than a day to throw their case out, claiming that the city and foundations master agreement did not allow any third party to sue.
The problem was that the plaintiffs did not sue on the contract but explicitly as taxpayers for the waste of public assets. The opinions discussion of the district courts hurried decision mangled the key precedent which flatly holds that a taxpayer can enjoin the misuse of public funds, based upon taxpayers ownership of such funds and their liability to replenish the public treasury for the deficiency caused by misappropriation thereof. Thus the Seventh Circuit put the kibosh on any citizens effort to open the books to supply public transparency.
Third, on environmental issues, the federal government initially said that the designated project was building the center in Jackson Park with the attendant road and other adjustments. The early reviews pinpointed negative historic, aesthetic and environmental impacts on Frederick Law Olmsteds priceless jewel. But the opinion ignored both Olmsted and the massive destruction of roads, trees and habitat by refusing to treat them as a major federal action causing significant harm that requires a full-scale environmental impact review. Instead, the opinion claimed that building the center was a local initiative because the federal government could not dictate where the center could be built or how it should be managed. Thus, the statutes became dead letters by ignoring the simple fact that the federal government is always allowed to effectively block unsuitable projects, even if it cannot instruct the city whether to abandon or relocate the project.
Worse, the opinion abjectly deferred to the city and agency decisions by ignoring the Supreme Courts canonical decision in Overton Park v. Volpe (1971) that requires the center to face a thorough, probing, in-depth review for which a project can be approved only if there is no prudent and feasible alternative to using the land.
Sadly, 17 months after the initial critical reviews, the federal agencies and the city, without notice or further hearings, redefined the project so that it no longer covered building the center, but only covered fixing the roadwork in and around Jackson Park. That sleight of hand was adopted by the opinion to block any review of alternatives to the location of the center.
The opinion opens by saying its current decision represents, we hope, the final installment in litigation that began in 2018. Sorry. Not so long as such decisions fail to protect the community, the environment, and block transparency of such transactions.
Richard A. Epstein is a professor at NYU Law School and senior lecturer the University of Chicago. Michael Rachlis is a partner in the Chicago law firm of Rachlis Duff & Peel, LLC. They represent Protect Our Parks Inc. and the other plaintiffs in the litigation against the Obama Presidential Center.
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Lawyers: Why further litigation is sadly necessary on Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park - Chicago Tribune
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