Chicago advocacy group files federal lawsuit to block Obama Presidential Center
Plaintiffs accuse Obama center organizers of pulling an ‘institutional bait and switch’.
Earlier this year, we reported that the plans for the Barack Obama Presidential Center were being blasted by Chicago residents and that it was facing an environmental impact lawsuit.
Now, a local advocacy group opposed to the location of the presidential library in Chicago’s Jackson Park has filed a federal lawsuit aimed at blocking the controversial South Side project.
The plaintiff—named as nonprofit activist group Protect Our Parks, Inc.—accuses the Obama Foundation of pulling a “bait and switch,” by replacing an “official” presidential library overseen by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration with a complex that instead offers digital access to Obama’s off-site archival documents.
“Although that original purpose of an official Presidential Library no longer exists,” reads the complaint, “the defendants continue to forge ahead to advance a totally different private nongovernmental project on public parkland.”
Furthermore, the suit claims that public land is “prohibited by law” from being turned over to a private entity for private use and that such a deal violates Chicago Park District code.
One of the complaints is that the construction is an example of classic, Obama-style bait-and-switch.
Protect Our Parks Inc. accused organizers of an “institutional bait and switch” by initially advertising the center as the 44th president’s official library.
“In August 2016, the City and the Park District publically announced that the Obama Presidential Library, promised to include all of the former President’s official records, would be built in Jackson Park,” the lawsuit reads. “Then, in May 2017, after the Defendants’ public announcement that a true ‘Presidential Library’ would be built, the Obamas did an about face on their commitment to a Presidential Library.”
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, also claims the transfer of public parklands to a private entity violates Park District Code.
“Defendants have chosen to deal with it in a classic Chicago political way, known as a short con shell game, a corrupt scheme to deceive and seemingly legitimize an illegal land grab, one that will endure for centuries to come, regardless of future changing public park needs and increasingly consequential environmental conditions,” the lawsuit reads.
To be fair to Obama, after President Trump finishes his terms in office, there will be little legacy to store in a library. In fact, rumor has it that Trump may donate this sculpture to the Obama Presidential Center grounds:
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Comments
A bait and switch? That was 8 years Obama was in office.
The Obama bait and switch was the first thing that popped in my mind when I saw this article on the main page. I’m sure everybody else here caught that irony.
A Presidential Library that doesn’t house the papers of the President ?!? Made me wonder if he had something to hide.
So transparent like the past Admin’s 8 years.
What ‘papers?’
The boxes he checked every day on forms given to him by staff so he didn’t have to write prose?
His fake birth certificate?
His fake books (written by Bill Ayes?)
His law license revocation?
His grades at Columbia?
His writings at Harvard law?
The text he read from His teleprompter?
His Nobel Prize research?
What friggin loser that fraud is. What a bad joke on this country. Thankfully, his ridiculous green portrait will live on to mock him.
At least one of those items is an outright, stupid lie. His law license was not revoked, and you know it very well you stupid liar.
As well, only paranoid freaks like you and Joe Arpaio think there is anything fake about the birth certificate he released.
And what research do you imagine goes into a Nobel Peace Prize? Really, that item is just bizarre.
only paranoid freaks like you and Joe Arpaio think there is anything fake about the birth certificate he released.
There’s everything fake about it. As is bloody obvious to anyone with a functioning central nervous system.
Build the damn thing in Havana, Cuba.
Dude!
Why?
NO!
We still that hope Cuba will change one day. Don’t make it harder, please.
Hmm, I see your point!
Is anybody surprised? Everything, _everything_ about Barry Soetero is a fraud.
O= the Great Faked One!
An outrageously snarky and blasphemous moniker for America’s Kenyan Prince (or goat herder) in residence was the “Chicago Jesus”.
Perhaps the only logical use of that ugly abomination is to Crucify him on one of the high walls. Americans could call it our tribute to elite Americans…OR…”Destiny Calls” for liars.
love the ‘eraser’ an accurate picture of what Zero’s
‘legacy’ is.
the move to Jerusalem was also a counter to the shameful
abdication of Zero at the UN.
I wonder is Palestinians have figured out that moving the embassy was a bitch slap over Obama’s UN crap? It sure wiped the smirk off Palestinian’s faces.
Your comment would make sense if you referred to Hamas. But do you really want to ‘bitch slap’ the Palestinians? I guess they are just a sheethole people.
The Palestinians are Muslims and as such are evil. Islam was created by Muhammad as a fascist religion of war dedicated to world conquest and the imposition of a Sharia based tyranny to rule.
Pathetic! Christianity has done a pretty good job of world domination, too. Ask the indigenous peoples of Latin America.
Ask Jews who know their history. You have heard of the Inquisition? Do you know that Luther was an anti-Semite? How about Pope Kidnaps Jewish Boy
What about the Real Witch Hunt?
Hell, even Buddhists in Myanmar have become killers.
They are not all Moslems. A significant number of them are Christian or atheist, and they are every bit as sh*tty as the Moslem ones. Of course the Moslem ones hate them too, but that doesn’t stop them from all hating the Jews together. Western Christianity has mostly shed its historical antisemitism, but Eastern Christianity has not. To the typical Levantine Christian, the only thing worse than a Turk is a Jew.
The only problem with the Palestinians is their use of oxygen that was designated for Israel’s use. Other than that, everything is hunky-dory!
Yes, they are a sh*thole alleged “people”. They are a “nationality” invented for the sole purpose of claiming imaginary “national rights”, though I’ve never understood why simply being a nation would give anyone any rights. But the fact is that neither they nor anybody else ever thought of them as “Palestinians” until the 1960s. They were simply Arabs who happened to live in Palestine, a European name for the general region, which the Arabs never used or heard of until the British mandate.
Since the only purpose of identifying as “Palestinian” is to continue their grandfathers’ project, in alliance with Germany, of wiping out the Jews, they all deserve to be bitch-slapped.
Live by pen and phone – dies by Twitter and eraser.
Obama will never willingly let his records be available. Hence, the electronic “access.”
Ironic, considering that Trump won’t even release the visitor’s log for the WH or Mar-a-Lago; not to forget his tax returns.
Trump has attempted to have WH employees sign NDAs. Neither a copy of the agreement, nor those asked (or required) to sign has been released.
Sad thing is, there’s a pretty good site nearby that would work. The old Wisconsin steel mill, from 79th to 83rd on South Shore Drive, is clear and ready to build. It needs some brown field clean-up still but it’s right on the lake with easy access and a LOT of land. Put some money into it and you’d have a two-fer — a presidential library and a clean-up of something that really needs clean up.
Better to not pollute that site with Obama drivel. Best to allow Obama to fade away, known as the worst president we have ever had.
designed as a temple to the One. Features a pond, the level of which recedes every hour, revealing a stature of Him being adored, wearing his Swedish medal.
All they need to do, is build a sculpture of a pen & phone with a plaque that reads: Barack Obama – President 2008-2016
Then, put the eraser sculpture next to it with a plaque that reads: Donald Trump – President 2016-2024
Now remember, this is Chicago!
Protect Our Park is suing because the Obama Foundation has not greased their palm with the appropriate kick back yet.
Once the bribe has been paid, and the unions have their share of the duffel bag filled with cash, Protect Our Park will re-evaluate and then rescind their lawsuit.
That’s the Chicago way.
That is also the Azerbaijan way and it didn’t stop Trump from doing business in Baku with a notoriously corrupt family that also does business with Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Trump only dropped out after the 2016 election. It was known as Trump Tower in Baku. Not to worry – It has now burned down. Probably Baku Lightning.
Nothing to see here. Now our regularly scheduled blog takes you back to one of the least ethically challenged administrations of the 20-21st Centuries (sponsored by Obama Derangement Syndrome).
My comment was about the state of the mafia-type element in Chicago, not against Obama himself.
My comment was also about OUR country, and not how things get done in other countries.
But you persisted.
So if you want to make it about associations, I’ll merely bring up Obama’s association with the terrorist professor Bill Ayers in THIS country.
yes, you can counter that Trump is a philanderer, and has no filter on his thoughts or mouth. But Obama launched his political career at the home of the most famous of ’60s radicals, Bill Ayers and his wife.
Bill Ayers admitted that the purpose of the bomb that killed his then girlfriend and others was to murder United States soldiers.
Now, that does not necessarily mean that everything that Obama did in his career is tainted because of his involvement with Ayers. But he chose to align himself with such a man.
I don’t remember Trump aligning himself with killers.
You are telling me what I should counter with?
You don’t remember Trump aligning himself with killers? Then you are just the kind of low information supporter that Trump counts on.
Some of Trumps finances came from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. So yes, he aligned himself with killers. Trump couldn’t get financing from the International Banks. So he took it wherever he could. He didn’t care whether they were Muslim or not.
What difference does it make in which countries Trump did his illicit deals? Those countries have something on him because of his greed, amorality and immorality.
What a powerful argument. I now see that the Barack Obama Presidential Library needs to be located in Jackson Park. Your brilliant explanation of the Azerbajian connection has se4aled the deal.
I know little of Chicago, but I do know that arguments that associate Obama with corruption are innuendo. If you really care about corruption and are not simply alleging it in order to discredit someone with whom you disagree politically, you could not possibly stomach Trump. Trump is corruption personified.
You are either ignorant or a hypocrite.
While I read LI often, I don’t always make it everyday. I’m curious about what a “yellow grifter” is? Are you self-identifying as a cowardly con artist?
Yes. I was born rich, but I made most of my money as a grifter. I put my name on things because some suckers think it adds value. My businesses have gone bankrupt many times, but I always came out ahead. I actually got consulting fees while mismanaging them.
I dye and comb over my hair. I insinuated my self into the birther lies. I had done that earlier with the Central Park 5 and any other controversy I could exploit. I am a bully, disloyal, think-skinned and a coward. My most ardent followers are my best marks. They ask inane questions and are limited to unoriginal insults and smears.
I added ‘InChief’ in January 2017.
Even the tax bill was crafted to be particularly favorable to me; although I claimed it was going to cost me a ‘fortune’.
Yes, I am the YellowGrifterInChief and my supporters know that deep in their gut. They think I will help them when I only help ME, ME, ME.
Obama has a pen. But he can’t write.
He had a phone. But he couldn’t speak without a teleprompter.
He has a libary. But it has no writings.
Barry, barry, barry… History will be as kind to you probably as much as your official portrait garners respect.
Jeeeezze, that building is such a weird little hemorrhoid.
Maybe it’s the lighting … makes its nose look too big. Or maybe it looks better from another angle. Or maybe is shows off best in the dark.