‘Monument to one man’s ego’: Chicago residents blast Obama Center as costs soar
Chicago community leaders and longtime residents say the Obama Presidential Center risks washing away the neighborhood’s fabric, warning that proposed luxury developments tied to the project could price out families who have long called the South Side home, according to a report.
They also say the sprawling 19.3-acre site in historic Jackson Park, with its 225-foot-tall concrete museum, has become an eyesore that disrupts the natural landscape and all locals are getting in return for the unsightly structure is soaring rents and higher tax bills.
“This is a monument to one man’s ego,” Steve Cortes, a longtime Chicagoan and former advisor to President Donald Trump, told the Daily Mail. “Look at the Reagan Library. It’s beautiful. This? There are almost no windows. What are they hiding? And this Brutalist cement look in a city known for its incredible architecture.”
OBAMA LIBRARY, BEGUN WITH LOFTY DEI GOALS, NOW PLAGUED BY $40M RACIALLY CHARGED SUIT, BALLOONING COSTS
The Obama Foundation secured a 99-year lease for the public parcel for $10 in 2018 and promised to revitalize the area. Obama said at the time that the project did not intend to displace residents, adding that its overseers are trying to balance boosting jobs and economic development in the area while maintaining and protecting existing affordable housing.
Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor, who represents much of the working-class neighborhood surrounding the site, fears that locals are being priced out.
“Every time large development comes to communities, they displace the very people they say they want to improve it for. This was no different, and we’re living what is actually happening,” Taylor told the outlet. “We’re going to see rents go higher and we’re going to see families displaced.”
She has pushed for protections such as affordable housing requirements around the site, tenant purchase rights and rental assistance to shield residents from displacement. She won some concessions in the 2020 agreement – whereby 30% of new units on city-owned land were to be affordable – but many of her broader demands, including a full Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), were not adopted.
CHICAGO SOUTH SIDE RESIDENTS SAY THEY’RE BEING DISPLACED BY OBAMA CENTER: CAUSING ‘HARM TO BLACK FAMILIES’
A CBA is a binding deal that requires developers to deliver protections such as affordable housing, local hiring or other safeguards to ensure big projects don’t push out existing residents.
“The city of Chicago should have done a Community Benefits Agreement before the first shovel went into the ground, but they didn’t,” Taylor said. “We’re going to see small landlords having to raise the rent. Their property taxes are going up and we’re going to see development that is not inclusive to our community.”
Residents point to a proposed 250-room luxury hotel as a symbol and a driver of economic pressures far beyond the scale of existing neighborhood development. Once a major luxury project is approved, surrounding property values typically spike and so its presence signals to investors and developers that the area is shifting toward wealthier clientele and away from its historically working-class, majority-Black base.
The hotel’s approval is still under review, and residents have held demonstrations calling for its rejection. The investment firm behind the project is headed by Allison Davis, a veteran real estate developer and lawyer who was Obama’s first boss out of Harvard Law School.
TRUMP OFFERS TO HELP OBAMA WITH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY’S ‘DISASTER’
“When you got people’s rent going from $850 to $1,300 you’re telling people you don’t want them in the neighborhood,” said Dixon Romeo, an organizer with the Obama Community Benefits Agreement Coalition, told NBC Chicago at a demonstration in April.
Since ground was broken, construction has progressed at a snail’s pace while costs have ballooned from an original estimate of $330 million to a 2021 foundation projection of $830 million – with no updates since then.
The center, which aims to honor former President Barack Obama’s political career, will also consist of a digital library, conference facilities, a gymnasium and a regulation-sized NBA court. It will also house the nonprofit Obama Foundation, which is overseeing the center’s development.
The scale of the project and the aesthetics of its centerpiece library have come in for criticism.
Ken Woodward, an attorney and father of six who grew up in the area, called it a “monstrosity.” “It looks like this big piece of rock that just landed here out of nowhere in what used to be a really nice landscape of trees and flowers,” Woodward told the Daily Mail.
“It’s over budget, it’s taking way too long to finish and it’s going to drive up prices and bring headaches and problems for everyone who lives here. It feels like a washing away of the neighborhood and culture that used to be here.”
WATCH: The Brian Kilmeade Show: Obama Presidential Center rocked by $40M racial bias lawsuit
Kyana Butler, an activist with Southside Together who campaigned for a CBA around the Obama Center, shared similar sentiments with the outlet.
“It’s pretty huge and monstrous,” Butler said. “It could have been smaller in scale and cost a lot less money. We’re all worried about the impact on the community.”
Tyrone Muhammad, director of Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change, said, “It’s truly the Tower of Babel.”
“Property taxes are going up so much that the owner of my building is saying she might just walk away.. I don’t blame President Obama for all of this, but the people on his team may not have the best intentions for people in this area,” Muhammed, a 2026 Illinois Senate candidate, told the outlet.
“It’s disingenuous and hypocritical to take park space away from people and then not involve them in what takes its place. The move violates common decency.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Obama Center for comment.
In May, President Donald Trump offered to help out with the development of the center and linked DEI to the construction problems. The project set out “ambitious goals” for certain construction diversity quotas, with its contracts to be allocated to “diverse suppliers,” 35% of which were required to be minority-based enterprises (MBEs).
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“Look, President Obama, if he wanted help, I’d give him help because I’m a really good builder and I build on time, on budget. He’s building his library in Chicago. It’s a disaster,” Trump said, adding that Obama was paying for prioritizing DEI over meritocracy.
“And he wanted to be very politically correct and he didn’t use good, hard, tough, mean construction workers that I love, Marco,” Trump said, while addressing Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A $40.75 million racially charged lawsuit filed earlier this year by a minority contractor against the project’s structural engineer shined a spotlight on the DEI-driven aspect of the project. The structural engineers claimed the minority contractor lacked sufficient qualifications and experience to perform its work, resulting in delays.
Trump vows ‘no troops’ for Ukraine as he pushes for Putin-Zelenskyy meeting
President Donald Trump pledged Tuesday that there will be no U.S. troops defending Ukraine’s border, even after he leaves office.
“You have my assurance,” he told “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday.
“I’m just trying to stop people from being killed,” he continued. “They’re losing 5,000 to 7,000 people a week in that ridiculous war that should have never happened. If we had a normal president — not even a great president — if we had normal president, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Trump said he intends to let Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet one-on-one before focusing on a broader trilateral discussion.
TRUMP: EUROPE WILL ‘TAKE A LOT OF THE BURDEN’ IN PROVIDING SECURITY GUARANTEES FOR UKRAINE
“They haven’t exactly been best friends,” he said.
“Maybe they’re getting along a little bit better than I thought. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have set up the two [of them] meeting, I would have set up a [trilateral meeting].”
The president also reiterated that Ukraine will not be admitted into NATO, but argued that some European nations have agreed to provide NATO-like protections, including security guarantees.
TRUMP CALLS WHITE HOUSE TALKS ‘VERY GOOD, EARLY STEP’ TOWARD RUSSIA-UKRAINE PEACE: HERE’S WHAT’S NEXT
Trump contrasted the ongoing Ukraine conflict with what he described as his success in brokering peace elsewhere.
“I’ve solved seven wars, we ended seven wars. I thought this would be one of the easier ones, and this has turned out to be the toughest one.”
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Trump’s comments came on the heels of a high-profile meeting with Zelenskyy and a slew of European and NATO leaders at the White House on Monday.
Trump previously met with Putin at a summit in Alaska and spoke with the Russian leader again following his meeting with Zelenskyy to begin coordinating next steps in the peace process aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
Newsom’s redistricting plan would flip 5 Republican districts blue in major shakeup
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his fellow state Democrats are threatening a redistricting plan that would eliminate more than half of the current GOP-held congressional districts amid a nationwide battle over gerrymandering.
Republicans currently hold nine seats in California, compared to the Democrats’ 43. Under Newsom’s proposed plan, Democrats would pick up five more seats.
“We strongly believe that this map serves the best interest of California voters, while also attempting to push back against the corrupt scheme occurring in Texas and other Republican-majority states where Republicans – doing the bidding of their DC party bosses – are considering adopting a clearly racially gerrymandered, partisan map at the expense of their voters,” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Commission (DCCC) said last week.
Here are the Republicans whose districts would likely become unwinnable under the plan.
DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST SAYS PARTY LACKS ‘MORAL AUTHORITY’ ON TEXAS REDISTRICTING FIGHT
Rep. Doug LaMalfa, District 1
Rep. Doug Lamalfa’s northern congressional district is currently mostly rural, leading to a +17 Republican voter registration advantage.
Under the proposed redistricting plan, however, that would swing to a +10 advantage for Democrats. This would be accomplished by reclassifying a vast section of the district’s northernmost territory.
CALIFORNIA LAUNCHES REDISTRICTING FIGHT TO ‘NULLIFY’ TEXAS GOP PLAN, WITH DEMS POISED TO GAIN 5 SEATS
Rep. Kevin Kiley, District 3
Rep. Kevin Kiley’s third congressional district currently has a +6 Republican advantage by voter registration, but that would flip to a +8 Democrat advantage under the new plan.
This is accomplished by stretching the district to include portions of the deep-blue suburbs around Sacramento.
Rep. David Valadao, District 22
Rep. David Valadao is one of the few Republicans in California who was able to win a district that already has a slight Democratic advantage.
Under the new plan, however, Democrats would tack a six-point advantage on top of the current voter registration match-up.
Rep. Ken Calvert, District 41
Rep. Ken Calvert’s 41st congressional district would face a massive swing toward Democrats, with the GOP losing its voter registration advantage and Democrats picking up a +20 advantage.
“64% of Californians oppose Gavin Newsom’s power grab. It’s clear there is bipartisan support for keeping the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission and not allowing politicians to draw their district maps behind closed doors to choose their voters,” Calvert wrote of the plan on X.
Rep. Darrell Issa, District 48
Rep. Darrell Issa’s district would pick up a section of Calvert’s former district in Palm Springs, a deep blue voting area that promises to swing Issa’s district to a +4 Democrat advantage.
Based on the 2024 presidential election, Issa’s district went +15 in favor of Trump, but under the new boundaries it would have gon +3 in favor of former Vice President Kamala Harris, according to the Cook Political Report.
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Of the five seats impacted, Valadao’s and Issa’s would be turned into lean-Democratic districts that may still be winnable by Republican candidates, but the others would be flipping firmly to the Democrats.
Kohberger’s phone shows disturbing Christmas night activity after campus killings
As digital forensics experts analyzed the cellphone of Bryan Kohberger, the 30-year-old failed criminologist turned convicted murderer, they drew similarities between him and the fictional main character of the book and movie, “American Psycho,” the narcissistic banker Patrick Bateman – and they discovered that he spent Christmas night a month after the slayings reading dozens of articles about serial killers.
“I watched ‘American Psycho’ back in the day, and how vain he was, where he would always take like naked photos of himself flexing, similar to that, like with him just in pants, but topless from the waist up, flexing [in] a mirror forward, backward, making different expressions, but just for himself,” said Heather Barnhart, the senior director of forensics research with the internationally known digital investigations firm, Cellebrite. “It was like he admired his body.”
Her husband, Jared Barnhart, a former Maryland police officer who also works at Cellebrite, also worked the case.
IDAHO MURDER DOCUMENTS REVEAL VICTIM’S STALKING FEARS AND KOHBERGER’S ‘INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR’ AT SCHOOL
“He takes his shirt off, flexes his muscles, and takes a picture of himself, and then just goes back to whatever he was doing before,” he said of Kohberger. “Nonsense.”
The Barnharts said they did not have the authority to share the photos, but they described them as narcissistic and strange. He even took photos at bizarre angles, highlighting himself from behind and in profile.
BRYAN KOHBERGER CALLED HIS MOM WHILE RETURNING TO IDAHO MURDER SCENE THE NEXT DAY, EXPERT REVEALS
One selfie, previously unveiled after prosecutors included it in court documents, showed Kohberger smiling and giving a thumb’s up in his bathroom hours after the slayings. He had a bandaid on his knuckles, the Barnharts noted, and his hands were red from apparent scrubbing.
BRYAN KOHBERGER PLEADED GUILTY TO IDAHO STUDENT MURDERS, BUT THESE KEY QUESTIONS REMAIN UNANSWERED
In another revealed through the media, he also posed in a black hooded sweatshirt.
“He takes selfies all the time and seemingly does nothing with them,” Jared Barnhart said. “They just are in his phone.”
It would make more sense if he shared them with other people or posted them online, he said, but Kohberger didn’t do that. In fact, he barely spoke with anyone, aside from his mom and dad, whom he referred to as “Mother” and “Father.”
“He seems obsessed with himself, with his parents, with his body,” Heather Barnhart said.
KOHBERGER PRACTICED HOME INVASIONS AND BURGLARY TECHNIQUES YEARS BEFORE MURDERING IDAHO STUDENTS: NEW BOOK
Kohberger took efforts to minimize his digital footprint before the murders, according to the Barnharts, and also successfully wiped important information from his laptop. However, they uncovered other damning evidence – including that he spent Christmas night reading about serial killers online.
One of his key mistakes, the couple said, was that he downloaded some of these websites instead of just reading them online, leaving an obvious trail for them to analyze.
“All this stuff was sitting there,” Jared Barnhart told Fox News Digital. “You know he’s a criminology major. Could you excuse it? Maybe. But not at this point – not for this guy.”
But despite some damning evidence, Kohberger successfully hid all traces of why he might have committed the crime, according to the Barnharts.
“I think that’s the most important point to me, is he cleaned up what was probably the story all the victims’ families need to hear, right? The why, the how, why my kid? All of that is gone,” Jared Barnhart said. “And we tried like crazy to find something, you know, to tell these families, and it just isn’t there.”
BRYAN KOHBERGER TRADED DEATH PENALTY FOR LIFE SENTENCE THAT COULD STILL END VIOLENTLY BEHIND BARS
His search history included searches for the term “psychopath,” which his lawyers didn’t want used at trial, and about serial killers. Prior to his arrest but after reading a news report about how police had identified a white Hyundai Elantra as the suspect vehicle in the student murders, Kohberger appeared to panic and searched auto detailers and for a replacement car, according to the Barnharts. He also spent a lot of time streaming videos on YouTube and TikTok, they said.
“On his PC [personal computer], ‘psychopath’ was a normal word that he typed into a browser, but he could have said it was for his major or research,” Heather Barnhart told Fox News Digital.
However, he cleared his browsing history for roughly a month leading up to the murders, from Oct. 12, 2022 to Nov. 16.
He carried out the slayings on Nov. 13, in a 4 a.m. home invasion attack, stabbing all four victims repeatedly. They were Madison Mogen, 21, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20. All but Kernodle are believed to have been asleep at the start of the attack.
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Kohberger pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and one of felony burglary last month. He received four consecutive sentences of life with no parole, plus another 10 years. The plea deal required him to waive his right to appeal and his right to seek a sentence reduction.
While Kohberger is being held in isolation at the Idaho Maximum Security Institute, a state prison near Boise, he is already reportedly the target of harassment and mockery from fellow inmates.
Joy Reid says White men ‘can’t originally invent anything,’ stole culture from others
Former MSNBC anchor Joy Reid condemned President Donald Trump, Elvis Presley and others on Friday as some of history’s many “mediocre White men” whose achievements are stolen or counterfeit.
Reid criticized Trump’s review of the Smithsonian during an interview with Wajahat Ali for his “The Left Hook” substack, in an episode titled, “How Mediocre White Men and Their Fragility Are Destroying America.”
They argued that across America’s institutions, there is a phenomenon of “mediocre White men” with no actual culture of their own who co-opt the achievements of Black people to aggrandize themselves.
Ali opened the episode by talking about Trump reforming the Kennedy Center in what his critics call a hostile takeover. The institution, which in recent years had featured drag queen performances, is now being reformed to show decidedly more conservative and pro-American content. Trump announced this year’s Kennedy Center awards last week, which he will also be hosting.
JOY REID FLOATS SPECULATION THAT HER RACE, ‘ANXIETY’ SURROUNDING TRUMP PLAYED ROLE IN MSNBC FIRING
“These people cannot create culture on their own,” Ali said. “Without Black people, Brown people, the DEIs, there’s no culture in America. We make the food better. We make the economy better. We make the music better. Right? MAGA can’t create culture. They got Cracker Barrel and Kid Rock.”
Reid and Ali claimed that White conservatives practice their own variant of outrage culture where they complain about what they say. “They don’t have the intellectual rigor to actually argue or debate with us, right? And what they do is they tattle and tell. They run and tell teacher that ‘the Black lady or the Brown man was mean to me.’ And that’s what they always do,” Reid said.
Reid, who initially wore a hat dedicated to the historically debatable 1619 Project, then changed to one with the letters “FDT,” took special umbrage at Trump’s efforts to review the Smithsonian’s historical exhibits ahead of America’s 250th anniversary.
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“They can’t fix the history they did. Their ancestors made this country into a slave — a slave hell, but they can clean it up now because they got the Smithsonian. They can get rid of all the slavery stuff,” she said. “They got PragerU that can lie about the history to the children. They can’t originally invent anything more than they ever were able to invent good music.
“We Black folk gave y’all country music, hip-hop, R&B, jazz, rock and roll. They couldn’t even invent that, but they have to call a White man ‘The King.’ Because they couldn’t make rock and roll, so they have to stamp ‘The King’ on a man whose main song was stolen from an overweight Black woman,” Reid continued.
Reid was referring to “The King” Elvis Presley singing “Hound Dog,” which was first recorded by Big Mama Thornton, a Black blues singer, and written by two Jewish-American songwriters. Elvis’ version, which was more upbeat, with a faster rhythm and slightly altered lyrics, boosted his rise to fame in 1956 after his previous breakout hit, “Heartbreak Hotel” earlier that year. Elvis helped pioneer the rockabilly (a portmanteau of rock ‘n’ roll and “hillbilly”) sub-genre of rock ‘n’ roll, a mix of country music and rhythm and blues, and was candid throughout his career about his influences from Black American music.
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White House spokesman Harrison Fields responded to Reid’s comments, saying she was “too unhinged for MSNBC.”
“Joyless Reid is an ungrateful hack who fails to acknowledge her privilege. Whatever remains of her success would only be possible in the United States of America, the same country she degrades for sport. She was too unhinged for MSNBC and was fired. Instead of changing her act, she’s doubled down on stupid,” he said.
Fox News Digital reached out to PragerU and did not receive an immediate reply.