There’s A Special Election In Pennsylvania Coming Up. Will It Be A Conor Lamb Repeat?

Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District, a Republican-heavy zone, is less than two weeks from finding out its GOP nominee, but Democrats have already selected the man they hope can flip the district like Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb did in another Pennsylvania district in March 2018.

But commentators and even Democratic nominee Marc Friedenberg himself say that the two special elections will be very different. Friedenberg lost the November midterm election by 32 points to former Republican Rep. Tom Marino, who stepped down in January, reported ABC 27.

Friedenberg will have the advantage of increased national attention and campaign donations during the special election race compared to the midterms, but it will not be enough to propel him to victory, assistant political science professor Edward Zipperer of Georgia Military College told The Daily Caller News Foundation Tuesday.

“In terms of the candidates, Conor Lamb is much more to the right [than Friedenberg] on several issues,” Zipperer told TheDCNF. “Lamb ran a very working class, rust belt campaign where he was going along with Trump on things like the steel tariff and pro-Second Amendment.”

https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/19/pennsylvania-12th-special-election/

Federal Judge Deals Blow To Obama Presidential Library, Allows Lawsuit To Move Forward

A federal judge dealt a severe blow to former President Barack Obama's hopes of building a massive presidential library complex on Chicago's South side Tuesday, allowing Protect Our Parks, an advocacy organization dedicated to preserving designated public land, to go forward with its lawsuit challenging the project.

U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey, an Obama appointee, issued the ruling allowing Protect Our Parks to challenge the city of Chicago's grant of more than 20 acres of historic Jackson Park to the Obama presidential library project for a pittance — reportedly a mere $10 for an indefinite lease on the land, Fox News reports.

Jackson Park is a federally recognized historic park designed by Frederick Olmsted, the same landscape designer who fashioned New York City's Central Park. The city of Chicago wants to "lease" 20 acres of the 500 acre park to the Obama library, allowing the former president to use the park's land indefinitely for "a 225-foot museum tower, surrounded by a cluster of smaller buildings, including a 300-seat auditorium."

In 2012, during President Obama's tenure, the federal government reiterated its commitment to preserving Jackson Park, calling the land "inappropriate" for development because of its historical value.

Protect Our Parks argues that the land should be preserved as-is, and that the Obama presidential foundation could have explored other options, placing the complex on vacant land, of which Chicago's South Side has plenty.

“The Obama Foundation and the University of Chicago created this controversy by insisting on the confiscation of public parkland,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, President & CEO of The Cultural Landscape Foundation told The Daily Wire in an emailed statement. “The Obama Foundation could make this issue go away by using vacant and/or city-owned land on the South Side for the Obama Presidential Center (which is planned to be a private facility rather than a presidential library administered by the National Archives), or, better still, land owned by the University of Chicago, which submitted the winning bid to host the Center.”

Protect Our Parks also contends that the city used a roundabout process to "hide" how the land would be used, first allowing the Chicago Park District to "sell" the land to city for $1. "Illinois legislators amended the state's Illinois Aquarium and Museum Act to include presidential libraries as an exception to the no-development rules if there's a compelling public interest," according to Fox News.

The city then inked the "lease" with the Obama Foundation. Once the deal is settled, the Foundation would "transfer" the land back to the city, allowing the city to own the buildings but exert no control over the library itself.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/43730/federal-judge-deals-blow-obama-presidential-emily-zanotti