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President Obama holds a year-end news conference for reporters ahead of his annual holiday vacation with family in Hawaii. Join the conversation and share your comments on Facebook and Twitter using #cspanchat.

President Obama will unilaterally remove most of the embargo on Cuba, according to John Kavulich of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council and White House officials. According to Mr. Kavulich, by himself, President Obama will remove nearly all restrictions on Cuba and will forgo Congress. The “embargo” will still exist, but it will be in name only. “The embargo is a container — it’s been that way since President Eisenhower — that’s had regulations and laws put into it and taken out of it and mixed about,” Mr. Kavulich said. “President Obama is saying, ‘I’m going to leave a shell,...

Attorney General Eric Holder announced expanded protection for transgender government employees Thursday, allowing the Justice Department to file claims against employers accused of discriminating based on gender identity. The expanded protections come from Holder's clarified interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination due to racial, gender or religious bias. Holder will no longer maintain the previously established position that "Title VII's prohibition against discrimination based on sex does not encompass gender identity per se." "This important shift will ensure that the protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are extended to...

President Barack Obama has broken two barriers: Being the first black president -- and becoming the first Latino president, according to Tom Perez, Obama’s labor secretary. Perez made the comment a day after Obama’s shocking shift to take steps to normalize relations with Cuba and a month after the president’s executive actions on immigration that had widespread appeal among Latinos. “When I reflect on the breadth and depth of what he has done for Latinos, it really makes him in my mind, and in the minds of so many others, the first Latino president,” Perez said Thursday, according to Politico....

 BO is the reason for the season - regardless of which “season” you’re celebrating:Cat Walkin’ our way through the “Holiday” Season: “I’m too sexy for my house…”For Hanukkah, Big Guy, widely described by pro-Israel groups as the U.S. president “least friendly to the Jewish state since its founding,” believes that he is Jewish in his “soul.”  “I am, in my soul.” Which might explain the Hanukkah colors OFA chose for their annual cultish “Holiday Greetings” card, featuring our first Jewish President:Butt getting back to Boo-Rock’s claim that he has a “Jewish soul”  - I’m sure that could be true, were there...

The Pope 'played a very important role' in opening up a dialogue between the United States and Cuba, says President Barack Obama. 'The Pope doesn't wield armies. He can't impose sanctions, but he can speak with great moral authority, and that makes a difference,' the U.S. president said in an interview that aired today on Good Morning America. 'And it certainly made a difference in this case,' he added.

Without North Korea, Hollywood Is Running Out of Politically Correct Villains by Ben Shapiro 18 Dec 2014 With Sony’s decision to pull the Seth Rogen/James Franco starrer The Interview from circulation following a brutal hack attack by the North Korean regime, Hollywood finds its list of acceptable villains growing shorter and shorter. Not only did Sony pull The Interview thanks to intimidation at the hands of Kim Jung Un – the film was about reporters trying to kill the evil dictator – they also pulled a slated Steve Carrell movie, Pyongyang, about the regime.

Complete headline: 'You are a white lady telling me what is racist!': Whoopi Goldberg loses it with Rosie O'Donnell on The View in heated debate about Barack Obama being mistaken for a valet Co-hosts were discussing Barack Obama being mistaken for a valet Whoopi Goldberg said it was stupid people not knowing their president O'Donnell brought up racism, Goldberg became infuriated A screaming match over racism erupted between Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O'Donnell on Thursday's episode of The View. The show's co-hosts were discussing the news that Barack Obama was mistaken for a valet. Goldberg dismissed the confusion as one...

President Obama continues to embrace low-tier, go-it-alone executive actions to pad the last two years of his mistake-filled, empty-agenda presidency in a hopeless hunt for a legacy. His arrogant decision this week to re-establish diplomatic relations with communist Cuba is the latest example of a president desperately searching for something do without having to deal with Congress. You can comb through all of the polling data for the top concerns of the American people, and renewing U.S. relations with Cuba's evil Castro dictatorship is not among them. With his job approval ratings in the basement and his political party toppled...

Nadiah Sarsour December 17, 2014 FoxNews.comOne Islamic State militant is alone responsible for killing 150 women, including pregnant women and young teenagers, because they refused to marry members of the barbaric militant army, according to Iraqi officials. Abu Anas Al-Libi is suspected of mercilessly gunning down the women,most of whom were Yazidi, because they refused to enter into sham temporary marriages with Islamic State fighters simply to have sex in what the terrorists believe to be a Koranic loophole. “Abu Anas Al-Libi killed more than 150 women and girls, some of whom were pregnant after refusing to accept Jihad marriage,”...

Now that the GOP is taking control of the Senate in 2015, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., offered up a resolution of sorts for the opposing party to abide by next year: Get Ted Cruz under control. Durbin’s suggestion comes days after Cruz’s disastrous maneuver last week that brought the Senate into session on Saturday, unwittingly opening the door to the approval of dozens of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees. That infuriated Republicans, leading Cruz to apologize days later. “It was classic Cruz. He knew how to get the headline, but he didn’t know how to close the deal,” Durbin...

The Department of Homeland Security released an executive summary of its report on the Secret Service moments ago. The report recommends that the U.S. government replace the entire fence surrounding the perimeter of the White House. The report was drafted after a fence-jumper made it into the White House in September, prompting a congressional hearing and the resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson. Officials for the DHS declined to say in the report “precisely what the optimal new fence should look like,” but offered some suggestions. “A number of common-sense improvements should be explored. For sure, the fence must...

In an upcoming People magazine interview, Barack and Michelle Obama sit down and discuss life as the First Oppressed Couple of the United States. Hoping to shed light and relate to recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, Barack reached into the upstairs White House bedroom of his mind and called upon his famous imaginary son to make an appearance: The small irritations or indignities that we experience are nothing compared to what a previous generation experienced,” President Obama said. “It’s one thing for me to be mistaken for a waiter at a gala. It’s another thing for...

A judge cleared the way Thursday for thousands of young immigrants in Arizona who are protected from deportation under an Obama administration policy to get driver’s licenses. The preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge David Campbell bars the state from enforcing Gov. Jan Brewer’s policy of denying the licenses to about 20,000 immigrants. The injunction that takes effect on Monday was a formality that carries out instructions issued in July by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. …

President Obama on Thursday signed an executive order officially creating a “Task Force on 21st Century Policing,” a high-level group that will report directly to the president with recommendations on how to strengthen ties between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Mr. Obama first announced the task earlier this month on the heels of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, where the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers further fractured ties between police departments and citizens. The task force will be chaired by Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey and Laurie Robinson, a professor...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of eight federal drug defendants on Wednesday, including four who were set to die in federal prison, as part of a new initiative to reduce harsh sentences for nonviolent crimes. Sidney Earl Johnson, Jr., Rickey Marcell McCall, Larry Nailor and Israel Abel Torres had received life sentences and were going to die behind bars. But now Obama has commuted their sentences and those of four others who were convicted of drug crimes, and all eight inmates will be released in 2015. Obama has taken heat for not making full use of his clemency and...

Diplomacy: As the Castros rejoice at President Obama's move to normalize ties, extend trade credits, take their country off the terror list and free its deadly spies, the queasy question remains: What did the U.S. get in return? The question is being asked by the more serious leaders in Washington. Marco Rubio for one. "(Obama's) foreign policy is, at a minimum, naive and perhaps truly counterproductive to the future of democracy in the region," said the Florida senator in the wake of the giveaway. "Barack Obama is the worst negotiator that we've had as president since at least Jimmy Carter,...

To the Catholic leaders who wish to help the Cuban people, my prayers, too, that you would realize the evil that has descended upon our country and the Church. Your purpose is to save souls, not to be used as pawns for the Devil Growing up as a child of conservative parents in a Catholic environment, today, after 53 years living in the USA, I find a new world that is upside down. When Fidel Castro came to Cuba, soon after there were rumors of the government takeover of private schools. I was sent as a young teen to the...

The New Year worry for a watching world is if Obama can open up channels for drastic policy changes in Cuba without the knowledge of the American population and Congress, when will he do the same for Iran? Just as Fidel Castro became Cuba’s dictator when he and his guerrillas triumphantly entered Havana on January 7, 1959, President Barack Obama became America’s dictator on Dec. 17, 2014. Swaggering into Havana dressed in army fatigues with his signature cigar, Castro claimed the island as his own. Like a thief making off with a nation in the middle of the night, Obama...