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What is it about progressives like President Obama — and even pretend progressives like Gov. Andrew Cuomo — that makes them so forgiving of terrorists?

As the White House press corps prepares for a Donald Trump Administration that has spent months disparaging and marginalizing the traditional media, President Barack Obama, whose own relationship to the press corps has been rocky at times, spent the beginning of his last press conference as President giving them a pep talk, and urging them to tell truth to power.

(In)justice: We all know about President Obama's commutation of the 35-year sentence of traitor Chelsea Manning, nee Bradley, who handed U.S. secrets over to WikiLeaks, leading to the deaths of an untold number of people. That was bad enough. But even worse, but sadly less publicized, was Obama's decision to pardon Oscar Lopez Rivera, the terrorist whose FALN planted more than 130 bombs across America during the 1970s and 1980s, supposedly on behalf of Puerto Rican independence. Lopez Rivera was sentenced to 55 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and a number of weapons charges. He's served 35 years of...

President Obama Holds his Final Press Conference The White House Start time 2:15 PM EST

Despite devastating Democrat losses in the 2016 Election, President Obama left a small message of hope for his constituency during his final press conference: He said, "At my core, I think we're going to be okay." If his comment sounded vaguely survivalist, it's for good reason. As Washington faces a looming change of power in two days, President Obama has yet to address staggering Democrat losses that extend far beyond the election of Donald J. Trump. The Trump administration coupled with the success of fellow Republicans has effectively given Republicans control every branch of American government. Republicans have just won...

When the Department of Energy was asked by the Agency Review Team to identify employees who work on climate change — one of the critical challenges of our time — our workforce rightly worried that the incoming team would judge them on ideology rather than merit. When the House voted to bring back the Holman Rule — allowing Members of Congress to selectively target individual federal workers or departments — our workforce became vulnerable to judgment based on ideology. When possible federal hiring freezes are mentioned casually, our workforce is concerned about its capacity to support our critical responsibilities. And...

"Obama also used his final presidential press conference to thank the media for holding his administration’s feet to the fire, urging them to continue with the same 'tenacity' after he leaves." Wow, nobody told me the definition of "hold feet to the fire" had changed! Apparently it now means something like, "let person with frozen toes sit next to the fireplace"

<p>PARIS (AP) — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange retreated from his pledge to accept extradition to the U.S. if Chelsea Manning was granted clemency, arguing Wednesday via his lawyers that what he was really asking for was an immediate pardon for the ex-Army analyst.</p>

The Army says former private Chelsea Manning will lose her military healthcare benefits despite President Obama’s commutation of her prison sentence. “If Pvt. Manning is discharged with a dishonorable discharge, she will lose her entitlement to [military] benefits, including gender-transition care at [military] medical treatment facilities,” Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith told USA Today Wednesday. Smith said Manning’s dishonorable discharge was included in the terms of the 35-year prison sentence imposed on her in 2013. Manning was convicted of leaking classified information about U.S. national security activities that were later publicly disclosed by WikiLeaks. Smith said Manning could appeal her discharge...

For the last time, Obama took reporters’ questions in the White House briefing room on Wednesday. It was his last official event before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Friday. On international issues, Obama admitted he continued to be “worried about the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The status quo is unsustainable.” He said it was bad for the Palestinians, the region and for national security. In his final news briefing, he expressed concern that the “moment may be passing” for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He added, “I don’t want to predict today what could end up happening,” in an...

President Obama rushed to fill nearly 100 federal government vacancies during a frenzy of appointments in his final few weeks in office. Since the new year, Obama has named 72 people to federal job openings and nominated another 17 for positions requiring Senate confirmation, according to CBS reporter Mark Knoller. On Monday night, Obama announced appointments for 27 officials to government positions and named two to jobs requiring Senate confirmation. The wave of announcements includes several White House officials, who will serve well after Obama leaves office.

'SYCOPHANTIC' PRESS KISS THE RINGS THE RING President Obama began his final press conference on a surprising note. Despite “not liking all of the stories you’ve filed,” he told the gathered White House press corps, it’s you’re duty to ask “tough questions” and not be “sycophants.” Too bad reporters were apparently not paying attention. What followed was one softball after another, with rhetorical foot massages sandwiched between. “Thank you, Mr. President” each reporter began. “It’s been an honor,” said another, before literally making the "call me" expression while pointing at her cellphone. A reporter for The Blade, Chris Johnson, used...

What, exactly, would violate this unsigned, unenforceable agreement? No matter how false and misleading it is to cite the Iran deal as “signed,” when it is little more than a set of unenforceable political commitments, the news media continue to publish fake news arguing that somehow Iran and the P5+1 have agreed on a single text of the deal. In reality, the Iranian parliament endorsed a different version of the deal than was supposedly accepted by the P5+1, and the JCPOA was agreed upon without signatures or signatories.

President Barack Obama, on his final Tuesday in office, appointed soon-to-be former staffers and supporters to administration posts, including senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and National Security Adviser Susan Rice. Jarrett and Rice were both appointed to the Board of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts as General Trustees. While Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was appointed as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Former Weather Underground terrorist group leader Bill Ayers on Tuesday said he was on an airplane “dancing in the aisles” over news that President Obama commuted the sentence of FALN activist Oscar López Rivera, whose group was linked to over 100 bombs placed in U.S. cities in the 1970s and 1980s.

President Obama said he would regard any effort to round up and deport Dreamers as an attack on American "core values" that would cause him to speak out publicly. The so-called Dreamers, young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, "for all practical purposes are American kids," Obama said at what is expected to be the final news conference of his tenure. "The notion that we would just arbitrarily or because of politics punish those kids, when they didn't do something themselves ... would merit my speaking out," he said. Obama's administration has protected more than 700,000...

President Obama’s last week in office has brought with it a flood of breaking news. The biggest story, of course, is his commutation of Chelsea Manning’s 35 year prison sentence. My own impression is that his decision is designed as a cynical bit of legacy-building, with the added benefit of perhaps inducing Julian Assange to leave the Ecuadorian embassy. Although that prospect appears increasingly remote, it very well might have factored into his judgement. Overlooked in news coverage of the Manning commutation is the grant of clemency to Oscar Lopez Rivera, a leader of the Marxist-Leninist Puerto Rican terror group...

John Lewis’s Record in Congress Is Less Than Heroic The Democrat deserves an honored place in history. But Trump has a point about what he’s done lately. Jason L. Riley If Donald Trump had been referring to Rep. John Lewis’s civil-rights record when he wrote on Twitter Saturday that the congressman was “all talk” and “no action,” the president-elect might need a refresher course in U.S. history. One of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest allies, Mr. Lewis was on the front lines of the successful fight to end Jim Crow. But for anyone who bothers to check out the...

Like Obama, I grew up in a single-parent home. I had the audacity to have big dreams and to hope. . . . As Obama' tenure comes to an end, I see with fresh eyes that the decision to adorn my wall with his image was loaded with meaning. In my modest apartment, I have framed pictures of my family members lining the mantel and leaning along the bookshelves. Only Obama has a sacred place on the wall.

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