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politics and politicians Title: 'I'll be watching': Obama uses his final press conference to issue extraordinary warning to Trump that he will step in if he 'rounds up' children for deportation, hits voting rights or 'silences dissent' President Obama issued a farewell warning to President-elect Donald Trump, saying he would jump off the political sidelines if Trump goes against certain 'core values.' At his last scheduled news conference before leaving office on Friday, Obama said if there was 'systemic discrimination,' efforts to 'silence dissent' or to 'roll back voting rights,' he would be 'speaking out.' It was among his most activist descriptions of his next act, and indicates Obama may be rethinking his post-presidency role and heeding the urging of some activists to play a stronger function in the leaderless Democratic Party as it navigates the Trump administration. That group of issues, Obama explained, were 'core values that may be at stake' and would prompt him to get off the sidelines. 'If I saw systematic discrimination [is] being ratified in some fashion. I put in that category explicit or functional obstacles to people being able to vote, to exercise their franchise,' Obama said. He continued: 'I put in that category institutional efforts to silence dissent or the press.' He saved some of his most impassioned remarks for DREAMers. 'And for me, at least, I would put in that category efforts to round up kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids, and send them someplace else, when they love this country, they are our kids' friends and their classmates and are now entering into community colleges or in some cases serving in our military ...' 'The notion that we would just arbitrarily, or because of politics, punish those kids, when they didn't do anything wrong themselves, I think would be something that would merit me speaking out. It doesn't mean that I would get on the ballot anywhere.' His comment about DREAMers references immigrants brought here illegally as children. Obama issued executive actions to protect them from deportation, but their fate is now in limbo. Trump during the campaign threatened to undo the actions, although in recent remarks he has said his policy will have 'heart' and they will be well treated. Trump also during the campaign spoke about making it easier to sue media outlets for libel, said he would bring back water boarding, and proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. He told Fox News in an interview that aired Wednesday: 'It's a plan that's going to be very firm, but it's going to be a lot of heart. And we're going to be looking into that situation.' Trump's proposed Muslim ban is one rights issue that Obama failed to mention explicitly. Obama also spoke about advancements for gay rights, using a football analogy to describe his administration's actions, which he described as irreversible. 'I'm proud that in certain places we maybe provided a good block downfield to help the movement advance. I don't think it is something that will be reversible, because American society has changed. The attitudes of young people in particular have changed,' the president said. 'That doesn't mean there aren't going to be some fights that are important – legal issues, issues surrounding transgender persons. There's still going to be some battles that need to take place,' he continued. 'But if you talk to young people, Malia and Sasha's generation, even if they're Republicans, even if they're conservative, many of them would tell you, "I don't understand how you would discriminate against somebody because of sexual orientation." That's just sort of burned into them in pretty powerful ways.' Trump has also threatened to roll back or reverse multiple other elements of Obama's agenda that the president didn't mention, from climate change to policing tactics. Trump spoke repeatedly about what he called election fraud, which could set up an effort to have his Justice Department relax enforcement on states who raise the bar for voting. Obama made his comment about jumping into politics after saying his immediate plan is to quietly reflect and write inside his new home in DC's tony Kalorama neighborhood. 'I want to do some writing. I want to be quiet a little bit and not hear myself talk so darn much,' he said. He returned to the issue of voting rights later in his remarks, when asked a question about race. 'I'm talking about voting rights. The reason that we are the only country among advanced democracies that makes it harder to vote, it traces directly back to Jim Crow and the legacy of slavery,' he said. In a goodbye present to the press, Obama said: 'I want to thank you all for your extraordinary service to our democracy.' 'Having you in this building has made this place work better, it keeps us honest ... it makes us work harder,' he said.' The remarks defending the role and utility of reporters come as Trump has continued to wage political war against perceived rivals, bashing CNN and NBC as 'Fake News.' His incoming press team threatened to kick reporters out of the White House and hold briefings outside the traditional briefing room, although incoming Press Secretary Sean Spicer appeared to back off on Wednesday. Obama, whose father was from Kenya and mother from Kansas and who is the first black president, but whose goal of being succeeded by Hillary Clinton got squelched, also reflected on what his successors might look like. 'If in fact we continue to keep opportunity open to everybody, then, yeah, we're going to have a woman president, we're going to have a Latino president, we're going to have a Jewish president, a Hindu president,' Obama said. 'You know, who knows who we're going to have?' 'I suspect we'll have a whole bunch of mixed-up presidents at some point, that nobody really knows what to call them. And that's fine.' 'Justice has been served': Obama defies storm of criticism over freeing Chelsea Manning - and says it was nothing to do with Julian Assange's tweets Obama said that he commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence because the punishment did not fit the crime. Manning, an army intelligence analyst who shared classified documents with Wikileaks, was sent prison for 35 years. Obama said that was too long, compared to other leakers. 'I feel very comfortable that justice has been served and that a message has still been sent,' the president said. Obama ordered that Chelsea, who went by the name Bradley at the time of the crime, be released on May 17, 2017, cutting her jail time down to more than six years. He said today that his decision had nothing to do with pleas from Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who offered extradition in exchange for Manning's release. President-elect Donald Trump has not commented on Manning's release. Senior aides to the incoming president called the commutation 'partisan politics at its worst' and said he was 'troubled' by the eleventh-hour commutation. Republican Senator Tom Cotton scathingly accused Obama of treating a 'traitor like a martyr.' Obama said Wednesday at a news conference that Manning had 'served a tough prison sentence.' 'So the notion that the average person who was thinking about disclosing vital classified information would think that it goes unpunished, I don't think would get that impression from the sentence that Chelsea Manning has served.' Manning had applied for leniency through the Department of Justice. A favorable outcome seemed probable, given Manning's multiple suicide attempts and the Obama administration's LGBT policies. Assange had challenged Obama to grant Manning clemency in a cryptic message on Twitter that mentioned a Department of Justice case and an offer of his own extradition. 'If Obama grants Manning clemency Assange will agree to US extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case,' a Wikileaks tweet said. Obama denied today that Assange's offer was a factor in his decision. 'I don't pay a lot of attention to Mr. Assange's tweets, so that wasn't a consideration in this instance,' he said at his final news conference as president. 'And I'd refer you to the Justice Department for any criminal investigations, indictments, extradition issues that may come up with him.' A White House official could not say on a Tuesday evening call detailing the Obama commutations what case or charges Wikileaks was referring to in the tweet, either. The senior official said the president's decision 'was not influenced in any way' by Assange, who lives in the Embassy of Ecuador in London, or Wikileaks. Manning's sentence is being commuted to time served 'to ensure that the sentence that she served is comparable to the sentences that were handed down to individuals who committed comparable crimes,' the White House official said. Commenting on the decision Wednesday, Obama said, 'I looked at the particulars of this case the same way I had the other commutations and pardons that I've done, and I felt that in light of all the circumstances, that commuting her sentence was entirely appropriate.' Wikileaks called Manning's forthcoming release a 'victory' in a statement Tuesday afternoon that didn't mention Assange's promise. 'Thank you to everyone who campaigned for Chelsea Manning's clemency. Your courage & determination made the impossible possible,' Assange said via the organization's Twitter. Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who fled the country after he stole a tranche of classified documents and exposed government secrets, did not apply for a pardon, the White House said, nor did he proactively receive one He thanked Obama in a tweet on Tuesday afternoon for sparing Manning from a life in prison Obama did not mention, and was not asked about, a potential pardon for another leaker, Edward Snowden, at his Wednesday news conference. Snowden, the former NSA contractor who fled the country after he stole a tranche of classified documents and exposed government secrets, neither applied for a pardon, the White House had said, nor did he proactively receive one in Tuesday's clemency declarations. The president plans to give another round of criminals early release before his final day in office this Friday, the White House says. But they were cast as low-level drug offenders whose sentences would have been shorter if they were sent to jail now. Asked about Snowden at his last press briefing on Tuesday, before the commutation notice went out, Obama's spokesman said, 'I cant rule anything in or out.' He noted then that Snowden had not filed paperwork to seek clemency from the administration, however, suggesting that precluded him from receiving pardon. Snowden had lobbied the White House to commute Manning's sentence, as well. He thanked Obama in a tweet on Tuesday afternoon for sparing Manning from a life in prison. 'In five more months, you will be free. Thank you for what you did for everyone, Chelsea. Stay strong a while longer!' he said in another tweet alongside a 2010 photo of Manning dressed as a woman. The White House laid the groundwork for Manning to get a commutation last week, differentiating the case from that of Snowden. Unlike Snowden, Manning, arrested in 2010, 'acknowledged wrongdoing,' the White House said, and appeared in a military court. Snowden has taken refuge in Vladimir Putin's Russia, 'a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy,' Obama's spokesman said, and refuses to return to the U.S. face prosecution in the United States. The Manning and Snowden cases have similarities, press secretary Josh Earnest said, but they are quite different in scale and scope. Manning was convicted in 2013 of illegally sharing 700,000 State Department and military documents. Snowden's theft was ten-fold - a reported 1.7 million secret documents. 'Obviously, as Chelsea Manning has acknowledged, and as we have said many times, that the release of the information that she provided to WikiLeaks was damaging to national security,' Earnest said. 'But the disclosures by Edward Snowden were far more serious and far more dangerous.' Republican Senator and Afghanistan veteran Tom Cotton said he was baffled by Obama's decision in a quick reaction to Manning's planned release. 'When I was leading soldiers in Afghanistan, Private Manning was undermining us by leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks,' Cotton said. 'I don’t understand why the president would feel special compassion for someone who endangered the lives of our troops, diplomats, intelligence officers, and allies. We ought not treat a traitor like a martyr.' Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had challenged Obama to grant Manning clemency in exchange for extradition to the United States. It's unclear what charges are being brought against him and in what case Teeing up Obama's comments today, the White House said on its call with reporters that 'the president continues to believe that her actions were criminal, and were not good for the country. They harmed our national security.' But he believes that her six years in prison are' sufficient,' for several reasons, including the remorse she has shown for her actions, an official said. Manning's military record states she was suffering from gender identity disorder when she stole and released classified documents, and a court ordered the army in September to pay for her gender reassignment surgery. The transgender soldier's attorneys have said that she was placed in solitary confinement as punishment for a July suicide attempt and other abuses in prison contributed to her mental state and a second attempt on her life this fall. Steve Scalise, House Republicans' top vote counter said in a statement after the White House call that the Manning commutation 'is an insult to the rule of law and is an added stain on his legacy of abused executive action.' The anti-secrecy group called Manning's forthcoming release a 'victory' in a statement Tuesday afternoon that didn't mention Assange's promise The White House laid the groundwork for her to get a commutation last week, differentiating the case from that of Snowden, who had lobbied the White House to commute Manning's sentence, as well In commuting 209 sentences, in addition to the 64 pardons, on Tuesday Obama broke a White House record, granting more second chances than any other president in history. Obama has handed out a sum total of 1,385 commutations during his time in office - more than the last 12 presidents combined, the White House said Tuesday, and he plans to hand out more on Friday, leaving the door open for a Snowden pardon, though it remains highly unlikely. The outgoing president told German publication Der Spiegel last month that he 'can't' pardon Snowden, who's wanted for three felony charges tied to his 2013 exposure of the NSA's bulk data program, because he hasn't presented his case in court. 'I think that Mr. Snowden raised some legitimate concerns,' Obama stated. 'How he did it was something that did not follow the procedures and practices of our intelligence community. Obama, a Harvard-educated constitutional lawyer, said, 'If everybody took the approach that I make my own decisions about these issues, then it would be very hard to have an organized government or any kind of national security system.' 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#1. To: cranky (#0)
well what else could he do? what do disused presidents do? Maybe he could be a future Sec. Gen of the UN
Use sorsos money to stir up the Øbama-mamas and foment dissent is one thing, I guess. Or use soros money for frivolous lawsuits to snarl up the courts. Or simply reveal to soros or anybody else any number of state secrets. Øbama is stupid but the people who use him aren't.
Wow. That's tougher talk than Obama used on our enemies.
Can you understand how you would discriminate against somebody because of their immoral, selfish, dangerous, perverted and unhealthy lifestyle choice? If you can't here's some help. Simply imagine "those people" as members of the Tea Party. Or Rush Limbaugh listeners. Or Fox News. Or gun owners. Or conservative groups trying to get 501c3 status. See how easy it is to discriminate, Obama?
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