**Written by Doug Powers
The Obama White House had a big day, and they’re not afraid to brag about it:
For starters, if you’re keeping score at home, Wikileaks is now off the Democrat sh*t list, but only this one time:
President Barack Obama on Tuesday commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of stealing and disseminating 750,000 pages of documents and videos to WikiLeaks.
[…]
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was opposed to the commutation, a senior defense official told CNN. And a former intelligence official described being “shocked” to learn of Obama’s decision Tuesday. The official added that the “entire intelligence community is deflated by this inexplicable use of executive power,” saying it was “deeply hypocritical given Obama’s denunciation of WikiLeaks’ role in the hacking of the (Democratic National Committee).”
Would that sentence have been commuted if Manning had provided Wikileaks with all those DNC emails instead of sensitive national security secrets?
In addition to the Manning commutation, Obama also commuted the sentence of Oscar López Rivera, who probably won a place in the president’s heart because he reminds him a little of Bill Ayers:
Now 74-years old, López Rivera has served 35 years of a 55-year sentence for seditious conspiracy and weapons-related charges. “I am an enemy of the United States government,” he told federal judge Thomas McMillen in 1983. There is no evidence that he’s changed his mind.
During the 1970s and 80s, López Rivera’s FALN placed more than 130 bombs in American cities. Their goal was to destabilize what they called the “Yanki capitalist monopoly” and achieve Puerto Rican independence. Their method was terrorism.
The media’s calling Lopez a “political prisoner,” a distinction with which Obama no doubt agrees. However, if Lopez committed the same crimes in the name of a conservative movement, Obama would have made sure he not only remained in prison but that everybody he ever met got a deep & hard IRS tax audit.
The Obama admin also released more Guantanamo Bay detainees:
The Obama administration said Tuesday it has transferred 10 more detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the nation of Oman, but conceded that the action fell far short of fulfilling President Obama’s promise to close the military prison on the island of Cuba by the end of his term.
“At this time, I don’t anticipate that we will succeed in that goal of closing the prison,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. “But it’s not for a lack of trying, I assure you.”
About 45 prisoners remain, but the White House still has all of Thursday and Friday until noon to work with. By Saturday, the number of people at Gitmo might have dried up faster than the Clinton Global Initiative’s foreign donations.
For Obama, there’s still plenty of time. You just know he’s got a grand finale scheduled, and the threshold for WH consideration is incredibly low:
There are a whole bunch of prisoners who fit under that broad umbrella, so who knows what Thursday will hold. But at least “accepting responsibility” and “expressing remorse” are higher standards than Obama ever held his administration for the IRS targeting or “if you like your plan you can keep it” — just to name a couple.
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
