Obama's Final Acts

     Obama's final days in the White House were not without some controversy, at least in the eyes of his critics.  Perhaps none of his last acts were quite as visible as his commutation of sentences and pardons for various individuals.  Obama exercised the presidential power to commute sentences and to give pardons to more individuals than any other previous president.  In one day alone he commuted 231 sentences and in one week pardoned 64!  In total, Obama managed to commute sentences or pardon 1,927 individual cases.
     Vast majority of these cases were drug related. Some were definitely deserving commutations or pardons, such as the person who was convicted of defacing coins!  There were other silly and archaic sentences that were commuted or pardoned such as cases involving adultery, selling firearms without a federal license (which is really not required by law, and something that takes place almost daily!), and other rather silly charges.  But there were some that were quite serious and frankly, puzzling as to why he commuted or pardoned the case.  None were as controversial as the case involving the commutation of sentence of Bradley (Chelsea) Manning, the convicted Army PFC who released over 200,000 emails and other sensitive video and printed material to WikiLeaks.  Although it hasn't been proven yet, it was believed that his release of classified material may have cause the death of some U.S. military personnel!  The charges against him/her were serious enough to warrant consideration of death sentence! 
     The prosecution wanted to push for espionage charges with aiding and abetting the enemy as the main charge.  However, as in many such cases, particularly ones that are heavily covered by the media, the charges were ultimately watered-down and he was convicted on lesser charges of having caused damage to the U.S. military and government and sentenced to 35 years in Federal Prison.  Ironically there was sympathy for Manning in some circles, particularly from the media which portrayed him as a misunderstood, unhappy individual who wanted to be a woman rather than being a man.  In fact, there was so much noise coming from the media over this issue that it almost overshadowed the very serious charges against him! With the help of constant media chatter about his confused sexual identity and unhappiness, Manning received gender reassignment with medical treatment and ultimately surgery to convert to a woman.  Thus he became "Chelsea" Manning rather than Bradley, the name under which he was born and lived his life to that point!
     Manning underwent the expensive medical treatment and surgery with gender reassignment all while he was in Federal Prison, all at tax payers' expense!  What a country!  Our government really knows how to use tax payers' money wisely.  But then, that wasn't enough.  In his final days in the office, Obama commuted Manning's sentence, shortening it from the original 35 years to where he will be released on May 17th of this year!  So, Chelsea (former Bradley) Manning, after having committed what many considered to be treason, and sentenced to 35 years, gets out of jail in four months after receiving very expensive medical treatment and surgery at tax payers' expense. 
     It is truly puzzling why Obama chose to commute Manning's sentence, why he singled out Manning from all others who are in prison on similar charges!  The military and the intelligence community was in an uproar over Obama's act.  But, like everything else, it sort of faded away because Trump haters are getting so much attention lately.  But that wasn't all that Obama did as his last act in the office.  He did other things that were quite disturbing.  In his last few months in the office Obama did several things that if not angered, puzzled some.  His so-called "betrayal" of Israel was big news for a short while.  I blogged on it earlier, saying that he seemed to openly favor Palestinians over Israelis on this issue.  In fact, he did many things throughout his tenure as our president that seem to favor the Islamic side over Israel. 
     Two of the most die-hard haters of Israel are Iran and Palestinians.  When Kerry struck the Iran Nuclear Deal, it made Israel very unhappy and Netanyahu went on record to say that it was the worst "deal" every made!  Iran, like Palestinians, has zero tolerance for Israel and "Death to Israel" is the standard saying in that country!  Now the word leaked out that Obama managed to release $221 Million to Palestine before he left office.  Congress has been blocking the release of those funds and Obama managed to sneak it by with an executive order before he left the White House.
     Both the commutation of sentence for Manning and the release of funds to Palestine were done against the wishes of vast majority in the government, and the American public, I might add.  Yet, Obama went ahead, almost as a defiant act.  Some say that it was a perfect illustration of Obama's arrogance, something that he has demonstrated during his entire presidency.  It was perhaps his biggest weakness during his eight years, his arrogance.  The arrogance of a president is usually the downfall, that is what happened to Richard Nixon and almost happened to Bill Clinton.  Obama, on the otherhand, seemed to have survived his eight years despite obvious show of arrogance on his part.  It is the media that has brought down the presidency in modern times, but the media has always favored Democratic Party presidents, so Bill Clinton survived his scandals, and Hillary almost got elected, if you believe the media.  Obama got a pass on just about everything.  Another president, especially of Republican Party, would have been run out, but Obama got a pass!  Now, Trump is clearly in the bullseye of the media.  Trump does come off as arrogant and does shoot from the hip, saying things that he later needs to, if not retract, at least try to rephrase!  Let's see if he gets a pass like Obama did.