Obama’s final year to test ‘powers’

Syria crisis and costly quagmire Iraq may define 2016

WASHINGTON, Dec 21, (AFP): Barack Obama has reveled in defying predictions that 2015 would make him a lameduck president, but securing his final year goals -- from closing Guantanamo to enacting gun control -- will test the limits of White House power.

The last year of a US presidency can be a pitiful thing.

Many a commander-in-chief who bestrode Washington like a political Colossus can struggle to command much at all. New crises erupt, and victories won in the spring of an administration unexpectedly provoke a winter of discontent.

In their final years, George W. Bush watched the economy fall off a cliff, Ronald Reagan was ensnared by the Iran-Contra scandal, Bill Clinton was impeached and Woodrow Wilson had a stroke.

For Obama, a long-avoided morass in Syria and a costly quagmire in Iraq may come to define 2016, as fears grow about the threat from the Islamic State group.

But Obama has offered Americans an alternative vision for his own eighth and final year in the Oval Office.

“I’ve never been more optimistic about a year ahead than I am right now,” he said before heading to Hawaii for an end of year family vacation.

“In 2016, I’m going to leave it out all on the field.”

Obama has proved himself remarkably adept at cauterizing the loss of

to get camera-ready each morning. “I do the best I can — and as you may have noticed, some days are better than others!” (AP)

Trump defends Putin:

US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump power.

In 2015, he thwarted a recalcitrant Republican-controlled Congress to reach a landmark nuclear deal with Iran and inked a global environmental accord that, in his words, can begin to “solve the climate crisis.”

Enshrine

He watched the Supreme Court enshrine gay marriage into law and tentatively agreed a vast trans-Pacific trade deal that gives teeth to his “pivot to Asia” and could shape geopolitics in the Pacific for generations.

His approval ratings -- although dented by fears about Islamic State terror after the San Bernardino attack -- are around 45 percent, higher than Bush’s and roughly the same as Reagan’s at the same point.

In 2016, Obama will try to keep momentum by deploying all the tools and trappings of office -- from the bully pulpit to high-profile presidential visits.

His voice will echo across the 2016 campaign, as he hits the road in support of expected nominee Hillary Clinton and a Democratic third term that would emboss his presidency.

Before that, he is likely to become the first sitting president since Calvin Coolidge to visit Cuba.

But even that short trip across the Strait of Florida illustrates how much Obama’s final year success is out of his hands.

A trip to the land Fidel Castro defended Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, saying it would be “despicable” if the leader actually did kill opposition journalists, as he has been accused of on US television.

But Trump asked his TV interviewer to first “prove” any such allegations. would be rich in symbolism, an echo of Reagan’s first visit to the Soviet Union in 1988, or Richard Nixon’s visit to China.

But without Congress’s willingness to end the embargo on Cuba, a visit would not thaw the last frosty remnants of the Cold War in the Americas.

Equally, ratifying the landmark trans-Pacific trade deal still requires reluctant Democratic lawmakers to vote in favor. That may have to wait until after the November election.

Publicly, at least, Obama is optimistic about dealing with the opposition-dominated Congress, even after being repeatedly burned -- even if it is an election year, and even if disdain for the 44th president is a rare issue upon which Republicans can all agree.

Agreements

Yet recent agreements on taxes, the budget and early childhood education have left the White House more hopeful that progress can be made on issues like criminal justice reform.

It is a cruel irony that America’s first African-American president has struggled to improve race relations, or address sentencing laws that see a disproportionate number of young black and Hispanic men go to prison.

“There is a confluence of interests, I believe the time is ripe for this issue,” said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a process and it

Trump’s statements come just days after a separate talkshow host asked how he felt about Putin, who “kills journalists and political opponents and invades countries.”

Trump quickly responded: “I think our country does plenty of killing, also.”

Grilled about the matter Sunday on is on track.”

Obama is even holding out hope, however unlikely, that congressional Republicans will relent in their opposition to gun control and on closing Guantanamo.

On both issues, the White House is already considering executive orders to bypass Congress and enact reforms, something that would ignite a political and legal firestorm.

Obama’s efforts to bring a generation of immigrants out of the shadows offers a preview of what those fights could look like.

Experts predict lengthy court battles and a possible political backlash, all of which could leave supporters in limbo and a key Obama policy goal in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the president’s perceived excessive use of executive orders could alter the delicate balance of power in Washington.

As a presidential candidate, Obama criticized George W. Bush over executive overreach.

“I taught the Constitution for 10 years, I believe in the Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution of the United States,” Obama once said on the campaign trail.

“We don’t want to be like Bush,” said an official who recently left the Obama administration, discussing the problems of closing Guantanamo by executive order.

But neither does Obama want to run out the clock on his presidency. ABC’s “This Week” show, Trump defended Putin’s record regarding Russian journalists who have died.

“I think it was despicable if that took place, but I haven’t seen any evidence that he killed anybody in terms of reporters,” Trump said.

“When you say a man has killed reporters I’d like you to prove it. I have never seen any information or any proof that he killed reporters,” Trump told host George Stephanopoulos, who referenced suspicions that Putin was involved in the 2006 death of investigative Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. (AFP)

Trump demands apology:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he wants an apology from Hillary Clinton for saying that the Islamic State group used videos of his comments about Muslims to recruit militants.

Trump told NBC’s “Today Show” Monday that “she lies about everything.”

He said: “You’re talking about people dying. You’re talking about making up tapes and videos which don’t exist.”

During the Democratic debate Saturday, Clinton said that Trump had become the Islamic State’s “best recruiter” and that “they are going to people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”

There was no evidence to back the claim, and a spokeswoman later said “she didn’t have a particular video in mind.” (AP)