Page 7 - Florida Sentinel 12-25-15 Edition

Presidential News
President Obama Makes
Pres. Obama Calls Knoxville Teen ‘A Hero’ For Shielding Friends From Gunfire
ZAEVION WILLIAM DOBSON
President
Obama called 15-year-old Zaevion William Dobson a hero after the Knoxville, Tenn., sophomore was shot and killed while using his body as a shield to protect three of his female friends. The shoot- ing took place Thursday night (December 17) when police say men drove to Dobson’s neighborhood and started shooting in retaliation to an earlier incident. The President took to his official Twitter ac- count Saturday (December 19) to weigh in on the tragedy.
Dobson’s football coach at Fulton High School, Rob Black, referred to him as “fine young man” with a con- tagious personality people gravitated to.
Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch said investi- gators have not found a link between the shooters and Dobson and believe he was chosen at random.
“Unfortunately, they picked a random group of young men and women who were just hanging out and trying to pre- pare to celebrate the holiday,” Rausch said.
Vacation Starts, But Matters Of The Country Loom As First Family Arrives In Hawaii
First family departs Air Force One to begin Christmas vacation.
‘No Apologies’ For The
Way U.S. Is Fighting ISIS
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
Stressing that his admin- istration has "been at this for a long time," President Obama launched a forceful defense of his strategy against ISIS in a year-end interview with NPR. He makes "no apologies," he said, for wanting to target terror groups "appropriately and in a way that is consis- tent with American values."
Speaking with Steve Inskeep, host of Morning Edition, President Obama also urged Ameri- cans to "keep things in per- spective" when it comes to ISIS, though he says he un- derstands "why people are worried."
"This is not an organiza- tion that can destroy the United States," he said, nor is it a "huge industrial power" that poses great risks to the U. S. "institu- tionally or in a systemic way. But they can hurt us, and they can hurt our peo- ple and our families."
President Obama
added that while ISIS, which he refers to as ISIL, should be taken "seriously," domestic terrorism acts have killed at least as many Americans "as those who were promoted by ji- hadists." Since Sept. 11, 2001, 45 people have been killed in the United States at the hands of Islamist ex- tremist-inspired terrorists, and 48 have been killed in domestic terrorist attacks, according to a count from the New America Founda- tion.
He said he understands people are legitimately con- cerned about terrorism — though he says that fear is fueled in part by the media.
I make no apologies for us wanting to [go after ter- rorist targets] appropriately and in a way that is consis- tent with American values.
He also believes there was a failing on his administra- tion's part in not better in- forming the public of action that has been taken to fight ISIS. So if people haven't seen that in fact 9,000 strikes have been carried out against ISIL. Also, the majority don't know that towns like Sinjar that were controlled by ISIL have been taken back, or that a town like Tikrit, that was controlled by ISIL, now has been repopulated by previ- ous residents.
Barack
HONOLULU — As President Obama left Washington for his annual year-end beach getaway with his family here, he had one last duty to attend to.
En route to his native Hawaii for Christmas vaca- tion, Mr. Obama stopped in San Bernardino, Calif., for what was originally billed as an hour-long visit with families of the victims of the mass shooting this month. But it stretched late into the night on Friday, as the president and his wife, Michelle, spent nearly three hours in a high school library, privately grieving with loved ones of each of the 14 people slain.
It was a grim note on which to start President Obama’s two-week vaca- tion with his wife and two daughters, Malia, 17, and
Sasha, 14.
The President wraps up
ayear in which he has ac- complished a long list of ambitious agenda items, but still faces a public deeply worried about terrorism.
So even as he settled over the weekend into a se- cluded rental home in Kailua on Oahu’s eastern shore, and began his near- daily ritual of golf, Mr. Obama’s sense of accom- plishment and optimism was tempered by a dose of reality.
“In 2016, I’m going to leave it all out on the field,” the president said on Friday during his year-end news conference, in which he ar- gued that “so much of our steady, persistent work over the years is paying off for the American people in big, tangible ways.”
President Says Donald Trump Plays Into Fears Of Working Class White Men
President Obama said in a radio interview airing on Monday that Donald J. Trump, a leading con- tender for the Republican presidential nomination, is exploiting the resentment and anxieties of working- class men to boost his cam- paign.
Mr. Obama also argued that some of the scorn di- rected at him personally stems from the fact that he is the first African-American to hold the White House.
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