President Obama Delivers Final State of the Union Address (2016) part 1

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• published: 13 Jan 2016
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President Obama During his final State of the Union address, he once again called for the closure of the controversial detention facility.president obama at the state of the union sotu But the prison is still open. President Obama took a moment during tonight’s State of the Union to very clearly––yet indirectly––go after Donald Trump. As the president talked about terrorism and not aiding our enemies with dangerous rhetoric and policy, he said, “That’s why we need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion.” (Paul Ryan applauded that part.) He continued, “This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong.” Obama talked up America’s tradition of diversity and agreed with Pope Francis that “to imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place.” And with just 12 months go to until he leaves office, it’s not clear whether Obama will be able to get rid of a facility he believes serves as an important recruiting tool to anti-American terror organizations around the world. Closure is complicated. He can’t send all of the roughly 90 remaining prisoners back to their home countries because he doesn’t trust the security arrangements abroad. And federal law clearly bars him from bringing the terror suspects to the U.S., leaving his team of lawyers to contemplate whether his powers as commander-in-chief allow him to order the transfers anyway. 6:45 P.M. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. Obama asks, again, for authorization to fight Islamic State If President Obama’s call for Congress to pass an authorization for the use of force against Islamic State sounds familiar, it’s because he did so in this speech last year as well. “This effort will take time. It will require focus. But we will succeed,” he said. “Tonight, I call on this Congress to show the world that we are united in this mission by passing a resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL. We need that authority.” Just weeks later the president sent Congress draft language of such an authorization, but found critics on both sides of the aisle. Many Democrats bristled at the ambiguity of language they said did not explicitly prohibit the use of ground troops against Islamic State. Republicans opposed separate language that they saw as overly constraining this or a future president’s hands in being able to go after terrorist forces wherever they were. Though some lawmakers have been outspoken about the need for an updated authorization to use force against Islamic State – the nation is still operating on one passed in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 – there was no significant effort to consider Obama’s or any other draft in 2015. Under different circumstances, Vice President Joe Biden might have benefited from the visibility of tonight’s speech as a candidate looking to succeed President Obama. Instead, Obama called attention to a new crusade that Biden has dedicated himself to: a “moonshot” effort to find a cure for cancer. “He’s gone to the mat for all of us, on so many issues over the past 40 years,” Obama said. “I’m putting Joe in charge of mission control.” “We're so close to so many breakthroughs in cancer,” he said. “This is one of those inflection points, but they are sort of stove pipes. There's a lot of brilliant people doing a lot of important stuff but not enough integration.” “I'm hoping … [to] be the convener of these folks and move things along more quickly, so instead of the breakthroughs occurring in 10 years or five years, I think we can change the face of cancer [within] the next five years.” 6:49 P.M.Christina Bellantoni More about that 'moonshot' 6:36 P.M. Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You’ll be pretty lonely. President Obama, urging support for energy alternatives