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Last week, President Trump granted full pardons for Army First Lt. Clint Lorance and Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, whod been accused of war crimes. Lorance had served six years of a 19-year sentence, and Golsteyn was facing trial for killing an alleged Taliban bombmaker. Navy SEAL Edward R. Gallagher, who was found not guilty of war crimes, but still had his rank reduced, was granted clemency and restoration of rank.

Lawmakers had been pushing for pardons for Lorance and Golsteyn because theyd taken actions to defend themselves on the battlefield and were charged with war crimes for it. Yet, when President Trump pardoned them, it immediately sparked controversy and outrage. Pete Buttigieg joined in the outrage chorus, claiming Trump dishonored our armed services.

American soldiers join the military knowing they can be sent away from their families for long periods of time into unsafe conditions with the possibility they might never come backor come back severely injured. For Trump to give various members of our military a second chance is infinitely less outrageous than acts of clemency made by his predecessor.

Barack Obama commuted the sentence of Bradley Manning (you may also know him as Chelsea), who leaked hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents to WikiLeaks. A traitor in every sense, in 2013 Manning was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison. But, Bradley Manning became a hero of the political left for declaring himself to be transgender, and Obama made his controversial commutation days before leaving office.

Obama also commuted the sentence of convicted terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera. Lopez Rivera was a leader of the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacin Nacional Puertorriquea (FALN), a Puerto Rican terrorist group responsible for 130 attacks in the United States, and at least six deaths. An unrepentant Lopez-Rivera was serving a 70-year sentence when Obama set him free.

Obama also granted clemency to hundreds of drug offenders he claimed were non-violent offenders who deserved a second chance, because of racism or something. It later came out that many of the people he released were actually violent offenders guilty of gun crimes. Obama granted more acts of clemency than any president since Truman, though he saved much of that executive use of power for the latter months and days of his presidency.

While Obama may have granted clemency to plenty who deserved it, granting clemency to an unrepentant terrorist was nonsensical. Doing the same for a traitor responsible for the biggest national security breach in history sends the worst possible message. I think its clear that Trump has shown far better judgment so far than his predecessor.

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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama's Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis

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Obama Granted Clemency to Terrorists and Traitors, But Were Supposed to Be Angry at Trump's Pardons | News and Politics - PJ Media

Oh, the liberal media stepped on a rake today, but the Trump-Ukraine impeachment fiasco that has engulfed the Hill should mask the extent of the falloutthough they deserve a to be dragged through the streets for this blunder. So, it was blasted out all over. The U.S. has the has worlds highest rate of children in detention. This was based on a United Nations survey. Cue President Trump-bashing. Cue the hysteria. Except that this was from a 2015 study, which means that Obama was the one that put those kids in cages, which is something that we on the right have been saying for months. Some of the Trump immigration agenda is a continuation of Obama-era policies. Talk about getting owned, liberal America. As The Daily Callers Amber Athey noted, this is what happens when the media ignores bad stories that could damage Democratic administrations. As The Daily Callers Amber Athey noted, this is what happens when the media ignores bad stories that could damage Democratic administrations.

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The Media Peddled Some Fake News Today And They Have the Trump Impeachment Circus to Thank for Mitigating the Fallout - Townhall

Protesters took to the streets shortly after the government announced an increase in fuel prices by as much as 300%. Social media images showed banks, petrol stations and government buildings set ablaze by rioters. Some protesters chanted "down with Khamenei," according to videos, referring to the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In other countries where nationwide protests have rattled the political elite -- such as Iraq and Lebanon -- social media has played a key role in mobilizing protesters. It is unclear if Iranian authorities will succeed in quelling the demonstrations by depriving them of this crucial protest tool.

Protests in Iran have been a long time coming. Popular discontent over the country's leadership has brewed for years as economic conditions continued to worsen, causing nationwide protests to erupt between December 2017 and January 2018.

Since May 2017, US President Donald Trump has unleashed several rounds of sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy, causing its currency to tank, prices to spiral, and trigger shortages in food and medical equipment. As people's living conditions worsened, many Iranians blamed US sanctions for their woes, but also criticized corruption that they believe is widespread among Iran's clerical leadership.

Last Friday, a government announcement about fuel price hikes -- between 50% and 300% -- appeared to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Large numbers of protesters took to the streets in urban centers across the country.

How have authorities responded?

Several protesters have been killed in the demonstrations, according to government officials. Khamenei, who has backed the fuel price hikes, has blamed the riots on external forces.

"The counter-revolution and Iran's enemies have always supported sabotage and breaches of security and continue to do so," Khamenei said in a live speech on state TV on Sunday. "Unfortunately, some problems were caused, a number of people lost their lives and some centers were destroyed."

Khamenei is the final arbiter on decision-making in Iran. Despite the protests, he said the fuel price increase "must be implemented" while urging officials not to raise the price of other commodities.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has warned that security forces will act against protesters if "vandalism" continues.

What is the US' stance on the protests?

The White House has publicly supported the protests. A statement on Sunday from the Trump administration condemned Tehran's use of "lethal force and severe communications restrictions" and chastised the government that "abandons its people and embarks on a crusade for personal power and riches."

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also tweeted his "support" for the protests on Saturday.

Washington's reaction echoes Trump's response to the protests two years ago when he called for "change" and denounced Tehran for "failing at every level."

Tehran has, in turn, dismissed the US comments as "hypocritical," highlighting US sanctions as a key driver of the country's economic role.

"It seems weird to see sympathizing with a nation suffering from the US' economic terrorism and the same person who has already said that the Iranian people should be starved to surrender," said Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi, according to state-owned ISNA news agency.

When Trump pulled out of the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran in May 2017, he unveiled his "maximum pressure" campaign which sought to extract major political concessions from Iran through an extreme economic squeeze.

Pompeo initially rolled out a list of 12 demands to restrain what the US calls Tehran's "malign activities" in the region. But since then, Trump appeared to backtrack, recently saying that he aimed only to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Iran suspended its uranium enrichment activities after signing a landmark agreement with the Obama administration in 2015. But since May 2018 -- a year after Trump reimposed sanctions on the country -- Iran has taken several steps away from its compliance with the nuclear accord.

Are Iran's demonstrations related to other regional protest movements?

Rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in Iraq, Lebanon and Iran have meant that the protesters have a clear common cause. But the similarities may go beyond economy. Both Iraq and Lebanon are in Iran's sphere of influence, and protests against the status quo could weaken Tehran's sway in both countries.

In Iraq, the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Units, which wield significant political influence, have responded violently to protesters. Hundreds have been killed in those protests. In Lebanon, Hezbollah initially suggested protests there were part of an international conspiracy against the Iranian-backed militant and political group. But Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has since backed the anti-corruption protesters in recent speeches.

Last month, Khamenei accused US and Western intelligence services of "spreading turmoil" in Iraq and Lebanon. He also recalled Iran's response to its 2018 protests, praising the armed forces for "neutralizing" "similar plans" for Iran.

It is unclear whether the protests will do lasting damage to Iran's standing in the region, but its response -- from force to internet blackouts -- suggests that the unrest has unnerved Tehran.

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Iran's 'largest internet shutdown ever' is happening now. Here's what you need to know - CNN

In Islamshahr, a small working-class city, crowds attacked a billboard of Irans supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Posts on social media showed that they had set it ablaze.

While insulting the supreme leader is an offense that can carry the death penalty, people did not seem to care.

We are fed up, they chanted.

In cities including Behshahr, Shiraz, Tehran and Karaj, protests turned violent when people attacked government buildings, set banks on fire, ripped the national flag and kicked and burned revolutionary monuments.

The police and demonstrators exchanged gunfire on Friday in Sirjan, a city some 500 miles southeast of Tehran, an Interior Ministry official there told state television.

The state-run IRNA news agency said protesters tried to set fire to the oil depot, The Associated Press reported. It quoted the official, Mohammad Mahmoudabadi, as saying, They insisted on reaching the oil depot and creating crises.

Around Iran, anti-riot police officers and security forces battled crowds on motorcycles and on foot, videos on social media and local news outlets showed. These accounts showed that in Karaj, a young man was shot in the head, while in Shiraz, security forces shot a young man, who collapsed to the ground, bleeding.

They are firing on the people, shouted the narrator of the video from Shiraz, his hands shaking as he documented the scene.

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Protests Incited by Gas Price Hike Grip Iran - The New York Times

Less than a week since the Iranian government hiked gasoline prices by dozens of percentage points, the regime is at the lethal phase of quashing the demonstrations. While an internet blackout has greatly impeded the flow of information among protest groups and between them and the outside world, more than 100 people are thought to have been killed, with some reports putting the figure as high as 200, and thousands injured or detained.

Reports relying on sources in the Basij, the volunteer forces of the Revolutionary Guards, tell of training exercises to suppress protests. They also say the Guards are on high alert and might deploy armored vehicles in cities.

At the beginning of the week the government apparently still thought it could calm the public; for example, by handing money directly to the 20 million or so needy Iranians as compensation for price rises. But now the leadership seems to realize that its facing the threat of an all-out civil insurrection, as the protests spread to about 100 cities amid the burning of banks and government offices, damage to schools of Islamic studies, and slogans and graffiti demanding death to Rohani, death to Khamenei.

While such phenomena happened during the major protests of 2009 and 2017-18, this time the government is having a hard time distinguishing between reformists and conservatives, and thus separating those it calls loyal to the revolution from those it deems domestic enemies operated by the United States, Israel and the arrogant forces of the West.

At the beginning of the protests, demonstrations broke out in Tehrans neighborhoods that are racked by poverty. But within three days they had spread to north Tehran, Shiraz, Yazd and Isfahan, as students, young people and middle-class folks march together. The head of the Revolutionary Guards has said the response to protests will be decisive and revolutionary, while the editor of Kayhan, a daily controlled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has demanded that the regime execute the protesters. This reflects the tension, not to say panic, among the regimes leaders.

In contrast to 2009, when it was clear who was leading the protests and who the protesters were, this time, like last year, there are no known leaders with a cogent ideology or clear political strategy. This means that even if the regime is willing to negotiate with the protesters, as it did with striking teachers, truck drivers and protesting government factory workers, there is currently no clear group that it can neutralize to achieve calm.

And a violent suppression can entangle the regime even more by possibly bringing other sectors of society into the protest. One danger is that the Basij volunteers, many of them from poor neighborhoods and some who were forced to volunteer if they wanted a job, will leave the organization and join the protest.

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The regimes legitimacy is compromised further by the unified front presented by Khamenei, President Hassan Rohani and Chief Justice Ebrahim Raisi, who have fully backed the governments decision to raise taxes. In doing so, they have increased the sense of alienation and hostility for the leadership.

In previous protests, Rohani came out against the use of force and said people had the right to nonviolent protest. He even accused certain religious institutions and the Revolutionary Guards of graft. This time, Rohani has remained silent despite the shooting at protesters and the many casualties. The deep economic crisis and the lack of a political will to implement the economic reforms Rohani wanted have trapped him in a dead end where only a dramatic step like a hike in gas prices could help plug the budget deficit that has reached 8 percent of GDP.

Of course, the regime could reverse its decision to raise taxes, or do so gradually over a year, but such a decision would mean not only giving in to the publics demands, but deviating from the strategy of resistance economics that Khamenei has said is the way to overcome the steamroller of sanctions. Thus, suppression of the protests is necessary ideologically, not only politically. Meanwhile, the regime is relying on experience and is certain that this time too it will be able to quash the protests before they become a dangerous civil insurrection.

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Iran's attempts to quell protests bring them closer to the boiling point - Haaretz