Obama Commutes Sentence of Communist Terrorist

In addition to commuting the sentence of classified leaker Chelsea Manning Wednesday, President Obama also shortened the sentence of Puerto Rican terrorist Oscar Lopez-Rivera.

Lopez-Rivera was a key leader of Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN), a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organization which sought to establish an independent, communist Puerto Rico.

“Commuting his sentence proves that Obama and most liberals are out of touch with reality and willing to sacrifice all norms in the name of progressivism.”

In 1981, Lopez-Rivera — who built bombs for the group — was convicted of seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to transport explosives with the intent to destroy government property, the illegal transportation of firearms, and armed robbery. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison.

FALN, which was active from 1974-1983, was one of the most prolific terrorist organizations in U.S. history, perpetrating nearly 150 bombings on U.S. targets and a number armed robberies, according to the FBI.

The group was responsible for the 1975 bombing of the historic Fraunces Tavern in New York City, which killed three innocent Americans and injured more than 50 others.

Lopez-Rivera was actually offered clemency by President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, but refused on grounds that he could not trust the U.S. government — and staunchly refused to renounce political terrorism.

Lopez-Rivera has refused to accept responsibility or express remorse for his actions and the actions of FALN. “Oscar Lopez is a terrorist who participated in the killing of New Yorkers, and someone who has refused to renounce violence,” New York City Councilman Joe Borelli told the New York Post.

“Commuting his sentence proves that Obama and most liberals are out of touch with reality and willing to sacrifice all norms in the name of progressivism,” Borelli continued.

But Obama’s decision is characteristic of the president’s uncomfortable coziness with violent communists, a closeness that has marked his entire career.

In his autobiography Obama discusses his relationship with family friend, mentor, and Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis. In May 2016, Obama traveled to communist Vietnam, where he heaped praise on Ho Chi Min and expressed regret and remorse that the United States fought an ultimately unsuccessful war to preserve freedom there.

“And on the day that Vietnam declared its independence, crowds took to the streets of this city, and Ho Chi Minh evoked the American Declaration of Independence,” Obama said. “In another time, the profession of these shared ideals and our common story of throwing off colonialism might have brought us closer together sooner. But instead, Cold War rivalries and fears of communism pulled us into conflict.”

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Of course, Obama also normalized relations with Cuba, and when Fidel Castro finally died Obama’s tepid eulogy stood in stark contrast to President-Elect Donald Trump’s reaction. “Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty, and the denial of fundamental human rights,” Trump said in an official statement.

To heap insult on the injuries of thousands of Cubans who have suffered under the brutal Castro regime, the Obama administration only last week announced the end of the wet-foot-dry-foot policy, which provided Cubans fleeing communism a fast track to U.S. citizenship.