Obama Briefs Public on National Security

In a speech following a security briefing, Barack Obama advised Americans to go about their business as usual ahead of the Thanksgiving holidays which start tomorrow. If you’re aching to watch a turkey talk back at Obama for like half a second, skip to the 46 minute mark on the White House’s overly long video footage of the event.

“We have two winners and their names are “Honest” and “Abe, ‘” Obama said during a press conference at the White House”.

“They do this exclusively because it makes me feel good, not because they actually think this is something I should be doing, and as you get older you appreciate when your kids just indulge you like this and I am grateful for this”, Obama said. “Abe (the turkey) is now a free bird”.

While Republican presidential candidates and other critics say that Obama’s strategy is inadequate, the president said he is intensifying theexisting plan that stresses airstrikes against Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraqand the training of local forces to carry the fight on the ground.

The global Business Times quotes POTUS from a year ago being seriously perplexed that he had to pardon a turkey and talk up the National Turkey Federation, which is an actual, real organization.

It’s the one time in the year that you can see a turkey in the Rose Garden. After the pardoning, tradition dictates that they will be on display at Morven Park’s “Turkey Hill” at the home of former Virginia Governor Westmoreland Davis. The wise crack had his daughters commenting that it was indeed an amusing joke, which is a big deal considering how Malia and Sasha seemed disinterested in last year’s ceremony. They both even favor the same kind of music: country.

The turkey pardon was Obama’s 7th and the nation’s 68th.

The first documented turkey pardon was given by President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Public pardons resumed under President Ronald Reagan, while the next White House tenant, George H.W. Bush, established the ceremonies as an annual tradition. The only major difference is in their “strut style”.

But with Obama’s signing of the defense bill it is increasingly unlikely that the proposal will ever come to fruition.

On the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, President Obama sought to reassure Americans nervous after the terrorists attacks on Paris, Beirut and Mali that there have been no specific credible reports of “a plot on the homeland”.