Freedom: President Obama Commuted the sentence of Chelsea Manning,  originally known as Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst who handed over a trove of secret documents to WikiLeaks. She will be released this May rather than in 2045.

A White House official said, “The president’s concern was rooted in the fact that the sentence handed down is longer than sentences given to other individuals who committed comparable crimes.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan called the pardon “outrageous.” He said, “President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security won’t be held accountable for their crimes.”

The decision relieves the Army of the institutional difficulties of holding Manning, who announced after her conviction that she is transgender. She’s biologically male, and the Army put her in prison with men. She has attempted suicide twice.

The President pardoned 64 people, among James E. Cartwright, the retired Marine Corps general and former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about leaking information to reporters about Iran’s nuclear program. Cartwright was awaiting sentencing and prosecutors were preparing to ask the judge for two years in prison.

Bad Health: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that if the Republicans partially repeal Obamacare as many as 18 million Americans will lose their health insurance within the first year. Repeal could cause 32 million people to lose their insurance within 10 years, while doubling premiums, the CBO says.

The CBO based its estimate on the effects that would have been created by a repeal bill President Obama vetoed last year. Republicans complained that the CBO report assumes that Obamacare will be repealed without a replacement, giving a skewed picture. But while they move ahead with repeal, they still don’t have a replacement.

Brexit: British Prime Minister Theresa May said yesterday in a speech that the country is ready to make a clean break from the European Union, getting out of the single market and the obligation to freely accept foreign citizens. She said she wants to get control of immigration and escape the grip of the European Court of Justice.

May basically said Britain wants the perks of being in the European Union without the financial and legal obligations. “We want to buy your goods and services, sell you ours, trade with you as freely as possible, and work with one another to make sure we are all safer, more secure and more prosperous through continued friendship,” she said.

Bad Numbers: Donald Trump is heading into Friday’s inauguration with just a 40 percent approval rating, according to new polls. Approval ratings generally are highest before a president-elect takes office and gets a chance to make decisions people don’t like.

Trump’s approval is 44 points below Barack Obama when he took office.

The president-elect dismissed the popularity polls, tweeting, “The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before.”

Advice and Consent: Trump’s nominee to oversee the nation’s health, Sen. Tom Price, is under question for possible insider trading. Price bought stock in a biomedical company before introducing a bill that would benefit the company. The nominee for Secretary of Health, Betsy DeVos, took hard questions in her confirmation hearing about her intentions for public education. DeVos, a devout Christian, is an advocate for vouchers that would allow parents to send their children to private and religious schools with public money. DeVos and her husband have donated many millions to theirs political causes.  Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, challenging her credentials to be Secretary of Education, asked her, “Do you think if you were not a multi-billionaire that you would be sitting here today?”

That’s Entertainment: They couldn’t get Bruce Springsteen to perform for the inaugural and now they can’t even get a Springsteen cover band.

The B-Street Band has bailed out of its commitment. “We felt that we had to make it known that we didn’t want to seem disrespectful, in any way, shape or form, to Bruce and his music and his band,” bandleader Will Forte said.

That leaves us with the likes of country singer Toby Keith, the rock band 3 Doors Down, and Lee Greenwood to perform at the “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration” at the Lincoln Memorial.

One of the worst things to come out of the Trump presidency may be the revival of Greenwood’s song, “God Bless the USA,” popular during the jingoistic days of  Gulf War One.  If God truly blessed the USA, that song would never be played again for all eternity. Even longer.

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