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President Obama gave his last press conference of 2014 on Friday, before embarking on an extended Christmas vacation to Hawaii with his family.  The president spoke about the many recent accomplishments his administration set forth and how he intends to govern in his final two years.

The press conference was a little unusual in many ways, as the president seemed loose and even joke at times, but only asked questions from female reporters, and never called on the mainstream media for any questions.

The president spoke and took questions on a variety of different issues facing the country with the two of the most notable ones being the Sony cyberattack and lifting the embargo against Cuba.

With regard to Cuba Obama commented, “I don’t anticipate overnight changes. But what I know deep in my bones is that if you’ve done the same thing for 50 years and nothing’s changed, you should try something different if you want a different outcome, and this gives us an opportunity for a different outcome, because suddenly Cuba is open to the world in ways that it has not been before,” Obama said.

“The more the Cuban people see what’s possible, the more interested they are going to be in change. But how societies change is country-specific. It’s culture-specific,” he said.

On the Sony cyberattack Obama stated, “We cannot have a society where some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States, because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a satirical movie, imagine what they’ll do when they see a documentary that they don’t like, or news reports that they don’t like — or even worse, imagine if producers or distributors or others start engaging in self-censorship because they don’t want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended,” Obama said.

“So, you know, that’s not who we are. That’s not what America’s about. Again, I’m sympathetic that Sony as a private company was worried about liabilities and this and that and the other. I wish they’d spoken to me first. I would have told them, do not get into a pattern in which you’re intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks,” he said.

The questions asked by the reporters were never probing and were mainly easy questions for the president to respond to, and reporters never pressed the president when he mentioned that Sony never spoke with him regarding cancellation of film.

This aspect was confusing when the Sony president stated he had been in consultation with the administration over their decision not to release the movie on Christmas, but it seems there is confusion what transpired between Sony and the administration.

Next year is going to be a real interesting year with the Republicans now in control of both the House and the Senate, and with the president acting on his own without congressional consultation.

It will only be fireworks heading into the 2016 presidential election.