how much you wanna bet that Julian Assange will conveniently forget his agreement to be extradited if Manning gets pardoned? https://www.yahoo.com/news/assange-agrees-extradition-us-rel...
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Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence
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Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence
#32Seven years is still a long time for whistle blowing. I'm glad to see she is still getting released though. It's important to note commuting the sentence is not a pardon. Chelsea will still have this conviction for the rest of her life.
I know there is a lot of controversy with Manning compared to Wikileaks et. al. as far as not redacting documents or using a discriminating news source to filter them. Still, I oppose state secrets and the Hillary e-mails are actually very chilling when you start reading through them. I still side with Manning. Too many of the Snowden documents were redacted with critical information (like which hardware encryption chips were compromised by the US government). No one has the actual Pentagon Papers outside of very specific news agencies. Manning gave the entire story to the people .. and I find it more sad that we didn't see more outrage and change from that release.
I also see another message here. Obama is trying to leave a positive view of the Democratic legacy with this lasting memory. It helps people forget about the predator drones, secret kill lists, continuation of torture, NSA spying and the expansion of war, military and the American hegemony throughout the world. I wish people would see this manipulation; this handout to the left to keep them angry at the incoming administration and not at the government that continues to spy on them and kill people without trial in and endless sea of never ending conflict.
Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence
#33I am going to miss Obama.
Why?
While he isn't blameless, the ACA helped a lot of people, the economy recovered greatly (admittedly all he had to do was not fuck it up), permitted states to legalize weed. For me I have to say the ACA is probably the biggest reason why I liked him well enough. I was able to stay on my parents insurance until I was 26, and then since I was self-employed I was able to easily get insurance through the marketplace. Now that process I'll admit hasn't been as smooth for everyone, but for me it worked okay.
Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence
#34I hope this will set the tone for how whistleblowers are treated in the future, and I wonder what the President Elect has to say about this.
I am confident he will have a few tweets about this before tomorrow morning. Does anyone know if President Elect Trump has the authority to overturn this sentence commuting?
Not arbitrarily. If it's a conditional commutation, then there would need to be hearings to document and assert the violations of those conditions first.
Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence
#35Now pardon Snowden
And admit you're the cause of the Assange investigation which has kept him locked up in an embassy for years as well.
Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence
#36This is great and I think pretty easy to see as a good thing by all sides (I hope). I never understand why pardons and this type of thing always seem to have a waiting period though; just being grateful the right thing (As I see it) is being done.
Political cowardice, mostly. It's something you can only safely do once you're a lame duck. Not sure why they don't typically do it in December, though.
Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence
#37For anyone else who was curious:
Commute - reduce (a judicial sentence, especially a sentence of death) to one less severe.
Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence
#38It's too bad it took a presidential order to commute her sentence to 8 years, when it probably should've been the longest sentence she should've gotten by default, if not much less, if she even had to be jailed in the first place. I think she only got imprisoned for so long because that's how the military operates. Right or wrong, they want to set an example of soldiers that something like this, so that others aren't encouraged to do the same.
Also, too bad Obama didn't pardon Snowden. He should have.
Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence
#39how much you wanna bet that Julian Assange will conveniently forget his agreement to be extradited if Manning gets pardoned? https://www.yahoo.com/news/assange-agrees-extradition-us-rel...
Forget what? There was no pardon by Obama, so that agreement does not apply.
Why would you want to detract from the good news of Chelsea having a release date in the very near future and conflate that with a different issue regarding Assange?
Re: Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence
#40Manning indiscriminately leaked tons of diplomatic cables, as part of a personal vendetta against the US Army. It is without contention that the vast majority of the leaked cables revealed nothing that anyone considers wrongdoing. This wasn't the act of a whistle blower. It was the cowardly act of someone who put their own petty fantasies ahead of their solemn duty to protect the information they were entrusted with…
What need does Obama have to pander to anyone right now?
It's been reported in the news for the last month that Obama has no intention of retiring from public life. He's going to be a major spokesman and "spiritual leader" of sorts for the Democrats going forward. The reason is that the Democrats don't have a good "bench." Most of the Democrats remaining in positions of power are creatures of big-city machine politics, not exactly likable populists who can counter Trump.