
Chelsea Manning Asks President for Clemency and 'First Chance at Life' - endswapper
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/11/14/502026384/chelsea-manning-asks-president-for-clemency-and-first-chance-at-life
======
doe88
Unlikely. I would be very surprised if president Obama granted this request.
And that's just one of many reasons why democrats did not have a strong turn-
out, they lost touch with their base. As corollary a very good article in WaPo
by Glenn Greenwald
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/11/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/11/glenn-
greenwald-trump-will-have-vast-powers-he-can-thank-democrats-for-them/)

~~~
bogomipz
I am not all following how you are connecting the Democrats losing touch with
their base and the question of whether Obama is likely to pardon this
individual.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Part of the reason I did not go out to vote for Clinton was because she was a
continuation of Obama's policies; civilian collateral damage from
extrajudicial drone strikes, no pardon for Edward Snowden, the possibility of
a drawn out proxy war in Syria, as well as no stop to the NSA domestic
surveillence program. (Neoliberalism = "Republican lite")

You might retort "But Trump! (and his threats of killing families of
terrorists, etc)". If Clinton was elected it would've been business as usual,
everyone would've gone back to their bread and circuses. Not now though.

I hope Obama has the fortitude to pardon Manning and Snowden if he's going to
jump on the political grenade of pardoning Clinton. [1]

Sidenote: Trump has already swung moderate, deciding to stick with NATO [2]
and keeping most of the ACA after speaking with Obama [3]. Maybe he doesn't
stick to those ideals, but its clear Trump the president may not be as bad as
Trump the person. I have hope, but I had hope for Sanders as well. (Excitingly
enough, the /r/SandersForPresident subreddit was reactived today, with ~210k
active subscribers).

[1]
[http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-10/giulia...](http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-10/giuliani-
says-president-obama-shouldn-t-pardon-hillary-clinton)

[2]
[http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-14/obama-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-14/obama-
says-trump-told-him-he-supports-u-s-commitment-to-nato)

[3] [http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-hedges-
health-...](http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-hedges-health-care-
points-amending-aca)

~~~
cpleppert
>>Part of the reason I did not go out to vote for Clinton was because she was
a continuation of Obama's policies; civilian collateral damage from
extrajudicial drone strikes, no pardon for Edward Snowden, the possibility of
a drawn out proxy war in Syria, as well as no stop to the NSA domestic
surveillence program. (Neoliberalism = "Republican lite") You might retort
"But Trump! (and his threats of killing families of terrorists, etc)". If
Clinton was elected it would've been business as usual, everyone would've gone
back to their bread and circuses. Not now though.

Regardless of what you think of Clinton Trump was a far worse alternative on
every measure. Trump will be able to dramatically change the supreme court and
US federal legislation as well. Complaining about Clinton/Obama doesn't change
the simple fact that he is far to the right on her on almost every issue.

>>Sidenote: Trump has already swung moderate, deciding to stick with NATO [2]
and keeping most of the ACA after speaking with Obama [3]. Maybe he doesn't
stick to those ideals, but its clear Trump the president may not be as bad as
Trump the person. I have hope, but I had hope for Sanders as well. (Excitingly
enough, the /r/SandersForPresident subreddit was reactived today, with ~210k
active subscribers).

Trump _CANT_ keep most of ACA even if he wanted to keep the _good parts._ The
expansion of coverage is paid and supported by the entirety of the law, it
doesn't work without all the provisions.

------
bdcravens
Chelsea was sentenced in 2013, well under the influence of the Obama
administration. (Ditto for the leaks, in 2010) Typically the presidential
pardons we see are the last minute stamp of ideology, not undoing of their
legacy.

~~~
marcoperaza
Or if you're Bill Clinton, some last minute corruption. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controvers...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controversy#Pardons_and_commutations_signed_on_President_Clinton.27s_final_day_in_office)
. Though I guess that corruption _is_ the Clinton ideology...

~~~
serge2k
> Though I guess that corruption is the Clinton ideology

and yet, despite apparently knowing this for 30 years. Investigating it
constantly for 30 years. Neither of them have had anything actually stick to
them.

Amazing. They must be the smartest criminals ever.

or not crooks.

~~~
CptJamesCook
The Mark Rich pardon was purely wrong, and yet perhaps not illegal.

------
mzw_mzw
Maybe should have thought of that before stealing all that classified
information and leaking it to hostile nations, huh?

It really is bizarre how people demand, not just that they can commit crimes
for political reasons, but that crimes committed for political reasons not be
punished.

~~~
kafkaesq
Maybe this country, as a whole, should have thought about the fact that for as
long it insists on committing war crimes against foreign peoples, on massive
scales -- inevitably, the boldest and bravest among its citizenry will feel
compelled to expose those crimes, and bring those responsible to justice.

~~~
mzw_mzw
The boldest and bravest, huh? I thought we were talking about Manning.
Incidentally, what are the war crimes that were specifically revealed by this
leak?

~~~
kafkaesq
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrik...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike)

~~~
mzw_mzw
So, no war crimes at all then. Yeah, figured.

~~~
kafkaesq
Given that there's still never been anything like a proper investigation into
the matter, that seems to be an odd thing to say. In any case various
international experts have stated that there is a viable case for war crimes
to be made, based on the video evidence.

~~~
mzw_mzw
The article states that the US military investigated it, so it's not an odd
thing to say at all.

> In any case various international experts have stated that there is a viable
> case for war crimes to be made, based on the video evidence.

"Various international experts" can be counted on to pronounce any military
activity whatsover by the United States as a war crime (while ignoring or even
excusing the behavior of non-Western states), so that's of little use.

------
lightbyte
Not a chance, she committed actual treason as it's defined in our constitution
by grabbing as many classified documents as she could and releasing them to
the world with no regard for what they actually contained. She's lucky that
she only got 35 years.

~~~
gizmo686
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against
them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person
shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the
same overt act, or on confession in open court."

~~~
mzw_mzw
> or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.

Yep, there we go. Thanks!

------
mrottenkolber
:-(

