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President Obama Commutes Chelsea Manning's Sentence (theverge.com)

The New York Times is reporting that President Obama has commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence. What this translates to is a reduced sentence for Manning, from 35 years to just over seven years. Since Manning has already served a majority of those years, she is due to be released from federal custody on May 17th. The Verge reports: While serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, Manning leaked more than 700,000 documents to Wikileaks, including video of a 2007 airstrike in Baghdad that killed two Reuters employees. In 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for her role in the leak and has been held at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth for the past three years. Julian Assange, who has long been sought by U.S. and EU authorities for extradition on Swedish rape charges, had previously pledged to surrender himself to U.S. authorities if Manning was pardoned. Born Bradley Manning, Chelsea announced her gender transition the day after the verdict was handed down. "I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female," she said in a statement. "Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible." Obtaining the resulting medical treatments was extremely difficult for Manning, and was the subject of significant and sustained activism. After a lawsuit, Manning was approved for hormone therapy in 2015. In September 2016, she launched a hunger strike, demanding access to gender reassignment surgery; the military complied five days later.

8 of 798 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not sure what to think.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    he/she/it was pardoned because of his/her LGBT status. That's all...

  2. Re:Not sure what to think.... by reboot246 · · Score: 1, Troll

    Check his DNA. He's still a male, regardless of whatever the surgeons did.

  3. Re:Not sure what to think.... by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 0, Troll

    Check his DNA. He's still a male, regardless of whatever the surgeons did.

    The personal pronoun refers to her gender, not her sex.

    So while at the 'DNA' level she may still have male sex attributes, her gender is female, so "she / her" is appropriate.

  4. Re:Not sure what to think.... by ProfBooty · · Score: 0, Troll

    The whole debate is blitheringly idiotic. There is no such thing as "transgender". There are male psychological freaks pretending to be women and female psychological ruins pretending to be men. That's it.

    And to anyone who wants to argue otherwise, I will simply point out that I feel that I am 16 years old and fully eligible to play high school sports, and anyone who argues otherwise is transagist. After all, it should be obvious that the year of birth recorded on one's birth certificate means no more than one's sex recorded there, and "age" is nothing more than a social construct.

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  5. Re:Not sure what to think.... by ProfBooty · · Score: 0, Troll

    She wants me to accept her delusions and avoid reality.

    The world won't accept me as a 16 year old high school student no matter how much I feel like one, any more than the world will accept me at a 70 year old who is eligible for social security.

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  6. not the same... by kiviQr · · Score: 0, Troll

    Difference is: we knew what Nixon did; with Snowden we are not sure how much data he stole and what he has revealed to foreign countries that happily granted him "safe" harbor.

  7. Re:Not sure what to think.... by plague911 · · Score: 1, Troll

    "Does any of it matter? She wants to be referred to as "she", so unless you have some particular reason to be a asshat towards her why not just do it?" being an asshat towards political correctness itself has value. It is a form of resistance to the status quo which has been valuable for generations. Generations ago when the cultural conservatives said rock and role was non PC, people rebelled and fought back. Now this generation's cultural conservatives (ie the you and the SJW type) push this version of censorship and people yet again rebelled. Now we have trump :( in part thanks to your version of censorship.

  8. Re:Not sure what to think.... by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 0, Troll

    Snowden cannot be pardoned, because he has not been convicted of any crime.

    Why do people keep repeating this zombie talking point? I know y'all didn't flunk out of school before they covered Nixon in civics class.

    Maybe it's because civics today is less about how government does, or should, function and more about giving airtime to left leaning ideals and generally bashing the ever hated white male. relevant article: https://thefederalist.com/2017...