Julian Assange Will Not Hand Himself In Because Chelsea Manning's Release Won't Happen Immediately, Lawyer Says (independent.co.uk)

President Obama commuted Chelsea Manning's prison sentence yesterday, reducing her time required to serve behind bars from 35 years to just over seven years. Prior to the commutation, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange pledged to surrender himself to U.S. authorities if Manning was pardoned. Roughly 24 hours have passed since the news broke and it appears that Assange will not hand himself in to the Department of Justice. The Independent reports: Mr Assange's lawyers initially seemed to suggest that promise would be carried through -- telling reporters that he stood by his earlier comments -- but it appears now that Mr Assange will stay inside the embassy. The commitment to accept extradition to the U.S. was based on Ms Manning being released immediately, Mr Assange's lawyer told The Hill. Ms Manning won't actually be released until May -- to allow for a standard 120-day transition period, which gives people time to prepare and find somewhere to live, an official told The New York Times for its original report about Ms Manning's clemency. "Mr. Assange welcomes the announcement that Ms. Manning's sentence will be reduced and she will be released in May, but this is well short of what he sought," Barry Pollack, Assange's U.S.-based attorney, told the site. "Mr. Assange had called for Chelsea Manning to receive clemency and be released immediately."

Comments

One action does not define a man

[Okian Warrior]

anybody who has defended him at this point is either stupid or naive

We are not defending the man. We are defending the fundamental principle of free expression. Assange is not being persecuted because he "raped" anyone, but because he said things that powerful people didn't like. That is wrong, and isn't any less wrong just because he is a slimeball weasel.

And furthermore, one action does not define a man.

And further further, he may simply be waiting until Manning is *actually* released before giving himself up.

Assange tweeted (about 12h ago) that he would be willing to give himself up in any event if the US would guarantee his rights. And the White House said specifically that it wasn't a quid-pro-quo move, which would seem to release Assange from his promise.

The left likes to take only the one side of things and blow them out of proportion: Assange's heart is black as coal, he's completely untrustworthy, a rapist, self-centered egotist who cares for nothing except his own aggrandizement.

Since publishing dirt on Democrats, that is...

Re:Does the US government want him?

[Orgasmatron]

Alt-right here with my take on things. We aren't monolithic, so not everyone alt-right agrees with all, or even necessarily any, of this.

Real disorder. Fake treatment. ( -- When I started writing, I had intended those four words to be the entire post.) Notice that other dismorphic disorders, like anorexia, aren't "treated" by indulging the fantasies of the sufferer. Doctors don't prescribe lap bands for people who think they are fat when they aren't. But gender dismorphia is a political weapon now, much to the detriment of the people who suffer from it, and so anyone who doesn't think we should castrate men who think they are women is an awful bigot.

If we were honest about this topic, we would notice that suicide rates increase dramatically a few years after surgery - ending up even higher than pre-surgery levels. It appears that for many people denied psychiatric treatment, surgery was a false hope. When it sinks in that surgery did not fix anything, and there are no other options left, despair sets in.

Perversely, at this stage, re-stigmatizing the condition is the most compassionate thing that can be done. Stigmatize isn't the right word exactly, but sadly, we are unlikely to gradually return to reality, so the pendulum is going to swing back too far. If we do it soon, the "swing back too far" won't be too bad - we can clear the pipeline of those merely confused, those seeking attention and those that are the suffering as a result of someone else's Munchausen-by-proxy. Let it go too far left though, and the pushback is likely to be violent, which will hurt those in genuine need of compassion the most, but will also damage the civic character immensely.

At any rate, Chelsea Manning appears to be a traitor in his heart. Snowden appears to have acted towards what he believed was best for the American people. He was flawed, and he made mistakes, but was basically going in the right direction for the right reasons, and he took some care to avoid unnecessary damage. Chealsea, on the other hand, appears to have acted out of malice, with a goal of causing as much damage on the way out as he could. He may have done some good incidentally, but blowing the whistle doesn't seem to have been on his radar until he realized that it could earn him some sympathy. At least that was my impression at the time, when I was flipping randomly through the documents.

P.S. Sorry, this isn't up to my usual proofreading standards. Been a long day and I'm yawning as I try to read it. I hope it is less sleep-inducing for you readers than it was for me to write.