Chelsea "Barack" Obama Commutes Chelsea "Bradley" Manning's Sentence

DRUDGE REPORT: Sorry Snowden, you should have been transgendered...

What can you say? He was a traitor who betrayed his country. Who cares if Bradley Manning releases top secret documents that may have gotten people killed. He wanted to be a girl. So let's release him.  

I hope the intelligence community (CIA, NSA, DoD, etc.) remembers who really screwed them.  Hint: it wasn't Donald Trump. 

Lem's Place: Chelsea Manning Post

AmPowBlog: Ingraham on Bradley Manning

Legal Insurrection: Wikileaks not so evil, after all...

NRO: The damage done to America by Manning...and Obama

Hot Air: Disgraceful, Obama Commutes Manning and No Regrets

Smitty: Metaphor Alert: All in All It Was All Just Bricks In The Wall

TOM: A Show About Nothing and Shameless Lesbian Misquotes Bannon and Worst President in History

Powerline: Speaking of Dysphoria, Worst President Ever?, and Freeing a Terrorist Mastermind

Wombat: American Power: Obama Commutes Sentences of Bradley Manning and Puerto Rican Terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera

Twitchy: Who's most jazzed about FALN leaders commutation, Bill De Blasio or Lin-Manuel Miranda? and Obama commutes Chelsea Manning's sentence

Instapundit: Damage Done, Obama commutes bulk of Chelsea Manning's Sentence, Obama steps on his own message,  Manning's Bleak Prison Life, Assange Extradition Deal?, and Guess Who Is On The Short List

Rush Limbaugh: The pardon process must be hacked

Heat Street: Forget Chelsea Manning, Obama's mercy for Terrorist Oscar Lopez-Rivera is far worse

AoSHQ: Jake Tapper: Obama's clemancy of Bradley Manning's sentence completely contradicts his eight year war on leaks

The Pope is Time's Person of the Year

Person of the Year*

The giddy embrace of the secular press makes Francis suspect among traditionalists who fear he buys popularity at the price of a watered-down faith. He has deftly leveraged the media’s fascination to draw attention to everything from his prayers for peace in Syria to his pointed attack on trickle-down economics, which inspired Jesse Jackson to compare him to Martin Luther King Jr. and Rush Limbaugh to wonder whether he’s a Marxist. When you are a media celebrity, every word you speak is dissected, as are those you choose not to speak. Why has he not said more about the priest sex-abuse scandal? ask victims’ advocates. (Just this month, he set up a commission to address the abuse of children by priests.) Why does he not talk more about the sanctity of life? ask conservatives, who note that in his exhortation, abortion is mentioned once, mercy 32 times. Francis both affirms traditional teachings on sexuality and warns that the church has become distracted by them. He attacks priests who won’t baptize children born out of wedlock for their “rigorous and hypocritical neo-clericalism.” He declares that God “has redeemed all of us … not just Catholics. Everyone, even atheists.” He posed with environmental activists holding an antifracking T-shirt and called on politicians and business leaders to be “protectors of creation.” 

None of which makes him a liberal—he also says the all-male priesthood is not subject to debate, nor is abortion, nor is the definition of marriage. But his focus on the poor and the fact that the world’s poorest 50% control barely 1% of its wealth unsettles those who defend capitalism as the most successful antipoverty program in history. You could argue that he is Teddy Roosevelt protecting capitalism from its own excesses or he is simply saying what Popes before him have said, that Jesus calls us to care for the least among us—only he’s saying it in a way that people seem to be hearing differently. And that may be especially important coming from the first Pope from the New World. A century ago, two-thirds of Catholics lived in Europe; now fewer than a quarter do, and how he is heard in countries where being gay is a crime and educating women for leadership roles is a heresy may have the power to transform cultures in which Catholicism is a growing, even potentially liberating force.

Time made the right choice (even if for some wrong reasons).  The Pope is widely popular among Catholics and is obviously making a significant impact on his terms.  Do I think he will be another John XXIII*?  No.  Nor will he be another Benedict or John Paul II.  The labels liberal and conservative are premature for this Pope.

How the Pope Francis cover was done...

.@kathrynlopez on Pope Francis being named Time's "Person of the Year": http://t.co/OF4ssRCEv7
— National Review (@NRO) December 11, 2013

Time also reveals its myopia. Edward Snowden runner up? The Snowden story is worth noting as a significant one for 2013, but he is not of this level (despite the damage he caused and may further cause in the future).  TOM:  The scoop that wasn't a scoop... (some of this Snowden stuff is old news)

Update:
AoSHQ: The left is repulsively political... He's right.
AoSHQ: Ace does not even want to link to Time

Sex Pistols: Anarchy in the UK

TOM:  Talking about Anarchy in the UK, how are things at the Guardian?

Separated at Birth: Edward Snowden and...?

 Separated at Birth:

Edward Snowden leaking about
the Osama bin Laden raid and...

Barack Obama leaking about the Osama bin Laden raid

President Barack Obama's Approval Ratings Plummeting

Democrat Weiner!

Democrat Filner!

Stuck in the middle with you!

Obama's ratings plummet 10 points in California.
CNN reports a majority of Americans hold a negative view of Barack Obama
Obama approval ratings at all time low...

And of course it is not just the sexcapades of some Democrats that Obama has to worry about:

• The IRS Scandal involving the targeting of political rivals is still there and there is now a connection between the White House and the IRS official who was involved in it.  
• Obama still has to answer for the dead in Benghazi: Department of Defense confirms it new immediately that Benghazi was a terrorism attack
• Edward Snowden is still in Russia with a computer full of top secrets.
• Obama big loser with the Zimmerman trial...
• Oh yeah, the economy sucks too...

Edward Snowden to Nicaragua?

Or Venezuela or Bolivia?  

Can he get there? 

Edward Snowden is living in the Moscow airport terminal...

Putin claims he is not really in Russia so he is free to go where ever he wants.  Snowden is looking for a country that will accept him and not hold him for the USA.  Did the Obama Administration intentionally let Snowden escape? Does the Obama Administration really want to catch Snowden?

The Terminal is not exactly on point, but Snowden is (allegedly) living in the Moscow Airport so...

Update: 

Yeltsin's Schadenfreude
Wombat's Live at Five (Putin claims not grounds to expedite Snowden)
Hot Air: Snowden may be chilling in Moscow for a while...
TOM: Speaking of Kooks.
TOM: Glenn Greenwald is a ridiculous joke...
TOM/Wombat's Live at Five: Snowden denied asylum in Ecuador...

Edward Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Russia...

Snowden on the run...

The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said Snowden was heading for a "democratic nation" which it did not name, although a source at the Russian airline Aeroflot said he would fly on within 24 hours to Cuba and then planned to go to Venezuela. 

A round about way to get to Iceland...
Four laptops full of U.S. intel documents,what could go wrong?

#BREAKING: Snowden has requested asylum in Ecuador: foreign minister
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) June 23, 2013

Update:
TOM: Snowden flees 
TOM: Ben Smith wants you to ignore this...
Legal Insurrection:  Snowden on the run (makes me think of this song jump to around 2:09).
Hey, with all this Snowden stuff, there is even a special visa waiver in the craprehensive immigration bill for Hong Kong!  It has everything!
TOM: Speaking of Kooks.
TOM: Glenn Greenwald is a ridiculous joke...
Wombat Live at Five July 2, 2013:  Snowden denied to go to Ecuador, Russia says he can only stay there if he stops hurting US, may go to Venezuela.

Snowden leaving for Iceland? Update: Snowden left for Russia...

Snowden Iceland Bound?  Could leave Hong Kong tomorrow?

Snowden charged with espionage...

JUNE 21, 2013

TWEET OF THE DAY: “In the new world of the NSA, the only secret left is Barack Obama’s college grades.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 9:38 pm

In the new world of the NSA, the only secret left is Barack Obama's college grades.
— Roger Simon (@rogerlsimon) June 21, 2013

Update:

The anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said Snowden was heading for a "democratic nation" which it did not name, although a source at the Russian airline Aeroflot said he would fly on within 24 hours to Cuba and then planned to go to Venezuela.

#BREAKING: Snowden has requested asylum in Ecuador: foreign minister
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) June 23, 2013

TOM: Ben Smith wants you to ignore this... 

Mark Steyn making way too much sense (as usual) about this NSA data mining:

Steyn has a gift of getting right to the heart of it...

One reason for the citizenry not to entrust its personal information to the government is that the big, bloated, blundering government is stupid enough to entrust it to Edward Snowden, as it was previously stupid enough to entrust it to Bradley Manning (the Wikileaks leaker). It’s only a matter of time before the halfwit leviathan entrusts it to a Major Hasan or a Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

h/t:  Bob Belvedere

Update:
Scientific American:  Five unknowns about the NSA's black hole...
Snowden reveals classified info to Hong Kong papers (this is not how a hero acts). 

@msebl @radleybalko @senrandpaul @rsmccain My thoughts on Brooks' column here:pjmedia.com/instapundit/17…
— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) June 12, 2013

Snowden still in Hong Kong and talking to the press... 
Ace thinks Snowden is looking dodgy.  Agreed.  I think he looked dodgy from the start.

Tweet of the Day: Well Said Representative Stockman, well said...

Obama is collecting private information on every American, but says it's wrong to make someone show an ID to vote.
— Rep. Steve Stockman (@SteveWorks4You) June 7, 2013

Update:
Twitchy recognizes greatness:  Congressman Stockman could take this act on the stand up circuit!  

Edward Snowden Rule 5: Acutally Snowden's Alleged Girlfriend Lindsay Mills

The power of Rule 5 compels me.  This is supposedly Edward Snowden's Hawaii girlfriend, Lindsay Mills.  Here is a Google cache of her blog (she deleted it but it lives on digitally).

IMAGE CENSORED 

IMAGE CENSORED

Is that Snowden with Ms. Mills?  

IMAGE CENSORED

Edward, where are you?  

IMAGE CENSORED 

She is apparently shy and reserved...

Prior EBL posts:
Edward Snowden:  Hero, Villain, or a bit of both?
Separated at Birth: Edward Snowden and...?

Update:

NSFW: Is #Snowden's ex-girlfriend "smoking hot"? beccalower.com/nsa-leaker-edw… Whatever. She's not a GENIUS like @beccajlower IYKWIMAITYD
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) June 11, 2013

 Mark Steyn on Snowden
TOM:  It is like a Hollywood Script  You mean like one of those bad Democrat Liberal politically motivated movies that no one watches?  I was hoping for stripper Cirque du Soleil!
Proof Positive has her as his Rule 5 too

@msebl @radleybalko @senrandpaul @rsmccain My thoughts on Brooks' column here:pjmedia.com/instapundit/17…
— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) June 12, 2013

Snowden still in Hong Kong and talking to the press... 
Ace thinks Snowden is looking dodgy.  Agreed.  I think he looked dodgy from the start.
Snowden reveals classified info to Hong Kong papers (this is not how a hero acts).

Separated at Birth: Ed Snowden and...?

Jay Carney, White House Liar and Leaker

Ed Snowden, NSA/Booz Allen Liar and Leaker and...

Update:
 Ed Snowden's Girlfriend?

Carney 'won't characterize' Snowden as a 'traitor,' until probe complete j.mp/14v1ULC by @jtsthehill
— The Hill (@thehill) June 11, 2013

Mark Steyn on Snowden
TOM:  It is like a Hollywood Script  You mean like one of those bad Democrat Liberal politically motivated movies that no one watches?  I was hoping for stripper Cirque du Soleil!

@msebl @radleybalko @senrandpaul @rsmccain My thoughts on Brooks' column here:pjmedia.com/instapundit/17…
— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) June 12, 2013

Snowden still in Hong Kong and talking to the press... 
Ace thinks Snowden is looking dodgy.  Agreed.  I think he looked dodgy from the start.

Edward Snowden: Hero, villain, or a bit of both?

Edward Snowden interview by Glenn Greenwald  (I am going mostly villain)

While I am glad we are finding out about the NSA data mining, I am disturbed by the means Edward Snowden went about it and then his fleeing to Hong Kong (of all places):

If the question is should Snowden have leaked such closely held secrets, I would reluctantly answer "yes." But if you are going to deliberately break the law in a civil society, you must be prepared to accept the consequences. Snowden ran away from those consequences. That does not make him a hero in my book. It makes him a criminal. Why didn't Snowden leak the information and then turn himself in? That would have been heroic. Instead, despite his protestations that he doesn't want the story to be about him, he comes off as a glory hound, an attention getter.

Douglas Rushkoff at CNN is describing Snowden as a hero (I am not buying that at all, especially given him fleeing the USA, nor do I consider it equivalent to what Daniel Ellsberg did in the sixties or consider Ellsberg a hero).

Robert Stacy McCain asks the more important question:  How did Snowden get the security clearance he got?  The NSA's secrets are only as safe as its weakest link, and entrusting them to a guy like Snowden is pretty damn weak.*  Was Snowden's employer Booz Allen looking for his replacement before he fled?

Daiman Thompson suggest this will be fatal to Obama's presidency.  I do not see that (at least not with just the NSA data mining).  There was bipartisan authorization under the Patriot Act and what was done by the NSA may be unconstitutional, it was arguably not illegal.  Now if this goes further and their is proof the Obama administration used this material improperly, then there might be something.  No one is saying that yet (at least as I am aware).

The amount of damage Snowden could do the USA if he stays in China is enormous.  Not so much on what he has leaked already (that just brought to the attention of the general public things that have been known by many people for a long time), but on what he might know and has not yet leaked.  Normally most people do not consider the People's Republic of China as a bastion of free speech.  Snowden claims he is trying to get to Iceland, but I doubt Iceland will want him now.

* I do not know what level of security clearance Edward Snowden had.  Here is the questionnaire you have to answer to get one.  Assuming no criminal background or other red flags, I do not see how not going to college would prevent you from getting a security clearance (hell depending on the college you attended, that might be a red flag in itself).

Update:
Da Tech Guy on Snowden:  Rosenberg, Roeden, Brutus, or Rommel?
Legal Insurrection:  This is not the first time such details were leaked...
TOM: Let's debate 4th Amendment rights and send Snowden to Leavenworth...  (Florence Colorado's supermax also works for me).
The Coward Snowden ran off again...
TOM: Edward Snowden's dubious heroism...
Lt.Col. Ralph Peters suggests the appropriate punishment (definitely not hero worship)...
Even the Daily Beast cautions against hero worship for Snowden
Thomas E. Ricks is leaning toward hero for Snowden...
Roger Kimball on the Wisdom of Benjamin Franklin (on the Snowden issue)
Investigators trying to figure out how Snowden obtained access to the NSA material he gave out (if he could hack it, who else could hack it)...
Americans by 2:1 ratio not bothered by NSA tracking
Stay Classy David Axelrod:  Snowden is a whistleblower who then blew the country...
DaTechGuy draws a conclusion looking at the Edward Snowden case and the Kaitlyn Hunt Smith matter...
Separated at Birth: Edward Snowden and...?
Ed Snowden's pole dancing girl friend...
Is what the NSA doing the same as what Google does (maybe both of them are evil)?  Richard Cohen does not see the big deal and considers Snowden a minor insignificant figure who wrecked his life:

[Edward Snowden} jettisoned a girlfriend, a career and, undoubtedly, his personal freedom to expose programs that were known to our elected officials and could have been deduced by anyone who has ever Googled anything. History will not record him as “one of America’s most consequential whistleblowers.” History is more likely to forget him. Soon, you can Google that.

Obama email meme goes viral... 
Mark Steyn on Snowden
Scientific American:  Five unknowns about the NSA's black hole...
TOM:  It is like a Hollywood Script  You mean like one of those bad Democrat Liberal politically motivated movies that no one watches?  I was hoping for stripper Cirque du Soleil!  

@msebl @radleybalko @senrandpaul @rsmccain My thoughts on Brooks' column here:pjmedia.com/instapundit/17…
— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) June 12, 2013

Snowden still in Hong Kong and talking to the press... 
Ace thinks Snowden is looking dodgy.  Agreed.  I think he looked dodgy from the start.
Snowden reveals classified info to Hong Kong papers (this is not how a hero acts).

Mark Steyn asks: Rather than spying on all Americans (and the world), why aren't we more selective and attentive with Muslim radicals?

Mark Steyn is absolutely correct.  I would point out something else.  Schools over react over kindergarten kids even mentioning a gun.  Now compare those over reactions with the non-reaction to the clear signals from Major Hasan (before he began shooting his fellow soldiers)?

Update:
Gay Patriot asks the flip side of that question:  If Al Qaeda is supposedly on the run, why is this surveillance required?

TOM notes, what have we learned over the last few weeks?  Intrusive government surveillance of its citizens and the IRS targeting political opposition for audits?  How does this keep us safer?  

Govt has to scrape all your phone calls and emails because govt forgot to enforce immigration law on 20 expired visas in 2001.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 8, 2013

LI: When everything is a crime, government data mining matters.
Jay Leno: We wanted a President who listened to all Americans, and now we have one...
TOM: Obsessed, who me?
TOM: The Five Million Dollar Idiot (Chris Tingles Matthews and the 4th Estate, MSNBC)
Mark Steyn on Snowden