Regardless what you may think about whether or not Chelsea Manning deserves to be in jail, this is straight up ridiculous:
The fourth charge, “medicine misuse”, follows an inspection of Manning’s cell on 9 July during which a tube of anti-cavity toothpaste was found. The prison authorities noted that Manning was entitled to have the toothpaste in her cell, but is penalizing her because it was “past its expiration date of 9 April 2015”.
The “prohibited property” charge relates to a number of books and magazines that were found in her cell and confiscated. They included the memoir I Am Malala by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, a novel featuring trans women called A Safe Girl to Love, the LGBT publication Out Magazine, the Caitlyn Jenner issue of Vanity Fair and a copy of Cosmopolitan that included an interview with Manning.
Also confiscated was the US Senate report on torture.
This nation has really become a bunch of craven cowards.
Belafon
We haven’t become cowards; we always have been. But these sound like the kinds of excuses used to harass blacks.
Cervantes
Psychopaths.
trollhattan
Just wait ’til they discover she’s been breathing nitrogen!
scav
and the thread goes quiet as we all scatter to check the expiration dates of our toothpaste, wondering if the flash bang drug squads are closing in . . . .
Elizabelle
Might this be something we could call our senators and congresscritters about? This is just plain piddling and cruel treatment.
Would someone on the Senate Armed Services Committee be especially influential? Here they are (per Wiki):
Minority (aka non-GOP) members:
Majority (Republican) members; did you know the chair used to be a POW?
Amir Khalid
There’s an expiry date on toothpaste? Who knew?
sharl
So YOU say, but maybe it’s a case of insufficient patriotism and true faith*. We’d all be better Citizens™ if we shouted FREEDOM! more often and at greater volume, while donning U.S. flag lapel pins and crucifixes.**
*By “true faith” I mean Christianity, of course – the only Truth™.
**Already wearing the lapel pin and crucifix? Get a larger size of each, or put on an extra one of each. Patrioticochristianist swag, in sufficient size and quantity, is an essential component of the True Way Forward™.
PaulW
Any f-cking excuse to nitpick on Manning.
And we’ve been a nation of bullies since forever. We’ve used the prison system since 1866 as another means of slavery – look up vagrancy laws of the south during Reconstruction – and cheap labor – chain gangs, anyone?
Manning’s lawyers better be all over this getting the judge to slap this sh-t down.
Start asking Bernie and Hillary at the rallies if they agree to commute Chelsea Manning’s sentence.
Emma
Jesus Christ. We are screwed, aren’t we?
Villago Delenda Est
“Home of the Brave” my formerly commissioned ass.
Cacti
O/T but good news.
Senator Tester of Montana has announced his support for the Iran Deal.
Local media has the scoop.
Peale
@Amir Khalid: maybe the fluoride decomposes? evaporates? Gains protons until it becomes lead?
srv
super/milmax (whatever they call that Leavenworth facility now) are all about hazing cop killers, terrorists and traitors. 24×7 love.
Gitmo is probably a beach party in comparison. Imagine what a bunch of contract guards in Kansas would do with the Taliban.
KG
@Amir Khalid: there’s expiration dates on a lot of stuff… though John Oliver recently did a thing on expiration dates on food and the nut nut of it was “they’re fucking worthless”
ETA: the above referenced clip (though 17 minutes might be longer than a clip)
rea
Well, this stuff is what prisoners put up with all the time–Manning is not particularly being singled out, that I can see.
The fact that this gets covered as a Manning issue rather than a prisoner issue is part of the problem.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
AFAIK, the FDA requires an expiration date on everything they regulate. My assumption would be that it would be 2 years from date of manufacture, since that’s a very common expiration date to give anything that doesn’t actually go bad but just needs to be given an arbitrary expiration date.
Elizabelle
@Cacti: That’s wonderful news! Gonna call Tester’s office to thank him for his support.
ETA: Here are Senator Tester’s office numbers. We can call in stereo! http://www.tester.senate.gov/?p=offices
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cacti: I’m not entirely sure if I’d be snarking if I said this is just as important
that’s PUMA billionaire Haim Saban
WereBear
They are angry at her because she exposed their shortcomings.
That must be the crime she’s being punished for.
Kropadope
Aren’t these typically sell-by dates, given that an expiration date doesn’t tell a vendor when to pull it off a shelf? Sell-by dates assume plenty of time for a person to use it pass the point of the date and are usually pretty short, since that helps them move more product as outdated product is replaced.
@Cacti:
Boo-yeah!!!!
Baud
@Cacti:
Excellent news.
Mike E
@Amir Khalid: One tube ain’t no lifetime supply, Amir ;-)
Eric S.
I’m happy to be ignorant of this but I would have assumed toothpaste and other basic toiletries are supplied by the prison. I seriously doubt Manning walked over the local drug store and bought it.
ETA: Did the reading material get smuggled in or did he get it from the prison library?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: The tweet has been deleted, and I can’t copy it from Weigel’s page, but it looks as if Rupert Murdoch has bought Ha’aretz, and put Ailes in as editor in chief (kidding)
Baud
While I’m confident the outrage is justified, the original Guardian article is thin on facts. I hope more information emerges.
Amir Khalid
@Mike E:
It isn’t?
David Koch
¡Jeb! is just not any good at this.
jl
@Cacti: Thanks, that is good news re Tester.
And.. on the horrors of expired toothpaste, from a dentist’s office
Does Toothpaste Expire?
“Some may be surprised to know that toothpaste does have a shelf life…. while using expired toothpaste may not be as bad as say, drinking expired milk, it is probably best not to use it past the expiration date. Here’s why:
The fluoride in the toothpaste becomes less effective as it does not bind well to tooth enamel, thus it loses its ability to brush away the bacteria in the mouth and protect against cavities.
Ingredients start to separate, including the flavoring so it becomes quite unpleasant to your taste buds.
Toothpaste may just become too dried out and hard to squeeze through the tube.
http://www.doorcountydentistry.com/toothpaste-expire/
Other dentist webpages say the process is very gradual, at least two years before serious degradation. The infraction would merit a new tube of toothpaste, except they are just looking for reasons to harass the prisoner.
David Koch
¡Jeb! has loser written all over him. While Romney had a hard time 2012, but he was never in fifth place, losing by a 3 to 1 margin.
Baud
@David Koch:
It probably was a good deal for Bush’s friends.
Another Holocene Human
@Peale: that made me lol irl until I snorted
Omnes Omnibus
@rea: Unfortunately, you are correct. I see this as an example of how shittily people are treated in prison rather than an attack on Manning.
Another Holocene Human
@David Koch: Wondering what ridiculous statement Ben made three days ago that he shows higher than KochWalker or Carnival Cruz.
I agree about Jeb! coming off as a loser. He looked smarter when he was refusing to run.
Mike in NC
@David Koch: JEB! is scheduled to appear on Colbert’s first show. He might not know what he’s getting into.
Amir Khalid
@David Koch:
His last election campaign was 12 years ago; the rust shows, I suppose.
jl
@David Koch: Seems like Jeb! has to either get rid of his stable of Dub-Cheney era foreign policy advisors (which would be sensible thing to do) or re-litigate the wisdom of the Iraq invasion. Looks like he has made his choice.
But, gee, he spent so much time preparing to get ready to consider explorating running for presidenting, would have thunk that he would have given the issue half a thought before he was asked about the wisdom of invading Iraq (knowing what we know now, or then, or never, or honor of the warfighters… whatever).
But he didn’t. So he is going to re-re-litigate it, after he totally hashed it up already. We watched Jeb! fumble formulating any reasonable thoughts on it a while back.
I hope things to rapidly downhill from here for him. I wish him ill luck at it.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Manning deserves to be in jail – for a damn good long time – but these charges smack of nothing but utter pettiness. It’s stupid and accomplishes nothing.
Cervantes
@rea:
And yet Manning is the only reason you’re hearing about it.
Anonymous prisoners are being mistreated — worse — at this moment, and we will never know.
NonyNony
@David Koch: Just so folks know – that’s the same poll that was reported on yesterday. TPM has a story here http://talkingpointsmemo.com/polltracker/echelon-insights-post-debate-trump
And it’s the same polling outfit that had Trump at 32% before the debates. So according to their numbers he’s held steady (the MOE is more than 3% on this poll).
jl
@David Koch: Jeb! is, I think by any objective reasonable standard, worse than Romney in many ways: smarts, poise, accomplishments (even if I do not approve of most of them), governorating, personality.
Think about that… personality…
Edit: maybe even ethics and honesty too. Jeb! is a sorry mess.
srv
Al Gore is floating trial balloons!
ThresherK
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, there is. It’s not like I enjoy the taste of it, but if you use it far enough past the expiration, it tastes off.
ETA: If some toothpastes still have saccharin in them, there’s that, too: Saccharin, in suspension with any moisture, has a distinct end date much shorter than in dry form.
Kropadope
@srv:
Just because “supporters” are attempting to engage Gore regarding a presidential run, doesn’t mean he’s considering it. Also, there’s a proper term for trial balloons, it’s called an exploratory committee. Let me know if he forms one, please and thank you.
Elizabelle
@srv: linky? Ta.
Baud
@srv:
As long as those trial ballons are green, we’re ok with that.
Debbie
@jl:
Seems to me he got talked into running. The clips I’ve seen of his speeches seem pretty half-hearted. Or maybe he’s doing his best Perry Como impression.
sharl
From #27 (David Koch):
@Baud:
It certainly was.
Geeno
I’m starting to believe that Jeb! just doesn’t have the fire in his belly for this. He really doesn’t seem to care if wins or not – just going through the motions.
@Debbie: beat me to it.
jl
@Debbie: Jeb! is appealing as a bag of kibbles after run through the dog.
debbie
@jl:
Which tells me that there are people who actually thought name alone would be enough. If so, they couldn’t possibly think less of the electorate.
Amir Khalid
@Geeno:
Even Right2Rise seems to have lost faith in him. Jeb’s candidacy is doomed.
JPL
@sharl: It probably wasn’t a good idea for the Christians that lived in Iraq.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: In West Virginia it is.
Rob
@jl #28:
>Other dentist webpages say the process is very gradual, at least two years before serious degradation.
A year or so ago I used up a bunch of small tubes of toothpaste that were up to a year past expiration date. These tubes were both regular and anti-cavity toothpaste. I noticed nothing different in taste or applying to my toothbrush. Heck, my dentist even gave me a couple of beyond-expiration-date mini-tubes to take home.
What they did to Manning over the toothpaste and the books is unbelievably petty.
Peale
@srv: well, shoot. I like Al, and I voted for him all five times his name was on the ballot for me to vote for him. I wouldn’t this time, though, unless he was the nominee. But I hope if he does run, we can read long winded concerned articles about infidelity and divorce from Sally Quinn, David Brooks and George Will.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: If you lost right2rise, you lost everything.
Mike E
@JPL: Heh, I read that as, “right2rinse”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Peale: Oh good lord, I’d forgotten all about their separation. I’m a big Al Gore fan who doesn’t want him to run– he just is not cut out for the way our politics operate now–, but it’s sad that would be such an important argument, and I agree with you it would be.
mai naem mobile
@Mike in NC: there is no way Jebeh!’is on Colberts first show. You’re trolling us. Trolling us bad. Not nice at all.
Kropadope
@Amir Khalid:
Right2Fall, once again pwned by reality.
gene108
@jl:
You do realize the one thing the Republican candidates have in common is their foreign policy team are ex-Bush, Jr. flunkies, i.e. the neo-con kiddies, who were low enough on the totem pole to avoid becoming embarrassments like Bolton or Wolfowitz, because no one was paying attention to them…
That’s all the Republicans have…but the media is afraid to admit it…
Amir Khalid
@Rob:
So basically, unless it’s all dried out, “expired” toothpaste is still okay to use? Pretty much what I thought.
mclaren
America is (and always has been) a nation of cowards, bully-worshipers, and craven lickspittle sadists. We started out by torturing and raping and mass-murdering the indigenous American indians least able to fight back against us. From there, we graduated to waterboarding and murdering Filipinos circa 1900.
Finally we deployed military weaponry against such fearsome opponents as the Kuwaitis, the Iraqis, Somalian children armed with AK-47s, and now black women and children in Ferguson, Missouri.
The sight that brings your average Americano to his feet spontaneously reciting the pledge of allegiance is the spectacle of a strapping heavily muscled 250-pound he-man beating up a small crippled child. Americans surge to their feet applauding that kind of stuff.
Look forward for Chelsea Manning to get subjected to surreptitious stress positions, ice-cold freezing water, and the rest of the KGB torture regimen until she commits suicide.
Amir Khalid
@mai naem mobile:
Actually, Colbert himself announced it.
Kropadope
@mai naem mobile: I think Colbert tweeted that Jeb was, indeed, scheduled for his first show; also noting that he does 200 shows per year so he might, maybe, have enough episodes to interview all the R candidates.
Lavocat
Wow. Tragedy and farce all at once – pretty much like the Senate report on torture.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
scav
@Kropadope: That’s what I think I saw fly by. Oh worms.
mai naem mobile
I.don’t know about toothpaste in particular but I know there’s a lot of ‘sterile unless opened’ expiration dates based on the item packaging breaking down not the actual item itself. Also, I didn’t know they made non anti-cavity toothpaste. Isn’t anti-cavity kind of why you brush your teeth in the first place,fluoride or not?
Mike E
@Amir Khalid: Great president’s brother, or, the greatest president’s brother?
ThresherK
@Kropadope: So, which among them will be afraid to sit down across a desk from Colbert, either in or out of character?
SatanicPanic
If her toothpaste is expired, get her a new one. What is wrong with these people?
Rob
@Amir Khalid #62:
I’m not sure I would do that for toothpaste a lot more than a year old, especially if stored above 80 degrees F/27 degrees C (my summer temperature).
I also have some BenGay that is many months past its expiration date. What comes out of the tube seems to be a little more liquid than what I’m used to. The effect on my shoulder or back is still the same though.
jl
@gene108: True, but only Jeb! has Dub and the Iraq invasion crew itself. That is why Christie could come out swinging against Jeb!’s dishonest mess of foreign policy speech on the same day his Jeb!ness delivered it.
Edit: another good thing about he GOP primary, beside the Trump wrecking ball, is that his standing is so crummy, and so many rivals at same rank, the GOPers can attack a BS GOPer foreign policy talking point (the phone call… is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!!). So, our worthless corporate media has to pay some nominal level of attention to a critique of Jeb!’s BS.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
Permit me to vehemently demur. During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, average dutch men and women risked their lives to hide and protect Jews from deportation and certain death.
As attractive as it might be for us as Americanos to project our own flaws onto the rest of the world’s societies, not all cultures have the national character of a cringing toady. Some cultures esteem individual responsibility and common human decency. America simply doesn’t happen to be one of them.
The reason, of course, is not hard to discern. America has a socioeconomic system called “capitalism.” I was talking with an Americano the other day who said he believed in capitalism, but he thought that money shouldn’t be the entire basis of society, the be-all and end-all of every social metric.
I pointed out that “capital” means “money.” So the basis of America’s degenerative and sadistic socioeconomic system should really be called “moneyism.” And if a culture is devoted to a philosophy called “moneyism,” why are you surprised that people are treated like meat, to be brutalized, crushed, savaged, exploited, and otherwise degraded at will?
If you want your society to value people instead of money as its most central tenet, then you should go to a country which is not devoted to “moneyism” (as America is), but is instead devoted to “socalism.” The word ‘social’ comes from society, which means that socialist countries have groups of people as their central value, not big gobs of cash as their overriding value.
Also, low population density is a big factor in the sociopathy of a nation — as John Calhoun’s 1972 “rat paradise” experiment showed. Countries with low numbers of people per capita, like Norway or Finland, exhibit few of the pathologies of the American East or West Coast population centers.
mai naem mobile
Okay I stand corrected on Colbert. Jebeh! should take the opportunity to apologize to the whole country,no – the whole world on helping the so called dumber brother the election and that he is shutting down the campaign and giving away all the campaign funds to a NOLA foundation to help rebuild homes/businesses which will be run by some honest people not Bushie grifters, and also to Iraqi translators who helped the Americans who need to resettle in other countries. Also too, he will push for some punitive taxation on ME related oil cos. with the funds going to help ME refugees from Iraq and Syria.
Iowa Old Lady
I don’t know what to make of Jeb. I keep thinking he’ll kick it into gear, and he doesn’t. Maybe he’s just hunkered down for now, trying to outlast the crazy long enough to use all that money he’s amassed.
Davebo
At first I was wondering “Who the hell is Chelsea Manning?” Then I realized it after a quick search. My first thought after seeing Bradley Edward Manning’s picture in uniform was “Wow, the Army really does award “the sun came up this morning” ribbons.
Damn John, your chest must be weighed down in uniform!
Amir Khalid
@Iowa Old Lady:
It’s been 12 years since Jeb last campaigned for anything. Being out of practice is the simplest explanation I can think of for his ineptitude now. Of course, maybe he sucked back then too, but was up against even more inept opponents.
David Koch
Any “Seinfeld” fans here?
Did anyone know George Costanza was such good friends with the President?
Davebo
@mclaren:
Sorry, though I love the place I’ve spent way too much time in the Netherlands to fall for theories about what “the average Dutch person” did during WWII or what they do today.
Much like America, there was no “average Dutch person” during WWII and there is still none today. Just ask your “average German” who was part of the occupation.
JPL
I’m going to toss all of my toothpaste samples. Thanks Chelsea for bringing this to my attention.
Another Holocene Human
Sick, sick, sick
http://gawker.com/ralkina-jones-to-cops-hours-before-dying-in-jail-i-do-1723620986
“I Don’t Want To Die In Your Cell”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@rea:
Yes, this. Seriously, we’re supposed to believe that the “prohibited” books and magazines were somehow secretly smuggled in without the guards’ knowledge? She had contraband expired toothpaste? If that truly is that case (doubtful), they’ve got bigger problems at that prison than a frickin’ copy of Vanity Fair.
Peale
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: what would be funny is that you know the press would mock him with revived “inspiration for live story” quotes and somehow find it inconsistent that a couple that was once in love could end up divorced…and they would bend over six ways to make it appear that That Gores marriage showed a character flaw, while Trump would totes be shown to be a better man for all his marriages.
jl
@Peale: Has any NYT columnist written a devastating critique of Trump based on his hair yet?
Kropadope
@mclaren:
Right, because Nordic countries are totally devoid of ugly nationalistic tendencies.
David Koch
@jl: I’m sure MoDo and Bobo will, but like Andy Card, they don’t believe in introducing new product until the Fall.
sigaba
@David Koch: No that’s shopped.
Another Holocene Human
@mclaren:
The hell are you talking about?
a) US population density is WELL below Central Europe, eg, Germany
b) The violent crime rate of large US cities on the coasts are well below that of small and mid-sized cities anywhere and even lower than several Southern states with overall lower population densities.
That paragraph was pure wharlbargle. It makes no sense at all.
sharl
@JPL:
Well sure, but were those Chaldeans really true Chrisians? Just because they are one of the most ancient of the Christian sects, according to theological egghead types…I mean, really, vintage and culture are so overrated. {/snark}
On a serious note, Iraqi Christians are having a horrible time of it. Lots of links out there, but here is the relevant section from the Wikipedia site for Christianity_in_Iraq.
Some questions that came to my mind as I did a quick survey via internet search:
How many American evangelicals supported our Glorious Iraq Adventure?
…..Apparently, quite a few. Saddam was a bad man!
In hindsight, from a safe and comfortable distance, how are those evangelicals feeling today?
…..I suspect someone has taken the time to ask and report what they learned, but they didn’t show up at the top of my search results list. I did see a commenter at one place who said those war supporters – especially southern evangelicals – had gone silent, but no evidence/link was provided. I did find one apologist who basically seemed to be telling his fellow believers to stop being so critical, reminding them that Saddam was a Bad Man!
What’s the current stance of American evangelists? And how much of a consensus exists among self-described evangelicals (those who are well informed, that is)?
…..As a nonbeliever, I have no personal investment in this, but I try to regularly remind myself that Big Media does a really shit job in covering religious communities, beyond the Big Media Christians™ like Richard Land or even Al Sharpton. Fortunately, the internet allows them to speak for themselves. It can be difficult to find them though, especially if they use believer jargon or dog-whistle terms. I do know they aren’t all crazy wingnuts, although I tend to believe they are mostly conservative.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@mclaren:
The Dutch had one of the highest level of nazi collaboration of the entirety of wwII
God you’re a stupid motherfucker.
mai naem mobile
@David Koch: Larry David not Costanza. I think its because David’s ex is heavily involved in environmental causes.
jl
@Another Holocene Human: ‘low people per capita’?
Another Holocene Human
@Davebo: Pretty sure she confused Denmark with Netherlands, anyway.
One source estimates 2/3 of Dutch Jews were killed!
99% of Danish Jews survived the Holocaust
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews
Honored by Yad Vashem as the Righteous Among The Nations.
Another Holocene Human
@jl: shit fuck need to get away from the computer
low pop per sq mi
dammit
David Koch
@sigaba: He differently was playing golf with him on Monday. And the newspaper I got the first photo from sourced it from Larry David.
Another Holocene Human
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): But they were mighty put out when they all woke up one day and the Nazis had stolen all of their precious Fiets*. As any Dutch person will tell you, especially if German national men’s soccer team comes into the conversation.
*bicycles
jl
@Kropadope: thanks for interesting article on Nordic countries and immigration. If I read the graphs right, it is interesting that Sweden has most generous asylum policies but apparently lowest proportion of the population concerned about immigration. Denmark is the opposite.
I’m not surprised about generous asylum policies, since in the time I’ve spent there, you can see the effects among the resident population just walking down the street. (Edit: and has really livened up the music and dance scene) But a lot of Swedes were outraged by what they considered the overly PC measures the government took to downplay symbols of Swedish nationalism, like display of flag and playing national anthem. Probably other Nordic countries liked it, since Sweden has the history of being the imperialist asshole of the region.
Anyway, interesting differences between those countries.
shell
Maybe like Homer Simpson’s Twinkie, after a certain time it turns into alcohol.
Kidding aside, this is beyond stupidity.
Another Holocene Human
@sharl: There are some publications within the church world. Sadly, I’m totally blanking on anything but Patheos (which isn’t just Christians, and is basically a blog). There are some good surveys that come out periodically (like Pew) with information on religious adherence which kind of lets you read the tea leaves.
Scamp Dog
Wouldn’t the number of people per capita be 1?
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
They’re looking for an excuse to punish her.
mclaren
@rea:
That’s just plain not true. There are a very limited number of solitary confinement cells in any prison and as a result they are usually reserved for serious offenders. For example, people involved in fights in the prison yard get solitary.
Prisoners with expired dates on their toothpaste? Not so much.
A guy
Looking like Hillary might share a cell next to bradley
mclaren
@Scamp Dog:
Ha! You are correct, sir. I’m not 100% today. Just had an infected tooth pulled. The lidocaine is still making me woozy.
Kropadope
@A guy: Do elaborate or don’t bother.
Another Holocene Human
@mclaren: Please apologize (or at least clarify) for the inaccurate/misleading Holocaust references too. We do a great disservice when we get such facts wrong.
Peale
@sharl: interesting that u bring this up. I just read a blurb about John Rhys-Davies (lotr dwarf) blaming the silence on the destruction of Christian communities on liberal political correctness and moral relativism. Granted he’s talking about Europe. But I seem to remember evangelicals getting on high horses about Coptics in Egypt when the Brotherhood was in charge but being quiet about it before or after. Same with the poor Christians of South Sudan…the one group liberal Hollywood and evangelicals could agree to promote. But barely a squak about the disasterous post partition. And there’s lots of hand wringing about China.
Foreign Christians I think are only worthy to worry about when Christians don’t like who is oppressing them and like all things MIddle East, who is oppressing them is influenced by how threatening the oppressors are to Saudi Arabia and Israel.
Doug R
@David Koch: Larry is there to take care of any rogue swans
sharl
@A guy
Fixed the erroneous part of your speculative statement, but as to the rest of it, evidence unearthed and presented on twitter suggests, sadly, that you may be correct:
NotoriousJRT
@Cacti:
Called my senators today (Murray and Cantwell) to see where they are on Iran. No decision yet, so collecting input. Told them I wanted them to support PBO.
Roger Moore
@Iowa Old Lady:
What makes you think he has a higher gear than he’s currently using?
Iowa Old Lady
@Roger Moore: That’s a good question! I’d never heard him speak until this campaign. Maybe I just expected more because he was from a political family and had been a governor? Sort of like I was afraid of Rick Perry last time around until he opened his mouth.
jl
@Iowa Old Lady: Every time Jeb! does something in his campaign, he steps in dog doo, and then tries to get rid of it by scraping his shoe on his pant leg. If steps up to a higher gear, I recommend standing clear.
Iowa Old Lady
@jl: I’d demand that Betty explain how Jeb (and Voldemort) got elected governor of Florida, but then I’d have to explain Joanie Ernst, which I prefer not to think about.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@A guy:
The fact that you have no idea that separate military and civilian prisons exist is embarrassing but not surprising. You seem to be proudly ignorant about how most of the real world works.
Frankensteinbeck
@jl:
Jeb doesn’t have to do shit. He’s a Bush. Us peons have to get it through our thick bred-for-menial-labor skulls that everything a Bush does is successful by definition, and W was a great war hero.
…seriously, isn’t that how he comes off? And it fits with what little I know of his tenure as governor, that don’t you DARE question him.
A guy
Meme-‘After practicing law for 26 years I finally figured out prison is prison. Lol!
beltane
@Davebo: My husband is probably a fairly typical Dutch person. One of his great-uncles nearly died in a German slave labor camp. Another great-uncle was an obersturmfuhrer in the SS. A Jewish great-aunt was a death camp survivor. A different great-uncle was a collaborator on a minor scale. His grandfather, brother-in-law to the Nazi, was a war hero, flying fighter jets over Southeast Asia as part of the Dutch air force in exile.
In short, his family was quite the mixed bag.
Roger Moore
@Iowa Old Lady:
I assume that part of ¡Jeb!’s problem is the Bush legacy. All of the Republican candidates have some problem because they have to disavow the bad results of the Shrub presidency, which even many Republicans recognize, while still supporting many of the policies that led to them, because following those policies are what the party is about. ¡Jeb! has the additional hurdle of doing that while being Shrub’s brother and carrying around many of the advisers and subordinates who were responsible for his brother’s failures. Even the greatest politicians would have trouble with that burden, and a mediocrity like ¡Jeb! is not even close to up to the task.
beltane
I’m kind of surprised Rick Scott didn’t grab a seat on the Klown Kar.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@A guy:
And the UCMJ, local, state, and federal law are all identical to each other. Right.
Let us know what law school you went to so we know to avoid any lawyers who graduated from there.
Kropadope
@A guy:
Also note that you claimed they would be sharing adjacent cells, not true if HRC wouldn’t go to a military prison.
You still haven’t enlightened us as to the basis for imprisoning Hillary.
ETA: I get not knowing how to use tags, but you can’t even figure out how to use the reply button?
beltane
@efgoldman: That didn’t stop Chris Christie. As a seasoned criminal, Rick Scott may be more reality based than the other candidates.
Robert Sneddon
@Roger Moore: What you have to remember is that the Bush family advisers and subordinates (the technical term is “vassals”) that Jeb! has working for him are the same ones that got him the governorship of Florida originally, as well as being part of the team that greased his brother’s rise to the Texas Governor’s mansion and eventually the Presidency too. The same folks worked for his father, also President and before that Vice President and recently they got Jeb’s son George elected to a minor stepping-stone position in Texas as Water Commissioner.
They’re good at getting their lords and masters to where they want, they NEED to be. They have generations of experience, contacts in high places and low, money to burn and more money to come, vote counters in various GOP-run states to do their bidding, a Brooks Brothers riot squad on tap and if all else fails three Bush family vassals (Roberts, Alito, Thomas) on the Supreme Court.
J R in WV
So Ms Manning is accused of receiving contraband medical substances (toothpaste) in the prison?
We need an investigation to reveal who among the prison staff is smuggling contraband toothpaste to her! They will be punished for their smuggling activities.
And the printed matter, books and magazines? Who provided them to this lethal and dangerous prisoner? Were they dropped into the yard by Russian/Chinese sub-orbital drones? Delivered via tunnels built by Mexican drug lords?
Or perhaps delivered from a prison library, or via the mail?
This should lead to prison executives being fired for allowing such harassment of a prisoner! There is no way for MS Manning to obtain this material without it passing through the prison infrastructure.
If that toothpaste is expired, it is the fault of the prison administration for endangering her life by providing expired medical substances to a prisoner!! If those magazines and books were on a list making them ineligible for distribution to prisoners, someone who provided them in spite of the verboten list should be punished.
The only person involved in these accusations who is certainly innocent is Ms Manning, who was not able to acquire any of these items without the items having passed through the prison infrastructure.
Shameful and un-American, this whole set of accusations. I hope Ms Manning’s lawyers are able to put this whole thing into proper legal perspective, and shift the blame to those who are properly repsonsible. That would be the senior administrators of the prison. Not the prisoner, who is totally without agency in all of these accusations.
We are totally fucked!
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: Must be some good griftering right here in Florida.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: You can get high off the expired stuff.
John M. Burt
The inventive mind behind the new charges has already been nominated for the Chickenshit Cross with three clusters.