After spending 7 years in a military prison, Army whistleblower Chelsea (aka Bradley) Manning walked free today courtesy of clemency deal granted by President Obama. According to NBC, Manning, 29, will remain an active-duty soldier in the U.S. Army, but won't be paid a salary and is highly unlikely to be called into active service. That said, her "excess leave" status will legally entitle her to military medical care.
US military casualties abroad are starting to pile up again. Two weeks after the US dropped the MOAB over a cave complex in the Nangarhar region in Afghanistan, reportedly in an attempt to flush out ISIS operatives, on Friday the Defense Department reported that on Thursday two Army Rangers died during a raid on the same compound in Afghanistan.
After claims by both democrats and republicans that Trump's "skinny" budget proposal is dead on arrival, Trump's nemesis, John McCain chimed in and said that in its current form the Trump budget simply won't pass the Senate. “It is clear that this budget proposed today cannot pass the Senate," the Armed Services Committee chairman said in a statement.
As we reported yesterday, Lithuania confirmed the presence of U.S. special forces inside its territory, stating the deployment’s purpose is to train local forces and act as a deterrent against Russian aggression. Supposedly, the move is in response to a "escalation" by Vladimir Putin, who has been deploying nuke-ready missiles in the Russian province of Kaliningrad located in the heart of central Europe. This move has prompted the neighboring Baltic states to become “highly concerned” about Russian military activity.
Chelsea Manning has filed an appeal against her conviction for passing more than 700,000 documents to Wikileaks in 2010 which landed her with a 35-year prison sentence under the Espionage Act. On Thursday lawyers for the whistleblower called her conviction “grossly unfair and unprecedented” arguing that “no whistleblower in American history has been sentenced this harshly.” The Intercept reports: Manning was convicted of six counts of espionage by a military court in 2013 and is currently serving a 35-year sentence in military prison.