Current Events > Brittany griner is FREE

(+) Yeah! (+)

Whether she was victimized by a Russian show trial or was legitimately guilty of breaking Russian law was ultimately irrelevant to her status as an international political bargaining chip.

Glad Griner is coming back. Wonder if Russian civilians are like "thank God the merchant of death is back home safe" lol

I cant wait for Lord of War 2

This sets a bad precedent, and is also a slap in the face considering it's still pretty fucking illegal in the US federally and there are still tons of states that will charge you with a felony and put you away, even for empty carts.

This is like that Bush "hypocriticizer" scene from Harold and Kumar 2.

how long has this arms dealer been in prison? he probably doesn't have all the business connections he used to make.

maybe they implanted a tracker on him or something to get more intel

edit: ^but yeah she'd have been thrown in prison in certain US states for the same thing

I'm glad she's out and all, but it would be nice if the Biden administration would get Marc Fogel out as well. Too bad he isn't a famous and wealthy sports ball player, just a lowly school teacher so he's probably fucked.

crazygamer21 posted...

I'm glad she's out and all, but it would be nice if the Biden administration would get Marc Fogel out as well. Too bad he isn't a famous and wealthy sports ball player, just a lowly school teacher so he's probably fucked.

Probably has something to do with Brittney Griner accidentally carrying less than an ounce of weed in carts while Marc Fogel carrying 14 carts and was smuggling flower in hidden compartments in their suitcase. One has plausible deniability on their side, the other was blatantly disregarding the law.

What a horrible trade.

A_Good_Boy posted...

Probably has something to do with Brittney Griner accidentally carrying less than an ounce of weed in carts while Marc Fogel carrying 14 carts and was smuggling flower in hidden compartments in their suitcase. One has plausible deniability on their side, the other was blatantly disregarding the law.

irrelevant honestly. I don't care if the guy had 10 pounds of coke on him. sentencing him to hard labor for the rest of his life is cruel as fuck, and the guy has using all that weed medicinally anyway. He deserves to come home just as much as Griner did. The whole "plausible deniability" is a bunch of bootlicking nonsense.

Kastrada posted...

People are still believing she had pot on her?

With all of the bullshit Russia has been doing for years?

The spy networks?
The arrests/disappearing of dissidents?
This invasion of a neutral nation to combat "Nazism"?
The state sanction LGBT purging in Chechnya?
The imprisonment of an American just weeks before the Ukranian invasion?

With all of that knowledge at our fingertips, people are still trusting them when they say she broke their laws?

Thank you. Plus the Russians explicitly said Whelan's case was off the table. The diplomats made the best deal possible and an American is free. That's two now and one more to go.

She better be greatful, say pledge of allegiance everyday and sing the national anthem everyday for 10 years straight

Well, I guess we should let it be known now that if you go to Russia, you may stay in Russia. It aint safe to travel.

Britney got friggin' shafted and now the world is shafted.

https://twitter.com/nickkalmanfn/status/1600847157216522240?s=46&t=V2pazcpkY2F5CgSMElDabw

brestugo posted...

Thank you. Plus the Russians explicitly said Whelan's case was off the table. The diplomats made the best deal possible and an American is free. That's two now and one more to go.

I read the only limitation was one-for-one. The US just had to pick. Where'd you read Whelan was off the table?

crazygamer21 posted...

irrelevant honestly. I don't care if the guy had 10 pounds of coke on him. sentencing him to hard labor for the rest of his life is cruel as fuck, and the guy has using all that weed medicinally anyway. He deserves to come home just as much as Griner did. The whole "plausible deniability" is a bunch of bootlicking nonsense.

It's not irrelevant. The guy was literally smuggling an amount that would have gotten him a similar sentence if he were in the US too. You can easily argue that Griner made an honest mistake, you can't for Fogel.

Now we have a notorious arms dealer running loose... THANKS BIDEN

s0nicfan posted...

I read the only limitation was one-for-one. The US just had to pick. Where'd you read Whelan was off the table?

https://apnews.com/article/brittney-griner-michigan-united-states-government-russia-bbf0c7e3029fea40d604b11fd271533f

Sadly, for totally illegitimate reasons, Russia is treating Pauls case differently than Brittneys, Biden said. And while we have not yet succeeded at securing Pauls release, we are not giving up. We will never give up.
Speaking later at the State Department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia continues to insist on sham charges of espionage against Whelan.
This was not a choice of which American to bring home: The choice was one or none, Blinken said. And I wholeheartedly wish that we could have brought Paul home today on the same plane as Brittney.

Oakland510_ posted...

She better be greatful, say pledge of allegiance everyday and sing the national anthem everyday for 10 years straight

Why the fuck would she do that

Oakland510_ posted...

She better be greatful, say pledge of allegiance everyday and sing the national anthem everyday for 10 years straight

why, you think the fascists who cry about people not standing for the anthem would have gotten her released?

Robot2600 posted...

yall literally dont give 2 shits about some random prisoner no one ever heard of before.

hes not some random prisoner to his family and its a pretty weak ass argument that securing Griners release is a higher priority just because more people know about her because shes pretty good at throwing a ball around.

pretty shit take kiddo

BeantownHero posted...

Why the fuck would she do that

thronedfire2 posted...

why, you think the fascists who cry about people not standing for the anthem would have gotten her released?

She gotta show appreciation some how

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I only read his Wiki page about the day he was arrested and even that simple synopsis of events paints that dude in incredibly poor light and heavily suggests he actually was spying. That snippet you posted just makes him look even worse!

Say what you want to say about Griner, but using Fogel and Whelen in attempt to smear her just ain't it bro. Those two def seem like they deserve their charges and their prison stays.

Oakland510_ posted...

She gotta show appreciation some how

Im sure shell shake Bidens hand thank the people who helped get her released. Not the racists and bigots that would be perfectly happy letting her rot

It remains to be seen what will happen. If something does happen it'll be on biden and harris to explain why it happened. You guys are stressing for nothing as it stands.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


hes locked up for supposedly being a US spy right? With that record hes more likely to be a Russian asset at this point

Drugs are bad she set a bad example as a role model she should of stayed there.

Eh,

Its crazy to me that people acting like being a political prisoner and making a stupid mistake like she did are mutually exclusive.

I think they busted her with her vape cartridges and realize who they had and started this game.

Welp, now we left all the other prisoners in there and gave up a huge terrorist for it.

Only way this is ok is if the arms dealer is taken out via drone strike in the next month or so.

I think better questions and concerns are, how is this different from other prisoner exchanges in general? Do most require trading prisoners that are as bad as this arms dealer? What tends to happen after doing these trades? Do we try and track them to see if they go back to their old ways? What's the most realistic outcome from this trade? Does this reduce possible chances of trading for Whelan and others in Russia in the future.

I'm glad Griner is back, and I'm annoyed some are concern trolling about some aspects of this over stupid reasons.

emblem-man posted...

I think better questions and concerns are, how is this different from other prisoner exchanges in general? Do most require trading prisoners that are as bad as this arms dealer? What tends to happen after doing these trades? Do we try and track them to see if they go back to their old ways? What's the most realistic outcome from this trade? Does this reduce possible chances of trading for Whelan and others in Russia in the future.

I'm glad Griner is back, and I'm annoyed some are concern trolling about some aspects of this over stupid reasons.

Why would you, in Russia's position, agree to a lopsided trade?

And, as was already noted, Whelan is being treated as a spy by the Russians and they seem unwilling to consider releasing him. Whelan's family has even endorsed this move.

Everything else is a hypothetical. What isn't hypothetical is that Britney Griner is spared further brutal torture. And people seem to be in an unholy rush to minimize that, to sacrifice her life so that an old arms dealer can be punished further, or leave her to rot in a Siberian gulag while haggling for more like you're buying a car.

Beetlejo posted...

This guy is going to be dead within 6 months after accidentally falling out of a window and people are still butthurt we got Griner home.

Either that or he'll get a drone firing ordinance through his window.

Deedice posted...

She plead guilty

Um yeah about that...

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Alteres posted...

yeah, maybe she had a fear of heights

I'm not trusting anything the Russian government says, anything Griner says while under their purview, and nothing the American government says in regard to the case until she is safely on American soil.

Everything has either been blatant lying, coerced script reading, or political pageantry.

ElatedVenusaur posted...

Why would you, in Russia's position, agree to a lopsided trade?

And, as was already noted, Whelan is being treated as a spy by the Russians and they seem unwilling to consider releasing him. Whelan's family has even endorsed this move.

Everything else is a hypothetical. What isn't hypothetical is that Britney Griner is spared further brutal torture. And people seem to be in an unholy rush to minimize that, to sacrifice her life so that an old arms dealer can be punished further, or leave her to rot in a Siberian gulag while haggling for more like you're buying a car.

Agreed. If we think about it as a "loss" if we have to trade for those who have done large crimes, then US will pretty much always "lose" and will never trade prisoners. But that shouldn't matter, and going down that path of analysis just seems bad.

I'm not mad because it seems to me that this is just how these negotiations tend to happen. If we're trading with a place like Russia or Saudi Arabia or whatever...we know what kinda crimes their prisoners will most likely have. Like...this is just how these kinda negotiations go.

i hope the other guy gets released. I hope no one is stupid enough to go to Russia again.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Biden gave the Taliban a country tho

Agonized_rufous posted...

Biden gave the Taliban a country tho

Trump also planned the withdrawal and literally tweeted that Biden couldn't possibly stop it

thronedfire2 posted...

Trump also planned the withdrawal and literally tweeted that Biden couldn't possibly stop it

Cause it was a good plan. Some may say it was a perfect plan. It was a very, very good plan

If Americans can stop going to countries with hostile governments waiting for the smallest opportunity to hold them hostage, thatd be great.

Some of her political commentary was assbrain stupid, but I never believed she deserved to be locked up in a Russian prison (of all places) over a minor drug bust. But Russia has a long history of using a sledgehammer as a solution for everything.

An elephant in the room is that Griner is homosexual with a partner. Russia is someplace anyone LGBTQ should stay away from, period. Putin has made it openly clear we are not a protected class on the lands of his dictatorship. Her bust was likely more than just politics between nations, it was also a chance for a dictator and his bigoted cronies to make an example to the public of multiple watching nations. And now in exchange for releasing Griner back to the States, the Russian government gets their own prisoner of interest sent to them like an Xmas gift. And a dangerous arms trader no less.