Comments

1

The fact that we traded a fucking ARMS DEALER for Griner and left Paul Whelan behind is an absolute embarassment to our government. What a waste of a high level prisoner swap.

3

Given Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's ghastly Netflix cringe series, swapping them for Paul Whalen would be a win/win for everyone.

5

Dear New York Slimes staffers, make the world a better place and don't come back.

6

If the New York Times isn’t going to criticize Joe Biden for breaking the backs of rail unions, I’m not going to break my Wordle streak for them. Fuck their union busting asses.

7

@6: Ever wonder why we never heard that rail workers never got sick leave until now? Don't blame Joe, blame their unions. They should have been part of the Teamsters all along.

8

Sending a prolific warmonger back to a country currently engaged in warmongering doesn't really seem like the best idea. But at least we got our sportsballer back! Athlete and celebrity lives > regular people.

10

@2: "...when the Merchant of Death goes back into business..."

Realistically, how quickly will he reach the level of business he had more than a decade ago?

13

@7 Because this isn’t the only time that the Railway Labor Act has been utilized in such fashion. Railroad companies have had the support of congress for 96 years to fuck over the unions and the workers. They’ve now decimated the workers and then not giving the remaining workers paid sick leave.

But, Congress isn’t doing shit about their business practices to stop supply chain issues. Instead, they’re siding with corporations to prevent labor from getting too uppity (see also Biden’s Fed Chairman Powell’s statement about triggering a recession because workers have it too good right now or some such rot.

17

@11 Bold of you to assume that anyone wants Russian weapons after seeing 9 months of fail in Ukraine.

19

Obviously, Putin/Rusher refused to give up all their bargaining chips for Bout. They are, in case anyone hadn't noticed, assholes.

Getting Griner out was a huge win for Biden Admin and the State Dept, and I hope she (eventually) gets in front of a camera to say thanks and let Paul Whelan go.

21

@18 All words are made up words, dipshit.

As for the Griner release it's a was a highly complex situation with no easy answers.

The accusations against her are almost certainly nonsense and she was being used as a hostage, revenge and propaganda in the run up to Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

See Putin, being very angry that the Biden administration wisely made every detail of the Putin's planned invasion very public in January, needed to steal headlines. It's no coincidence she was arrested on the 17th and the invasion happened on the 24th.

So yes the drug charges are bullshit. Anyone whinging about that is basically regurgitating Russian propaganda. Putin plucked Griner out of the aether because of her black/LBGTQ identity and quasi-celebrity knowing the liberal glitterarchy social media machine would go nuts. And to complicate diplomacy for Biden. Not realizing of course his war was gong to be an abject disaster.

But my problem with Griner is she went to Russia FOR MONEY. In the employ of another corrupt Russian oligarch. Knowing full well how Putin's regime treats LGBTQ people. And AFTER being warned by the state department AND after we knew there was going to be a war with her employer nation as the aggressor. So frankly: fuck her. She was innocent of the crime of drug possession, as if that matters anyway, but guilty of being a two-faced asshole who put personal profit above principle. She put herself in the position of getting used.

As for Bout? He was certainly a terrorist, GRU spy and scum bag who deserved to rot in prison or to get a terminal headache. But what he isn't is a huge current threat. He has been in prison for over a decade. His network is gone. His money and assets were seized. He likely gave up any and all useful information (likely burned anyway the moment he picked up). He cannot travel freely any longer. And his usefulness as anything more that a PR win for Putin is gone. So he is not gong to be some big merchant of death out there causing mayhem. And if he steps foot outside of Russia he's a dead man.

So I understand WHY Biden negotiated this — his principles are pretty solid — I am much more hawkish than Biden. And I do not think this should have occurred with an ongoing proxy war with Russia until Russia has been routed out of Crimea. Or at least Ukraine signs a peace treaty with Russia.

IMHO it's a huge mistake to give Putin any PR win during ongoing hostilities. But perhaps Biden see's the intelligence revealing the end of the invasion is nigh or Putin would kill her in that event. I don't know.

Regardless superficially it's a big win for Biden's diplomacy machine and it will likely strengthen diplomatic posture going forward. A win for Griner and her family. But it's a loss for perceived US will power in a time of war.

23

@22 I don’t think he means she was framed. Since she has played in Russia in the past I would bet she has taken those vape cartridges over there and foolishly thought she would skate through again. I would guess in most cases the worst you get is a fine if they find something like this. I have no doubt She got it worse due to her quasi celebrity and PR value. I agree with the contentious prof though that her reasons for being there are selfish and she should have never went given the global issues.

26

@24 Its a Christmas miracle!

27

Way to go, Biden administration, you gave up one of the worst arms dealers in a generation, nicknamed "The Merchant of Death" no less, who had been actively plotting to murder Americans for a basketball player with a weed conviction. That's top-notch negotiating there!

I guarantee if Griner were Britt, the teacher's aide, she would still be there. At least the Germans told us to pound sand when we asked them to release two Russian agents serving life for a nerve agent murder, so that we could sweeten the deal.

29

"If Putin was going to frame her why only plant a few near-empty vape cartridges? Why not a quantity consistent with a couple weeks of usage?"

There is no "evidence" of anything. There is what a totalitarian regime claims.

A regime that has murdered journalists. Murdered opposition leaders. Jails dissidents. A regime that literally blew up an apartment complex in Moscow and claimed it was a terror attack. A regime that invaded a sovereign nation lead by the only other Jewish leader of state in history outside Israel claiming it was over run with "Nazis."

They arrested her. Held her until she "confessed" she had drugs and god knows what they did to her before that. Then held a kangaroo court with a predetermined outcome.

And it's fucking irrelevant if she had vape cartridges or not. They would have found something else.

Have you ever been to Russia? I have. I spent about two weeks there in the 90's and three weeks in Moscow in the mid 2000's. Moscow is AWASH in open drug use. People travel back and forth to the EU with weed a thousand times a day. We paid a self appointed "body guard" to help us and he basically was the interface for bribes. And do you know what his day job was? HE was a cop.

To say laws in Russia are selectively enforced would be to assume they even have fucking laws. It's as close to a failed criminal state as a modern nation with nukes could possibly be. Bribery, corruption and extortion are simply ways of life and most don't even think about it. The idea we should take anything the Russian "government," and that term only applies superficially, at anything close to their word is ludicrous.

30

@1 TheIncrediblek : The whole prisoner tradeoff situation really is insane, and particularly in time of war.
Putin, like its overly eager sock puppet, the Orange Turd, cannot be trusted.

@18 Scottie Soft 'n' Brown: Be careful when flushing, lil MAGAt, or you might fall in.
Puget Sound already has more than enough toxic waste.

@29 RogertheShrubber: JEEzus!! I don't even smoke weed or do illegal drugs, but Good Grief, Charlie Brown!
I'd hate to be traveling through a foreign country and have them planted on me. Russia sounds like a frigidly unfriendly, totalitarian wasteland teeming with crimelords. And it's dangerous, regardless of one's cis gender? Sadly, I believe you, Roger. Yikes! It's obviously not a place I'd want to tour anytime, soon.
My fun image of the Beatles' 1968 White Album classic rock number, "Back in the USSR" went poof a long time ago. Vladimir Putin is clearly no peace seeking Mikhail Gorbachov. Gorbachov must be rolling in his grave.


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