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AddyKat719 t1_izmcqpw wrote

You know I was all for Biden. But fuck Joe for real. We just traded a " merchant of death " for a fucking basketball player cause she was black? I'll get downvoted but idgaf it's the truth. Meanwhile we have actual American spys and Marines over there still stuck??

FUCK BIDEN

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lurkmorethanpost t1_iznhfni wrote

It wasn't cause she is black, it is cause she is an American. There is no apples for apples release. We don't unlawfully detain regular citizens, so there can be no equitable swap. You get who you can get. If the Russians were going to release Whelan, they would have. They didn't, for Trump or Biden. Should we have left one American in jail on weed charges because the Russians didn't offer the "right one"? If you can get someone out, you get them out.

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And let's be clear. Whelan was demoted and booted on a Bad Conduct Discharge for being a thief. Not exactly a glorious record. We should still do everything to get him out, but this isn't like they abducted some Marine fresh off a shift with MSG.

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rand0m_task t1_izo3cut wrote

The most fucked up part is that we just exchanged the merchant of death for a WNBA player who had weed charges, all the while incarcerating 40,000 Americans at any given time for similar charges.

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l_rufus_californicus t1_izokh55 wrote

And 45 had two years to cut a deal with his buddy Vlad for Whelan and chose instead to do… nothing.

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boycotshirts t1_iznkucd wrote

Lurk you’re right on the face of it, but let’s not pretend it’s not also about how much press her case got. This was at the core of it a PR exercise for the two governments.

The shitty part of it all is that there are probably plenty of other people who have brought weed into Russia, who got the pass, where with this high profile case the ruskiis saw an opportunity to stick it to the US, and shit all over BGs life.

Now that’s also not saying it wasn’t a risk taking weed into a country that considers it contraband, she was probably trying to play the odds being a part of a popular sports team.

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