There have been prisoner swaps in the past. This isn’t anything new.
i thought it was UAE? BH admin seems terrible at negotiation. They should have held out for 2 for 1 Marine exchange.
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Part of the Statement of the Democrat head of the Senate foreign relations committee, Robert Menendez. It seems to me that he does not agree with the Biden handlers’ decision to trade Bout for Griner.
“To be clear, Ms. Griner should have been released immediately and unconditionally a long time ago. Putin has known that all along. This should be a moment of deep reflection for the United States government to recognize we have a serious problem with hostage-taking of Americans. The Russians and other regimes that take American citizens hostage cannot pretend that there is equivalence between the Brittney Griners of the world and people like Viktor Bout, the so-called ‘Merchant of Death.’ Nothing could be further from the truth, and we cannot ignore that releasing Bout back into the world is a deeply disturbing decision. We must stop inviting dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans overseas as bargaining chips, and we must try to do better at encouraging American citizens against traveling to places like Russia where they are primary targets for this type of unlawful detention.
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You’re absolutely right. I think the concern is for our negotiating deficits.
First, the “victim” actually did bring pot in to Russia. Granted, her sentence was harsh, but she’s a rich athlete and should have lackeys who carry the dope or professionals who warn her to make lackeys carry the dope.
Second, there’s been a Marine (and supposed spy) at hard labor for 3+ years. Presuming the accusation of spying is true, would he not be a better trade for a “Merchant of Death” than a pro athlete? Wouldn’t a more equitable trade for the athlete be one of those oligarchs or one of their mansions/yachts/rockets that we’ve been frequently told about?
Please don’t get me wrong. If I were in Putin’s shoes, I would happily trade a pawn for a rook. I just don’t understand what pressure Biden was under to make that deal, or why he would not insist on a bishop for a rook.
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I stand with whoever blew up the pipeline
And then comes this admission: “But now, after months of investigation, numerous officials privately say that Russia may not be to blame after all for the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines.”
The Post issued the rare about-face of accusations after interviewing a total of 23 diplomatic and intelligence officials in nine countries who have been privy to the international investigation into the sabotage incident which has threatened European energy supplies going into winter.
“There is no evidence at this point that Russia was behind the sabotage,” one European official is quoted as saying.
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Another critic falls from a window…
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Tiktok is catering to US government censors in an effort to be allowed to stay in the US market.
For years, for instance, mainstream news outlets in the West repeatedly warned that the Ukrainian military was dominated by a neo-Nazi group called the Azov Battalion, that the Kiev-based government was becoming increasingly repressive and anti-democratic (including ordering three opposition media outlets closed in 2021), and that Zelensky himself was not only supported by a single Ukrainian oligarch but he himself had massive off-shore accounts of hidden wealth as revealed by the Pandora Papers. And the U.S. State Department itself, in 2021, had documented a long list of severe human rights abuses carried out either with the acquiescence or even active participation of the Zelensky-led central government.
One of the video excerpts from our program that was posted to all social media sites, including TikTok, was this indisputably true and rather benign review of how media outlets, including The Guardian , had previously depicted Zelensky as surrounded by corruption and hidden wealth. To be sure, the excerpt was critical of Zelensky, but there is absolutely nothing even factually contestable, let alone untrue, given that the whole point of the clip is to show how the media had spoken of Ukraine and Zelensky prior to the invasion as opposed to the fundamentally different tone that now drives their coverage
Shortly after posting this video, we were notified by TikTok that the video was removed by the platform. The cited ground was “integrity and authenticity,”
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RSX etf update. They’re still trying to liquidate.
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He was a MP too?
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Attacking their neighbors again, ala Poland.
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Did you mean “a la”? Cause this one didn’t land in Poland…
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autocorrect strikes again!
I love the way the attackers are protesting when they get any blowback
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IN UKRAINE, PUTIN HAS ORDERED A ONE-DAY CHRISTMAS TRUCE - IFX
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KREMLIN: RUSSIA TO ANNOUNCE TRUCE IN UKRAINE FROM 1200 JAN.6 TO 2400 JAN.7 - IFX
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KREMLIN: RUSSIA CALLS ON THE UKRAINIAN SIDE TO DECLARE A CEASE-FIRE AND ALLOW PEOPLE TO ATTEND CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY SERVICES - IFX.
the far right is no longer the war party
MCCARTHY’S EMERGING SPEAKER DEAL SEES $75 BILLION DEFENSE CUT
Lockheed and similar stocks were not happy about that today.
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McCarthy has just failed to be elected speaker for the 12th time.
Not much dignity.
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They talk like they’re showing democracy’s working . (Rep) But I think 
those 5+ holdouts should quit all their bickering and vote for our leader “Mr Bakersfield “.
They’ve got a thing going now that is making the Republicans look like losers! IMO
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A handful of Republicans want (or think they have) what Manchin had last year…
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Diplomatic context pre war, care of Wikileaks a while back.
a review of the public record and many dozens of diplomatic cables made publicly available via WikiLeaks shows that US officials were aware, or were directly told over the span of years, that expanding NATO was viewed by Russian officials well beyond Putin as a major threat and provocation, that expanding it to Ukraine was a particularly bright red line for Moscow, that it would inflame and empower hawkish, nationalist parts of the Russian political spectrum, and that it could ultimately lead to war.
In a particularly prophetic set of warnings, US officials were told that pushing for Ukrainian membership in NATO would not only increase the chance of Russian meddling in the country, but risked destabilizing the divided nation — and that US and other NATO officials pressured Ukrainian leaders to reshape this unfriendly public opinion in response. All of this was told to US officials in both public and private by not just senior Russian officials going all the way up to the presidency, but by NATO allies, various analysts and experts, liberal Russian voices critical of Putin, even, sometimes, US diplomats themselves.
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Lots of links to commentary and such on the Ukraine conflict, aid, diplomacy, etc.
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