{"id":1550614,"date":"2022-07-12T12:34:29","date_gmt":"2022-07-12T16:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1550614"},"modified":"2022-07-12T12:34:38","modified_gmt":"2022-07-12T16:34:38","slug":"wnba-star-waits-on-biden-while-facing-time-in-moscow-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wnba-star-waits-on-biden-while-facing-time-in-moscow-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA Star Waits On Biden While Facing Time In Moscow Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwnba-star-waits-on-biden-while-facing-time-in-moscow-prison%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1550614&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>If you\u2019re of a certain age, you remember the 1978 movie \u201cMidnight Express,\u201d which was the terrifying (though highly dramatized) account of the arrest and incarceration of American Billy Hayes for a drug offense in Turkey. The harrowing portrayal of Hayes\u2019 ordeal introduced the term \u201cTurkish prison\u201d into the American vernacular as a synonym for \u201chellhole run by sadistic degenerates\u201d and scared a whole generation straight, at least when it came to overseas hashish trafficking. It probably didn\u2019t do much to help the Turkish tourism industry, either.<\/p>\n<p>Being left to rot in a nightmarish prison in an America-hating country for a minor offense is more than a \u201970s movie trope; it\u2019s a current reality for American WNBA star Brittney Griner, who has languished in Russian custody since February for possession of a small amount of cannabis oil. Griner has pleaded guilty to drug charges and faces up to 10 years in a Moscow prison.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s set aside any temptation toward feelings of schadenfreude toward Griner. In spite of her quite apparent disdain for the U.S. national anthem and other celebrations of American greatness, she is now in a position of begging her country for help. Let\u2019s examine how this incident underscores the differences between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and how this situation is being handled. Does anyone doubt that, if Trump were still president, Griner would be safely home and free to denigrate the U.S. at her leisure? Or that his opponents would be using his success as a cudgel to bash him as Putin\u2019s pal?<\/p>\n<p>One of the conveniently forgotten successes of the Trump era came in a similar situation. Three UCLA basketball players were arrested in China in 2017 on shoplifting charges; Trump demanded their release during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who granted the request.<\/p>\n<p>The players thanked Trump (who had wondered publicly if they would do so), but the usual suspects used the occasion to assert Trump\u2019s cozy relationship with dictators, and claim that Trump had nothing to do with the players\u2019 release. Of course, it didn\u2019t help that Trump proceeded to get in a social media slap fight with LaVar Ball, the outspoken father of one of the players, for being insufficiently grateful \u2013 the kind of petty stuff that has long been baked into the Trump souffl\u00e9, for better or worse.<\/p>\n<p>Setting aside Trump\u2019s unseemly appetite for credit, the point is this: His brand of diplomacy \u2014 equal parts bluster, cajolery, and craftiness \u2014 is ideal for dealing with today\u2019s brand of strongman, while Biden\u2019s authentic D.C. gibberish has never been more clearly laid bare as utterly ineffectual.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This is a developing story, and there\u2019s always a chance that the administration could save face through some sort of prisoner swap involving notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout (talk about a Pyrrhic victory). But that\u2019s cold comfort for Brittney Griner, who is now in her fifth month of incarceration thanks to one of Joe Biden\u2019s many glaring failures.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Daily Wire.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you\u2019re of a certain age, you remember the 1978 movie \u201cMidnight Express,\u201d which was the terrifying (though highly dramatized) account of the arrest and incarceration of American Billy Hayes for a drug offense in Turkey. The harrowing portrayal of Hayes\u2019 ordeal introduced the term \u201cTurkish prison\u201d into the American vernacular as a synonym for &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":960,"featured_media":1550700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1550614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1550614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1550700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1550614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1550614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1550614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}