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After nearly two years, WNBA star Brittney Griner returned to the basketball court with the Phoenix Mercury Saturday and played competitively for the first time since being detained in Russia. She brought with her a newfound appreciation for the national anthem. The seven-time All-Star said hearing the national anthem before her game on Saturday felt “different” after spending 10 months in a Russian prison. Griner arrived home to the United States in December after the U.S. and Russia agreed to a prisoner swap involving Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer, and Griner, per Deseret News. “Hearing the national anthem, it...

Phoenix Mercury star center Brittney Griner has spoken for the first time since the incident occurred at Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport where she was harassed by YouTuber Alex Stein. She considers this situation "rock Bottom" for the WNBA regarding its charter flight rules. Griner was the subject of harassment on June 10 at the airport, as Stein approached her and asked several questions, including whether she had sex with Vladimir Putin to get out of prison in Russia.

Jason Whitlock: “Why did you do this?” Stein: “Calling out woke athletes. This is so crazy about how insulated Brittney Griner is. She was literally the biggest political story for a year and not one journalist from any major outlet at ESPN, CNN, ABC, blah, blah, blah will ever ask her a hard-hitting question. And me, just asking that question was like considered assault, the Mercury statement even used the word ‘hate’. I don’t hate Brittney Griner, I think she’s a great college basketball player, and women’s college basketball is actually pretty interesting to me. I respect her as being...

As the WNBA faces increased pressure to move away from commercial airline travel, the league has allowed teams this season to fly on a public chartering service called JSX with certain protocols in place, league sources told ESPN this week. The league's travel situation has come under increased scrutiny after the Phoenix Mercury's Brittney Griner -- who was detained in Russia most of last year and subsequently released in a high-profile prisoner exchange -- was harassed in a Dallas airport this past weekend while flying commercially with the team. WNBA teams primarily fly commercial, citing cost. Some franchises and players...

In what appears a further attempt to embarrass the United States, capitalizing on the fact that a notorious arms dealer and convicted terrorist nicknamed the 'Merchant of Death' was traded from US custody for a WNBA player caught in a Moscow airport merely with cannabis cartridges, Viktor Bout has made a highly publicized visit to occupied Ukraine. Russian state media confirmed that Bout visited the Russian-controlled city of Luhansk in the Donbas over the weekend, delivering a message that the area "would soon be peaceful, and people would live without fear for their future," as cited in RIA Novosti.Viktor Bout...

Robert O’Brien, former national security adviser in the Trump administration, says that the Russians were willing to make a deal to release both Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed before Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. The Russians reneged on the deal after Biden was declared the winner of the election, according to O’Brien. The goal for the Russians was to improve relations between Washington and Moscow after a meeting in October 2020. But, when the election was called for Biden in November, the deal was off. The article in The Hill that reports on O’Brien’s comments does not mention an...

As we’ve noted here, when it comes to The Art of the Deal, Biden doesn’t have it, which was painfully exposed when he pulled the trigger on a bad deal to get back WNBA star Brittney Griner who has been detained in Russia for months. In February, Griner was jailed on drug charges, with vape charges containing cannabis oil on her person. It was for medicinal purposes, but it’s illegal in Russia. A months-long legal circus carried allegations that the Biden White House either didn’t know or care that an American was being detained overseas. It also didn’t help that...

American officials will hold talks “this week” with Russian leaders about negotiations to release former Marine Paul Whelan, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday. “With respect to the question of whether we’ve had engagement with the Russian Federation on the Whelan case, we will have an engagement with them this week,” Sullivan told reporters. Sullivan was not asked about and did not address the case of American Marc Fogel — who like Whelan was left behind last week when President Biden signed off on a prisoner swap in which the US released convicted arms trafficker Viktor Bout...

Sony Hostin, a co-host of ABC’s The View, slammed former secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former President Trump and other Republicans who have critiqued President Biden’s recent prisoner swap deal with Russia. Co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Alyssah Farah Griffin noted that the Trump administration negotiated the release of 5,000 Taliban members in Afghan prisoners in 2020. “I think it’s just the sheer hypocrisy of it because I have, and I’ve said it here, always felt, umm, conflicted about negotiating with terrorists because I do think it will encourage a terrorist to grab other Americans,” Hostin said on the daytime talk...

Those who opposed the release of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, notoriously dubbed “the Merchant of Death,” in exchange for former WNBA star Brittney Griner are largely driven by racism and homophobia, according to Democrat consultant and political commentator James Carville. Carville also claimed opposition to the swap “exposed a big big fault in American culture,” and said those opposed are likely “pro-Putin.” Speaking on CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta on Saturday, Carville complained that racism and homophobia are significant drivers of opinion in America, suggesting that if Griner was a “blond Chi Omega from SMU” then the reaction would...

As more information trickles out about how President Joe Biden agreed to swap Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for WNBA player Brittney Griner, former President Donald Trump revealed that Russia had tried to get him to release Bout in a proposed prisoner exchange that Trump rejected over his objections to freeing the "Merchant of Death." In a post on Truth Social, Trump said "I turned down a deal with Russia for a one on one swap of the so-called Merchant of Death for Paul Whelan," the former U.S. Marine who was arrested by Russian authorities in 2018 and charged with...

The controversy over the one-sided prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Russia, with notorious "Merchant of Death" and "Lord of War"Viktor Bout traded for a wokester celebrity basketball player caught with personal stash of CBD oil, is now dying down. The remaining question is what's next? We can safely assume that Brittney Griner will either return to professional basketball, or more likely enter the lucrative lecture circuit with book deals and television appearances. That's a very big 'who cares'? But arms trafficker Viktor Bout is another story. What is he going to do now that he is out and about...

In his first major interview since his release, Viktor Bout, whom the US has labelled as an arms dealer, spoke to RT on Saturday. Bout was returned to Russia in a high-profile prisoner swap for basketball player Brittney Griner on Thursday. During the conversation, the businessman revealed the techniques he used to stay sane while behind bars, spoke about the conflict in Ukraine and on whether he believed the US might be on the verge of an uprising. Arming the Taliban Bout served 12 years in American prisons on arms-trafficking charges that he denies. Despite evading Taliban captivity in the...

“Joe Biden’s world-class hypocrisy is on full display, and it has taken a dangerous turn, in his trade of a notorious Russian arms dealer for Brittany Griner,” the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today. Biden’s swap of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout—known as the “Merchant of Death”—for Griner this week has brought expressions of outrage and astonishment. The jailed basketball gold medalist is one of two Americans who have been held by the Russians. The other is Paul Whelan, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who was imprisoned four years ago on espionage charges, and...

Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 @JackPosobiec BREAKING: Saudi Arabia and UAE announce they brokered Griner release in joint statement thepostmillennial.com 12:40 PM · Dec 8, 2022

TMZ (live TV, today 12.12.22, PM) showed results of a poll, if Brittney Griner swap with Viktor Bout was worth it. 71% responded, it was NOT.

The reactions to the lopsided Brittney Griner/Viktor Bout swap are still coming in.Here’s Derek Maltz, former DEA Special Operations Director, talking with Fox News, describing the effort they made to put Bout in jail, what a danger he was to the world, and that he was convicted on serious terrorism charges. He notes that even the Obama administration got how serious this was and Joe Biden was the Vice President at the time, so he had to know what a danger Bout was to the world. “Putin has just established a new tool,” Maltz said, and others will “take advantage...

Former President Trump on Sunday said he turned down a deal to release former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who’s been detained by Moscow since 2018, in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout during his time in the White House. “I turned down a deal with Russia for a one on one swap of the so-called Merchant of Death for Paul Whelan. I wouldn’t have made the deal for a hundred people in exchange for someone that has killed untold numbers of people with his arms deals,” Trump said on Truth Social.

A former DEA agent who played a major role in bringing notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout to justice more than a decade ago believes that Russia got the upper hand in the Brittney Griner prisoner swap — and that the US may end up paying a heavy price for it. “I’m kind of in disbelief that someone with the potential to orchestrate arms deals that can kill Americans anywhere in the world would be traded for a prisoner,” Tom Pasquarello told Yahoo! Sports just hours after Bout was exchanged for Griner in Abu Dhabi. Bout, 56, dubbed the “Merchant of...

Former President Donald Trump ripped into President Joe Biden on Thursday for the prisoner swap with Russia that left former Marine Paul Whelan behind.The Biden administration announced that WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner would be released from Russia in exchange for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer.“What kind of a deal is it to swap Brittney Griner, a basketball player who openly hates our Country, for the man known as ‘The Merchant of Death,’ who is one of the biggest arms dealers anywhere in the World, and responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and horrific injuries,” Trump wrote on...