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MobileTough t1_izeek9a wrote

Happy to hear that Brittney Griner is released ✊

I’m figuring out health insurance for the first time! I’m deciding between the work offered HRA and HSA.

I know the benefits of each and it seems like the HSA is the obvious option, but it’s like at least a 1/10th out of my paycheck and I’m just not sure if I can afford it currently, but I’m also not sure if I’m just throwing the money I “saved” in an HRA away by not keeping it with an HSA and me being young and relatively healthy..

Then I’m like well I just need more money! and then I get distracted and think about what I’m doing with my life and that’s just a whole other thing, and I still haven’t decided on health insurance.

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sweetTtawney t1_izeg4id wrote

I was very happy about Britney Griner as well! 💕

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___zero__cool___ t1_izeno3n wrote

I’m happy that a US citizen is no longer being held in the Russian prison system. That said, we traded a Russian arms dealer for her, and we got her out before negotiating a release for retired U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who has been imprisoned in Russia for FOUR YEARS. I’m disappointed in our priorities here.

Edit - After reading a bit more, Russia initiated the negotiations and it was only going to be a one to one swap of Brittney for Viktor Bout.

> The ambassador said he believed the Russians "had in mind a particular deal in this case, because Brittney Griner is such a celebrity, so popular in the United States — popular, I might add, among basketball fans and others in Russia. Brittney's case really dominated the discussion and the focus."

So the basic timeline here is that Brittney Griner had a contract to play basketball in Russia, Russia invaded Ukraine, the entire world sanctioned Russia, Brittney chose to travel to a sanctioned country (one well known for imprisoning US citizens) to play basketball, Brittney was imprisoned for a vape pen she forgot in her luggage, and finally Brittney was traded for an arms dealer with the nickname “The Merchant of Death” at a time when Russia is running out of arms so badly they’re trading with North Korea for munitions.

If it wasn’t the vape pen it would have been something else. Russia has wanted Viktor Bout back since he was arrested a decade ago. Once again, I’m extremely happy she’s no longer imprisoned in Russia, but she made a decision to go to Russia when almost any other rational person wouldn’t, and that decision directly led to her being used as leverage against the US Government.

I guess I get the feeling that she’s going to get the whole welcome home publicity circuit deal that Jessica Lynch got back in 2003, but I personally think she needs to just fade into obscurity and live her life. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what kind of attitude she has about all this, it’s not fair of me to judge her before she’s even finished debriefing with secret squirrel.

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TheCheeseDevil OP t1_izf65r7 wrote

I also have mixed feelings about this, but retired might be too casual of a way to describe Whelan's bad-conduct discharge.

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___zero__cool___ t1_izfl02e wrote

I was repeating the same wording used in the article I had been reading. It was a total mischaracterization of Whelan’s service record and discharge type. Thanks for correcting me on that.

Also homie would have had to really steal some shit to get booted out in 2008. That was when I was in, in the middle of the Iraq troop surge, then a year and a half later shit in Marjah popped off hard. They were waiving wild tats, prior convictions, all sorts of stuff that would get you laughed out of a recruiters office now.

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