Every citizen of a democratic country, who is still inside Russia at this point, is a potential hostage and bargaining chip for the Russian government. There’s no independent press or judiciary in Russia and the Russian government has no morals and few scruples. If they need a hostage, they’ll take one.
Griner (a basket ball player convicted to 25y in prison for petty charges) was exchanged for Viktor Bout (the person on whom the movie Lord of War was based).
The Russian laws are also a minefield of post truths and petty rules, so it’s not hard to find some kind of charge against any individual. Basically everyone will be breaking the law in some way in Russia and the crooks in the Russian government can decide when and where to go after someone.
Thank you. It’s so disappointing that people still give Russia the benefit of doubt. And thereby the people in the US and Europe who want to turn our countries into post-fact dystopias.
Yeah at this point if you’re still there, there should be no bargaining for you if/when this happens. So fucking stupid to give that country any benefit of the doubt.
Saw an interview with some Americans living in Moscow and all I could think was “Jaysus lads, you must have been dropped on your head as a baby a few times to still be there at this point”.
Like I’m sure day to day it’s fine, but you’re instantly a bargaining chip if Putin wants one.
So much freedom
But have you seen the grocery store carts?
Dude lived in DC and never once grabbed a shopping cart from the local Aldi. I assume his private chef took care of all the shopping.
It doesn’t matter if he did or not, because for his audience no facts exist anyhow.
Just to clarify… does America not have shopping carts you unlock with coins?
Yes the US absolutely does have them at some chains. Also a lot of stores have tech where the wheels lock up if you try to leave the parking lot with the cart. There’s various versions of them, including this one.
In the EU the coin lock carts are basically standard everywhere I’ve been.
Tucker’s bullshit wasn’t aimed at people that would know that. It was ridiculous propaganda for the sorts of dumb fucking Americans who never leave their bubble, yet spend all their time making wild assumptions about the outside world.
Yeah, Aldi and Lidl do. But it’s arguably a thing they brought over from Europe. Most other retailers and grocers don’t do it.
That said, Tucker has lived in towns with Aldi stores, but that guy is a sentient boat shoe. I can’t imagine he shops for himself at the local Aldi.
Citation needed for “sentient”. He could be remote controlled by Putin.
We do at aldi, and have indoor cart escalators too. Not everywhere, mind you.
And IMHO, that Russian one is the lame kind. The better ones have a separate track for carts. Target use those a lot, and they allow the people side to flow with less obstruction.
No idea, they are very common where I live (not US)
The ones where I live have some sort of range signal where the wheels stop if you go too far away. If you leave the parking lot, all the wheels lock up. It’s probably simple to disable but I haven’t bothered to go there with a flipper zero and sort out how to steal them since I already own a pretty sweet wagon.
As someone mentioned, I’ve only seen em at Aldi. Some dollar stores keep the carts inside with a pole ro prevent them exiting the store. I’ve mostly lived up and down the east coast (plus some young years in St Vincent and the Grenadines), plus visited a few big cities like Chicago, LA, Vegas. Aside from Aldi, I haven’t seen locked up shopping carts, even at places that have basically a second locked down section of the store for life necessary items like diapers, detergent, etc.
I’m only posting this to answer the question though, as the only thing I care about locked down carts is that I almost never carry quarters (mostly pay card, not cash, and for tolls I have a Peachpass).
In Europe many stores hand out coin-sized plastic tokens that unlock the cart. You still want to get your token back at the end of a shopping trip, though, and take the cart back to the cart queue (which I assume is the real purpose of the coin lock things).
What would the US have done if an Iranian immigrant had donated money to the war effort of the insurgency during the Iraq and Afghan wars? Serious question. Would they get arrested? Is that some sort of crime? hmm…
I don’t think bothsiding or cultural relativism applies here. Funding terrorism is illegal and unethical. This woman was funding the opposite.
Ahh yes, the insurgency, those horrible terrorists fighting against a military that fabricated evidence to invade their countries. Just like how Ukraine is controlled by Nazis.
They can buy a HIMARS with that $50 /s
Closed accounts, denied transactions and investigations – Muslims face banking bias like no other faith group in the US. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/4/4/banking-as-an-american-muslim-its-a-horror
Banks accused of closing accounts belonging to British Muslims https://iric.org/banks-accused-of-closing-accounts-belonging-to-british-muslims/
Nothing would have happened.
Nah, now that I have been reading for a while all sorts of things would happen. Tracking them and their entire family, coworkers, friends, etc. Stopping them from interfacing with financial institutions, incarceration without charges, etc.
lol, okay, source?
So far, largely reading leaked documents after searching for Terry Albury, who I came across from making a number of more general searches like “Is it illegal for US citizen to donate to enemy combatants”, which it is. A number of different pieces of legislation makes it so in a multitude of ways. Things like US 18 4001a (2000), the trading with the enemies acts of 1917, The National Defense Act PL 112-18, and more that I haven’t gotten to yet.
Laws aren’t important unless they are enforced. So again I say, nothing will happen. Provide an answer example of a similar situation where a person gave $51 to the taliban or isis and went to jail with no other charges.
I’ll wait…
This is a valid question since the US government, congress and other US entities have done terrible things to its citizens: Witch hunts against left leaning people, muslims, ecologists, and many more.
Hope they got another Lord of War type figure to bail her out
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The White House has said it is seeking information after Russia announced it had arrested a dual US-Russian citizen on treason charges, accusing her of collecting funds for Ukrainian organisations and openly opposing the Russian war in Ukraine.
Russia’s state financial monitoring agency added the US senator Lindsey Graham to a database of terrorists and extremists on Tuesday, probably for his criticism of the war in Ukraine.
Khavana’s arrest occurred shortly before President Putin confirmed there were backroom talks with the US to negotiate a prisoner exchange, including the jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
The FSB said in a statement: “Since February 2022, [Khavana] has been proactively collecting funds in the interests of one of the Ukrainian organisations, which were subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine items, equipment, weapons and ammunition by the armed forces of Ukraine.
Gershkovich, who has been held in Moscow’s Lefortovo jail for nearly a year, appeared in court on Tuesday, where a judge extended his pre-trial custody for another two months.
Putin compared Gershkovich to Vadim Krasikov, an FSB hitman who was handed a life sentence in Germany for the assassination of Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin, when asked about the case by the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in an interview the Russian president said had a “lack of sharp questions”.
The original article contains 628 words, the summary contains 222 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Too bad she’s not a black, lesbian basketball player! She’s be home by now!
