#FreeBrittney

Welcome back to the Bill Bradley Collective, where this week your hosts examine WNBA star Brittney Griner’s ongoing detention in Russia following a dubious arrest on drug charges earlier this year. Griner is one of the faces of the WNBA: a perennial all-league performer, Olympic gold medalist and historic collegiate standout at Baylor. As is the case for many of her peers, financial inequities force Griner to ply her trade overseas during the WNBA offseason. When she arrived in Russia on February 17 to rejoin her team, UMMC Ekaterinburg of the Russian Premier League, Griner was detained on charges of possessing vaporizer cartridges containing weed oil. Three months later, Griner remains in detention awaiting trial. Your panel seek to unpack and reckon with the complicated circumstances of her situation. Griner’s unique position as an American celebrity in Russia amidst aggressive Western sanctions resulting from the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and her probable characterization as a hostage; the integrity of a Russian media report claiming a potential exchange of Griner for a high profile imprisoned arms dealer; the efficacy of the American response: that of the public, the State Department and the White House; and expectations for resolution flesh out the conversation. While our collective hope is that of a swift return home for Brittney Griner, the forecast is not quite so optimistic. But first a rant or three, as Zak vets CT gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski’s summit with Pete Ricketts and the conflicting virtue signaling of the GOP hopeful’s abortion position; Ed details how disaster can result from the mundane with a look at a seemingly innocuous security fraud case where two far-right judges rendered a decision calling into question government’s right to enforce its own regulations; finally Andrew recaps the week in golf outside the ropes, where Jack Nicklaus met cancel culture and golf course architecture met MAGA Twitter-outrage.