Brittney Griner might not appear as the most sympathetic figure at first glance.  She is 6’9 with arms covered in tattoos and those who have followed her know she has had problems on and off the court.

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However none of that means anything as the 31-year old basketball star sits in a Russian jail following her conviction for cannabis possession.  She’s already spent six months there and was sentenced to nine years in prison last week by a judge who clearly was given a message from Russian President Vladimir Putin to hand down a harsh sentence.  Despite her pleas and apologies that she made a mistake by packing vape cartridges in her luggage there was no way Griner was going to walk and she is now a political pawn for Putin to play with.

Some might have a somewhat cold reaction to the WNBA star…after all the drug possession did violate Russian laws.  However if ever there was a case of the punishment not matching the crime this was it.  At most she should have been given credit for time served, banned from playing basketball in Russia again (she was caught at the airport as she entered the country to play for a local team) and fined.  However in Putin’s world this was a golden opportunity to strike a blow against the U.S. and make us as uncomfortable as possible knowing that the American public would demand action.

I do expect that sometime soon there will be a prisoner swap between the two countries and Griner will come home to reunite with her family.  But every day she remains in custody just outside of Moscow has to be a living hell and one she simply does not deserve. Nobody does!

 

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To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.

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