{"id":2723,"date":"2013-07-17T15:18:09","date_gmt":"2013-07-17T15:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=2723"},"modified":"2013-07-17T15:18:09","modified_gmt":"2013-07-17T15:18:09","slug":"boycott-olympics-get-a-grip-sen-graham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=2723","title":{"rendered":"Boycott Olympics? Get a grip, Sen. Graham"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wants to &#8220;punish&#8221; Russia by not allowing our Olympic athletes to venture to Sochi for next year&#8217;s Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, senator, that&#8217;ll teach &#8217;em to quit meddling in the affairs of the United States vs. Edward Snowden.<\/p>\n<p>Give me a break.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2013\/07\/16\/sen-graham-us-should-consider-boycotting-olympic-games\/\">http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2013\/07\/16\/sen-graham-us-should-consider-boycotting-olympic-games\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Russia is considering granting Snowden, the NSA leaker who&#8217;s on the lam from U.S. law enforcement, temporary asylum while Snowden shops around for a country that will take him permanently. So, to make some kind of point &#8212; God only knows what it is &#8212; Graham says the United States should deny its Winter Olympic athletes the chance to compete on behalf of their country.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe Graham doesn&#8217;t remember, but we tried that once already. In 1980, the then-Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. President Carter decided he would stick it in the Big Bear&#8217;s eye by boycotting the Moscow Summer Olympics. Several nations joined us to protest the Soviet invasion. The Games went on without us and they were, from what I understand, largely successful.<\/p>\n<p>Four years later, with the Summer Olympics set for Los Angeles, the Soviets decided to return the favor. They boycotted the LA Games, along with a smattering of their allies around the world. Guess what? The LA Olympics also took place and they, too, were <em>hugely<\/em> successful.<\/p>\n<p>Not a single thing was accomplished by either boycott.<\/p>\n<p>Nothing will be accomplished with any future boycott if Lindsey Graham has his way. Let&#8217;s get real and stop\u00a0threatening to use\u00a0our athletes as pawns in a geopolitical chess game.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wants to &#8220;punish&#8221; Russia by not allowing our Olympic athletes to venture to Sochi for next year&#8217;s Winter Olympics. Yeah, senator, that&#8217;ll teach &#8217;em to quit meddling in the affairs of the United States vs. Edward Snowden. Give me a break. http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2013\/07\/16\/sen-graham-us-should-consider-boycotting-olympic-games\/ Russia is considering granting Snowden, the NSA leaker who&#8217;s &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=2723\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Boycott Olympics? Get a grip, Sen. Graham<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}