I suppose it could mean that you should work hard to avoid corruption so that you can help identify and take down the corrupt. But it could also mean, "if you want to come after me, I'll imprison you for jay walking." Maybe something is lost in the translation. I'm sure it sounds nicer in Russian.
On December 31, 1999, Putin became the president of Russia. He liked it so much that he ran again in 2004 and was elected to a second term. When it came time to slide over and let someone else drive, Putin moved the steering wheel to the other side of the front seat and became prime minister. That was way too confusing for people, so he moved the steering wheel back in 2012 and became president for a third time.
I know what you’re thinking. That sounds a lot like FDR. Or maybe not. Maybe you’re thinking it sounds more like Joseph Stalin. Either way, pretty impressive company, no!
The whole ‘Putin is a dictator’ thing is a little bit unfair. By all accounts, he’s not a bad guy. He just has resting dictator face. To know the real Putin, is to know the outdoorsman. The guy who wanders around in the wilderness, half-clothed, posing for action shots. He’s a man of the people, and by people I mean the wealthy, aristocratic heads of Russian corporate monopolies.
Conservative estimates put his net worth around $40 billion, but there are reports circulating that he’s closer to $200 billion. By comparison, Bill Gates has around $84 billion. If he had Scrooge McDuck’s money bin, the volume of gold coins would be at or above the diving board level.
He’s a self-made man. He wasn’t given any money from his parents. He made his money the old-fashioned way: trading government favors for stakes in large corporations, then seizing private businesses that had grown too large, selling those business off to companies run by individuals loyal to him, thereby creating a system in which he gets a portion of nearly all of Russia’s state-controlled revenue. It’s the oldest story in the book!
This is all unconfirmed and very hush-hush, so I don’t want that to be a reason for you to distrust Mr. Putin. Let’s just say he’s super rich, no one seems to know how or why he has so much money and almost everyone is afraid to ask for fear of being jailed or murdered.
Okay, that last part was a little strong. Putin has had his enemies over the years, but so do most politicians. Sure, some of those enemies have been imprisoned and some have stopped breathing all together:
- Alexei Navalny convicted: The fates of Putin's enemies
- New Normal in Russia: Putin Critics Punished with Harsh Prison Terms
- More of Kremlin’s Opponents Are Ending Up Dead
- Russian journalist critical of Vladimir Putin found dead on his birthday with gunshot wound to his head
- The Curious Deaths of Kremlin Critics
A man like Putin is tough to figure out. What motivates this guy? What could a dominant world leader, with more money than anyone on the planet (allegedly), with a complete stranglehold on his own country’s government and media possibly want this Christmas? What do you get the guy who literally has everything?
Try not to laugh, but I think Putin just wants a friend. The poor guy is a mess. He’s spent the last decade and a half amassing an outrageous fortune, silencing anyone who would oppose him and struggling to keep the pesky global press from sticking its nose in Russia’s business. While Russian media has been effectively neutered, stories about Putin’s trouble with truth-telling have become common:
- World View: Putin Brags About How He Lied About Russia’s Invasion of Crimea
- It Is Not Easy to Counter Putin’s Barrage of Lies
- Vladimir Putin’s empire of lies
While it may seem like the biggest issue facing our country right now is the fact that Donald Trump is creating the most pro-Putin cabinet possible, the real problem is far worse than that. It’s not so much that Trump is pro-Putin. While that’s a big red flag, it was a big red flag Trump flew over his big orange head months before we elected him.
The problem is that more and more people don’t seem to care how bad Putin is. And they care even less about how bad he can get.
The evidence on the DNC hacking is clear. Even the most ridiculous of Trump surrogates are admitting that Russia’s, and Putin’s, involvement in trying to interfere in the election is obvious. The response now seems to be a collective, ‘so what?’
Well… so… Putin tried to undermine our political system… that’s what. And he succeeded. Would the outcome be different if the hacking never happened, probably not. But that is so far from the point that it’s bizarre even talking about it.
It’s like saying, “I went to the grocery store to buy some Lucky Charms, and the Loch Ness Monster was there, knocking shelves over and being a real jerk. I got the Lucky Charms, though, so… no bigs.” The normal response to that story would be, “Holy, crap! Who cares about the cereal! You saw freaking Nessy?”
We should have the same reaction about Russia trying to mess with our election. It doesn’t matter if they succeeded or failed. It only matters that they attempted it.
It's a little worrying that the conservative-right prefers to call anyone who talks about Putin's involvement in the hacking ‘cry-babies’ or ‘whiners’, rather than to speculate on Putin's actual role. How dare the libs question the will of the people by intimating that Russia could possibly have something to gain by having Trump in the White House?!?!
After all, the true villain has been vanquished, right? We’ve spent the last couple of years hearing how evil Hillary Clinton is and how any conservative, absolutely any conservative, would be better than her… and that apparently includes Putin:
What we’re left with is the hope that Trump’s administration will not use Putin’s Russian government as a blueprint for a new America. It's the hope that his pick for secretary of state won’t use a long weekend at one Trump's golf resorts to discuss Russia's partnership with ExxonMobil, only to casually mention that Putin should stop giving weapons to mass murderers like Bashar al-Asaad via a late-night text after they've closed down the bar on the last night.In new @YouGovUS poll, Republican voters view Vladimir Putin more favorably than any Democrat leader in the poll. https://t.co/fhnpbHS04D pic.twitter.com/kQhbrSdoMi— Steve Koczela (@skoczela) December 14, 2016
The hope is that priorities are based on what’s best for our country, not on what will move Trump closer to Putin's name on the top of the list of richest people in the world.
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