Posted on 04/09/2014 1:25:36 AM PDT by No One Special
In the space of just a few weeks, Vladimir Putin has destroyed his entire reputation in the Western world and all the foreign and domestic policies he has struggled for more than a decade to devise and implement. What can he possibly be thinking?
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Russia is governed by a madman, a raving nationalist with totalitarian designs, motivated by a fevered desire for revenge after his cold-war thrashing.
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Travin describes a system of state-controlled media, rigged elections, and a rubber-stamp parliament that is nothing less than a “new and improved” USSR, with Russian nationalism replacing Communism as the motivating ideological force. Physical repression is needed only to the extent that financial resources are not adequate to achieve control through corruption, and the regime is actively engaged in all-out “brainwashing” of the population, just as in Soviet times.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Putin camp: Kraft’s story ‘weird’
Updated: June 17, 2013, 1:43 PM ET
A spokesman for Vladimir Putin maintains that the Russian President received Robert Kraft’s Super Bowl ring in 2005 as a gift and said the New England Patriots’ owner’s claims that Putin took it without permission is “weird.”
Kraft, who was honored at Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala at the Waldorf-Astoria on Thursday, told the crowd at the event that Putin took his Super Bowl XXXIX ring when the Patriots’ owner visited St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2005, even though he released a statement at the time saying he gave the ring to Putin as a gift.
“I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’ “ Kraft told the crowd, according to the New York Post. “I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”
A spokesman for Putin, however, told CNN on Sunday that the ring was definitely given as a gift.
“What Mr. Kraft is saying now is weird,” Dmitry Peskov told CNN. “I was standing 20 centimeters away from him and Mr. Putin and saw and heard how Mr. Kraft gave this ring as a gift.”
Peskov told CNN that the ring now is at the Kremlin’s library.
A spokesman for the Kraft Group released a statement Sunday, clarifying Kraft’s remarks, noting that Sandy Weill, who is the board of trustees chairman of Carnegie Hall, introduced Kraft on Thursday night and was with the Patriots owner on the trip to Russia in 2005.
“It’s a humorous, anecdotal story that Robert re-tells for laughs. He loves that his ring is at the Kremlin and, as he stated back in 2005, he continues to have great respect for Russia and the leadership of President Putin,” the statement said. “In particular, he credits President Putin for modernizing the Russian economy. An added benefit from the attention this story gathered eight years ago was the creation of some Patriots fan clubs in Russia.
“On Thursday night, Kraft told the crowd that he really wanted the 4.94-carat bauble back, admitting he’d gotten a call from the George W. Bush-run White House, saying, ‘It would really be in the best interest of United States-Soviet relations if you meant to give the ring as a present.’ “
This wasn’t the first time the story surfaced, as Kraft’s late wife, Myra, said in 2007 that the ring wasn’t intended to be a gift.
I hate the cheating Patriots so I’m going with Putin’s version of events.
Agreed but Putin can do something about it.
That’s too far out. The left wants Christians exterminated. Putin just wants to be be recognized as the most powerful man alive.
I’m much more worried about Barack Obama, his lovely wife and Valerie Jarrett. I doubt that Vladimir consciously wants to kill me.
Besides, the thread was just a writers opinion.
Maybe he got tired of waiting for President Obama to be "more flexible" after the election.
I apologize, i meant to reply to original post/article.
A military training exercise in international airspace is hardly something to wet the bed about.
Pretty difficult responding to someone whose post contains a threat. Furthermore, it is not good form here to quote long passages from a site that is on our copyright list. American Thinker requires no more than 300 words of excerpted prose. You may want to call abuse on yourself and have the mods delete your post. As for your view of Americans, we do not hate Russians. We hate what your government did during the 20th Century. I have few heros but one of them is a Russian, Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I hope for the best for the Russian people. I hope that they can find it within themselves to get new leaders because the one they have now has sown the wind and he will reap the whirlwind for the Russian people.
The liberation of private property is no vice; we can just call it spontaneous socialism. Kewl?
No, she calls them as she sees them and has the courage of her convictions.
Probably just confused but potentially very nice dunderheads if they extract themselves from their ideology.
Maybe he’s beginning to believe his own press clippings.
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Pretty difficult responding to someone whose post contains a threat
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A threat? Where?
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Furthermore, it is not good form here to quote long passages from a site that is on our copyright list
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Thank you, i will remember that.
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As for your view of Americans, we do not hate Russians.
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I never stated that you did. My entire response was to author of an article. With people like him, we do not need anti-US propaganda at all.
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We hate what your government did during the 20th Century.
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I’ll be silent here, i am suprised enough that local moderator actually let me comment through.
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I hope for the best for the Russian people.
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As do i.
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hope that they can find it within themselves to get new leaders because the one they have now has sown the wind and he will reap the whirlwind for the Russian people.
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We already ripped the whirlwind - when a traitor and drunk puppet was installed at our helm.
We paid dearly for that. And we paid enough. No more.
If i may, i will response in english, since i do not think that responding in russian will be a polite thing to do.
I disagree with most of the article. I will not post the reply here, though, since i already annoyed local moderators enough.
But if you need to ignore nuclear capable bombers set towards America, just to avoid filling your panties, then very good for you.
A military training exercise in international airspace is hardly something to wet the bed about.btw, the proper Trolling comment would be:
...is hardly something to wet yourself about.Wetting the bed makes no sense other than you projecting your personal issue. Trolls are all kinds of messed-up, LoL!
The threat is contained in the last few sentences of your post and it was that you would whip up anti-american sentiment amongst your friends if anyone else wrote something comparing Putin with Hitler.
As to the moderaters, I am certain that they would have no problem with an honest, heart-felt response to my comment that Americans (and myself in particular) hate what the Soviet Government did during the 20th century. Note that I am specifically not blaming you or your countrymen. Here in America we look at the people and the governemnt as two very different and naturally opposed entities. The people are sovereign. No kings here.
By the way, I did not contact the moderators and I have never contacted the modertors about another poster in all the time I have been a Freeper. I have only contacted them to delete a post of my own or correct a mistake I have made. To do this, I use the “report abuse” link. I try to govern myself within the confines of the framework of Free Republic which, come to think of it, is sort of the way our Constitution was designed to make our governement work. We are a sovereign and self-ruling people. These are the characteristics that makes us exceptional, meaning not better, but different from all other people. This was the gift our founders gave to us. The gift of trust. The gift that we the people in the end woulld know best how to run our nation.
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