Funny how more and more I find myself siding with the Russians. Me too. We live in a weird world. BTW, I did foresee this coming in a way. I asked in 1983 just for "s###s & giggles," "what if the US became the USSR and the USSR became the US? What if the US ever became the Evil Empire?" I was a 17 year old junior in high school, this was just after KAL-007 was shot down. I generally like want respect Putin. I'm not saying he is on our side nor should we cave in to him, but my admiration comes from where he is doing what is the best interests of Russia, at least the way it look to me. He has his warts and Russia is not exactly in freedom to where the US was but they are freer than we are now and have a flat tax system. I wish we had a leader or leaders who put the US interest first.
I have to agree with you. Who thought I'd be agreeing with Russia. Yes, it still does have some warts, but at least the people are getting freer than us... who knows, maybe in 15 years, Russuia will be the FREER of the 2.