Power Playin' Putin

In an election in which the results shocked no one, Vladimir Putin was elected to another six-year term as President of Russia, even though the scales were so heavily tipped in his favor that even Debbie Wasserman Schultz was appalled. 

Putin says he wants a constructive dialogue with the United States, which is a way that he wants Donald Trump to do what he says so no one gets hurt, and the former Manhattan real estate developer turned beauty pageant owner is happy to oblige.  Trump hasn't said one nasty thing about Putin, and that might be because Russian hackers have shown they can take the U.S. power grid down if they want to.  

Yes, this story was all over the news last week, and even though some folks want to write off as anything from Deep State paranoia to distraction from income inequality issues, I sort of think it's best to assume the worst.  Putin is someone who saw the Russian defeat in the Cold War as an embarrassment for the country, and he sees himself as restoring post-Soviet Russia to Soviet-era or even imperial-era greatness.  I see some troubling parallels between Putin and Adolf Hitler, and while Putin is not the monster that Hitler was, his path to power followed the same trajectory. Hitler believed Germany was embarrassed by its defeat in World War I, and after Germany's failed attempt at democracy - the Weimar Republic - he won power democratically and assumed dictatorial powers.  Substitute "Putin" for "Hitler," "Cold War" for "World War I," "Russia" for "Germany" and "Yeltsin-era Russia" for "Weimar Republic," and you see history repeating itself.  (Think of Boris Yeltsin as the Paul von Hindenburg of 1990s Russia.) 

The difference is that Putin is in more of a position to do damage to the U.S. than Hitler was - Hitler couldn't stop the World Series, we are reminded - because of computers running everything and the idea of Russians being able to access American power-grid computers and causing rolling blackouts . . . and maybe bringing a World Series tournament to a screeching halt. Who needs an invasion of a missile launch when you can deny millions of Americans access to Facebook?

Oh yeah, the snowfall projected in my area that was not supposed to be a big deal?  Update: big deal.  As much as a foot of snow - or even more! - could fall where I live.  With heavy wet snow and strong winds, that could mean a power failure, even though I've only had one blackout in every snowstorm between December and March that I've ever been through.  But what if my power does go out tomorrow?  How will I know it's the weather?

How will I know it's not the Russians?