March 31, 2026 • 59 mins
The Russian government may soon pass an unusual law giving any former Russian president legal immunity -- not only from any crimes committed while in office, but for any acts before or after their presidency, as well. This lifetime immunity proposal has international spectators scratching their heads in confusion... and diving into conspiracy. Tune in to learn more in this week's oddly prescient Classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pillow conspiracy Realist. We are returning to you with a
(00:03):
classic episode we recorded in December of twenty twenty. It's
about one of our pal Dylan's favorite guys, Daddy vladd
Vladimir p you know I love him, PJS.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
On the Horse, No shirts Man, Masters of the Universe,
Ninja Turtles abs on that guy.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
So we are talking about the current leader of Russia
of Vladimir Putin. You know him, you know him. He
has back in twenty twenty, we had a huge gallows
guffaw of laughter when we learned that the Russian government
was going to pass an unusual law giving quote any
(00:51):
former or current Russian president a legal immunity for everything,
just whomever that be.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
WHOA, That's a superpower if I've ever heard one. It
does remind me of this Supreme Court case what was
it called Trump v. United States from twenty twenty four,
something about official acts have immunity, but unofficial acts No, no, no,
those do not have immunity.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, because we're not Russia, and again you know, yeah, right.
We spend a lot of time in this classic episode,
if I recall correctly, emphasizing that the letter of the
Russian law doesn't mention Daddy V by name. It just
says whomever they might be, and anybody who is president
(01:43):
of Russia. Should you know, it's like tagging base.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Mm hmm for lifetime.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
That's pretty great, man.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I wish we could get that. Can we get can
we get that?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
But what would you do with it?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I don't know, Like, are you asking me to pitch
off the top of the head. I would never pay
my library fees.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Again, it's really good.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I'm just saying, why would you need that kind of power?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
You gotta be up to some stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Just in case, you just so you have it just
in case.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Okay, okay, okay, you don't need to use it.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
But in case parking in Moscow is crazy. I try
to make a better world for the Russian people, but
I keep getting hit with these parking fees.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Columbia houses lawyers will never get me. Now, that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
But got too deep with ordering CDs from Columbia.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
It's only a couple of rules at a time, and
then you just.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Next thing, you know, all right, We're gonna roll the tape.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Seth Nicholas, the Shadow Johnson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
It's good to be.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
King, as Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker said, it's also
terrible for your health because heavy weighs the head that
wears the crown. And the thing about being a very
important person in the world of politics or governance is
that often, well historically speaking, retirement can be a really
(03:53):
risky endeavor. You know, I know that we've got a
lot of folks in the audience today who have either
been in a career that doesn't often that doesn't always
end peacefully, or know someone who has been in a
very dangerous job. You know what I mean there. It's
it's almost hilarious that there's not a you know how,
(04:18):
you know how Discovery Channel used to have that Dangerous
Jobs show and they look at ice road truckers and
lobster fisheries and stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I think so I more remember the dirty jobs one,
but I think I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I was considering those as well. I was thinking, like
the person that has to clean out the septic tanks.
But that's dangerous too, you could drown and poop.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
That's true. Yeah, in their entire like social caste systems
that like curse people to have to do that work
because everyone hates it. Well, dangerous jobs. To me, it's
funny that there's not an episode of how dangerous it
is to be ahead of state as a job. Like
it's a it's a really dangerous thing, regardless of whether
(05:00):
you agree with or disagree with the given person in power.
And today's show is a follow up on a strange
news segment we did earlier. We have to work this
in somewhere, so let's just say it at the top,
booting on the ritz.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Boo, no the ritz. Well, you know, it's a really
great pointment that you make. And we've talked about this
a little bit before, the concept that a lot of countries,
within their constitutions, within the laws of their land, they
protect standing government officials, specifically those who would be in
an executive position, the ones who have to sign the
(05:38):
thing at the end, who decide this is where our
troops are going to go, or this is you know,
the thing that is potentially a war crime internationally speaking
or humanitarily speaking. The countries will protect that person by
saying they are immune to prosecution for those types of
crimes while they're in office, while they're hanging out still
(05:59):
making decisions. And today's episode is about how long should
those protections really last?
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, and how deep should they go?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
I mean, what about forever? And really deep?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And it makes sense to have that kind of limited immunity,
not just for the international stuff. This is important point. Like,
imagine you're the president or prime minister of a country
and someone is adversely affected by a policy that you
put into law, right, and so.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
If you did not.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Have immunity, then it is possible that someone who was
say who lost the loved one or had a debilitating
injury due to what they see as your healthcare policy,
it would be possible for them to sue you for
some kind of criminal act. Maybe, but you can't do it.
And honestly, you shouldn't be able to do that because
it would make it impossible for people at the executive
(06:54):
level to do their job. Today's episode is about, as
you said, how far, how far could this actually go?
Here are the facts recent news from Russia. In case
you missed our Strange news segment earlier in November, some
very very strange reports hit the press. The Russian government is,
(07:17):
as we record today, considering a bill that would grant
all ex presidents of Russia lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution
for anything, not just stuff they did while they were
in office, for anything like they do afterwards under current law,
(07:37):
like many other countries, Russian presidents. I keep saying Russian
presidents because it's written like, it's not written for this
one guy.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Right, it's just too though, right.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
There are two.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
You're right.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Under Russian law currently, these presidents cannot be held liable
for crimes they committed, as you said, Matt, while serving
their terms. But this new proposal is very different.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, and there's a senator that we may be referring
to a few times in this episode, and forgive me
for brutalizing it, Senator Andre Clichos Clisius Clichesos.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I think it's pronounced clidus. Really, I know I'm kidding.
I don't have no idea. Okay, I think you're doing
a fine job. Okay, it strikes me.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
As a bit of a klidus.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Well, yeah, this is this person is the co chair
of the Federation Council's Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building. Yeah, hey,
it feels good. Feels good. This is the parliamentary working
group that created this whole concept, this proposal that would
become a law if the bill is signed. You know,
(08:47):
you remember the the song. It's just a bill right now,
it's only a bill. It's going to Duma hill, I guess.
But this is the co chair of the group that
created this bill. And this is a quote from Andre Clisius.
This expands the time frame of immunity guarantees for a
(09:09):
president who stops exercising their powers. I mean, it's just
right there on the page, right It's just it's exactly
what it is. This is, as soon as the president
is done, they are still immune from getting in trouble
administratively or legally for all the things they've done.
Speaker 6 (09:27):
No take back seats for anything, really anything really like, well,
could you go go in the middle of Times Square
and shoot somebody for example.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
So there is a mechanism to make this seem a
little bit less dystopian, and that mechanism is the following.
If again, some Russian president, any Russian president, if that,
if any Russian president happens to be a used of
(10:01):
some felonies, mainly high treason, then the Russian Parliament can vote.
If both sides of Russia, the lower and the upper
part of the Russian Parliament agree, they can they can
vote on whether to remove this immunity, and if they
(10:21):
get a two thirds vote in favor, then they can
remove the immunity and prosecute for that specific set of crimes.
But like if you're if you if your thing is
as next president is just like shoplifting, you're golden. Nobody's
(10:42):
going to do anything. As a matter of fact, why
would you even bother paying for stuff?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And I don't want to jump too far ahead here, guys,
but this concept that you would need two thirds of
a majority of the parliament to agree that yes, we
need to prosecute or we need to remove immunity for this,
you would need two thirds of that parliament to not
support said president, whoever this president might be in the future,
(11:08):
and you know, as we know right now, the Parliament
of Russia supports the current president, the one who's been
around well, I don't know how many twenty twenty years
in power.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Roughly presidents giver taking nine two thousand.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Give or take a four year stint where he was
slightly not president.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Right, A great way to describe it. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
There's also something else, So just for the record, on
the pro side here, a guy named Pavel Krashinenakov is
one of the bill's authors. Also, he says that the
aim is to give again any body who happens to
have been president of Russia guarantees that are important for
(11:53):
the stability of the state and society. But think about
this two thirds vote. Okay, here's why this was such
an excellent question. Who are the people voting? Some of
them are going to be senators. And about a week
before this wild ass immunity bill comes into play, President
(12:15):
Vladimir Putin submitted another bill that allows presidents to appoint
senators for life and also makes it super easy for it. Again,
just any ex president of Russia, just in general, just
whomever you think of when you think of that term.
Allows those individuals to automatically hold lifetime Senate seats. Yeah,
(12:39):
pretty neat, pretty way to like pree Pack, you.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Know, and isn't I mean like a Russia has an
interesting system of government in that they have quite a
few registered parties. There's the United Russia Party, Communist Party,
Liberal Democratic Party, Adjust Russia Party, Rodina, and the Civic
Platform Party.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
But of those, Putin's United.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Russia Party has by far the most amount of power.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Which makes sense. I mean, that's that's probably the party
where you have the lowest odds of accidentally running into
polonium or something, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yeah, it seems the KGB off your back if you're
for uniting Russia.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Right, And just to clarify, they have three hundred and
thirty five seats of the four hundred and fifty in
the state Duma.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Wow, yeah, that's huge. So here's the thing. When we
say senators, it's roughly analogous to what you might think
of when you think of a senator and say the
United States. But it's a little bit different because, as
you said, NOL, it doesn't have the it doesn't have
the same you know, functional duopoly that we have here
(13:54):
in the US with Democrats and Republicans. You know, our
system has been purposely designed by those parties to repress
third party candidates, and it's not the same deal. In Russia. Also,
senators representatives of the Russian Federation are appointed for six years,
(14:14):
or the president can just appoint them for life by
saying it happens. I think it's almost like an executive order.
If a bill like this passed in the US, then
the president of the US, whomever they were at the time,
could just decide to make someone a senator, you know
what I mean, what's it like at the top. The
(14:35):
president of Russia under this new bill can do this,
and it's a presidential prerogative, not a duty, so it
means that they don't have to do it, but they
can also do it whenever they want. Seven times they
baked in a number, which makes me wonder what the
calculation is, right, was it like, Okay, first off, I
(14:58):
should be immune forever unless there's I don't know, treason
or something, and then two thirds of the Senate has
to vote for that. Also, by the way, I can
make seven people lifetime senators and myself.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Hey, we got eight eight of us hanging out in
the Senate is very very odd.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
This is the kind of laughter you get when I'm
just intensely uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
None of this is funny at all. This is all.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Very scary and clearly something that certain individuals would love
to see happen, you know, in this neck of those.
I think we've perhaps stemmed the tide of that a
little bit, but gosh, knowing what's possible, right, I mean,
this level of power goes a long way.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Well, there are some requirements like this is We're already
in crazy territory in my opinion, but it does get crazier,
So there are some there are some constraints or restrictions
on who can become a lifetime senator, as you might imagine,
dear conspirac realist. Uh, the four of us are out
(16:03):
of the game, like the four of us on the
show today, cannot be cannot be lifetime Russian senators. You
have to The main thing that you need to prove
to get one of these sort of rubber stamp positions
is that you have never lived somewhere else and you've
never associated with another country. So it gives you a
(16:26):
sense where the priorities.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Are hmm, and little inward facing that's okay.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, sure takes a lot. You know, it takes a village.
So for comparison, this is also not a total wild hair.
In Italy, there's a similar system. All former presidents are
given the title of senator for life. But just so
we know, that's the thing about this is this immunity
(16:53):
bill is occurring in a context that isn't being explored
fully in a lot of other outlets. So if we
go back to this new proposal, it tells us a
couple of interesting things we have to ask ourselves about
presidents and crime, because you know, we've been talking about
this a little bit, just a few minutes ago. But
(17:13):
proponents of this bill say, look, we're not doing anything weird.
This is how the world works. Maybe we're just getting
victimized by a propaganda spin because some people don't like
Russia and that's unfair. It's true to a degree, this
bill is in line with international norms. But and it's
(17:37):
all for the reasons we discussed. You know, you can't,
we don't. People won't be able to do their job
as president or prime minister or whatever if they are
bound by the law. As weird as that sounds, on
that personal level. But this lifetime immunity is way different.
If Labmir Putin for some reason is quits the presidency
(18:01):
or loses the twenty twenty four election and becomes ex
president or a senator and decides to get really into
one of our favorite crimes, stamp fraud, then there's nothing
to be done. Uh, he can just make all the stamps.
But this is the weirdest part of this. This is
the thing that people weren't talking about a lot in
the news. The immunity. When we say it works outside
(18:26):
of your time in office, that timeline goes both ways.
So think about this. If this passes, then just any
Russian president is immune from prosecution for stuff they did
before they were ever president. And we're talking about a
former KGB agent.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Exactly, somebody who is getting his hands dirty well before
he got that seat of power. Hmmm hm hmmmm.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Man, Wait, you don't mean Putin himself, do you?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Has yeah been doing shady things like for a long
time prior don't track.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
He has everyone the king of the shade, fake news,
fake news. We have always been at war with East Asia.
We I've always loved the dear leader. But think about that,
that kind of uh, get out of jail forever card legally.
It's really impressive. I imagine you were immune from everything you
(19:32):
have ever done. Ever, that's a sweet gig if you
can get it.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You know what this will allow Putin to do. Though,
because of all this, you can't get in trouble for anything.
He is going to set up full UFO Extraterrestrial disclosure amazing.
He can't get in trouble for any of it, for
hiding it, for stealing the tech, for murdering all of
those grays. He's just gonna come out and be like,
(19:58):
guess what, everybody, I'm a center now. And e T
is real.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yes, he's also adorable or arguably terrifying.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
But there's another there's another implication here, Matt.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Think about how much dirt that dude has on like everybody,
like people from other countries like think, you know, he
holds the keys to the kingdom. Man like he could
either just like dox all these people, or like blackmail.
I mean, he could already do that obviously, but now
he can do it with utter abandon you know, and
not even have to cover it up. I mean it's
(20:32):
just you know, because I mean he's never gonna leave Russia.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
It's obviously you apply. This doesn't apply.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Diplomatically certainly, right, this is only like within Russia and
their laws.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yeah, well there.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
The thing is, when you get into the international sphere,
there are the International Criminal Court is notoriously backlogged, and
also a lot it's not recognized by a lot of countries.
The US, for instance, does it recognize the ICC. And
one country can say, look, our guys have diplomatic immunity forever,
(21:07):
and another country can say, no, that we know what
you did. And the end result in practice often often
becomes just a matter of where people can or cannot travel.
Like Dick Cheney probably has countries he cannot visit, you know,
And if you're a president of any country, then you
(21:28):
have to be really careful where you go forever. It
doesn't matter who you are.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
But Dick Cheney was never like convicted of war crimes.
I mean it was bandied about, but there's nothing on
paper that like charges him as being a war criminal,
even though we all know he is.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, for a time there was a rumor that they
that he and former President George W. Bush could not
travel to Europe due to the threat of arrest. However,
it looks like.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
It.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It looks like that's not the case, at least there's
not an act of warrant out. But these situations do
occur and have occurred in the past. So it's a
real concern for Vladimir Putin. But if he stays safe
in Russia, he just has to worry about domestic enemies,
you know, or some actor with the means to reach
(22:20):
him on his home turf, which is very difficult because
for if you are if you are under about fifty
years old, then for the majority of your life, this
has been one of the most powerful people in the world,
full stop. Maybe Jijinping right now is I think he
(22:40):
would be number one right now, but then Putin would
be number two. So it's weird the reaction when we
talk about this. We're talking about now right now. The
big question is, and there's a point you made me
think of Matt The big question is this guy's been
in power for so long. Why is he just doing
it now? He had decades and decay aids and decades.
(23:01):
One of his opponents, a guy named Alexi Novelny, said
on Twitter, he said, why does Putin need an immunity law.
Now can dictators step down of their own free will?
And this is the billion ruble question. I love Matt
that you said a time when he was less president
(23:21):
or whatever. So when he is slightly not president from
two thousand and eight to twenty twelve, and ally and
a long time associate of his named Dmitri Medvedev the
only other living ex Russian president, he serves one term
as president. Putin, by the way, is Prime Minister from
(23:44):
two thousand and eight to twenty twelve. Now that is
a hustle I respect, because in twenty twelve he comes back.
He's president again. He's been president of Russia since twenty twelve.
His current term is set to expire in twenty twenty four,
but they're changing the constitution to make that, you know,
(24:04):
up for conversation. Let's just talk.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
About you guys. I feel so silly here. I could
have sworn they changed the presidential term limits from four
to six years, and that's why it goes from twenty
twelve to twenty twenty four. But it was still just
two terms. It's just he has more time than I
was reading a BBC article talking about six year terms.
(24:26):
Two more six year terms, which is just I guess
that changed at some point. I just don't have that.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, info, Yeah, two thousand and eight, it changed when
Medvedev was president. They said, Okay, by the way, just
like some Russian president in the future, we should probably
give them six years, you know, not me. Not me,
I'm not changing the law for myself. Interesting, right, So
(24:54):
this is still like without getting two in the weeds
on this. This is also occurring in the world of
a recent vote that occurred this summer that would allow
Vladimir Putin to extend his rule until twenty thirty six,
after his current presidency ends. So he may be around
for a long time, and he remains popular with a
(25:17):
big segment of the Russian public. Not all though, so
we have to ask ourselves some more questions. We're already
in crazy territory, but it's about to get even weirder.
So we'll be back, assuming we don't get poisoned after
work from our sponsor, and we'll dive deeper into this
murky story.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
And we're back ready to swim in some pretty sinister waters. Gosh,
where to even pick up there's so much to unpack here.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Well, I just want to jump really quickly to talk
a little bit more about the concept that fladmir Putin
may may, because of this recent vote, be able to
continue being president for another twelve years. So I think
it was I think it was March when I was
seeing a lot of reporting on that subject and then
about like possibly doing a reset essentially for anyone who
(26:16):
was going to any again, anyone who's going to run
for president in Russia. They were going to reset everybody
back to zero, like as in, Okay, no terms have
occurred for anyone in the history of Russia right now
as of this point. Now, anyone can run for two
terms as president. But it's the weirdest thing because he's
(26:40):
it's he's the only person affected by this besides Medvedev,
and it was just kind of just passed and or
has it passed. I think it's passed.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yeah, that went passed.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
So that's just the situation. He can just decide to
run for president again if he wants to.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
It's like in the I just I keep harping on this,
but it's so gut bustingly hilarious to me that they're
writing these laws as though they are not specifically applicable
to one, dude. It's like if we were writing a
law and I had said, you know what, I think
anybody who happens to be wearing red and black flannel shirt,
(27:22):
just like in general, they should have free lunch.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
But Ben, you know that's Putin's favorite shade. You know
that's his favorite pattern.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
You know that Ben is really hungry right now.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, I just ordered some full disclosure, guys, I just
ordered some tay food that's going to come to my
door as soon as we wrap this episode.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
But while we're recording.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
What, Yeah, you guys were on a roll, I just
did I have I have the same I get the
same thing every time. I get the the the lemongrass,
Vermicelli and a pork bond me and a and.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
A Thie iced tea. But that's not the point, guys.
The point is this, Uh.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I think it's genius the way the calculus with which
Putin operates, because he he he's clearly somewhat concerned with
the like patina of legitimacy, Like he doesn't want to
just like slam down his iron fists and say I
am President for life. He goes through it in seemingly
(28:19):
you know, legal ways, and by you know, rewriting laws
and passing new laws that clearly, to your point, Ben
benefit himself.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
But he does it like through the appropriate channels kind of.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
I think it's kind of brilliant the way he clearly
is a brilliant politician.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh, I love it. The guys, the inside of the
guy's mind must be like a cathedral, you know, so
filled with chess pieces, filled with chess pieces, and plans,
lots of plans. So, as we said, this means that
not only would he not be legally liable for anything
before rafter he was president, he'd also be completely fine
(29:01):
with that period between two thousand and eight twenty twelve
when he was prime minister or you know whatever. So
now the speculation for some people this bill is seen
as a sign that he is getting an insurance policy
kind of that he's preparing to leave the post of
(29:21):
the presidency as soon as early next year. But that's
still all speculation. But we know he might still want
to be involved in the country's politics. Why else would
he do this automatic lifetime senator thing. But is there
more to the story, Almost certainly. And the thing is,
when we ask about this flurry of legislation, things become
(29:44):
very very murky, very very quickly. Here's where it gets crazy,
As if it wasn't already crazy, I know. Yeah, that's
what I'm saying. It's so we're entering the land of
wild speculation. None of the things we are discussing from
this point on, the real crazy stuff, none of it's
been officially confirmed, but it is fascinating. The first one,
(30:08):
the medical concerns, which is an entire like an ongoing
kind of genre of speculation of which I was largely unaware.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
A British paper, The Sun, cited a Russian professor by
the name of Valerie Solovae, who is a political pundit,
who had suggested on a Moscow radio station that Putin
was being pressured to step down from his first time
not in a while entourage due to his health, a
(30:41):
failing health. Specifically, there was the implication that Putin might
have Parkinson's disease and be preparing to evacuate his post
because of this.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
The Sun, which.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Isn't isn't this sound a little bit of like a
like a daily mail?
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, yeah, so they're you know, not the most trustworthy
of sources.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
But we continue.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
The son also quoted a twenty fifteen study from the
Department of Neurology at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands,
which highlighted perceived signs of Putin's walk, his gait, the
way he moved, indicating Parkinson's. This is sort of like
you know, a virtual a visual diagnosis, right, which we
(31:27):
know that's problematic. The researchers pointed out that the sixty eight,
by the way year old Putin he looks FANTASTICO yuy ripped.
I can't hate remember those pictures of him riding shirtless
on a horse that was like not that long ago.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Well, you know, just a pause here, he's sixty eight
years old. Just really compare that to the way current
President Trump looks. Compare compare Leder Putin to the way
even you know, the common President Joe Biden looks at
seventy is are they both seventies seventy ish? I know
they're in their seventies, and this guy is only a
(32:03):
few years younger, and he looks still like he's, yeah,
I don't know, like a man of action that could
go out on the field somewhere and take care of
business Joe Biden.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
He is seventy eight years old, by the way, seventy wait,
actually you know what, No, he's not. He's seventy. Yeah,
he is. He's seventy eight now as of today, November twentieth,
as we were today, is isbel wow.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
So he will be starting to sidetrack with the oldest
president that's correct in history, Putin. I have a theory
about why Putin looks so good because the man don't
give up. He doesn't need to and hasn't for a
very very long time.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I would say he gives a great many but they
may not be that other people give.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
What I'm saying is he is he is bulletproof. He
is so like he waves his hand and things happen.
He's not worried, you know, That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I think worry is what makes you old, and you know,
criticism and being you know, like but Russian media.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
He's so in control of everything that he does and
of his country that I just don't think.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
I think he's impervious to that stuff. Just a theory
I think anyway.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
I think he also has a team of like you know,
there's a The MCU transformation Marvel Cinematic Universe transformation is
famous for making people like ripped and in really good health.
And that's why, you know, you see a lot of
well to do people are going to be in better
shape often not all the time, not all the time,
(33:37):
but wealthy people are often going to be in better
shape because of the access they have not just a
medical care, but to personal trainers and expertise. Putin has
just applied himself and used that personal discipline as well
as probably an army of people monitoring his physical health,
(33:58):
you know what I mean. It's not like he is
cutting out time and meetings himself to do a couple uh,
what's a silly exercise plank. It's not like he's like, okay,
let's pause the call, I can go to plank for
my help, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
They know they always find Putin planking various parts of
the Kremlin, and.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
He's just like on a bookshelf, you know, like that
episode of the Office.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
But but but back back to the study. They they
called this thing that he had this particular style of
walking or what have you. They looked they pointed to
that as a as a symptom of potentially it's Parkinson's.
But very quickly it came out that this could be.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
I love that you found this or I don't know
if you knew about this already. A gun slinger's walk
with I think we can all picture what that is,
you know, with a kind of a wide stance, and
you got your hands pinned down to your sides, you know,
to keep your guns close to you in case, you know,
to whip them out real quick and getting into a
firefight in a saloon or something. But yeah, that's that
is a thing that KGB agents are trained to do,
(34:59):
to keep their weapons tightly pinned to their left hand side.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And his left arm wasn't moving when he.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Was Yeah, that's all. So, Yeah, it was either he's
lost some mobility in that left arm, or he's just ready.
He's got Yeah, he's strapped, he's got he's got some
kind of future weapon there just waiting in case he
needs it.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, that's that's the idea. And you know, of course
we're not we're not in any way mocking serious medical conditions.
It's just this is the kind of speculation that happens
when a person lives their life in a black box.
There's a ton of stuff we do not know about
this guy. And when I say we, I mean like
other intelligence agencies don't know some stuff about him. The
(35:41):
Kremlin responded to this speculation, and they were pretty explicit.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskoff said, this is absolute nonsense. Everything
is fine with the president. He's in excellent health, et cetera.
And to be fair, the guy we mentioned, the Professor Solive,
may not be the best source. He's one of those
(36:04):
he's a pundit, he's a political commentator. But he said
weird stuff in the past, and he's also been wrong
in the past.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Yeah, he said he was a part of some Illuminati
type thing, right, this is the guy that's him.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, a powerful secret organization. He also said there would
be no Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine in
twenty fifteen. That was wrong, and in twenty sixteen he
said Prutin's going to be leaving office very soon. History
has shown that was also incorrect, depending on how you
define very soon.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Just be here, wow, before we jump off the Parkinson thing,
and just want to give a nod to Michael J.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Fox.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I don't know if anybody else saw this, but he
he's officially ending his career by his own choice because he,
you know, of complications to the disease. And you know
it isn't we talked about this all the time.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Is not.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
We're certainly not trying to make light of that in
any way. We've already stated that in this episode. But
just a shout out to him for being awesome.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah, he's There's a great MPR interview with him that
I would recommend if anybody wants to check out his
reasoning behind it, as well as some of the philanthropic
work that he is doing and planning to focus on
in the future post acting career.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
And I just I do want to point on too
that he was in a great episode of Curb Your
Enthusiasm where he you know, sort of makes light of
his condition and in a very like owning it way,
which I appreciate it, you know, like it becomes a
plot point in the show, like in typical Curb fashion.
But I thought it was interesting that he, you know,
used a real life condition and obviously a very difficult
(37:46):
thing to be going through and made it into something
that could make people, you know, smile.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
And he said multiple He's done that with multiple media
appearances or appearances on other shows, you know, playing himself
on air and acknowledging this. So going back to so
we went to we ended up in Michael J.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
Fox.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
But we're talking about possible medical scares for the president
of Russia. There's a less dire possibility. Could Vladimir Putin,
after decades as one of the world's most powerful people,
just want to kick back, you know what I mean,
like prop up his feet by the shores of the
(38:29):
Baltic and live the good life. You know, does he
just want to buy the farm? Maybe because he is older,
he is sixty eight years old. But as you could imagine,
he has a lot of enemies, both foreign and domestic,
and unless he had protections in place, he could become
a huge target. He will become a huge target for activists,
(38:51):
for opposition parties, other oligarchs that he is waged hidden
war on in the past, or even think about this.
Prosecutors who are just corrupt, who don't care what the
what the actual crimes are. They just want to shake
down this guy. It's an enormously dangerous gamble, but potentially
(39:12):
it could be a gold mine because do you know
how wealthy Vladimir Putin is? The answer is no, unless
you're Vladmir Putin. This guy has so much money and
has so much control over so many different things that
no one knows how much cash he actually has, Like
(39:34):
we don't know his wealth is dot dot dot question
mark and you can see some you can see some
stats that gather, like the estimates. You'll see someone saying
that he's worth two hundred billion dollars, someone saying that
conservatively it's more like seventy billion. It's tough. There's one
(40:00):
quote that I think was really weird. A Russian banker
who is now living in exile called Sergey Pugachev one
time said that quote, any attempt to calculate Putin's net
worth won't succeed. He is the richest person in the
world until he leaves power.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
It's wild. Yeah, it really is wild.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Maybe it's just that concept of in many ways, when
you're the head of a state, you kind of had
to have unlimited power to print money. Yeah, that's odd though,
but it's not just the money, right, I mean, uh,
power comes in many forms and yeah, even you know,
(40:41):
well you've probably heard of this before. Forbes magazine, or
was once just Forbes magazine, but Forbes the entity it
in twenty eighteen considered Vladimir Putin to be one of
the most most powerful people on the planet. There were
the top two, right, Xi Jinping? Who is I think general?
(41:04):
Is the title General Secretary. I forget the exact title
that he holds, but I think it's essentially big Dog,
big Dog of China. That was the number one, and
then Vladimir Putin was number two on.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
The list General Secretary. Sorry, I feel.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Bad, okay, General secretary, big Dog, thinking of you guys.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Remember those T shirts, like the big Dog T shirts?
Oh yeah, there were no fear with the cartoon.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah, the cartoon women with the large breasts. That was
something else. That was big Bubba or big j Johnson
Johnson Excuse me.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
I thought that was brilliant. How what insight, what incisive
commentary I had wearing those shirts.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
It was a golden dime for novelty T shirt.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
It was we need more novelty T shirts. Check out
our tea public store. So you're right, power, How is
it defined? It is a mul thi dimensional thing, right,
and it exists in many different spheres. But some things
remain true regardless of the times. You know, we opened
(42:11):
with some statements about kings heavy as the head and
so on. There's another statement about kings, which is this,
if you shoot at the King, don't miss. You know
what I mean, Not to be too eminem or Hamilton
about it. It's a one shot situation.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yes, for sure, don't aim in the king and miss,
or you will find polonium or maybe just you know,
some other kind of pesticide in your water. I'm gonna
drink this. Let's go to a break. We'll be right back,
and we're back.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
We have not mysteriously fallen out of any third story windows,
which is pretty cool. It's good to see everybody. And
we have to talk about danger. There's another aspect. What
if the current president of Russia is somehow afraid. You
don't have to be a weatherman to know which way
the wind blows, so what if the what if he
(43:10):
feels an ill wind on the way. There's a guy
who's a professor at the Center for Russian and Central
Asian and East European Studies at Jowaharlal Nehru University. His
name is Sanjay Kumar Pandi. And this, and Pande studies
this stuff all the time. He initially was ignoring rumors
(43:35):
about medical concerns, not because he thought it was just
some anti Russian spin, but because he thought Putin himself
had planted this fake news to gauge public reaction and
see if he had supporters. But when he saw this
new legislation coming in, he said, Okay, we can't just
(43:56):
call this by conspiracy. Something is deaf wrong, something is
rotten in Moscow. We just don't know what. So he
thinks maybe Putin is afraid of losing the next election
in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah, well, and and this is good. Some we're going
to talk about the details of this. I just before
we get into it too deeply, I just want to
point out that the BBC, in a couple other places
that in the West have been reporting on the effect
that the coronavirus and COVID nineteen have had on leaders
across the world, and this situation has certainly negatively affected
(44:33):
the public view of Vladimir Putin within Russia. And it again,
this is this is West reporting, So who knows if
you know how much truth there is to that, But
it does seem like approval ratings are down. It's I
think it's the he's got the lowest approval rating right
now that he's had in his entire career as a politician.
(44:58):
So just let's make sure that is sitting there in
our knowledge before we jump in to Sanjay Kumar Pandi's ideas.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, yeah, and he thinks that's a very good point
because COVID has affected everything. So Pandy also thinks that
seeing the situation Belaruss may have affected Putin's calculus. He said,
you know, to paraphrase, he's like, look at the demonstrations
that Lukashinko, the dictator of bella Us, was facing. He
(45:30):
knows that if he tried to put in this law
like in twenty twenty four, in election year, then there
would be a lot of criticism, a lot of protesting,
which means a lot of government crackdowns. So he's maybe
trying to just get in front of this and do
(45:50):
it in advance. The opposition leaders, one of whom would
be Gannedy Gutkov, say that Putin probably already agreed to leave,
like behind the scenes, and this is you know, this
is building the parachute before you jump out of the plane.
And this guy also says, to your point, Matt, something interesting.
(46:10):
He said, Putin has been behaving strangely since the beginning
of the pandemic, and he's become much worse at speaking.
And to sew this up, as we mentioned before when
we were talking about this on a Strange News segment,
these things do not occur in a vacuum. These bills
became public knowledge while there was an incredibly divisive US election,
(46:31):
and you have to wonder whether the possibility of a
different US administration might have in some way pushed Putin
to pull the trigger.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
Now absolutely, and combine that with these COVID restrictions where
in Russia I think currently and as these bills are
being talked about in passed through through their parliament or
the Duma, they citizens can't gather in large numbers to
(47:01):
protest any of this because of the restrictions. Like how
crazy is that it doesn't matter if you support food
or not or the current government. There's nothing you could
do about it to show I mean, even anyway, there's
a that's there's a lot to unpack there, but I
think that's another piece of the strategy.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
Very smart, astute man, I like it. You may have
you may well be in the running to be the
next Russian president with a with a sharp mind like that.
We just have to just have to get over the
fact that you're from the US.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Well, just get there's some you know, forge a couple
of documents will be fun.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
You do a pretty pretty sweet Russian accent. If I'm
not mistaken, I I don't know what that is bad
taking to someone else.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
That's method. He doesn't do characters in accents. He becomes yes,
so so yeah, you're right, that's that's a really good point.
There's an other thing that popped up that I think
maybe a little Pepe Sylvia to connect these, but they
occurred around the same time, which is that Edward Snowden
(48:09):
received permanent Russian citizenship. He's been living there since twenty thirteen.
Initially he was granted asylum. He fled the United States
after leaking information on US intelligence agencies just incredibly insidious
and successful methods of electronic surveillance and how they were
(48:30):
eavesdropping on everybody, including other countries, and breaking several laws.
In October, just last month, as we record this, he
was given permanent Russian residency and recently this month, he
announced plans for he and his spouse to apply for
full Russian citizenship. So he's not leaving well.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
And it's really interesting because Snowden himself, like the whistleblower
and activists, now, he was playing chess right like, there's
no doubt he was making moves there, and you have
to think that eventually he figured he was just gonna
make this move to stay in Russia and to get
citizenship essentially. But you also have to wonder if like
(49:16):
Russia itself in Vladimir Putin, who again has been in
power since since all of that has begun to occur.
In what was it twenty thirteen, we said, like, is
he is snowed in a chess piece that is being
played by Russia right by keeping him there? And like
(49:36):
what other information? Did he really release all the information?
There's so much speculation to be to be done there,
and it is speculation, have like, have no doubt, but
it is fascinating to think about.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, and there's there's another consideration of what. Look, we're
we're saying some offhand things, but we are referring to
true events when we talk about poison and so on.
There is no secret that the Putin administration has made
a name for itself based on some pretty brutal, classic
(50:11):
Cold War power moves. We're talking about poisoning journalists and dissidents,
rigging elections, putting your opponents just in jail for the
heck of it, shutting down the media. The list goes
on and on and on, and then cracking down on
oligarchs even if you used to get along with them,
if they don't toe the line, like one of my
(50:32):
favorite examples. Feels weird to call this a favorite example,
but there is proof. There is hard evidence of Vladimir
Putin's personal involvement in the assassination of his leading opponent
in twenty fifteen, former deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov. It's
(50:54):
we can't I guess I can't say it's conclusively proven
because it hasn't gone to court, But various institutions, including
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, have witness
testimony saying yeah, I know when and where and how
Putin gave the order for that assassination. Like we can
(51:15):
give you the quote A Russia ignored it. He's literally
known for doing this assassination. Zero consequences. But that, to me,
all that means is that whatever the real motivation for
this new legislation, this legal conspiracy might be the problem.
(51:36):
Whatever it is is something that cannot be solved by poison.
This time. Courts are not perfect. But unlike journalists, they
are immune to polonium.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Well, I don't know when has anyone tested it yet?
The entire court gets polonium, So get on.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, we're always sunny an episode, So right now, the
story is ongoing, but we can tell you a little
bit about where we're at currently. These proposals, this immune
from anything forever, rush your shoulders off if you're a
Russian president law. It hasn't passed yet.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, but I don't know that given his track record,
I don't really see any particularly insurmountable roadblocks, do you,
fellas well?
Speaker 3 (52:24):
Well, it's really all all that has to happen is
the lower House of Parliament has to approve right, right,
and and then there are two other votes that have
to occur. It has to go I think it's the
upper House, and then reviewed again and then sitting by
the man himself, right, yeah, goes to his office and
(52:44):
he's like, hey, this sounds like a great idea, came
up with.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
This brilliant But again, those houses of the legislature you're
talking about, those are all his people.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
Well it's not all of them, but certainly the majority.
Speaker 4 (52:57):
Right well, right, I don't see it not passing.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
And what a power move. I am now, superman. You know,
you cannot touch me as much as he was that
already before. And it's something that I'm sure our current
sitting president is keenly interested in, but alas I do
not feel that we have the mechanisms to do such
a thing here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, it's incredibly sensitive in the US. Any talk of
changing the term limits on the presidency is a political
no go right.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Now, for sure. Pay But adding people to the Supreme Court,
let's do it anyway. Everything's fine, Everything's okay, Ring Grace, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (53:47):
Have our country has nine ring rates and they're in
charge of everything, and you can't elect them, and they're
here forever. It's just that's the best way to explain
the Supreme Court to people outside of the US.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Like other ring raiths, other kinder, gentler ring raiths potentially right.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
Or more evil ring raiths, you know what I mean.
Because either way it's true.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
I love that idea of just like, let's just increase
the number of ring Raiths.
Speaker 1 (54:21):
That sounds let's expand the franchise. You guys, you know
what I mean? What about what about Duke of the
Rings or Lord of the Bracelets? You know, get at us?
So yeah, you're you're right, and you know you're bringing
up a really good point there, Noel, it's it's it's
(54:43):
nearly it's absurd, right, It's absurd to have the idea
of this guy signing a bill going, oh what who
came up with this? You guys, you shouldn't have Well,
it goes twist my arm. That's bizarre, and that's maybe
not the way government sho work. Right as we were
going in, we talked about this little off air. Right
(55:04):
as we were going in, we learned that a couple
days ago putin and sparked even more speculation about his health.
There was a televised meeting about coronavirus with some top officials.
It's like an hour and a half meeting, and he
had a coughing fit. And that's totally understandable. People cough,
people fart, people sneeze, whatever they're people and the thing
(55:28):
that they massively I think dropped the ball on is
they when they re aired the video on the evening
news or later iterations, someone had edited the coughing out
of the video, but everyone had already seen it. So
take it from us, folks.
Speaker 3 (55:45):
If you want to start.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
A conspiracy theory, editing a video in an obvious way
is a fantastic first step.
Speaker 4 (55:55):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
They didn't even edit out Giuliani's makeup mishap. You know,
we got to give him credit where that's due.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
Makeup or blow.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
Yeah, you know, I was gonna say, or in Russia
and in Putin's case, you could just edit you know,
photographs of people or just completely take them out of
historical photographs.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
And photoshop still never never gives Stalin the shout out
he deserves from that photoshop, right, Photoshop, I guess you know,
shouting out Stalin is probably kind of a tone deaf
move a little bit.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Stalin is like the top person credited in the Like
dev team credits Photoshop about me, you know section.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
So right now, as we mentioned, Putin is younger than
people may imagine, and he certainly looks younger than he is.
He's sixty eight years old, he has no publicly endorsed
successor to his presidency. They're protest multiple Russian cities. As
you said, Matt, his numbers in the polls are plummeting.
(57:03):
His party is losing some local elections. Even the loyalists
in his crew are starting to say, well, what's next?
Can we do Putinism without Vladimir Putin? And if we
could look inside the cathedral of this man's mind, what
does he see in the future. Is this a setup
for peaceful transition to power, a reaction to something else,
(57:25):
a hidden medical condition, or is this as the Kremlin said, fine.
Speaker 3 (57:31):
So fine, all is fine? Uh I M yeah, Just
we want to know what you think. We know what
we think, and we've you know, we've talked about a
lot of it today, but we we certainly want to
know where your head is out, especially if you are
listening to this. Are you listening to this somewhere in Asia,
in that region or like, we'd love to just hear
(57:54):
what people are thinking and not have it filtered through
the BBC or you know, some other Western outlet as
we're getting information, So please please please find us on
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(58:14):
us on YouTube. It's YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
You can see some of these podcasts and chats on
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Jimbase and such and if you if you don't want
to do that, you can always give us a call.
Speaker 4 (58:33):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (58:33):
You can reach us at one eight three three st
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Speaker 3 (58:46):
What Ben's face was incredible when you can set an
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Speaker 1 (58:52):
It's just I'm just speaking that face. I appreciate it,
but my my throat's crazy.
Speaker 4 (58:56):
No no COVID, but oh good.
Speaker 2 (58:59):
You can tell us the storyorry about whatever you know,
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It is conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Pillow conspiracy Realist. We are returning to you with a
(00:03):
classic episode we recorded in December of twenty twenty. It's
about one of our pal Dylan's favorite guys, Daddy vladd
Vladimir p you know I love him, PJS.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
On the Horse, No shirts Man, Masters of the Universe,
Ninja Turtles abs on that guy.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
So we are talking about the current leader of Russia
of Vladimir Putin. You know him, you know him. He
has back in twenty twenty, we had a huge gallows
guffaw of laughter when we learned that the Russian government
was going to pass an unusual law giving quote any
(00:51):
former or current Russian president a legal immunity for everything,
just whomever that be.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
WHOA, That's a superpower if I've ever heard one. It
does remind me of this Supreme Court case what was
it called Trump v. United States from twenty twenty four,
something about official acts have immunity, but unofficial acts No, no, no,
those do not have immunity.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, because we're not Russia, and again you know, yeah, right.
We spend a lot of time in this classic episode,
if I recall correctly, emphasizing that the letter of the
Russian law doesn't mention Daddy V by name. It just
says whomever they might be, and anybody who is president
(01:43):
of Russia. Should you know, it's like tagging base.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Mm hmm for lifetime.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
That's pretty great, man.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I wish we could get that. Can we get can
we get that?
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
But what would you do with it?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I don't know, Like, are you asking me to pitch
off the top of the head. I would never pay
my library fees.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Again, it's really good.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I'm just saying, why would you need that kind of power?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Right?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
You gotta be up to some stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
Just in case, you just so you have it just
in case.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Okay, okay, okay, you don't need to use it.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
But in case parking in Moscow is crazy. I try
to make a better world for the Russian people, but
I keep getting hit with these parking fees.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Columbia houses lawyers will never get me. Now, that's what happened.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
But got too deep with ordering CDs from Columbia.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
It's only a couple of rules at a time, and
then you just.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Next thing, you know, all right, We're gonna roll the tape.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Seth Nicholas, the Shadow Johnson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
It's good to be.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
King, as Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker said, it's also
terrible for your health because heavy weighs the head that
wears the crown. And the thing about being a very
important person in the world of politics or governance is
that often, well historically speaking, retirement can be a really
(03:53):
risky endeavor. You know, I know that we've got a
lot of folks in the audience today who have either
been in a career that doesn't often that doesn't always
end peacefully, or know someone who has been in a
very dangerous job. You know what I mean there. It's
it's almost hilarious that there's not a you know how,
(04:18):
you know how Discovery Channel used to have that Dangerous
Jobs show and they look at ice road truckers and
lobster fisheries and stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I think so I more remember the dirty jobs one,
but I think I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I was considering those as well. I was thinking, like
the person that has to clean out the septic tanks.
But that's dangerous too, you could drown and poop.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
That's true. Yeah, in their entire like social caste systems
that like curse people to have to do that work
because everyone hates it. Well, dangerous jobs. To me, it's
funny that there's not an episode of how dangerous it
is to be ahead of state as a job. Like
it's a it's a really dangerous thing, regardless of whether
(05:00):
you agree with or disagree with the given person in power.
And today's show is a follow up on a strange
news segment we did earlier. We have to work this
in somewhere, so let's just say it at the top,
booting on the ritz.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Boo, no the ritz. Well, you know, it's a really
great pointment that you make. And we've talked about this
a little bit before, the concept that a lot of countries,
within their constitutions, within the laws of their land, they
protect standing government officials, specifically those who would be in
an executive position, the ones who have to sign the
(05:38):
thing at the end, who decide this is where our
troops are going to go, or this is you know,
the thing that is potentially a war crime internationally speaking
or humanitarily speaking. The countries will protect that person by
saying they are immune to prosecution for those types of
crimes while they're in office, while they're hanging out still
(05:59):
making decisions. And today's episode is about how long should
those protections really last?
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yeah, and how deep should they go?
Speaker 4 (06:09):
I mean, what about forever? And really deep?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And it makes sense to have that kind of limited immunity,
not just for the international stuff. This is important point. Like,
imagine you're the president or prime minister of a country
and someone is adversely affected by a policy that you
put into law, right, and so.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
If you did not.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Have immunity, then it is possible that someone who was
say who lost the loved one or had a debilitating
injury due to what they see as your healthcare policy,
it would be possible for them to sue you for
some kind of criminal act. Maybe, but you can't do it.
And honestly, you shouldn't be able to do that because
it would make it impossible for people at the executive
(06:54):
level to do their job. Today's episode is about, as
you said, how far, how far could this actually go?
Here are the facts recent news from Russia. In case
you missed our Strange news segment earlier in November, some
very very strange reports hit the press. The Russian government is,
(07:17):
as we record today, considering a bill that would grant
all ex presidents of Russia lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution
for anything, not just stuff they did while they were
in office, for anything like they do afterwards under current law,
(07:37):
like many other countries, Russian presidents. I keep saying Russian
presidents because it's written like, it's not written for this
one guy.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
Right, it's just too though, right.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
There are two.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
You're right.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Under Russian law currently, these presidents cannot be held liable
for crimes they committed, as you said, Matt, while serving
their terms. But this new proposal is very different.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, and there's a senator that we may be referring
to a few times in this episode, and forgive me
for brutalizing it, Senator Andre Clichos Clisius Clichesos.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I think it's pronounced clidus. Really, I know I'm kidding.
I don't have no idea. Okay, I think you're doing
a fine job. Okay, it strikes me.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
As a bit of a klidus.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Well, yeah, this is this person is the co chair
of the Federation Council's Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building. Yeah, hey,
it feels good. Feels good. This is the parliamentary working
group that created this whole concept, this proposal that would
become a law if the bill is signed. You know,
(08:47):
you remember the the song. It's just a bill right now,
it's only a bill. It's going to Duma hill, I guess.
But this is the co chair of the group that
created this bill. And this is a quote from Andre Clisius.
This expands the time frame of immunity guarantees for a
(09:09):
president who stops exercising their powers. I mean, it's just
right there on the page, right It's just it's exactly
what it is. This is, as soon as the president
is done, they are still immune from getting in trouble
administratively or legally for all the things they've done.
Speaker 6 (09:27):
No take back seats for anything, really anything really like, well,
could you go go in the middle of Times Square
and shoot somebody for example.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
So there is a mechanism to make this seem a
little bit less dystopian, and that mechanism is the following.
If again, some Russian president, any Russian president, if that,
if any Russian president happens to be a used of
(10:01):
some felonies, mainly high treason, then the Russian Parliament can vote.
If both sides of Russia, the lower and the upper
part of the Russian Parliament agree, they can they can
vote on whether to remove this immunity, and if they
(10:21):
get a two thirds vote in favor, then they can
remove the immunity and prosecute for that specific set of crimes.
But like if you're if you if your thing is
as next president is just like shoplifting, you're golden. Nobody's
(10:42):
going to do anything. As a matter of fact, why
would you even bother paying for stuff?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And I don't want to jump too far ahead here, guys,
but this concept that you would need two thirds of
a majority of the parliament to agree that yes, we
need to prosecute or we need to remove immunity for this,
you would need two thirds of that parliament to not
support said president, whoever this president might be in the future,
(11:08):
and you know, as we know right now, the Parliament
of Russia supports the current president, the one who's been
around well, I don't know how many twenty twenty years
in power.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Roughly presidents giver taking nine two thousand.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Give or take a four year stint where he was
slightly not president.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Right, A great way to describe it. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
There's also something else, So just for the record, on
the pro side here, a guy named Pavel Krashinenakov is
one of the bill's authors. Also, he says that the
aim is to give again any body who happens to
have been president of Russia guarantees that are important for
(11:53):
the stability of the state and society. But think about
this two thirds vote. Okay, here's why this was such
an excellent question. Who are the people voting? Some of
them are going to be senators. And about a week
before this wild ass immunity bill comes into play, President
(12:15):
Vladimir Putin submitted another bill that allows presidents to appoint
senators for life and also makes it super easy for it. Again,
just any ex president of Russia, just in general, just
whomever you think of when you think of that term.
Allows those individuals to automatically hold lifetime Senate seats. Yeah,
(12:39):
pretty neat, pretty way to like pree Pack, you.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Know, and isn't I mean like a Russia has an
interesting system of government in that they have quite a
few registered parties. There's the United Russia Party, Communist Party,
Liberal Democratic Party, Adjust Russia Party, Rodina, and the Civic
Platform Party.
Speaker 4 (12:59):
But of those, Putin's United.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Russia Party has by far the most amount of power.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Which makes sense. I mean, that's that's probably the party
where you have the lowest odds of accidentally running into
polonium or something, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yeah, it seems the KGB off your back if you're
for uniting Russia.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Right, And just to clarify, they have three hundred and
thirty five seats of the four hundred and fifty in
the state Duma.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Wow, yeah, that's huge. So here's the thing. When we
say senators, it's roughly analogous to what you might think
of when you think of a senator and say the
United States. But it's a little bit different because, as
you said, NOL, it doesn't have the it doesn't have
the same you know, functional duopoly that we have here
(13:54):
in the US with Democrats and Republicans. You know, our
system has been purposely designed by those parties to repress
third party candidates, and it's not the same deal. In Russia. Also,
senators representatives of the Russian Federation are appointed for six years,
(14:14):
or the president can just appoint them for life by
saying it happens. I think it's almost like an executive order.
If a bill like this passed in the US, then
the president of the US, whomever they were at the time,
could just decide to make someone a senator, you know
what I mean, what's it like at the top. The
(14:35):
president of Russia under this new bill can do this,
and it's a presidential prerogative, not a duty, so it
means that they don't have to do it, but they
can also do it whenever they want. Seven times they
baked in a number, which makes me wonder what the
calculation is, right, was it like, Okay, first off, I
(14:58):
should be immune forever unless there's I don't know, treason
or something, and then two thirds of the Senate has
to vote for that. Also, by the way, I can
make seven people lifetime senators and myself.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Hey, we got eight eight of us hanging out in
the Senate is very very odd.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
This is the kind of laughter you get when I'm
just intensely uncomfortable.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
None of this is funny at all. This is all.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Very scary and clearly something that certain individuals would love
to see happen, you know, in this neck of those.
I think we've perhaps stemmed the tide of that a
little bit, but gosh, knowing what's possible, right, I mean,
this level of power goes a long way.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Well, there are some requirements like this is We're already
in crazy territory in my opinion, but it does get crazier,
So there are some there are some constraints or restrictions
on who can become a lifetime senator, as you might imagine,
dear conspirac realist. Uh, the four of us are out
(16:03):
of the game, like the four of us on the
show today, cannot be cannot be lifetime Russian senators. You
have to The main thing that you need to prove
to get one of these sort of rubber stamp positions
is that you have never lived somewhere else and you've
never associated with another country. So it gives you a
(16:26):
sense where the priorities.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Are hmm, and little inward facing that's okay.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah, sure takes a lot. You know, it takes a village.
So for comparison, this is also not a total wild hair.
In Italy, there's a similar system. All former presidents are
given the title of senator for life. But just so
we know, that's the thing about this is this immunity
(16:53):
bill is occurring in a context that isn't being explored
fully in a lot of other outlets. So if we
go back to this new proposal, it tells us a
couple of interesting things we have to ask ourselves about
presidents and crime, because you know, we've been talking about
this a little bit, just a few minutes ago. But
(17:13):
proponents of this bill say, look, we're not doing anything weird.
This is how the world works. Maybe we're just getting
victimized by a propaganda spin because some people don't like
Russia and that's unfair. It's true to a degree, this
bill is in line with international norms. But and it's
(17:37):
all for the reasons we discussed. You know, you can't,
we don't. People won't be able to do their job
as president or prime minister or whatever if they are
bound by the law. As weird as that sounds, on
that personal level. But this lifetime immunity is way different.
If Labmir Putin for some reason is quits the presidency
(18:01):
or loses the twenty twenty four election and becomes ex
president or a senator and decides to get really into
one of our favorite crimes, stamp fraud, then there's nothing
to be done. Uh, he can just make all the stamps.
But this is the weirdest part of this. This is
the thing that people weren't talking about a lot in
the news. The immunity. When we say it works outside
(18:26):
of your time in office, that timeline goes both ways.
So think about this. If this passes, then just any
Russian president is immune from prosecution for stuff they did
before they were ever president. And we're talking about a
former KGB agent.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Exactly, somebody who is getting his hands dirty well before
he got that seat of power. Hmmm hm hmmmm.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Man, Wait, you don't mean Putin himself, do you?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Has yeah been doing shady things like for a long
time prior don't track.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
He has everyone the king of the shade, fake news,
fake news. We have always been at war with East Asia.
We I've always loved the dear leader. But think about that,
that kind of uh, get out of jail forever card legally.
It's really impressive. I imagine you were immune from everything you
(19:32):
have ever done. Ever, that's a sweet gig if you
can get it.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You know what this will allow Putin to do. Though,
because of all this, you can't get in trouble for anything.
He is going to set up full UFO Extraterrestrial disclosure amazing.
He can't get in trouble for any of it, for
hiding it, for stealing the tech, for murdering all of
those grays. He's just gonna come out and be like,
(19:58):
guess what, everybody, I'm a center now. And e T
is real.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Yes, he's also adorable or arguably terrifying.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
But there's another there's another implication here, Matt.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Think about how much dirt that dude has on like everybody,
like people from other countries like think, you know, he
holds the keys to the kingdom. Man like he could
either just like dox all these people, or like blackmail.
I mean, he could already do that obviously, but now
he can do it with utter abandon you know, and
not even have to cover it up. I mean it's
(20:32):
just you know, because I mean he's never gonna leave Russia.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
It's obviously you apply. This doesn't apply.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Diplomatically certainly, right, this is only like within Russia and
their laws.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yeah, well there.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
The thing is, when you get into the international sphere,
there are the International Criminal Court is notoriously backlogged, and
also a lot it's not recognized by a lot of countries.
The US, for instance, does it recognize the ICC. And
one country can say, look, our guys have diplomatic immunity forever,
(21:07):
and another country can say, no, that we know what
you did. And the end result in practice often often
becomes just a matter of where people can or cannot travel.
Like Dick Cheney probably has countries he cannot visit, you know,
And if you're a president of any country, then you
(21:28):
have to be really careful where you go forever. It
doesn't matter who you are.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
But Dick Cheney was never like convicted of war crimes.
I mean it was bandied about, but there's nothing on
paper that like charges him as being a war criminal,
even though we all know he is.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, for a time there was a rumor that they
that he and former President George W. Bush could not
travel to Europe due to the threat of arrest. However,
it looks like.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
It.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
It looks like that's not the case, at least there's
not an act of warrant out. But these situations do
occur and have occurred in the past. So it's a
real concern for Vladimir Putin. But if he stays safe
in Russia, he just has to worry about domestic enemies,
you know, or some actor with the means to reach
(22:20):
him on his home turf, which is very difficult because
for if you are if you are under about fifty
years old, then for the majority of your life, this
has been one of the most powerful people in the world,
full stop. Maybe Jijinping right now is I think he
(22:40):
would be number one right now, but then Putin would
be number two. So it's weird the reaction when we
talk about this. We're talking about now right now. The
big question is, and there's a point you made me
think of Matt The big question is this guy's been
in power for so long. Why is he just doing
it now? He had decades and decay aids and decades.
(23:01):
One of his opponents, a guy named Alexi Novelny, said
on Twitter, he said, why does Putin need an immunity law.
Now can dictators step down of their own free will?
And this is the billion ruble question. I love Matt
that you said a time when he was less president
(23:21):
or whatever. So when he is slightly not president from
two thousand and eight to twenty twelve, and ally and
a long time associate of his named Dmitri Medvedev the
only other living ex Russian president, he serves one term
as president. Putin, by the way, is Prime Minister from
(23:44):
two thousand and eight to twenty twelve. Now that is
a hustle I respect, because in twenty twelve he comes back.
He's president again. He's been president of Russia since twenty twelve.
His current term is set to expire in twenty twenty four,
but they're changing the constitution to make that, you know,
(24:04):
up for conversation. Let's just talk.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
About you guys. I feel so silly here. I could
have sworn they changed the presidential term limits from four
to six years, and that's why it goes from twenty
twelve to twenty twenty four. But it was still just
two terms. It's just he has more time than I
was reading a BBC article talking about six year terms.
(24:26):
Two more six year terms, which is just I guess
that changed at some point. I just don't have that.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, info, Yeah, two thousand and eight, it changed when
Medvedev was president. They said, Okay, by the way, just
like some Russian president in the future, we should probably
give them six years, you know, not me. Not me,
I'm not changing the law for myself. Interesting, right, So
(24:54):
this is still like without getting two in the weeds
on this. This is also occurring in the world of
a recent vote that occurred this summer that would allow
Vladimir Putin to extend his rule until twenty thirty six,
after his current presidency ends. So he may be around
for a long time, and he remains popular with a
(25:17):
big segment of the Russian public. Not all though, so
we have to ask ourselves some more questions. We're already
in crazy territory, but it's about to get even weirder.
So we'll be back, assuming we don't get poisoned after
work from our sponsor, and we'll dive deeper into this
murky story.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
And we're back ready to swim in some pretty sinister waters. Gosh,
where to even pick up there's so much to unpack here.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Well, I just want to jump really quickly to talk
a little bit more about the concept that fladmir Putin
may may, because of this recent vote, be able to
continue being president for another twelve years. So I think
it was I think it was March when I was
seeing a lot of reporting on that subject and then
about like possibly doing a reset essentially for anyone who
(26:16):
was going to any again, anyone who's going to run
for president in Russia. They were going to reset everybody
back to zero, like as in, Okay, no terms have
occurred for anyone in the history of Russia right now
as of this point. Now, anyone can run for two
terms as president. But it's the weirdest thing because he's
(26:40):
it's he's the only person affected by this besides Medvedev,
and it was just kind of just passed and or
has it passed. I think it's passed.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yeah, that went passed.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
So that's just the situation. He can just decide to
run for president again if he wants to.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
It's like in the I just I keep harping on this,
but it's so gut bustingly hilarious to me that they're
writing these laws as though they are not specifically applicable
to one, dude. It's like if we were writing a
law and I had said, you know what, I think
anybody who happens to be wearing red and black flannel shirt,
(27:22):
just like in general, they should have free lunch.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
But Ben, you know that's Putin's favorite shade. You know
that's his favorite pattern.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
You know that Ben is really hungry right now.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Yeah, I just ordered some full disclosure, guys, I just
ordered some tay food that's going to come to my
door as soon as we wrap this episode.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
But while we're recording.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
What, Yeah, you guys were on a roll, I just
did I have I have the same I get the
same thing every time. I get the the the lemongrass,
Vermicelli and a pork bond me and a and.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
A Thie iced tea. But that's not the point, guys.
The point is this, Uh.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
I think it's genius the way the calculus with which
Putin operates, because he he he's clearly somewhat concerned with
the like patina of legitimacy, Like he doesn't want to
just like slam down his iron fists and say I
am President for life. He goes through it in seemingly
(28:19):
you know, legal ways, and by you know, rewriting laws
and passing new laws that clearly, to your point, Ben
benefit himself.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
But he does it like through the appropriate channels kind of.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
I think it's kind of brilliant the way he clearly
is a brilliant politician.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Oh, I love it. The guys, the inside of the
guy's mind must be like a cathedral, you know, so
filled with chess pieces, filled with chess pieces, and plans,
lots of plans. So, as we said, this means that
not only would he not be legally liable for anything
before rafter he was president, he'd also be completely fine
(29:01):
with that period between two thousand and eight twenty twelve
when he was prime minister or you know whatever. So
now the speculation for some people this bill is seen
as a sign that he is getting an insurance policy
kind of that he's preparing to leave the post of
(29:21):
the presidency as soon as early next year. But that's
still all speculation. But we know he might still want
to be involved in the country's politics. Why else would
he do this automatic lifetime senator thing. But is there
more to the story, Almost certainly. And the thing is,
when we ask about this flurry of legislation, things become
(29:44):
very very murky, very very quickly. Here's where it gets crazy,
As if it wasn't already crazy, I know. Yeah, that's
what I'm saying. It's so we're entering the land of
wild speculation. None of the things we are discussing from
this point on, the real crazy stuff, none of it's
been officially confirmed, but it is fascinating. The first one,
(30:08):
the medical concerns, which is an entire like an ongoing
kind of genre of speculation of which I was largely unaware.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
A British paper, The Sun, cited a Russian professor by
the name of Valerie Solovae, who is a political pundit,
who had suggested on a Moscow radio station that Putin
was being pressured to step down from his first time
not in a while entourage due to his health, a
(30:41):
failing health. Specifically, there was the implication that Putin might
have Parkinson's disease and be preparing to evacuate his post
because of this.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
The Sun, which.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Isn't isn't this sound a little bit of like a
like a daily mail?
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah, yeah, so they're you know, not the most trustworthy
of sources.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
But we continue.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
The son also quoted a twenty fifteen study from the
Department of Neurology at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands,
which highlighted perceived signs of Putin's walk, his gait, the
way he moved, indicating Parkinson's. This is sort of like
you know, a virtual a visual diagnosis, right, which we
(31:27):
know that's problematic. The researchers pointed out that the sixty eight,
by the way year old Putin he looks FANTASTICO yuy ripped.
I can't hate remember those pictures of him riding shirtless
on a horse that was like not that long ago.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Well, you know, just a pause here, he's sixty eight
years old. Just really compare that to the way current
President Trump looks. Compare compare Leder Putin to the way
even you know, the common President Joe Biden looks at
seventy is are they both seventies seventy ish? I know
they're in their seventies, and this guy is only a
(32:03):
few years younger, and he looks still like he's, yeah,
I don't know, like a man of action that could
go out on the field somewhere and take care of
business Joe Biden.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
He is seventy eight years old, by the way, seventy wait,
actually you know what, No, he's not. He's seventy. Yeah,
he is. He's seventy eight now as of today, November twentieth,
as we were today, is isbel wow.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
So he will be starting to sidetrack with the oldest
president that's correct in history, Putin. I have a theory
about why Putin looks so good because the man don't
give up. He doesn't need to and hasn't for a
very very long time.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I would say he gives a great many but they
may not be that other people give.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
What I'm saying is he is he is bulletproof. He
is so like he waves his hand and things happen.
He's not worried, you know, That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I think worry is what makes you old, and you know,
criticism and being you know, like but Russian media.
Speaker 4 (33:07):
I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
He's so in control of everything that he does and
of his country that I just don't think.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
I think he's impervious to that stuff. Just a theory
I think anyway.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
I think he also has a team of like you know,
there's a The MCU transformation Marvel Cinematic Universe transformation is
famous for making people like ripped and in really good health.
And that's why, you know, you see a lot of
well to do people are going to be in better
shape often not all the time, not all the time,
(33:37):
but wealthy people are often going to be in better
shape because of the access they have not just a
medical care, but to personal trainers and expertise. Putin has
just applied himself and used that personal discipline as well
as probably an army of people monitoring his physical health,
(33:58):
you know what I mean. It's not like he is
cutting out time and meetings himself to do a couple uh,
what's a silly exercise plank. It's not like he's like, okay,
let's pause the call, I can go to plank for
my help, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
They know they always find Putin planking various parts of
the Kremlin, and.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
He's just like on a bookshelf, you know, like that
episode of the Office.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
But but but back back to the study. They they
called this thing that he had this particular style of
walking or what have you. They looked they pointed to
that as a as a symptom of potentially it's Parkinson's.
But very quickly it came out that this could be.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
I love that you found this or I don't know
if you knew about this already. A gun slinger's walk
with I think we can all picture what that is,
you know, with a kind of a wide stance, and
you got your hands pinned down to your sides, you know,
to keep your guns close to you in case, you know,
to whip them out real quick and getting into a
firefight in a saloon or something. But yeah, that's that
is a thing that KGB agents are trained to do,
(34:59):
to keep their weapons tightly pinned to their left hand side.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And his left arm wasn't moving when he.
Speaker 3 (35:05):
Was Yeah, that's all. So, Yeah, it was either he's
lost some mobility in that left arm, or he's just ready.
He's got Yeah, he's strapped, he's got he's got some
kind of future weapon there just waiting in case he
needs it.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, that's that's the idea. And you know, of course
we're not we're not in any way mocking serious medical conditions.
It's just this is the kind of speculation that happens
when a person lives their life in a black box.
There's a ton of stuff we do not know about
this guy. And when I say we, I mean like
other intelligence agencies don't know some stuff about him. The
(35:41):
Kremlin responded to this speculation, and they were pretty explicit.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskoff said, this is absolute nonsense. Everything
is fine with the president. He's in excellent health, et cetera.
And to be fair, the guy we mentioned, the Professor Solive,
may not be the best source. He's one of those
(36:04):
he's a pundit, he's a political commentator. But he said
weird stuff in the past, and he's also been wrong
in the past.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Yeah, he said he was a part of some Illuminati
type thing, right, this is the guy that's him.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, a powerful secret organization. He also said there would
be no Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine in
twenty fifteen. That was wrong, and in twenty sixteen he
said Prutin's going to be leaving office very soon. History
has shown that was also incorrect, depending on how you
define very soon.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Just be here, wow, before we jump off the Parkinson thing,
and just want to give a nod to Michael J.
Speaker 4 (36:45):
Fox.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I don't know if anybody else saw this, but he
he's officially ending his career by his own choice because he,
you know, of complications to the disease. And you know
it isn't we talked about this all the time.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Is not.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
We're certainly not trying to make light of that in
any way. We've already stated that in this episode. But
just a shout out to him for being awesome.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah, he's There's a great MPR interview with him that
I would recommend if anybody wants to check out his
reasoning behind it, as well as some of the philanthropic
work that he is doing and planning to focus on
in the future post acting career.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
And I just I do want to point on too
that he was in a great episode of Curb Your
Enthusiasm where he you know, sort of makes light of
his condition and in a very like owning it way,
which I appreciate it, you know, like it becomes a
plot point in the show, like in typical Curb fashion.
But I thought it was interesting that he, you know,
used a real life condition and obviously a very difficult
(37:46):
thing to be going through and made it into something
that could make people, you know, smile.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
And he said multiple He's done that with multiple media
appearances or appearances on other shows, you know, playing himself
on air and acknowledging this. So going back to so
we went to we ended up in Michael J.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
Fox.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
But we're talking about possible medical scares for the president
of Russia. There's a less dire possibility. Could Vladimir Putin,
after decades as one of the world's most powerful people,
just want to kick back, you know what I mean,
like prop up his feet by the shores of the
(38:29):
Baltic and live the good life. You know, does he
just want to buy the farm? Maybe because he is older,
he is sixty eight years old. But as you could imagine,
he has a lot of enemies, both foreign and domestic,
and unless he had protections in place, he could become
a huge target. He will become a huge target for activists,
(38:51):
for opposition parties, other oligarchs that he is waged hidden
war on in the past, or even think about this.
Prosecutors who are just corrupt, who don't care what the
what the actual crimes are. They just want to shake
down this guy. It's an enormously dangerous gamble, but potentially
(39:12):
it could be a gold mine because do you know
how wealthy Vladimir Putin is? The answer is no, unless
you're Vladmir Putin. This guy has so much money and
has so much control over so many different things that
no one knows how much cash he actually has, Like
(39:34):
we don't know his wealth is dot dot dot question
mark and you can see some you can see some
stats that gather, like the estimates. You'll see someone saying
that he's worth two hundred billion dollars, someone saying that
conservatively it's more like seventy billion. It's tough. There's one
(40:00):
quote that I think was really weird. A Russian banker
who is now living in exile called Sergey Pugachev one
time said that quote, any attempt to calculate Putin's net
worth won't succeed. He is the richest person in the
world until he leaves power.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
It's wild. Yeah, it really is wild.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Maybe it's just that concept of in many ways, when
you're the head of a state, you kind of had
to have unlimited power to print money. Yeah, that's odd though,
but it's not just the money, right, I mean, uh,
power comes in many forms and yeah, even you know,
(40:41):
well you've probably heard of this before. Forbes magazine, or
was once just Forbes magazine, but Forbes the entity it
in twenty eighteen considered Vladimir Putin to be one of
the most most powerful people on the planet. There were
the top two, right, Xi Jinping? Who is I think general?
(41:04):
Is the title General Secretary. I forget the exact title
that he holds, but I think it's essentially big Dog,
big Dog of China. That was the number one, and
then Vladimir Putin was number two on.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
The list General Secretary. Sorry, I feel.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Bad, okay, General secretary, big Dog, thinking of you guys.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Remember those T shirts, like the big Dog T shirts?
Oh yeah, there were no fear with the cartoon.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Yeah, the cartoon women with the large breasts. That was
something else. That was big Bubba or big j Johnson
Johnson Excuse me.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
I thought that was brilliant. How what insight, what incisive
commentary I had wearing those shirts.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
It was a golden dime for novelty T shirt.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
It was we need more novelty T shirts. Check out
our tea public store. So you're right, power, How is
it defined? It is a mul thi dimensional thing, right,
and it exists in many different spheres. But some things
remain true regardless of the times. You know, we opened
(42:11):
with some statements about kings heavy as the head and
so on. There's another statement about kings, which is this,
if you shoot at the King, don't miss. You know
what I mean, Not to be too eminem or Hamilton
about it. It's a one shot situation.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Yes, for sure, don't aim in the king and miss,
or you will find polonium or maybe just you know,
some other kind of pesticide in your water. I'm gonna
drink this. Let's go to a break. We'll be right back,
and we're back.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
We have not mysteriously fallen out of any third story windows,
which is pretty cool. It's good to see everybody. And
we have to talk about danger. There's another aspect. What
if the current president of Russia is somehow afraid. You
don't have to be a weatherman to know which way
the wind blows, so what if the what if he
(43:10):
feels an ill wind on the way. There's a guy
who's a professor at the Center for Russian and Central
Asian and East European Studies at Jowaharlal Nehru University. His
name is Sanjay Kumar Pandi. And this, and Pande studies
this stuff all the time. He initially was ignoring rumors
(43:35):
about medical concerns, not because he thought it was just
some anti Russian spin, but because he thought Putin himself
had planted this fake news to gauge public reaction and
see if he had supporters. But when he saw this
new legislation coming in, he said, Okay, we can't just
(43:56):
call this by conspiracy. Something is deaf wrong, something is
rotten in Moscow. We just don't know what. So he
thinks maybe Putin is afraid of losing the next election
in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah, well, and and this is good. Some we're going
to talk about the details of this. I just before
we get into it too deeply, I just want to
point out that the BBC, in a couple other places
that in the West have been reporting on the effect
that the coronavirus and COVID nineteen have had on leaders
across the world, and this situation has certainly negatively affected
(44:33):
the public view of Vladimir Putin within Russia. And it again,
this is this is West reporting, So who knows if
you know how much truth there is to that, But
it does seem like approval ratings are down. It's I
think it's the he's got the lowest approval rating right
now that he's had in his entire career as a politician.
(44:58):
So just let's make sure that is sitting there in
our knowledge before we jump in to Sanjay Kumar Pandi's ideas.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
Yeah, yeah, and he thinks that's a very good point
because COVID has affected everything. So Pandy also thinks that
seeing the situation Belaruss may have affected Putin's calculus. He said,
you know, to paraphrase, he's like, look at the demonstrations
that Lukashinko, the dictator of bella Us, was facing. He
(45:30):
knows that if he tried to put in this law
like in twenty twenty four, in election year, then there
would be a lot of criticism, a lot of protesting,
which means a lot of government crackdowns. So he's maybe
trying to just get in front of this and do
(45:50):
it in advance. The opposition leaders, one of whom would
be Gannedy Gutkov, say that Putin probably already agreed to leave,
like behind the scenes, and this is you know, this
is building the parachute before you jump out of the plane.
And this guy also says, to your point, Matt, something interesting.
(46:10):
He said, Putin has been behaving strangely since the beginning
of the pandemic, and he's become much worse at speaking.
And to sew this up, as we mentioned before when
we were talking about this on a Strange News segment,
these things do not occur in a vacuum. These bills
became public knowledge while there was an incredibly divisive US election,
(46:31):
and you have to wonder whether the possibility of a
different US administration might have in some way pushed Putin
to pull the trigger.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
Now absolutely, and combine that with these COVID restrictions where
in Russia I think currently and as these bills are
being talked about in passed through through their parliament or
the Duma, they citizens can't gather in large numbers to
(47:01):
protest any of this because of the restrictions. Like how
crazy is that it doesn't matter if you support food
or not or the current government. There's nothing you could
do about it to show I mean, even anyway, there's
a that's there's a lot to unpack there, but I
think that's another piece of the strategy.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
Very smart, astute man, I like it. You may have
you may well be in the running to be the
next Russian president with a with a sharp mind like that.
We just have to just have to get over the
fact that you're from the US.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Well, just get there's some you know, forge a couple
of documents will be fun.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
You do a pretty pretty sweet Russian accent. If I'm
not mistaken, I I don't know what that is bad
taking to someone else.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
That's method. He doesn't do characters in accents. He becomes yes,
so so yeah, you're right, that's that's a really good point.
There's an other thing that popped up that I think
maybe a little Pepe Sylvia to connect these, but they
occurred around the same time, which is that Edward Snowden
(48:09):
received permanent Russian citizenship. He's been living there since twenty thirteen.
Initially he was granted asylum. He fled the United States
after leaking information on US intelligence agencies just incredibly insidious
and successful methods of electronic surveillance and how they were
(48:30):
eavesdropping on everybody, including other countries, and breaking several laws.
In October, just last month, as we record this, he
was given permanent Russian residency and recently this month, he
announced plans for he and his spouse to apply for
full Russian citizenship. So he's not leaving well.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
And it's really interesting because Snowden himself, like the whistleblower
and activists, now, he was playing chess right like, there's
no doubt he was making moves there, and you have
to think that eventually he figured he was just gonna
make this move to stay in Russia and to get
citizenship essentially. But you also have to wonder if like
(49:16):
Russia itself in Vladimir Putin, who again has been in
power since since all of that has begun to occur.
In what was it twenty thirteen, we said, like, is
he is snowed in a chess piece that is being
played by Russia right by keeping him there? And like
(49:36):
what other information? Did he really release all the information?
There's so much speculation to be to be done there,
and it is speculation, have like, have no doubt, but
it is fascinating to think about.
Speaker 1 (49:48):
Yeah, and there's there's another consideration of what. Look, we're
we're saying some offhand things, but we are referring to
true events when we talk about poison and so on.
There is no secret that the Putin administration has made
a name for itself based on some pretty brutal, classic
(50:11):
Cold War power moves. We're talking about poisoning journalists and dissidents,
rigging elections, putting your opponents just in jail for the
heck of it, shutting down the media. The list goes
on and on and on, and then cracking down on
oligarchs even if you used to get along with them,
if they don't toe the line, like one of my
(50:32):
favorite examples. Feels weird to call this a favorite example,
but there is proof. There is hard evidence of Vladimir
Putin's personal involvement in the assassination of his leading opponent
in twenty fifteen, former deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov. It's
(50:54):
we can't I guess I can't say it's conclusively proven
because it hasn't gone to court, But various institutions, including
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, have witness
testimony saying yeah, I know when and where and how
Putin gave the order for that assassination. Like we can
(51:15):
give you the quote A Russia ignored it. He's literally
known for doing this assassination. Zero consequences. But that, to me,
all that means is that whatever the real motivation for
this new legislation, this legal conspiracy might be the problem.
(51:36):
Whatever it is is something that cannot be solved by poison.
This time. Courts are not perfect. But unlike journalists, they
are immune to polonium.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Well, I don't know when has anyone tested it yet?
The entire court gets polonium, So get on.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, we're always sunny an episode, So right now, the
story is ongoing, but we can tell you a little
bit about where we're at currently. These proposals, this immune
from anything forever, rush your shoulders off if you're a
Russian president law. It hasn't passed yet.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yeah, but I don't know that given his track record,
I don't really see any particularly insurmountable roadblocks, do you,
fellas well?
Speaker 3 (52:24):
Well, it's really all all that has to happen is
the lower House of Parliament has to approve right, right,
and and then there are two other votes that have
to occur. It has to go I think it's the
upper House, and then reviewed again and then sitting by
the man himself, right, yeah, goes to his office and
(52:44):
he's like, hey, this sounds like a great idea, came
up with.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
This brilliant But again, those houses of the legislature you're
talking about, those are all his people.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
Well it's not all of them, but certainly the majority.
Speaker 4 (52:57):
Right well, right, I don't see it not passing.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
And what a power move. I am now, superman. You know,
you cannot touch me as much as he was that
already before. And it's something that I'm sure our current
sitting president is keenly interested in, but alas I do
not feel that we have the mechanisms to do such
a thing here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Yeah, it's incredibly sensitive in the US. Any talk of
changing the term limits on the presidency is a political
no go right.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Now, for sure. Pay But adding people to the Supreme Court,
let's do it anyway. Everything's fine, Everything's okay, Ring Grace, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (53:47):
Have our country has nine ring rates and they're in
charge of everything, and you can't elect them, and they're
here forever. It's just that's the best way to explain
the Supreme Court to people outside of the US.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Like other ring raiths, other kinder, gentler ring raiths potentially right.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
Or more evil ring raiths, you know what I mean.
Because either way it's true.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
I love that idea of just like, let's just increase
the number of ring Raiths.
Speaker 1 (54:21):
That sounds let's expand the franchise. You guys, you know
what I mean? What about what about Duke of the
Rings or Lord of the Bracelets? You know, get at us?
So yeah, you're you're right, and you know you're bringing
up a really good point there, Noel, it's it's it's
(54:43):
nearly it's absurd, right, It's absurd to have the idea
of this guy signing a bill going, oh what who
came up with this? You guys, you shouldn't have Well,
it goes twist my arm. That's bizarre, and that's maybe
not the way government sho work. Right as we were
going in, we talked about this little off air. Right
(55:04):
as we were going in, we learned that a couple
days ago putin and sparked even more speculation about his health.
There was a televised meeting about coronavirus with some top officials.
It's like an hour and a half meeting, and he
had a coughing fit. And that's totally understandable. People cough,
people fart, people sneeze, whatever they're people and the thing
(55:28):
that they massively I think dropped the ball on is
they when they re aired the video on the evening
news or later iterations, someone had edited the coughing out
of the video, but everyone had already seen it. So
take it from us, folks.
Speaker 3 (55:45):
If you want to start.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
A conspiracy theory, editing a video in an obvious way
is a fantastic first step.
Speaker 4 (55:55):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
They didn't even edit out Giuliani's makeup mishap. You know,
we got to give him credit where that's due.
Speaker 1 (56:02):
Makeup or blow.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
Yeah, you know, I was gonna say, or in Russia
and in Putin's case, you could just edit you know,
photographs of people or just completely take them out of
historical photographs.
Speaker 1 (56:17):
And photoshop still never never gives Stalin the shout out
he deserves from that photoshop, right, Photoshop, I guess you know,
shouting out Stalin is probably kind of a tone deaf
move a little bit.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Stalin is like the top person credited in the Like
dev team credits Photoshop about me, you know section.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
So right now, as we mentioned, Putin is younger than
people may imagine, and he certainly looks younger than he is.
He's sixty eight years old, he has no publicly endorsed
successor to his presidency. They're protest multiple Russian cities. As
you said, Matt, his numbers in the polls are plummeting.
(57:03):
His party is losing some local elections. Even the loyalists
in his crew are starting to say, well, what's next?
Can we do Putinism without Vladimir Putin? And if we
could look inside the cathedral of this man's mind, what
does he see in the future. Is this a setup
for peaceful transition to power, a reaction to something else,
(57:25):
a hidden medical condition, or is this as the Kremlin said, fine.
Speaker 3 (57:31):
So fine, all is fine? Uh I M yeah, Just
we want to know what you think. We know what
we think, and we've you know, we've talked about a
lot of it today, but we we certainly want to
know where your head is out, especially if you are
listening to this. Are you listening to this somewhere in Asia,
in that region or like, we'd love to just hear
(57:54):
what people are thinking and not have it filtered through
the BBC or you know, some other Western outlet as
we're getting information, So please please please find us on
social media. We are conspiracy stuff at Facebook and Twitter,
on Instagram where your conspiracy Stuff show. You can find
(58:14):
us on YouTube. It's YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
You can see some of these podcasts and chats on
video us hanging out in our houses with our you know,
Jimbase and such and if you if you don't want
to do that, you can always give us a call.
Speaker 4 (58:33):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (58:33):
You can reach us at one eight three three st
d w y t K. Leave a message at the
sound of Ben's dulcet tone, and then you can tell
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Speaker 3 (58:46):
What Ben's face was incredible when you can set an
a dulcet tone.
Speaker 1 (58:52):
It's just I'm just speaking that face. I appreciate it,
but my my throat's crazy.
Speaker 4 (58:56):
No no COVID, but oh good.
Speaker 2 (58:59):
You can tell us the storyorry about whatever you know,
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Speaker 4 (59:16):
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Speaker 3 (59:17):
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We have a good old fashioned email. It's simple here.
Speaker 1 (59:25):
It is conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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