Stealing a ring and kissing another.

This is Father's Day, and I hope that all of you out there who just happen to be sperm donors took the opportunity to reflect on your lives and what you could have done better.

And, if you are like this guy, you have some serious soul searching to do.

Anyway, this story with Putin and the Super Bowl ring is crazy.  Can you imagine if the owner of a sports franchise accused President Obama of stealing his ring?

Putin, as is to be expected, says that Kraft is lying, and that he [Kraft] gave it to him as a gift.

Kraft says that Putin basically strong armed him and took the bling.

"Kraft returned to the U.S. without his Super Bowl XXXIX ring, which, in 2005, he claimed he had given to Putin as a gift. Now Kraft has a new spin on the story.

Via the New York Post:

Kraft explained the incident happened while Sandy Weill and other business execs were in St. Petersburg. “I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’ ” Kraft told the crowd at Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala at the Waldorf-Astoria.“I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”

That’s right, Vladimir Putin pocketed the New England Patriots’ owner’s Super Bowl ring. Kraft told the crowd that he later received a call from the Bush White House strongly advising him to say he gave the ring as a gift in order to help with U.S.-Russian relations. So Kraft did just that, which I guess was what he figured was his……ahem…..Patriotic duty." [Source]

Honestly, I don't know who to believe. I have never been a Robert Kraft fan, but I can see Putin conveniently forgetting to give the ring back as well.

"I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, 'I can kill someone with this ring,'" Kraft told the crowd, according to the New York Post. "I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out."

A spokesman for Putin, however, told CNN on Sunday that the ring was definitely given as a gift.

"What Mr. Kraft is saying now is weird," Dmitry Peskov told CNN. "I was standing 20 centimeters away from him and Mr. Putin and saw and heard how Mr. Kraft gave this ring as a gift.

Peskov told CNN that the ring now is at the Kremlin's library."

Too bad the Patriots didn't have one of their secret video tape machines taping the exchange.

Finally, if the republican party ever wants to be relevant again they are going to have to stop kissing the ring of the likes of Glenn Beck.

He has weighed into the immigration reform battle and is comparing republicans politricksters who oppose immigration reform to civil rights leaders of old who battled injustice here in America.

Hmmm, Medgar Evers or Louis Gohmert. One was shot and lost his life while trying to make this a better country, one shoots off his mouth while making it worse.

"Beck has pledged to put his entire network behind these members (once again turning it into a public policy organization) and, on the program last night, called upon his viewers to rally in support of this effort, saying that if they don't, it will be like Saddam Hussein's slaughter of the Kurds. Comparing them to heroes like George Washington, Beck ended his monologue by comparing these anti-immigration Republicans to civil rights leaders by running a montage of images of Martin Luther King and other civil rights activists alongside the words "we shall not be moved"' [Source]

This country is in some serious trouble.