RUSSIA: Putin's Ruling Party Mocks White House With "Heterosexual Pride" Flag

Russia has officially gone Manif Pour Tous. Via the Moscow Times:

Russia's ruling political party has designed a “heterosexual flag” to honor traditional family values, the Izvestia newspaper reported Wednesday. Copies of the flag, which feature the outlines of a man and a woman holding hands with three children, were shown to Izvestia by Andrei Lisovenko, deputy head of the United Russia branch in Moscow. The flags also come printed with the Russian-language hashtag “A Real Family.”

According to Lisovenko, the flag will have its official unveiling at Moscow's Sokolniki park later Wednesday, where hundreds of people will gather for a United Russia rally in honor of the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity, which the country celebrates annually on July 8. United Russia's decision to unveil a “heterosexual flag” comes after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to legalize same-sex marriage in late June, when the White House was lit up in the colors of the rainbow flag traditionally associated with the LGBT community.

“This is our response to same-sex marriage, to this mockery of the concept of the family. We have to warn against gay-fever at home and support traditional values in our country,” Lisovenko was quoted as saying by Izvestia. The Day of Family, Love and Fidelity is a relatively new celebration in Russia, having only been introduced in 2008. In honor of the holiday, divorces have been banned for the day in four Russian regions — Tula, Amur, Kaluga and Kurban — the Lenta.ru news site reported.

Founded only in 2001, United Russia presently holds over half of the seats in the Duma and the vast majority of the seats in Russian's regional legislatures. Putin served as its chairman from 2007 to 2012 when he assumed the presidency. (Via Towleroad)

Politico: Putin's Plot For Texas Secession

Fascinating story on Politico. It begins:

Nathan Smith, who styles himself the “foreign minister” for the Texas Nationalist Movement, appeared last Spring at a far-right confab in St. Petersburg, Russia. Despite roaming around in his cowboy hat, Smith managed to keep a low-key presence at the conference, which was dominated by fascists and neo-Nazis railing against Western decadence. But at least one Russian newspaper, Vzglyad, caught up with the American, noted that TNM is “hardly a marginal group,”and quoted Smith liberally on the excellent prospects for a partial breakup of the United States. Smith declared that the Texas National Movement has 250,000 supporters—including all the Texans currently serving in the U.S. Army—and they all “identify themselves first and foremost as Texans” but are being forced to remain Americans. The United States, he added, “is not a democracy, but a dictatorship.” The Kremlin’s famed troll farms took the interview and ran with it, with dozens of bots instantly tweeting about a “Free Texas.”

For Russians, this was delicious payback. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union two decades ago, many Russians have come to blame the United States for their plight; a seething resentment over U.S. culpability in the loss of Russian national power is one of the reasons Vladimir Putin is so popular. It has only worsened since the United States has led an international effort to isolate and sanction Moscow over its annexation of Crimea and incursions into eastern Ukraine. Thus, over the past 15 months there has been a sudden, bizarro uptick of Russian interest in and around the American Southwest, most notably Texas, where secessionist sentiment never seems to entirely die out (TNM’s predecessor group, the “Republic of Texas,” disbanded after secessionist militants took hostages in 1997). In a rehash of the Soviet Union’s fate, numerous Russian voices have taken to envisioning an American break-up, E Pluribus Unum in inverse—out of one, many.

Hit the link for much more.

Vladimir Putin: God Made Me Perfect

"I’ll be totally frank with you. I cannot recollect anything of the kind. It appears that the Lord built my life in a way that I have nothing to regret." - Vladimir Putin, telling an Italian newspaper that he cannot recall having ever made a mistake.

RUSSIA: Top Putin Opponent Shot Dead

Four bullets in the back. The murder took place just a few blocks from the Kremlin.

Investment Banker: Vladimir Putin Has Stolen $200B, Is World's Richest Man

Via Business Insider:

Hedge fund manager Bill Browder, once the largest foreign investor in Russia, estimates Russian President Vladimir Putin's wealth at $200 billion — which would make him by far the richest man in the world. When asked to estimate his net worth by Fareed Zakaria of CNN, Browder said: "I believe that it is $200 billion. "After 14 years in power of Russia, and the amount of money that the country has made, and the amount of money that hasn't been spent on schools and roads and hospitals and so on — all that money is in property, Swiss bank accounts, shares, [and] hedge funds managed for Putin and his cronies." Bill Gates is considered the world's richest man with a net worth of $79 billion.

Browder claims Putin's stealing began the moment he became prime minister in 1999.

RUSSIA: Top Official Pledges That Country Will "Eat Less" For Vladimir Putin

Via the Associated Press:

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, on Friday warned the West against trying to topple President Vladimir Putin and said that Russians are ready to sacrifice their wealth in Putin's support. Russia has for the past year been sliding into recession amid a slump in its energy export prices as well as Western sanctions against Moscow's role in the conflict in Ukraine that has claimed more than 5,000 lives. Questions have been raised in Russia and abroad whether the price that ordinary Russians are having to pay for the annexation of Crimea is too high.

Shuvalov, who is believed to be one of the richest men in the government, said that what he considers the West's attempts to oust Putin will only unite the nation further. "When a Russian feels any foreign pressure, he will never give up his leader," Shuvalov said. "Never. We will survive any hardship in the country — eat less food, use less electricity.  Shuvalov's comments triggered pithy remarks on Russia social media including an opposition activist who posted photos of Shuvalov's Moscow, London and Austria homes to illustrate where the deputy prime minister would experience the hardships he described.

The image above comes via Copyranter, who notes that the font is called "Hunger Games." Hit his link for two more suggested billboards.

RUSSIA: Vladimir Putin Vows To Repair Ruble, Blames Crash On The West

Via Reuters:

President Vladimir Putin assured Russians on Thursday that the economy would rebound after the ruble's dramatic slide this year but offered no remedy for a deepening financial crisis. In an assured performance at a three-hour news conference, Putin blamed the economic problems on external factors and said the crisis over Ukraine was caused by the West, which he accused of building a "virtual" Berlin Wall to contain Russia. Putin even cracked jokes at times, despite pressure to fix an economy that is heading into recession and caught by what his economy minister called a "perfect storm" of low oil prices, Western sanctions over Ukraine and global economic problems. The ruble has fallen about 45 percent against the dollar this year, and suffered particularly steep falls on Monday and Tuesday, but Putin said its eventual rise was unavoidable and avoided using the word "crisis".

The retail fallout has been immediate.

Russian consumers flocked to the stores Wednesday, frantically buying a range of big-ticket items to preempt the price rises kicked off by the staggering fall in the value of the ruble in recent days. As the Russian authorities announced a series of measures to ease the pressure on the ruble, which slid 15 percent in the previous two days and raised fears of a bank run, many Russians were buying cars and home appliances — in some cases in record numbers — before prices for these imported goods shoot higher. The Swedish furniture giant IKEA already warned Russian consumers that its prices will rise Thursday, which resulted in weekend-like crowds at a Moscow store on a Wednesday afternoon.

General Motors, Audi, Land Rover, and Apple have temporarily suspended sales inside Russia.

RUSSIA: State TV Runs Action Movie-Style Trailer For Putin Press Conference

Via Vox:

Russia's official state-run news channel, Russia-1, has always been a bit brazen about cheerleading Russian President Vladimir Putin as a national action hero. But Russia-1 is taking that to a new level this week. The channel is broadcasting ads for Putin's forthcoming press conference, on the disastrous fall of the ruble, that look very little like sober news coverage and very much like the trailer for a Hollywood Michael Bay action film. That is not hyperbole: the ads literally look like action movie trailers.

(Tipped by JMG reader Mike)

RUSSIA: Ruble Crashes To New Low, Apple Suspends Local Online Sales

Via USA Today:

The Russian ruble currency declined sharply against the dollar on Tuesday despite an aggressive intervention just hours earlier by Russia's Central Bank to halt the slide by hiking its benchmark interest rate to 17%. The ruble fell to a new low of 73 against the dollar on Tuesday. Initially, the ruble reacted favorably to the monetary policy move to prop up the troubled currency. It rallied for a few hours before sliding back into record-low territory. The Central Bank's rate rise — from 10.5% — was its biggest single move since 1998, Bloomberg reported. That is the same year that the Russian government defaulted on its sovereign debt. The ruble has lost about half its value since the start of the year because of a collapse in oil prices and Western sanctions over Russia's actions in Ukraine. Oil prices remained around five-year lows Tuesday as supply outstrips demand.

In response to the ruble's crash, Apple today suspended online sales in Russia.

The iPhone and iPad maker stopped sales from its Web store as Russia’s currency lost as much as 19 percent today, with a surprise interest-rate increase failing to stem a run on the currency. The ruble briefly sank beyond 80 per dollar, and bonds and stocks also tumbled, with the RTS equity gauge dropping the most since 2008. “Our online store in Russia is currently unavailable while we review pricing,” Alan Hely, a spokesman for the Cupertino, California-based company, wrote in an e-mailed statement today. “We apologize to customers for any inconvenience.”

Putin: America Is Worse On Gay Rights

Vladimir Putin today claimed that the United States treats gay people worse than Russia does because some states still have anti-sodomy laws on the books. From the poorly-written report by the official Russian news agency TASS:

"Russia recognizes and does not infringe on the rights of non-traditional sexual orientation,” he said. “It is a label (of a country violating rights of such people) attached to the Russian Federation by other countries, especially by those which have criminal responsibility for people of non-traditional sexual orientation,” the president said at a meeting with human rights activists. He said in the state of the nation address he mentioned the family is a clear priority in Russia. “This should not be considered as our intention to persecute people of whatever non-traditional orientation,” Putin said. He said among the countries which tried to apply the homophobia label to Russia was, among others, the US, where some states have criminal responsibility for homosexuality, though the law had been suspended by the court decision. “We do not have criminal responsibility of the kind,” he said.

Putin concluded: "We are not punishing anyone. But traditional family, healthy nation — those are our choices. One does not exclude the other, and one does not affect the other. I believe, a balanced approach like this is absolutely correct."

RELATED: Anti-sodomy laws have not yet been formally repealed in these states: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah. 

Headline Of The Day

Details from the Associated Press.

FRANCE: Kremlin Bank Lends Millions To Neo-Nazi National Front Party

Via TIME Magazine:

Is Russian President Vladimir Putin meddling in the internal politics of countries in the European Union? That seemed a strong possibility to some Europeans this week, after French political leader Marine Le Pen confirmed she had secured a €9-million ($11.1 million) loan from a Moscow-based bank, in order to run her right-wing National Front party. “At this stage, Russia is trying to influence French domestic policy,” says Jean-Yves Camus, a political researcher at France’s Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS). If so, Putin’s strategy resembles the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1991, when Moscow funded trade unions and political groups in western Europe in an attempt to buy influence and destabilize foes. “In this respect Putin is pretty much in line with the former USSR. It is the same policy all over again,” says Camus.

According to the Independent, the €9M loan is only the first installment in loans that will total €40M.  But that's not all the Kremlin is doing: 

There have been unconfirmed allegations in the United States that Moscow is funding the virulently xenophobic Hungarian party Jobbik and the avowedly neo-Nazi Greek party, Golden Dawn. A discussion paper from a Putin-supporting Moscow think-tank, leaked to the German press this week, urged the Kremlin to find ways of funding other Europhobic parties such as the emerging Alternative for Germany (AfD). The admiration of hard-line nationalist parties for Mr Putin is not only based on money. The Kremlin has gone out of its way to establish friendly ties with European political parties that share its view of the European Union as a meddlesome, US-controlled enemy of national sovereignty and destroyer of traditional religious and family values.

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: The National Front is a backer of the anti-gay Manif Pour Tous and has supported its numerous, vicious and often violent rallies, as have hate group leaders Brian Brown and Tony Perkins.  Founder Jean-Marie Le Pen has been convicted six times for inciting racial hatred, including for denying that the Holocaust took place. Earlier this year he "joked" that his critics, who include Madonna, will be in the next "batch" headed for the gas chambers.  He has also "joked" that ebola is the "solution" to Europe's immigration problems. Last year Le Pen's daughter, Marine Le Pen, herself a failed candidate for France's presidency, praised the man who committed suicide at Notre Dame Cathedral in protest of same-sex marriage. In February of this year Le Pen's granddaughter, 24 year-old Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, led a massive anti-gay march through the streets of Paris. (What a family.) In January of this year the youth leader for the National Front called for France to institute anti-gay laws similar to those in Russia.

On Russia's Ultra-Nationalist Movement

Via Vocativ:

Russia’s numerous and varied ultra-nationalists groups have flourished since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They include groups who are anti-gay, anti-immigrant and pro-Hitler - and they have an enormous online following. Vocativ caught up with some of them at the annual “Russia March” in Moscow earlier this month.

NOTE: Some images are not safe for work.

Take That, Putin

Russia can tear down their monument to Steve Jobs because Apple CEO Tim Cook has come out, but that won't save their stock market. Via the Telegraph:

Apple is now worth more than Russia's stock market, new data have revealed. The US technology giant's market capitalisation has overtaken the combined value of all Russian public companies for the first time in history, Bloomberg reported. Apple, the world's most valuable company, has added $147bn to its market cap this year and was worth $652bn as of November 12. The shares closed up 1.2pc to $114.18 each on Friday. Russian equities have fallen $234bn to $531bn in the same period, Bloomberg data stated. Apple, led by Tim Cook, has being going from strength to strength in recent months, culminating in the release of the company's latest smartphones in September - the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Mr Cook revealed earlier this year that his company is also working on products that "haven't been rumoured about yet". Meanwhile, Russia has been struggling to cope with a falling ruble and tough Western sanctions as a result of its conflict in eastern Ukraine.

Just let that sink in. An out gay man oversees the company whose value exceeds all of the companies on the stock market of the world's most famously anti-gay nation. I think that calls for a "neener, neener." At least.

RELATED: In other gay-related business news, pro-LGBT Microsoft has unseated ExxonMobil as the world's second-most valuable corporation. The energy giant's slide to third place comes as oil prices continue to sag worldwide. For 17 consecutive years the shareholders of ExxonMobil refused to enact workplace protections for its LGBT employees. Only in July of this year did the company grudgingly agree to comply with President Obama's executive order protecting the LGBT employees of companies that contract with the federal government. Fourth place Google, not incidentally, is now poised to overtake ExxonMobil. If that happens, the world's top three corporations will be aggressively pro-LGBT tech firms. Neener.

Headline Of The Day

About the lawmaker:

Ms. Mizoulina, who holds an office roughly equivalent to that of a US Representative, is associated with the Dima Yakovlev Law and other efforts to prevent Americans from adopting Russian children. She is also known for odd proposals that express patriotism and concern for the continuation of the Russian nation. She recently recommended that all remaining Russian Jews consider leaving the country, stating, “We have enough problems.” In the spring of this year, she introduced a bill that banned higher education for young women who had yet to give birth before, presumably because Russian women are waiting too long to repopulate the state. Finally Ms. Mizoulina also drafted a law prohibiting “sexual intercourse in the territory of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol.” To the certain relief of summering Russians, the law was not adopted.

Advocate Names Putin Person Of The Year

From their cover story:

As the Olympic Winter Games headed to Sochi in 2014, so did a spotlight on the violations against the Russian LGBT community. Those violations are coming directly from the top of the Russian government, with President Vladimir Putin leading the charge. His crusade against LGBT Russians and the outrage and protests his actions sparked have earned him the title of The Advocate’s 2014 “Person of the Year.”

Since winning his third term in 2012, Putin has become ever more autocratic, and his antigay ideology ever more extreme. In June 2013, he signed the infamous antigay propaganda bill that criminalizes the “distribution of information…aimed at the formation among minor of nontraditional sexual attitudes,” with nontraditional meaning anything other than heterosexual. Individual violators are fined anywhere between $120 and $150, while NGOs and corporations can incur fines as high as $30,000.

International outrage flared in the months before the Sochi Olympics, in response to which Putin reassured the gay and lesbian community they had nothing to fear as long as they left Russia’s children in peace. Such incendiary rhetoric is a staple of Putin’s political playbook. And in Russia, where the majority of media are state-owned, there’s little public pushback.

Putin continually preaches Russian nationalism and purity, telling reporters in January that anything that gets in the way of Russia’s population growth should be “cleaned up.” The message is clear: Putin’s Russia, in grand Soviet tradition, is a country of the masses, not the individual. Yet it’s the masses that must safeguard individual liberties.

Last year the magazine chose Pope Francis.

Vladimir Putin Again Tops Forbes List Of The Most Powerful People In The World

1. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
2. Barack Obama, President of the US
3. Xi Jinping, President of China
4. Pope Francis, Head of the Roman Catholic Church
5. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany
6. Janet Yellen, Chair, Federal Reserve System
7. Bill Gates, Co-chair, Gates Foundation
8. Mario Draghi, President of European Central Bank
9. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google
10. David Cameron, UK Prime Minister
11. Abdullah bin Aziz, King of Saudi Arabia
12. Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway
13. Li Keqiang, Premier of China
14. Carlos Slim Helu,  Chairman of América Móvil
15. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India
16. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
17. Francois Hollande, President of France
18. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase
19. Ali Hoseini-Khamenei, Grand Ayatollah of Iran
20. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil
21. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric
22. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook
23. Michael Bloomberg, CEO of Bloomberg
24. Charles Koch & David Koch, Koch Industries
25. Timothy Cook, CEO of Apple

See the full list of 100.

UKRAINE: Actor Steven Seagal Performs Concert For Pro-Russian Separatists

Via the Guardian:

Hollywood actor and musician Steven Seagal played a weekend concert in the Crimean peninsula, appearing on a stage adorned with the flag of pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine. Seagal and his blues band played on Saturday at a bikers' show held in the city of Sevastopol, home to Russia's Black Sea fleet. The star has come under fire for supporting Russia's March annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine, a view that saw him bounced from the lineup at an Estonian blues festival this summer. At the corner of the stage hung the black, blue and red flag of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" (DNR), declared independent by pro-Russia rebels fighting to break away from Ukraine. Fans waved Russian and DNR flags as Seagal performed. The US and EU have imposed sanctions on Russia over its annexation of Crimea and for allegedly providing weapons and support to the rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Seagal says that he considers Vladimir Putin a friend and a brother. Watch below as he waves a t-shirt adorned with Putin's face.

Porno Pete: I Was Wrong About Putin

(Tipped by JMG reader Ashton)

REPORT: Airliner Shot Down Over Ukraine

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