American voters are not getting news about Russian ruble free fall

Americans who listen to Brian Williams on NBC reporting on his Making a Difference Report and Fox News just making stuff up, should give the Moscow Times a try. Theirs is real news, reporting on the free fall of the Russian ruble. Listen up American voters! A Russian ruble is now hovering at less than $0.25 on the dollar.

Could this news just be too close to the truth for the American network anchors to deal with?  

I submit, President Putin can't pay his military to maintain an assault on the Ukraine, keep a stabilizing presence in the Crimea and prop up evil President Assad in Syria with a ruble that's rotting.

Perhaps President Obama's lead on imposing economic sanctions against Russia is taking a toll on that nation's economy.  Ya think?

Our American news media should tell viewers the truth. Obama deserves credit. Rather than bomb Russia to smithereens over its unlawful invasion of the Ukraine, takeover of the Crimea, support for the evil Assad regime in Syria and the horrendous attack on an innocent Malaysian airliner, blowing it out of the sky, killing everyone on board....instead, President Obama's cautious approach tightened economic sanctions against Russia.  Now, the ruble is worth slightly less or only 1 cent more than 2 bits $US.

The Moscow Times reports on the ruble's free fall:

"Modest gains for Russia's beleaguered currency were rapidly reversed Monday as the ruble dropped to new record lows amid speculation that the Central Bank might abandon its policy of spending foreign reserves to slow the currency's decline."

Russia Eyes Shrinking Cash Reserves as Fight for Ruble Escalates by Harold Amos

The ruble sank to record lows against both the euro and the dollar Tuesday amid growing concerns over the Central Bank's policy of drawing down its foreign reserves to defend the country's beleaguered currency.

The Russian currency fell to 40.9 against the dollar in early evening trading, its lowest level since a traumatic 1998 restructuring, and dropped to 51.7 against the euro, a second historic low in two consecutive days. (note- today ruble = $0.24 cents)

https://www.google.com/search?q=ruble+to+dollar&rlz=1C1WLXA_enUS514US516&oq=ruble+to+dollar&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.3323j0j8&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=0&ie=UTF-8

Ruble slides to all-time low against dollar and euro

MarketWatch‎ - 3 hours ago

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The ruble continued to slide on Tuesday, hitting another record ...

Ruble Drops as Volatility Surges to 2-Year High on Oil, Ukraine

Bloomberg‎ - 1 day ago

Ruble Weakens to Record on Concern Russia to Expedite Free Float

Bloomberg‎ - 5 hours ago

Consistently butting at the upper end of the regulator-set trading corridor, the ruble's trajectory has caused the Central Bank to sell over $6 billion on currency markets since Oct. 6. While interventions have slowed the ruble's tumble, they have also generated questions about monetary policy.

In a bid to decelerate the ruble's devaluation, the Central Bank has burned through $54.9 billion worth of foreign currency since the start of the year, leaving its reserves at a four-year low.

Dear Republicans, especially those who are in rapture by Fox News rhetoric, it's time to wake up and deal with the truth.  President Obama has led America out of a near depression; and now his lead on economic sanctions towards Russia appear to be working.

Moreover, Democrats need to be running toward these achievements and taking credit for supporting them.

Putin takes on MacDonald's hamburgers but where's the Kraft Super Bowl ring?

Rather than build Russia's disastrous fiscal outlook, the egotist Vladimir Putin has decided, instead, to take his "tit for tat" economic sanctions campaign to the Moscow McDonald's Restaurant.  

Putin's tantrum and "whining" campaigns closed the doors on the restaurant because of sanitary issues, reports The Guardian. 

Rather than engage in a petty act of desperation, Putin's government, instead, should have insisted that Putin return Robert Kraft's Super Bowl Ring. Now, that would've been a statement with substance!  

Unfortunately, Putin appears to be obsessed with keeping the coveted Super Bowl ring (he "forgot" to return), but hamburgers, apparently, are not his particular dietary favorite.

It's hard to imagine how many Russian restaurants could pass a McDonald's level inspection. 

Nevertheless, Putin's government only hurts the nation's spiraling unemployment rate by closing a restaurant, regardless of how the sanitary regulations were violated. 

Moreover, it's customary for restaurants to receive notice of sanitary violations prior to a shut down. 

Obviously, there's no evidence of this customary protocol notice for the Moscow McDonald's, but I doubt any other eating establishments in Russia's capital city would be given the same abrupt treatment. Clearly, McDonald's didn't produce enough "bribe" money to protect the establishment from closure.

Putin and his ambitious expansion into the Ukraine has caused his nation economic harm, caused by the US led sanctions to help protect further encroachments into Eastern Europe. 

Rather than fix the problem, by pulling back on Ukraine ambitions, Putin has made a strategic decision to close down the Moscow McDonald's Restaurant. This absurdly immature response hurts hard working people who earn a salary by working at the restaurant and others who, likely, might find it to be a convenient place to eat. 

The Guardian reports:

Russia has shut down four McDonald's restaurants in Moscow for alleged sanitary violations in a move critics said was the latest blow in its tit-for-tat sanctions tussle with the west.

The federal monitoring service for consumer rights and well being announced on Wednesday that the offending outlets included the famous restaurant on Pushkin Square that opened just before the fall of the Soviet Union. The body said the eateries were being shut down for "sanitary violations" discovered during inspections this week.

Of course, when One Russian ruble = $0.28 cents; at this rate of exchange, it's hard to understand how ordinary Russians can afford a Whopper.

The Russian "well being" agency has a history of banning food from countries out of favour with Moscow, and the move will almost certainly be taken as a political statement in the sanctions war. It has previously banned wine from Georgia and dairy products from Belarus after those two countries began to improve relations with the west. This summer, it has banned canned vegetables, fruit, fish, juice and certain beer and vodka from Ukraine.

Earlier in August, President Putin ordered an embargo on meat, poultry, fish, dairy and produce from the United States, Canada, Australia, Norway and the European Union in response to those countries' economic sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis.

I challenge President Vladimir Putin to return Robert Kraft's Super Bowl Ring to demonstrate his misplaced outrage toward western and US led economic sanctions!