#igor hirsch | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

performingonline · 4 years

Text

Performance for Multi-User Online Environments (Before COVID-19)

I’m Angela Washko and I am currently teaching a course called Performance Art (In The Expanded Field) at Carnegie Mellon University and have recently had to switch to teaching remotely - a switch that comes maybe more naturally to me than others because of my experience participating in the net art community and operating as a performance artist specifically within online environments. Before everyone was forced to work remotely because of an international pandemic, many artists were already thinking about the internet as a context for performance art. I wanted to put together a resource focused on artists who have been doing the work of thinking about the specificity of virtual spaces as sites for performance and making work mindful of the unique qualities of the contexts they operate in. I hope that this list of works could be a resource for educators and artists who are interested in looking at artworks by individuals who have been thinking very intentionally about performance in networked contexts.

This list includes artists performing for webcam, artists performing in virtual environments, and artists performing for social media. It specifically focuses on performance, and excludes works of net art that do not contain performance-for-the-internet. The list also primarily focuses on performance works that are made without the use of expensive equipment or access to institutional spaces (although I know there are some exceptions on this list). Also - it is in no way complete or comprehensive!

*This list does not include the many artists who perform for video and upload their performances online - UNLESS the artist is specifically thinking about engaging with the digital audience and not prioritizing the gallery as a context.

**Sexually explicit or violent content that may be uncomfortable for some viewers and situations

Annie Abrahams and Emmanuel Guez, Reading Club (video conferencing)

Annie Abrahams, Daniel Pinheiro and Lisa Parra, DistantFeeling(s) (Zoom)

Annie Abrahams, Ruth Catlow, Paolo Cirio, Ursula Endlicher, Nicolas Frespech and Igor Stromajer, Huis Clos / No Exit (video conferencing)

Larry Achiampong & David Blandy, Finding Fanon 2 (Grand Theft Auto V)

Robert Adrian, The World in 24 Hours (networked happening)

LaTurbo Avedon, Visiting Artist Talk (multi platform)

Jeremy Bailey, various performances by Famous New Media Artist Jeremy Bailey (YouTube)

Jeremy Bailey, The You Museum (online advertising banners)

Man Bartlett, 24hr non-Best Buy (Twitter)

Genevieve Belleveau, Gorgeoustaps and The Reality Show (Facebook)

Wafaa Bilal, Domestic Tension (livestream website)

Wafaa Bilal, Virtual Jihadi (Quest for Saddam game)

Mary Bond, autodissociate me (4chan)**

Marco Cadioli, Remap Berlin (Second Life, Google Maps, Twinity)

micha cárdenas, Becoming Dragon (Second Life)

Ruth Catlow and Helen Kaplinsky, Sociality-machine (video conferencing, custom software)

Ruth Catlow, Marc Garrett and Neil Jenkins, VisitorStudio (custom software for online performance)

Jennifer Chan, factum/mirage (Chat Roulette)**

Jennifer Chan, factum/mirage III (Chat Roulette)**

Channel TWo [CH2], barelyLegal (Google Maps)

Corpos Informaticos, Telepresence 2 (telepresence project)

Petra Cortright, VVEBCAM (YouTube)

Jeff Crouse and Aaron Meyes, World Series of ‘Tubing (Competitive YouTube-ing)

James Coupe, General Intellect (Amazon Mechanical Turk)

Joseph DeLappe, dead-in-iraq (America’s Army)

Joseph DeLappe, The Salt Satyagraha Online: Gandhi's March to Dandi in Second Life (Second Life)

Joseph DeLappe, Howl: Elite Force Voyager Online (Elite Force Voyager Online)

Joseph DeLappe, Quake Friends (Quake III Arena)

Kate Durbin, Unfriend Me Now! (Facebook Live)

Kate Durbin, Cloud Nine (Cam4)**

Electronic Disturbance Theater, FloodNet (Java applet)

Entropy8Zuper! (Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn), WIREFIRE (Flash 5)

Entropy8Zuper! (Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn), skinonskinonskin (multi platform)

Jason Eppink, Kickback Starter (website, Kickstarter)

Cao Fei, RMB City (Second Life)

Mary Flanagan, [borders] (Second Life)

Foci + Loci, many projects (Little Big Planet 2)

Ed Fornieles, Dorm Daze (Facebook)

Carla Gannis, C.A.R.L.A G.A.N. (virtual environments and social media platforms)

Riley Harmon, Poser (Andy Warhol’s Grave Livecam)

Amber Hawk Swanson, Sidore (Mark) / Heather > LOLITA (livestream)**

Josh Harris, We Live In Public / Quiet (livestream)

Auriea Harvey, Webcam Movies (webcam)

Ann Hirsch, Scandalishious (YouTube)

Ann Hirsch, horny lil feminist (website)**

Faith Holland, Porn Interventions (RedTube)**

Shawné Michaelain Holloway, a personal project (XTube)**

Shawné Michaelain Holloway, b4bedwithurlbae (Periscope)**

Brian House, Joyride (Google Maps)

Brian House, Tanglr (Google Chrome extension)

E. Jane, E. The Avatar (YouTube, online store)

E. Jane, That time I sold my dreads online (ebay)

JODI, SK8MONKEYS ON TWITTER (Twitter)

Miranda July, Learning to Love You More (website)

Devin Kenny, Untitled/Celfa (webcam performance)

Laura Hyunjhee Kim, The Living Lab (social media, website)

Gelare Khoshgozaran and Nooshin Rostami, Just Like A Disco (webcam)

Gelare Khoshgozaran, Misscommunication (webcam)

Gelare Khoshgozaran, Realms of Observation (Chat Roulette)

Lynn Hershman Leeson, The Dollie Clone Series (webcam livestream)

Olia Lialina, Animated GIF Model (multiple webpages)

Olia Lialina, Self-Portrait (browser)

Olia Lialina, Summer (multiple webpages)

Jordan Wayne Long, Box Shipment #2 (Lord of the Rings Online)

Gretta Louw, Controlling Connectivity (Skype and others)

Low Lives, Virtual Performance Series (livestream)

Michael Mandiberg, Shop Mandiberg (ecommerce site)

Eva and Franco Mattes, Freedom (Counter-Strike Source)

Eva and Franco Mattes, Life Sharing (website)

Eva and Franco Mattes, No Fun (Chat Roulette)**

Eva and Franco Mattes, Re-Enactments (Second Life)

Eva and Franco Mattes, Synthetic Performances (Second Life)

Lauren McCarthy, Follower (artist-made app)

Lauren McCarthy, LAUREN (livestream surveillance)

Lauren McCarthy, Social Turkers (Amazon Mechanical Turk)

Lauren McCarthy, SOMEONE (webcam)

MTAA, 1 year performance video (aka SamHsiehUpdate) (livestream)

Jayson Musson / Hennessy Youngman, Art Thoughtz (YouTube)

Martine Neddam, Mouchette (website)

Mendi and Keith Obadike, Blackness for Sale (ebay)

Marisa Olson, Marisa’s American Idol Training Blog (blog)

Randall Packer & Systaime, #NeWWWorlDisorder (Facebook Live and website)

Sunita Prasad, Sunny & Benny Together Forever (My Free Implants website)

Jon Rafman, Kool Aid Man in Second Life (Second Life)

Bunny Rogers, 9 Years (Second Life)

Stephanie Rothenberg, Invisible Threads (Second Life)

Stephanie Rothenberg, Best Practices In Banana Time (Second Life)

Annina Ruest, A Piece of the Pie Chart (Twitter, webcam)

Annina Ruest, Rock N Scroll (Skype)

Nicole Ruggerio, AR Filters (Instagram)

RaFia Santana, #PAYBLACKTiME (Facebook and Paypal)

Anne-Marie Schleiner, Joan Leandre, Brody Condon, Velvet Strike (Counter-Strike)

Leah Schrager, Sarah White - Naked Therapy (video chat)**

Skawennati, TimeTraveller ™ (Second Life)

Molly Soda, various projects (multi platform)

Georgie Roxby Smith, Fair Game (Grand Theft Auto V)

Georgie Roxby Smith, 99 Problems [Wasted] (Grand Theft Auto V)**

Eddo Stern, Fort Paladin (America’s Army)

Eddo Stern, Runners (Everquest)

Tale of Tales, ABIOGENESIS (Endless Forest)

Third Faction, Demand Player Sovereignty (World of Warcraft)

Toca Loca, Halo Ballet (Halo)

Amalia Ulman, Excellences and Perfections (Instagram, Facebook)

VNS Matrix, Corpusfantastica MOO (MOO - multi-object oriented multi user dungeon)

Addie Wagenknecht & Pablo Garcia, Webcam Venus (sexcam sites)**

Angela Washko, BANGED: A Feminist Artist Interviews the Web’s Most Infamous Misogynist (Skype)

Angela Washko, The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft (World of Warcraft)

Angela Washko, The World of Warcraft Psychogeographical Association (World of Warcraft)

Brett Watanabe, San Andreas Deer Cam (Twitch, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas)

95 notes · View notes

fadedday · 9 months

Text

Cristina Kravic by Igor Hirsch

#Cristina Kravic #Igor Hirsch #nudephotography #artistic nude #art nude #photographic nude #black and white

328 notes · View notes

spaceintruderdetector · 5 years

Text

V.A.-'The Interviews' 2015

https://archive.org/details/sPE_0200

This compilation is based on cut-up samples that had been arranged by Jaan Patterson. Taken from Interviews of the following humans: Anthony Donovan, Francis Bacon, Frank Zappa, Georges Bataille, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Cocteau, Marcel Duchamp, Noam Chomsky, Paul Éluard, William S. Burroughs.

Artists included, alphabetical order:

A.H. Fork AG Davis {AN} EeL A. Sadist Anthony Donovan Anthony Osborne Antonio de Braga Arco Enarmonico Ars Sonor Arsenic Strychnine Bernard Dumaine Berthelot Breathing Space Bryan Lewis Saunders Candlegravity Chris Silver T Crank Sturgeon datewithdeath Der Domestizierte Mensch Dixie Treichel Dongle Doc Fake Cats Project GX Jupitter-Larsen HaiiYuuko Hopek Quirin Igor Amokian The Implicit Order ION J. A. P. Jared C. Balogh Jeanette Luches Jim Sebor Jochen Arbeit Joseph Szymkowiak Juan Angel Italiano Jukka-Pekka Kervinen Kontroljet Lee Kwo Leif Elggren Lezet Ludo Mich & Koen Boyden Mann Racket Marisa Wildwood & Gabe Moon Mauro Sambo Miquel Parera Mr E mutanT.R.I. Odor Baby Osvaldo Cibils Philippe Petit Qkcofse Ronny Wærnes Ruela Seiei Jack Simon Mathewson Sound Voice Subversive Intentions suRRism Teleg. Thomas Havlik Ton Haring Union Furnace Uwe Moellhusen Viirgiile Vladimír Hirsch William Davison

#cut-ups #cut-up #cut ups #cut up #william s. burroughs #william burroughs #musique concrete #concrete music #experimental music

6 notes · View notes

orangerfrosch · 6 years

Text

LEXIKON DER FLIEGENDEN HOSEN! FIX OIDA! VON LUMEN KOMMEN NUR UNSERE LEBLOSEN KINDER DURCH DIE PASSAGE. ICH MURRE ÜBER DEN LÜGNER IGOR SEINE FREIE TANNE. BLEI FIGUREN SUDERN NÖM AN. EIERLEGEN UND SUMO ZU RINGEN GIBT EINEM KEILER ARBEIT. OHA DU KRASSE WATERFAIRY! EIS IS SO KALT! MIR AUCH! JA! HUHN DETERMINISTIERT HIP DALI UND SUMMT BARMAL.

ASSASSYRIS KINN MAGIG CHANNELING. PENNER FIXI GACH KANNST MICH HOLEN? OPEL WAR MAL IRRE EINIG MIT INTERNEN GASHÄHNEN. FRISS UNI ZAM! HIER IM HIMMEL HIMMELN DIE HIRSCHE HIEROGLYPHEN AN. SCHON ZU MEINER OMA WURDELTE DIE HIMBEERTOTE. VOLLE WÄHLERZIEGEN NEHMEN DICH VOR GROBEN SPÄSSEN AM KOST. BOB FROST GEISTERT HIN UND HER IM WAL. ZU HEISS IST MIR NIE!

ONGOLIS WIRD ZUR LUSTIGEN HALOGENLÜSTER VIELSAGENDER. SCHULHÄUSER KREISELN WIRR UM DEN NÄCHTLICHEN NEUBAU. RICHTIGER KRAM LIEGT BEI DEPPEN DIE VERKUGELT STEROIDE SPEISEN. MORD IM KEROSINTUNNEL WAR ERSTE WOCHE LETZTES MEHL. PRÖLL STIRBT DU HURTIGE MUTTER! HIESIGER KÖRNIG GEMEINTER MALERPO. NIE NED NUR JOJOS PORN DRUCKEN! XOCHT HOT DIR DES WORMHOLE.

#sätze schreiben

0 notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years

Text

As Russian Money Poured Into Cannabis, Giuliani Allies Scrambled to Partake https://nyti.ms/2pJZUmG

As Russian Money Poured Into Cannabis, Giuliani Allies Scrambled to Partake

Russian investors have flocked to the U.S. cannabis industry in recent years. One venture involving associates of Rudy Giuliani drew the scrutiny of federal investigators.

By Mike Baker and William K. Rashbaum | Published October 23, 2019, 5:01 AM ET | New York Times | Posted October 23, 2019 |

SAN FRANCISCO — At a restaurant meeting in California a few years ago, Brad Hirsch and one of his law clients gathered over a meal with two potential business partners: Andrey Kukushkin and Andrey Muraviev, an investor who had flown in from Russia.

Mr. Kukushkin and the Russian financier were hoping Mr. Hirsch could help them build a stake in the state’s burgeoning cannabis market, Mr. Hirsch said, and he helped them set up a real estate business that would cater to marijuana operators. Over the span of just a few years, Mr. Kukushkin would join or develop cannabis companies around San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, establishing a foothold in everything from real estate and cultivation to retail and delivery.

There was a reason that people like Mr. Kukushkin, who was born in Ukraine and later worked at a Russian investment bank, had a unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor. Federal law still treats cannabis as an illegal substance, and traditional banks have been wary of getting involved. Wealthy financiers have moved in to fill the void — including a growing cast of investors from Russia and former Soviet Union countries who have helped shape the industry's growth.

One of the nation’s largest cannabis companies, Curaleaf, is led by one of Russia’s most influential financiers and backed by another, allowing the company to pursue rapid expansion and hefty acquisitions. Investment firms have taken their own stakes: A San Francisco-based venture capital fund run by the Russian tech entrepreneur Pavel Cherkashin, backed largely by investors from Russia and the former Soviet Union, has put $2 million into Pure Spectrum, a Colorado-based business marketing CBD products.

“I think there is a strong fear of missing out back in Russia,” Mr. Cherkashin said. “It’s one of the most promising and rapidly developing markets.”

Mr. Kukushkin and some of his business partners appear to have gone a step further, funneling political contributions to candidates in Nevada and elsewhere in a way that has drawn the scrutiny of federal prosecutors. Earlier this month, a federal grand jury indicted four men, including Mr. Kukushkin, in a scheme to use money from an unnamed Russian to support politicians who could potentially help them obtain retail marijuana licenses around the country.

The indictment attracted widespread attention because two of the men charged are associates of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, and worked with Mr. Giuliani in the past to collect potentially damaging information about targets of interest to Mr. Trump in Ukraine.

They were accused in a separate scheme to conceal the source of a $325,000 donation to a pro-Trump super PAC, as well as other political contributions.

But when it came to Russian money flowing into the United States, prosecutors focused on its role in the Nevada marijuana business formed by Mr. Kukushkin and the others. The case illustrates how Mr. Giuliani’s allies were operating not just to advance the president’s political interests, but to build a political network of their own that would give them entree into one of the country’s more promising new industries.

Big Investors

The reluctance of traditional banks to touch marijuana financing has attracted private investors not from just Russia, but from China, Japan, South America and from around the United States. Mr. Kukushkin, according to the indictment, said he was trying to disguise the source of the Nevada venture’s money because of the financier’s “Russian roots and current political paranoia about it.”

Mr. Kukushkin’s lawyer, Gerald B. Lefcourt, declined to comment on the case.

Other investors with Russian backgrounds have been public about their involvement in the cannabis industry, and law enforcement officials do not appear to have raised questions.

Curaleaf, based in Massachusetts, is led by Boris Jordan, a businessman born in the United States who went on to build the investment bank Renaissance Capital in Russia, where he now leads the Sputnik Group, which has a major private equity division. The company’s other major individual investor was Andrei Blokh, a Moscow businessman.

In May, Curaleaf announced a $950 million deal to acquire the Oregon-based Cura Partners in one of the industry’s largest deals ever. In July, it followed up with an $875 million deal to acquire the Illinois-based Grassroots Cannabis.

Vedomosti, a Russian business publication, reported earlier this year that it had talked with eight investment funds of Russian origin that were either considering cannabis investments or had already pursued them.

Some states, including Oregon and Maine, tried to reap the benefits of a cannabis industry by requiring that companies be locally controlled. But that has been a struggle as the industry has pushed for open markets in order to get access to funding, said Andrew Freedman, who helped the lead the development of Colorado’s legal cannabis market.

“A lot of these states are trying to keep the money and the ownership interest within the four corners of the state,” Mr. Freedman said. “It simply isn’t happening.”

Federal prosecutors said the Russian money backing the business of Mr. Kukushkin and others was helping lay the groundwork of a multistate operation. The Russian partner, according to two people familiar with the case, was Andrey Muraviev — the man Mr. Kukushkin had brought to the meeting that day with Mr. Hirsch.

From Russia to California

Born in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa when it was still part of the Soviet Union, Mr. Kukushkin earned degrees at Odessa National Polytechnic University in engineering and finance in 1992, then worked in the Russian finance industry.

Even before entering the cannabis world, Mr. Kukushkin, 46, was living a comfortable life, with photos on Russian social media showing him vacationing at the elite French resort of Chamonix. Mr. Kukushkin listed himself as living in Ukraine, Russia and San Francisco.

In 2013, Mr. Kukushkin took up residence in a 1,400 square-foot condo a few blocks from San Francisco’s financial district.

Mr. Muraviev, meanwhile, was born in Russia and partially educated in San Francisco. He led a cement company in Russia before starting the investment company Parus Capital.

Together, their first foray into the cannabis industry appears to have been in 2015.

Records show that Mr. Kukushkin helped Mr. Muraviev steer a $1 million investment into a California cannabis management company, Venture Rebel, which helped run a San Francisco cannabis shop known as MediThrive.

Mr. Kukushkin and Mr. Muraviev expanded next into the Sacramento area, joining up with Mr. Hirsch, the lawyer who met with them in San Francisco, and his client, Garib Karapetyan. Mr. Hirsch said he lost his enthusiasm for the partnership when Mr. Kukushkin began to do things like demanding new terms in the 11th hour of negotiations.

In regulatory applications, another Kukushkin company, Oasis Venture, proposed a large cannabis cultivation site east of San Francisco, including a greenhouse that would have 22,000 square feet of cannabis canopy and a processing facility on an estate with garage space for 12 vehicles and panoramic views of the nearby Alameda County valleys and foothills.

In the last few months, Mr. Kukushkin has been pursuing a dispensary license in the Los Angeles area.

Sean Maddocks, a legal consultant who has helped in that effort, said Mr. Kukushkin approached him last year looking for guidance on where he could get additional licenses.

He said Mr. Kukushkin never discussed anything like campaign contributions or any improper effort to get a license.

Political Contributions

Federal prosecutors have seized on the issue of campaign contributions in the Nevada case, and that is where Mr. Giuliani’s associates from Florida entered the marijuana case: Lev Parnas, a native of Ukraine, and Igor Fruman, originally from Belarus — both now American citizens who have long lived in Florida — along with David Correia, another South Florida resident.

In the summer of 2018, according to federal prosecutors, those three men teamed up with Mr. Kukushkin to develop a multistate cannabis business strategy.

Two people familiar with the details of the federal case said the financier was to be Mr. Muraviev, who did not respond to emails or phone messages. Both Mr. Fruman’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, and Mr. Correia’s lawyer, Jeffrey Marcus, declined to comment. The lawyer for Mr. Parnas, Edward B. MacMahon Jr., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Correia drafted a document that considered between $1 million and $2 million of potential political donations to help win marijuana retail licenses in Nevada and elsewhere, according to the indictment. Though donations from foreign nationals to American political campaigns are illegal, the indictment says that the Russian arranged two wire transfers totaling $1 million to Mr. Fruman that were intended at least in part for political candidates.

Near the end of October 2018, the group apparently realized that the deadline for getting a license in Nevada had already passed — “unless we change the rules,” Mr. Kukushkin said, according to the indictment. They talked about needing the support of a Nevada state candidate.

The indictment does not name the candidate being discussed, but a week later, records show, Mr. Fruman donated the maximum amount, $10,000, to both Adam Laxalt and Wesley Duncan. Both Republicans, Mr. Laxalt was the state’s attorney general running for governor, while Mr. Duncan was running to succeed Mr. Laxalt.

Mr. Duncan and Mr. Laxalt both said through spokespeople that they were unaware of any illegal activity and were returning the donations.

If the contributions and support were intended to produce a result, they failed. Mr. Duncan and Mr. Laxalt both lost their elections.

Mike Baker reported from San Francisco and William K. Rashbaum reported from New York.

*********

Contradicting Trump, Ukraine Knew of Aid Freeze Before It Became Public

Top officials were told in early August about the delay of $391 million in security assistance, undercutting a chief argument President Trump has used to deny any quid pro quo.

By Andrew E. Kramer and Kenneth P. Vogel | Published October 23, 2019, 11:10 AM ET | New York Times | Posted October 23, 2019

KIEV, Ukraine — To Democrats who say that President Trump’s decision to freeze a $391 million military aid package to Ukraine was intended to bully Ukraine’s leader into carrying out investigations for Mr. Trump’s political benefit, the president and his allies have had a simple response: There could not have been any quid pro quo because the Ukrainians did not know the assistance had been blocked.

Following testimony by William B. Taylor Jr., the top United States diplomat in Ukraine, to House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that the freezing of the aid was directly linked to Mr. Trump’s demand for the investigations, the president took to Twitter on Wednesday morning to approvingly quote a Republican member of Congress saying neither Mr. Taylor nor any other witness had “provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld.”

But in fact, word of the aid freeze had gotten to high-level Ukrainian officials by the first week in August, according to interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times.

The problem was not a bureaucratic glitch, the Ukrainians were told then. To address it, they were advised, they should reach out to Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, according to the interviews and records.

The timing of the communications about the issue, which have not previously been reported, shows that Ukraine was aware the White House was holding up the funds weeks earlier than United States and Ukrainian officials had acknowledged. And it means that the Ukrainian government was aware of the freeze during most of the period in August when Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and two American diplomats were pressing President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to make a public commitment to the investigations being sought by Mr. Trump.

The communications did not explicitly link the assistance freeze to the push by Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani for the investigations. But in the communications, officials from the United States and Ukraine discuss the need to bring in the same senior aide to Mr. Zelensky who had been dealing with Mr. Giuliani about Mr. Trump’s demands for the investigations, signaling a possible link between the matters.

Word of the aid freeze got to the Ukrainians at a moment when Mr. Zelensky, who had taken office a little more than two months earlier after a campaign in which he promised to root out corruption and stand up to Russia, was off balance and uncertain how to stabilize his country’s relationship with the United States.

Days earlier, he had listened to Mr. Trump implore him on a half-hour call to pursue investigations touching on former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and a debunked conspiracy theory about Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Zelensky’s efforts to secure a visit to the White House — a symbolic affirmation of support he considered vital at a time when Russia continued to menace Ukraine’s eastern border — seemed to be stalled. American policy toward Ukraine was being guided not by career professionals but by Mr. Giuliani.

Mr. Taylor told the impeachment investigators that it was only on the sidelines of a Sept. 1 meeting in Warsaw between Mr. Zelensky and Vice President Mike Pence that the Ukrainians were directly told the aid would be dependent on Mr. Zelensky giving Mr. Trump something he wanted: an investigation into Burisma, the company that had employed Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son.

American and Ukrainian officials have asserted that Ukraine learned that the aid had been held up only around the time it became public through a news story at the end of August.

The aid freeze is getting additional scrutiny from the impeachment investigators on Wednesday as they question Laura K. Cooper, a deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. This month, Democrats subpoenaed both the Defense Department and the White House Office of Management and Budget for records related to the assistance freeze.

As Mr. Taylor’s testimony suggests, the Ukrainians did not confront the Trump administration about the freeze until they were told in September that it was linked to the demand for the investigations. The Ukrainians appear to have initially been hopeful that the problem could be resolved quietly and were reluctant to risk a public clash at a delicate time in relations between the two nations.

The disclosure that the Ukrainians knew of the freeze by early August corroborates, and provides additional details about, a claim made by a C.I.A. officer in his whistle-blower complaint that sparked the impeachment inquiry by House Democrats.

“As of early August, I heard from U.S. officials that some Ukrainian officials were aware that U.S. aid might be in jeopardy, but I do not know how or when they learned of it,” the anonymous whistle-blower wrote. The complainant said that he learned that the instruction to freeze the assistance “had come directly from the president,” and said it “might have a connection with the overall effort to pressure Ukrainian leadership.”

Publicly, Mr. Zelensky has insisted he felt no pressure to pursue the investigations sought by Mr. Trump.

“There was no blackmail,” Mr. Zelensky said at a news conference earlier this month. He cited as evidence that he “had no idea the military aid was held up” at the time of his July 25 call with Mr. Trump, when Mr. Trump pressed him for investigations into the Bidens and a debunked conspiracy theory about Ukrainian involvement in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016.

Mr. Zelensky has said he knew about the hold up of the military aid before his meeting in Poland on Sept. 1 with Mr. Pence, but has been vague about exactly when he learned about it. “When I did find out, I raised it with Pence at a meeting in Warsaw,” he said this month.

In conversations over several days in early August, a Pentagon official discussed the assistance freeze directly with a Ukrainian government official, according to records and interviews. The Pentagon official suggested that Mr. Mulvaney had been pushing for the assistance to be withheld, and urged the Ukrainians to reach out to him.

The Pentagon official described Mr. Mulvaney’s motivations only in broad terms but made clear that the same Ukrainian official, Andriy Yermak, who had been negotiating with Mr. Giuliani over the investigations and a White House visit being sought by Mr. Zelensky should also reach out to Mr. Mulvaney over the hold on military aid.

A senior administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue said on Monday that Mr. Mulvaney “had absolutely no communication with the Ukranians about this issue.”

Ukrainian officials had grown suspicious that the assistance was in jeopardy because formal talks with the Pentagon on its release had concluded by June without any apparent problem.

In talks during the spring with American officials, the Ukrainians had resolved conditions for the release of the assistance, and believed everything was on schedule, according to Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Ukraine’s former vice prime minister for Euro-Atlantic Integration.

But by early August, the Ukrainians were struggling to get clear answers from their American contacts about the status of the assistance, according to American officials familiar with the Ukrainians’ efforts.

In the days and weeks after top Ukrainian officials were alerted to the aid freeze, Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, and Kurt D. Volker, then the State Department’s special envoy to Ukraine, were working with Mr. Giuliani to draft a statement for Mr. Zelensky to deliver that would commit him to pursuing the investigations, according to text messages between the men turned over to the House impeachment investigators.

The text messages between Mr. Volker, Mr. Sondland and the top Zelensky aide did not mention the hold up of the aid. It was only in September, after the Warsaw meeting, that Mr. Taylor wrote in a text message to Mr. Sondland, “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

After being informed on Sept. 1 in Warsaw that the aid would be released only if Mr. Zelensky agreed to the investigations, Ukrainian officials, including their national security adviser and defense minister, were troubled by their inability to get answers to questions about the freeze from United States officials, Mr. Taylor testified.

Through the summer, Mr. Zelensky had been noncommittal about the demands from Mr. Volker, Mr. Sondland and Mr. Giuliani for a public commitment to the investigations. On Sept. 5, Mr. Taylor testified, Mr. Zelensky met in Kiev with Senators Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, and Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut.

Mr. Zelensky’s first question, Mr. Taylor said, was about the security aid. The senators responded, Mr. Taylor said, that Mr. Zelensky “should not jeopardize bipartisan support by getting drawn into U.S. domestic politics.”

But Mr. Sondland was still pressing for a commitment from Mr. Zelensky, and was pressing him to do a CNN interview in which he would talk about pursuing the investigations sought by Mr. Trump.

Mr. Zelensky never did the interview and never made the public commitment sought by the White House, although a Ukrainian prosecutor later said he would “audit” a case involving the owner of the company that paid Hunter Biden as a board member.

Mr. Giuliani has said he had nothing to do with the assistance freeze and did not talk to Mr. Trump or “anybody in the government” about it. “I didn’t know about it until I read about it in the newspaper,” he said in an interview last week.

*********

Donald Trump’s Quid Pro Quo Is Now a Smoking Gun

Mr. Trump’s own acting envoy, William Taylor, described how the president tried to force Ukraine to advance his political interests.

By Jesse Wegman, Mr. Wegman is a member of the editorial board | Published October 22, 2019 | New York Times | Posted October 23, 2019 |

If Tuesday’s congressional testimony by William Taylor, the acting United States envoy to Ukraine, is to be taken at face value — and no one in the Trump administration has yet denied a word of it — then it is now beyond doubt: President Trump placed his personal political future above the national-security interests of the United States. He did so at the expense of longstanding foreign policy, a critical international alliance and the stability of the global order — and he used hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to do it.

The nation has known the basic outlines of this story for weeks, thanks to the bravery of a C.I.A. whistle-blower and others. But in 15 pages, Mr. Taylor laid out with a stunning degree of detail the extent of Mr. Trump’s effort to extort Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his son over supposed corruption.

You know it’s bad for the president when the only response the White House can muster is to sidestep the testimony and complain instead about “a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution.”

Would that be the same Constitution that Mr. Trump referred to, in part, as “phony” just this week? Also, “radical unelected bureaucrat” is a curious way to describe Mr. Taylor, who currently serves as Mr. Trump’s acting envoy to Ukraine and is a retired career civil servant and Vietnam War veteran who has served under both Republican and Democratic presidents.

Mr. Taylor described to lawmakers how, after agreeing to take over as interim head of the United States Embassy in Ukraine last spring, he soon realized something was very wrong. There were “two channels of U.S. policymaking and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular.” The regular one was what it had long been: support, with bipartisan backing in Congress, for Ukraine against Russian aggression from the east. The irregular one was a concerted effort, led by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani, to get Ukraine to investigate purported corruption by Mr. Biden and his son, as well as alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 United States election.

There is no evidence to support the first allegation, and the second has been thoroughly debunked by the American intelligence community. But Mr. Trump doesn’t care about details like that — he is hungry to damage Mr. Biden and he wanted Mr. Zelensky to state publicly that there would be a thorough investigation. He dangled two carrots: a White House visit and nearly $400 million in desperately needed military aid that the United States had promised to Ukraine for its war with Russia.

Mr. Taylor’s alarm bells went off when, shortly before one call with Mr. Zelensky, Gordon Sondland, the American ambassador to the European Union, said he didn’t want most of the normal interagency participants to be on the line, and didn’t want anyone monitoring or transcribing the call.

Later, Mr. Taylor said, Mr. Sondland told him that “everything” — the White House visit and the military aid — depended on Mr. Zelensky’s willingness to start a high-profile, public investigation. That sure sounds like a threat to withhold money unless Mr. Zelensky did the president’s bidding — what sticklers might call a quid pro quo. Mr. Trump has denied this, repeating “no quid pro quo” as though it were a magical incantation. After reading Mr. Taylor’s testimony, I don’t think that phrase means what the president thinks it means.

(Even some of Mr. Trump’s staunchest defenders are starting to recognize how serious this is. In an interview with “Axios on HBO” that aired Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said, “If you could show me that, you know, Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing.”)

What comes through most clearly in Mr. Taylor’s written testimony, which he supplemented with oral testimony to three House committees behind closed doors, is the sheer shock that an American president would be so reckless with both human lives and international relations, all for his own political gain.

Mr. Taylor laid out the real-world stakes of Mr. Trump’s decision to play politics with Ukraine’s military aid. He recalled a visit to the front lines in eastern Ukraine that he and Kurt Volker, the special envoy to Ukraine, made in late July, from where they could see armed Russian forces gathered on the other side of a bridge. “Over 13,000 Ukrainians had been killed in the war, one or two a week. More Ukrainians would undoubtedly die without the U.S. assistance,” he wrote.

There are two stories to tell about Ukraine, Mr. Taylor said. One story, the bad one, involves whistle-blowers, back channels and quid pro quos. The other is a positive one — about “a young nation, struggling to break free of its past” and eager to “enjoy a more secure and prosperous life.” Mr. Taylor might have added that there are also two American stories — one in which politicians use foreign policy to maneuver for domestic advantage, and one in which there is bipartisan support for fledgling democracies that share our values and there are diplomats who devote their lives to delivering on that support.

In that America, there should be no room in the Oval Office for someone like Donald Trump.

*********

0 notes

brookstonalmanac · 2 years

Text

Birthdays 6.17

Beer Birthdays

Frank Shlaudeman (1862)

Ed Stoudt (1940)

Colin Kaminski (1965)

Hop Caen (1991)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Christy Canyon; porn actor (1966)

M.C. Escher; Dutch artist (1898)

Charles Gounod; French composer (1818)

Greg Kinnear; actor (1963)

Igor Stravinsky; Russian composer (1882)

Famous Birthdays

George Akerlof; economist (1940)

David "Stringbean" Akeman; banjo player, actor (1915)

Bobby Bell; Kansas City Chiefs LB (1940)

Ralph Bellamy; actor (1904)

Jello Biafra; rock singer (1958)

Kingman Brewster Jr.; educator (1919)

Thomas Haden Church; actor (1960)

Bud Collins; tennis player, television sportscaster (1929)

Dave Concepcion; Cincinnati Reds SS (1948)

Charles Eames; designer, architect (1907)

Sammy Fain; songwriter (1902)

Bobby Farrelly; film director (1958)

Red Foley; country singer (1910)

Will Forte; comedian, actor (1970)

Newt Gingrich; politician, history teacher, windbag (1943)

John Robert Gregg; inventor (1867)

John Hersey; writer (1914)

Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch; Los Angeles Rams RB/WR (1923)

William Hooper; signer of the Declaration of Independence (1742)

Chloe Jones; model, porn actor (1975)

John Kay; English inventor (1704)

Mark Linn-Baker; actor (1954)

Edward Longshanks; Edward I, King of England (1239)

Barry Manilow; pop singer, songwriter (1946)

Bob Mauger; pinball wizard (1960)

Eddy Merckx; Belgian cyclist (1945)

Jason Patric; actor (1966)

Joe Piscopo; comedian, actor (1951)

Chris Spedding; rock guitarist (1944)

Starhawk; writer, activist (1951)

Ruth Graves Wakefield; cook, invented chocolate chip cookie (1903)

Tori Welles; porn actor (1967)

Venus Williams; tennis player (1980)

#Birthdays

0 notes

savvyherb · 5 years

Text

As Russian Money Poured Into Cannabis, Giuliani Allies Scrambled to Partake

“I think there is a strong fear of missing out back in Russia,” Mr. Cherkashin said. “It’s one of the most promising and rapidly developing markets.”

They were accused in a separate scheme to conceal the source of a $325,000 donation to a pro-Trump super PAC, as well as other political contributions.

Big Investors

Mr. Kukushkin’s lawyer, Gerald B. Lefcourt, declined to comment on the case.

Other investors with Russian backgrounds have been public about their involvement in the cannabis industry, and law enforcement officials do not appear to have raised questions.

“A lot of these states are trying to keep the money and the ownership interest within the four corners of the state,” Mr. Freedman said. “It simply isn’t happening.”

From Russia to California

In 2013, Mr. Kukushkin took up residence in a 1,400 square-foot condo a few blocks from San Francisco’s financial district.

Mr. Muraviev, meanwhile, was born in Russia and partially educated in San Francisco. He led a cement company in Russia before starting the investment company Parus Capital.

Together, their first foray into the cannabis industry appears to have been in 2015.

In the last few months, Mr. Kukushkin has been pursuing a dispensary license in the Los Angeles area.

Sean Maddocks, a legal consultant who has helped in that effort, said Mr. Kukushkin approached him last year looking for guidance on where he could get additional licenses.

He said Mr. Kukushkin never discussed anything like campaign contributions or any improper effort to get a license.

Political Contributions

In the summer of 2018, according to federal prosecutors, those three men teamed up with Mr. Kukushkin to develop a multistate cannabis business strategy.

Mr. Duncan and Mr. Laxalt both said through spokespeople that they were unaware of any illegal activity and were returning the donations.

If the contributions and support were intended to produce a result, they failed. Mr. Duncan and Mr. Laxalt both lost their elections.

Mike Baker reported from San Francisco and William K. Rashbaum reported from New York.

The post As Russian Money Poured Into Cannabis, Giuliani Allies Scrambled to Partake appeared first on Savvy Herb Mobile Cannabis Platform.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2BDfTWh via IFTTT

#cannabis #marijuana #thc #cbd

0 notes