BodegaBud
Well-Known Member
The Mt. Rushmore thing was a joke. That needs to be protected and left alone
Anyone watching the elections?
- Thread starter BodegaBud
- Start date
The Mt. Rushmore thing was a joke. That needs to be protected and left alone
BodegaBud
Well-Known Member
People need to fight back and quit electing people that want to tax everybody and everything to death. I was watching the after election and this woman was bitching about how the new governor was going to lower taxes and she was soooo worried she was going to lose out on some spending money. Pisses me off. Since when did our money become their money?
rollupreader
Well-Known Member
Love it...
hanimmal
Well-Known Member
lol you serious? You need me to hold your hand through all the actual links from Trump to Roger Stone and Manafort (both found guilty) to the Russian military just so you can pretend like somehow it is the same as a American company pointing out facts as a candidate working with the Russian military to attack our democracy?
And then after I do all that you will just ignore the well explained and sourced information to go with your 'feels' that have been (at best) programmed into you by right wing hate mongers for decades.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/us/kukushkin-giuliani-russia-cannabis-marijuana.html
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
Andrey Kukushkin and three others were indicted in a scheme to funnel money to politicians who could potentially help them obtain retail marijuana licenses.Credit...Kevin Hagen/Associated Press
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. Details of the venture, outlined in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco County Superior Court, were first reported by McClatchy newspapers and Mother Jones.
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
CatHedral
Well-Known Member
No granite cliffs for traitors. That man remains in Putin’s pocket. Something about hundreds of millions owed.
CatHedral
Well-Known Member
We have a peculiar new civil war at hand, with one side drinking deep at the well of fabricated grievance, hearing “analysts” lie their faces off, and believing them. How to walk this division back, I don’t know. In the meantime, alt-fact legislators are holding our entire political process hostage. This is war.
CatHedral
Well-Known Member
To joke that a treasonous autocrat belongs on hallowed granite puts the problem in sharp focus. Where that man belongs is in a pillory on the Mall.
Herb & Suds
Well-Known Member
Nobody brings out more Democratic voters than tRUMP
He stood down in this one but he won’t be able to come midterms, we shall see a RepubliCON bloodbath if he gets involved
Bank!
Herb & Suds
Well-Known Member
Fake news !
UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
got any evidence of that
UncleBuck
Well-Known Member
got any evidence of that
from CNN.
DEMOCRATS MISJUDGED THE MOOD
RIU doesn't have a font big enough- nope not hyperbolic at all.
it's still one man one vote, morons.
afterall, we know the Progs did this.
i want to sit Manchin down at someones kitchen table in WV (townspeople invited) with a pair of glasses, fake teeth, RX bottle and hearing aid and folded laundry; i dare him to take one off the table.
www.fineprintdata.com
well .25 or .50 is a lot of money to these people because they shop of the Dollar Store.
so no, i'm not watching the elections.
DEMOCRATS MISJUDGED THE MOOD
RIU doesn't have a font big enough- nope not hyperbolic at all.
it's still one man one vote, morons.
afterall, we know the Progs did this.
i want to sit Manchin down at someones kitchen table in WV (townspeople invited) with a pair of glasses, fake teeth, RX bottle and hearing aid and folded laundry; i dare him to take one off the table.
71% of Manchin’s Investment Income Is From Enersystems
Senator Joe Manchin's (D-WV) company, Enersystems, represents 30% of his net worth and 70% of his portfolio income.
www.fineprintdata.com
well .25 or .50 is a lot of money to these people because they shop of the Dollar Store.
so no, i'm not watching the elections.
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rollupreader
Well-Known Member
I don't care where he invests as long as he remains moderate and doesn't cater to the squad. Look at the election results so far and consider that perhaps the left has gone too far... You think he's the only one with conflict of interest investments? lolfrom CNN.
DEMOCRATS MISJUDGED THE MOOD
RIU doesn't have a font big enough- nope not hyperbolic at all.
it's still one man one vote, morons.
afterall, we know the Progs did this.
i want to sit Manchin down at someones kitchen table in WV (townspeople invited) with a pair of glasses, fake teeth, RX bottle and hearing aid and folded laundry; i dare him to take one off the table.
71% of Manchin’s Investment Income Is From Enersystems
Senator Joe Manchin's (D-WV) company, Enersystems, represents 30% of his net worth and 70% of his portfolio income.
View attachment 5021927
well .25 or .50 is a lot of money to these people because they shop of the Dollar Store.
CatHedral
Well-Known Member
His giving the Repugs air means he is no moderate. He’s a MAGA in blue camo.
you just totally made my day..i didn't look yet..i'm still trying to gag down Tim Kaine spewing how it's Progs fault..hey Tim? a few extra states and maybe you would've earned some extra votes..he and Hillary need to stay out and retire like good Bluedogs because that strategy worked so well.
typical, completely misses point.
rollupreader
Well-Known Member
But I made mine... Liberals are destroying the country. It's been a complete shit show since Biden took office.
Please list these new liberal policies that go too far.
rkymtnman
Well-Known Member
liberals created the country. liberals are on the high end of the bell curve of intelligence too.
.
rollupreader
Well-Known Member
Critical race theory, paying off student debt, open borders, green new deal, vaccine mandates. the list is much longer but I'll leave it there for now.