A grand jury has indicted a high-profile cybersecurity lawyer in connection with special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia probe, on charges that he lied to investigators during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The indictment, returned by a Washington, D.C., grand jury on Thursday, charges attorney Michael Sussmann, of Perkins Coie, a law firm tied to the Democratic party, with making a false statement during a meeting with officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shortly before the 2016 election.
Mr. Sussmann didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. He could make his first court appearance as soon as Friday.
Author Archives: RomanInUkraine
Mendel Osherowitch and Holodomor eve
&Once upon a time there was a Yiddish language newspaper in New York called Forverts (in English, The Forward). Founded in 1897 by the Jewish Socialist Press Federation, the newspaper was devoted to Jewish trade unionism and democratic socialism.
Like the Ukrainian gazette Svoboda in its early years, Forverts also offered English lessons to its readers, as well as civic advice regarding life in America. Under the leadership of Abraham Cahan, editor from 1903 to 1951, Forverts attained a readership of some 200,000 by World War I.
Early in February and March of 1932, Mendel Osherowitch, a Jewish Ukrainian working at Forverts, was sent to Ukraine on assignment to learn about life in Soviet Ukraine. He was to go to theaters, marketplaces, cabarets, shops, Jewish houses of learning and to speak with Jews and non-Jews.
When Science is an Institution (as opposed to a process)
Psychiatry in the Soviet Union
There was systematic political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, based on the interpretation of political opposition or dissent as a psychiatric problem. It was called “psychopathological mechanisms” of dissent.
During the leadership of General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, psychiatry was used to disable and remove from society political opponents (“dissidents”) who openly expressed beliefs that contradicted the official dogma. The term “philosophical intoxication”, for instance, was widely applied to the mental disorders diagnosed when people disagreed with the country’s Communist leaders and, by referring to the writings of the Founding Fathers of Marxism–Leninism—Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin—made them the target of criticism.
. . . .
Political dissidents were usually charged under Articles 70 (agitation and propaganda against the Soviet state) and 190-1 (dissemination of false fabrications defaming the Soviet state and social system) of the RSFSR Criminal Code. Forensic psychiatrists were asked to examine offenders whose mental state was considered abnormal by the investigating officers.
In almost every case, dissidents were examined at the Serbsky Central Research Institute for Forensic Psychiatry in Moscow, where persons being prosecuted in court for committing political crimes were subjected to a forensic-psychiatric expert evaluation. Once certified, the accused and convicted were sent for involuntary treatment to the Special Psychiatric Hospitals controlled by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
The accused had no right of appeal The right was given to their relatives or other interested persons but they were not allowed to nominate psychiatrists to take part in the evaluation, because all psychiatrists were considered fully independent and equally credible before the law.
“We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.”
The popular term is “clown world.” So much of modern life increasingly resembles the Soviet Union – a system hated by all, from top to bottom. This clip from Australia reminds me of the old Soviet expression: “We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us.”
It’s a natural reaction when compliance is stupid, but dissent is forbidden.
An Ordinary Sunday in Lviv
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of walking through Lviv with my son, and with no plan or agenda. It’s such a wonderful, lively city. I always feel great after spending a little time in the center.
Yesterday was the Official Opening of a new year for Plast in Lviv
Happy to see the scouting organization of my youth thriving. The mayor spoke.
Marquis de Custine describes the West
Marquis de Custine was a French nobleman and writer best known for his critique of Russia which he visited in search of a better social and political order. Sadly, his descriptions of Czarist Russia now seem to describe much of the Western World:
Officially, such brutal tyranny is called respect for unity and love of order; and this bitter fruit of despotism appears so precious to the methodical mind that you are told it cannot be purchased at too high a price.
The people and its ruler are in harmony here. [They] . . . make themselves witnesses, accomplices and victims in these prodigies of willpower and would not repudiate them even to resurrect all the slaves whose lives are forfeited as a result.
We are in the Autumn of Western Civilization.
Japan’s Medical Association Recommends Ivermectin to ALL doctors for ALL Covid patients, Australia Criminalizes it, threatens doctors
I think this will create some healthy cognitive dissonance among the fellow travelers. Please have a look:
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Australia’s drug regulator has banned medical practitioners from prescribing the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin for “off-label” uses, such as for treating Covid-19.
The move comes after prescriptions for the drug increased between three and four times in Australia in recent months.
Threatened Doctor:
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I think the chaos and corruption of Ukraine’s public health sector is blessing. I know a friend who given Ivermectin to recover about a year ago. The doctor just asked him not to publicize the fact that he’d prescribed it.
Parliament passes law to legalize cryptocurrency in Ukraine
A draft law legalizing and regulating cryptocurrency and other virtual assets like tokens in Ukraine has passed the parliament in the second reading on Sept. 8.
A total of 276 Ukrainian lawmakers voted for the bill.
Cryptocurrencies have been neither legal nor forbidden in Ukraine because there were no laws that defined them. Ukrainians could buy and exchange virtual currencies, but local courts couldn’t protect them if something went wrong.
If signed by President Volodymyr Zelensky, the law will protect the owners of virtual assets and exchange platforms from fraud. It will also determine how Ukraine will regulate the cryptocurrency market in the future.
Ukraine plans to open the cryptocurrency market for businesses and investors by 2022, a pressperson from the Ministry of Digital Transformation told the Kyiv Post, but the parliament has to pass a set of laws and amend the Tax Code and the Civil Code first.
The bill approved on Sept. 8 is crucial in this process, experts said. It defines virtual assets as intangible assets expressed in a form of electronic data. It also explains what a wallet for virtual currency and a private key is — these terms have never been used in Ukraine’s legislation.
Although virtual assets are now legitimate in Ukraine, Ukrainians cannot use them as a means of payment or exchange for goods or services — only the official national currency, the hryvnia, has this power. However, Ukrainians can own, exchange and trade cryptocurrencies using local or foreign exchange platforms registered in Ukraine.
https://www.kyivpost.com/technology/parliament-passes-law-to-legalize-cryptocurrency-in-ukraine.html
Ivermectin
This is a public service post, though it includes a Ukraine-born doctor.
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RollingStone published a complete made up story about Ivermectin Overdoses in Oklahoma:
In a statement, the hospital system – the Northeastern Hospital System – said:
Although Dr. Jason McElyea is not an employee of NHS Sequoyah, he is affiliated with a medical staffing group that provides coverage for our emergency room.
With that said, Dr. McElyea has not worked at our Sallisaw location in over 2 months.
NHS Sequoyah has not treated any patients due to complications related to taking ivermectin. This includes not treating any patients for ivermectin overdose.All patients who have visited our emergency room have received medical attention as appropriate. Our hospital has not had to turn away any patients seeking emergency care.
We want to reassure our community that our staff is working hard to provide quality healthcare to all patients. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify this issue and as always, we value our community’s support.
In addition to Rolling Stone, Insider, Newsweek, The Guardian and The New York Daily News reported the KFOR story, which has yet to be updated with the statement from the hospital system.
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Dr Zelenko is a Ukraine-born doctor in NYC. He treated both President Trump and Rudy Guliani. He uses two inexpensive, off-patent anti virals in his treatement. HCQ and Ivermectin.
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Lancetgate: why was this “monumental fraud” not a huge scandal?
A high-profile and highly influential scientific study regarding the potential of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to treat Covid-19 patients was retracted among suggestions of fraud back in June. The research in question was headed by a renowned Harvard professor called Mandeep Mehra and published by The Lancet, the most prestigious medical journal in the world.
It concluded that the antimalarial drug used since the 1950´s was actually killing Covid-19 patients by inducing heart failures. It caused quite a stir. (Brief historical fact: the Quina tree, the source of quinine and its family of medications, is also the “national tree” of Peru).
Short after the publication of the study (22 May), the World Health Organization (WHO) halted all research being conducted on hydroxychloroquine, which included simultaneous testing in 17 countries. The worldwide influence of the scientific paper – and the fact that hundreds of doctors were already trying the drug in Covid-19 patients – led a lot of researchers to look closely into it, immediately finding an alarming level of incoherence.
In the meantime, the news was spread far and wide by the corporate media, many times in a highly politicized fashion. They swiftly convinced the world of the danger of treating the symptoms of Sars-Cov-2 with HCQ. . . .
The Lancet received a letter from more than a hundred physicians and researchers, jointly demanding a review of the study and the disclosure of the raw data used in it. When the company providing such data – Surgisphere – refused to relinquish it for independent inquiry, three of its four authors retracted the paper.
Dr. Sapan Desai was the one who didn’t retract it, as he is (or was) the owner of Surgisphere and the provider of the data. It was allegedly obtained from 96,000 patients in hundreds of hospitals from five continents, a presumption that, according to many experts, should’ve immediately raised eyebrows. An expert in data integration projects told The Guardian that a database like the one Desai is said to own was “almost certainly a scam”.
Surgisphere’s website, just like Dr. Desai himself, vanished soon after the fraud was revealed, while its few employees, among them an adult content model and a sci-fi writer, appear to be no more than part of a façade.
https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/08/lancetgate-why-was-this-monumental-fraud-not-a-huge-scandal/
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Dr. Simone Gold talk about several topics including how she lost her jobs for treating (AND CURING!) patients with HCQ. She has since formed the organization “America’s Frontline Doctors”.
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Popular video blogger Joe Rogan recently said publicly that he was completely cure of Covid in 3 days with vitamins and Ivermectin.
The media went crazy, slandering and ridiculing him. Their slander including changing the colors in his video to make him look sick:
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Ivermectin Debate: For and Against
https://medium.com/rebel-wisdom/ivermectin-for-and-against-briefing-document-2f5c28539dc
To me, it seems the naysayer’s only argument in this documentary is that there’s not enough evidence, or the studies have errors.
I wish the pro side of the debate pressed the question, “Compared to what?” Have there been double blind studies of Tylenol and Ventilators for the treatment of Covid? Why haven’t we opened the vaccine studies to the public and let them get scrutinized with the same rigor?
The Dumbest Russian Voyage Nobody Talks About
Polish Extreme Skier skies down K2 (2020)
K2 is the second tallest and arguably most dangerous mountain in the world.
Amazing footage. Near the summit he had to take care to ski in a way that wouldn’t throw snow at ascending climbers.
Voice.com
I just minted my first NFTs on Voice.com .
Check out this platform and marketplace for creators.
Ukrainian Independence Day Military Parade – Guest Troops
US troops appear at about 3:30 in the video
Ukraine celebrating 30th Anniversary of its Independence Day
On Tuesday, August 24, Ukraine celebrates the 30th anniversary of its Independence.
Ukraine celebrates its Independence Day in honor of the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian SSR in 1991 of the Act of Independence of Ukraine – a political and legal document that certified the new status of the Ukrainian State.
Ukraine has come a long way to independence. It all started off with the existence of the state union of the Poliany people in Rus, before the unification of the Rus State with its heart in Kyiv. With the disintegration of the Kyiv-Rus, the traditions of statehood passed to the Galicia-Volyn principality. Then came the Lithuanian-Russian Grand Duchy, in which the Kyiv and Volyn lands enjoyed considerable autonomy.
In the XVII century, on the territory of modern Ukraine, the Cossack State began to shape up. The Cossacks fought for Ukraine’s independence for more than a hundred years, but ultimately didn’t succeed. In the XVIII century, the Ukrainian nation lost its statehood and found itself as part of the two empires – the Russian and the Austrian – for the next two hundred years.
In the XIX – early XX centuries, the Ukrainian national movement was conceived and then developed, leading to the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921 and the revival of Ukrainian statehood. The Central Rada (Parliament) was formed, which with its Third Universal proclaimed the Ukrainian People’s Republic before the Fourth Universal declared its independence.
In 1919, the Act of Unification affirmed unity of the Ukrainian lands. However, the UPR, as a state, did not last long. Until the end of XX century, the Ukrainian people lost the chance to have their own state.
Following a coup in Moscow on August 24, 1991, the Verkhovna Rada (the Republic’s parliament) at its extraordinary session proclaimed the independence of Ukraine and the creation of an independent state – Ukraine.
This meant that the Ukrainian state had its own indivisible and inviolable territory, where the Constitution and laws of Ukraine were in force exclusively.
Ukraine gained full state independence after holding a nationwide referendum on December 1, 1991, where 90.32% of respondents supported the move.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-society/3303088-ukraine-celebrating-independence-day.html
Ukraine sends 38 tons of barbed wire to Lithuania for construction of fence on border with Belarus
Ukraine has sent 38 tons of barbed wire to Lithuania. This is the first batch of aid that Ukraine promised last week, reported the Ukrainian State Emergency Service.
“More than 38 tons of humanitarian cargo departed today, August 12, from Ukraine to Lithuania. This is the first stage of assistance of the three that Ukraine sends in accordance with the Decree of President Volodymyr Zelensky and the order of the Cabinet of Ministers. The assistance will contribute to strengthening the protection of Lithuania’s borders from illegal migrants,” the report said.
A week ago, the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers decided to supply 100 kilometers of barbed wire to the Republic of Lithuania.
Family Moments
My one and a half year old daughter likes to feed me. Her mother will give her a plate of cookies, or cut apples or bananas. She’s taken to waddling across the room to me with little handfuls of food. I usually take the first delivery and thank her emotively. But after a few deliveries I being to say “no thank you.”
Previously, she accepted the polite rejection, but today, she resorted to throwing the food at me, and then returning for more.
(This is pretty much how I’m treated when I visit my extended family here in Ukraine.)
Ukraine had an evacuation plane ready in Afghanistan, and successfully evacuated 79 people
As a multiple time combat Veteran, I say: “Happy Independence Day, Afghanistan”
It was a waste, and a failure, and obvious as such for over a decade. The military is for fighting. The psychopathic busy bodies in government, media, and academia (and their drone-like followers who probably sleep with the news on, lest they not know what they are supposed to believe), think it’s their business to change the way everybody lives. Consequently, the entire military was transformed into a police force and social influence organization. Soldiers should not be police. Soldiers are for killing and breaking things, not policing and fixing.
What do I care if Afghans destroy statues in the name of Islam (as opposed to destroying them in the name of tolerance)? What do I care if Afghans mutilate children’s genitals for the wrong reasons, instead of for the right reasons, as we do in the U.S.? Were mandates about face covering supposed to be a bad thing?
With the utter hypocrisy which I now consider to be the norm, it is the same people and institution who’ve spent the last generation promoting cultural relativism who are now outraged that culture on the other side of the world has resoundingly rejected the neo-liberal order.
I want the silver lining to be a re-assertion of the principle of self-determination.
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2008: Email from Afghanistan
