Lionel Cole brightens Dad‘s “Freddy Cole Quartet” in blackout
July 14, 2019 – Freddy Cole didn‘t make it to his 8:30 set at Birdland last night. He was stuck in a nearby hotel when the power outage struck and, at 87, he couldn‘t take the stairs.
I tell John Batchelor about Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower
July 13, 2019 – On Wednesday July 10th, I was interviewed by John Batchelor for his radio program. Here are the key points. There are a few corrections and edits. And here is the link to the audio.
April Matthis is captivating as “Toni Stone,” America‘s first female professional baseball player
In the 1920s, an original, a young black woman with a fanatical devotion to the quintessential American sport, fought racism and sexism to become the first woman to play in professional baseball as a regular on a big-league team. She played in the Negro Leagues.
“Ain‘t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations” is glorious Motown
This is the best juke box musical since “Motown” and “Jersey Boys.” In fact, it‘s about a Motown group that also started in Detroit and had the famous manager Berry Gordy. As one local explains, in Detroit, “you either sang or you join a gang. If you can‘t do neither, better learn to run.”
WSJ won’t respond to evidence its Browder story is full of fabrications
July 8, 2019 – On June 20th, the Wall Street Journal ran this article by reporter Kristin Broughton, “Financier Bill Browder Plays the Long Game to Expose Russian Money-Laundering.” The paper invited comments to mo*******@*sj.com, so I sent this, first explaining my background as a prize-winning journalist on financial crime whose past stories have been published by the Journal.
Mueller Report gets Trump Tower Meeting all wrong; Ignores facts and promotes the Browder Hoax
Consortium News, July 3, 2019 – A “key event” described in the Mueller Report
is the Trump Tower meeting where a Russian lawyer met with the
president‘s son Donald Trump Jr, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his
campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Russiagaters have been obsessed with the meeting, saying it was the smoking gun to prove collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to steal the 2016
election. Months after Mueller concluded that there was no collusion at all, the obsession has switched to “obstruction of justice,” which is like someone being apprehended for resisting arrest without committing any other crime.
“Oklahoma” sizzles with new look at women in early 1900s western territory
Director Daniel Fish puts the iconic American musical “Oklahoma” in a country setting with a modern sensibility. And it sizzles.
It’s the Oklahoma territory in the early 1900s. A very feminist take on men and women is established by a strong cohort, Aunt Eller, her niece Laurey (Rebecca Naomi Jones) and Ado Annie (Ali Stroker).
Workers oppression is a theme of stunning radical play “Hadestown”
“Hadestown,” written and composed by Anaïs Mitchell and directed by Rachel Chavkin, is a very radical play. It takes the audience to Hell, which is peopled by oppressed workers who have been indoctrinated to fear those who are poorer. Though that is probably not how it is described in the reviews you have read in mainstream media. It won the Tony for best musical play. But you probably have no idea what it is about. I call it the censorship of cultural ideas.
Banned from IRE Investigators List: What did U Missouri President do?
June 17, 2019 – In May I was thrown off the IRE Investigative Reporters list because one of its influential members, OCCRP (Organized Crime and Corruption Project) objected to my posts about William Browder, the tax fraudster who cheated Russia of $100 million and whose fake stories OCCRP has posted for years. Details here.
“Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune” of working-class love lives
It opens with sensual and noisy sex in the bed, the bodies turning and pushing against each other, the familiar noises with great realistic direction by Arin Arbus. And then not quite what you might expect. Frankie falls out of bed. And the post sex conversation; he compliments her breasts. She is not pleased. Is this how a love affair begins?
“Convention” terrific reprise of 1944 Dem convention that chose moderate Truman for VP instead of Wallace
It could be the corruption of a convention where Bernie Sanders is set against a corporate Biden. State signs are set behind banks of seats. The music is of the 40s. Flags on the wall have 48 stars. Author Danny Rocco and director Shannon Fillion create an ambience that makes you think you are there.
Public‘s “Much Ado About Nothing” takes Shakespeare to black Atlanta
A large banner on the brick house says “Stacey Abrams 2020.” It‘s next spring. Abrams, who last year lost a close race for governor of Georgia amid reports of voter suppression, had talked then about running for president. The relevance of the sign is that Abrams is a black woman, and this version of Shakespeare‘s play about love and trust – or mistrust — sets it not in Messina, Italy, but in modern-day Atlanta, with a black cast speaking in familiar accents.
“King Lear” with Glenda Jackson is brilliant and annoying
This “Lear” with Glenda Jackson as the king is sometimes brilliant, sometimes annoying. Jackson is a brilliant actress, her voice and demeanor might be male, but she didn‘t persuade me she was a king. Or perhaps she was on the edge of madness very early in the plot, after her daughters‘ duplicity. As the play went on, I wasn‘t sure if she would shrivel or explode.
Russian Indictment of Browder for tax evasion and tax refund fraud
June 1, 2019 – This is a new and startling Russian charge that William Browder orchestrated the $230 million 2007 tax refund fraud. It claims that Browder organized the use of Hermitage shell companies to claim a fake tax refund in December 2007. He has blamed Russian tax officials for the scam, saying their collaborators re-registered the companies and carried out the legal scam.
Browder lawyer Jonathan Winer files perjured claims in Hermitage court case
May 31, 2019 – What happens when a US lawyer files a court statement that is perjured? Jonathan Winer, a Washington DC counsel to convicted tax evader William Browder, filed a declaration this week supporting a legal petition of Browder‘s Hermitage Capital Management to get banks operating in the US to provide documents he says he needs to defend himself against Russian charges of tax evasion.
Browder files a legal action in US Federal Court, repeats his fakery
May 29, 2019 – William Browder, the owner of the Hermitage Fund, who was run out of Russia in 2006 for tax evasion, is still battling Russian law enforcement authorities attempting to collecting on multi-millions of dollars of tax he failed to pay during his decade as the country‘s largest foreign investor. He has just gone to court in New York to counter yet another Russian indictment for tax evasion. Case 1:19-mc-00262-JMF Document 6-1 Filed 05/28/19
“Hillary and Clinton” is surreal take on corrupt US politics
You are hit by the overwhelming sadness of everyone involved in Hillary Clinton‘s 2008 New Hampshire primary campaign against Barack Obama. Playwright Lucas Hnath and director Joe Mantello create a landscape of utter sleaze and despair. It‘s January. Even the hotel sitting room seems chill and desolate. There‘s one chair and the floor.
“What the Constitution Means to Me” is a feel-good feminist political play
This is a feminist theatrical. A very political play. If you don‘t want to go to a lecture about what is wrong with how the US government treats women and minorities, it‘s more interesting to go to a play. Such as “What the Constitution Means to Me,” Heidi Schreck’s take on how the Constitution is honored in the breach, “rigged” as the copy she carries says. Adult audiences in New York and other liberal enclaves nod their heads, and it‘s a good teaching moment for kids. Higher marks for politics than for drama.
“Ink” a vivid newspaper story mixed with Murdoch‘s “Sun” melodrama
“The Sun” is a popular newspaper for the undereducated British masses. It was a broadsheet started in 1964, then reinvented as a tabloid five years later by the Australian Robert Murdoch and Larry Lamb, a North Englander he named as editor. They were outsiders to the London Fleet Street crowd and felt it.
“All My Sons” denounces America‘s murderous corporate corruption
Jack O‘Brien‘s crisp staging of Arthur Miller‘s iconic 1947 American morality play lays bare the corruption underlying the normalcy of American society. This story of 70 years ago could be easily replicated today. Oh, so easily.
“Kiss Me Kate” a terrific feminist take on “Taming of the Shrew”
How do you take a 40s musical built around a sexist Shakespeare play and make it delight today‘s audiences? With pizazz and charm, if you are Roundabout Theatre director Scott Ellis. In this version of Cole Porter‘s and the Spewacks‘ “Kiss Me Kate,” the feisty heroine gives as good as she gets, and she and her erstwhile spouse playing Katherine and Petruchio land some good kicks to the others‘ derrieres.
Whitney Biennial exhibit attacks trustee for producing anti-personnel weapons
May 13, 2019 – I pay attention to political art, but I was amazed at an exhibit at the new Whitney Biennial which not so subtly attacks the museum’s board of trustees vice chair as the owner of a company that builds weapons that target civilians!
Corrupt “good guys,” Tax Justice Network kills my Browder podcast
May 11, 2019 – The Tax Justice Network, organized in 2003 to fight offshore tax evasion and corruption, has censored a podcast its founding director recorded when I spoke at the Offshore Alert Conference in November in London. I didn’t write about this before now, because I though the TJN leaders might change their minds. But it turns out they are either cowardly or corrupt.
OCCRP gets Lucy thrown off journalists’ list for citing Browder testimony that it is his collaborator
May 7, 2019 – The OCCRP, a Bill Browder acolyte and stenographer “news organization,” just got me kicked off, GLOBAL-L, a supposedly nonpolitical journalists‘ list, because I quoted from Browder‘s 2015 deposition in US Federal Court SDNY (Southern District of NY) in the Prevezon case showing OCCRP is a Browder collaborator.
Ex-diplomat‘s CFR report relies on “commentaries” as evidence to support Browder hoax
May 4, 2019 – When journalists, pundits and analysts promote the Browder hoax, one usually has no chance to confront them with facts. They ignore emails. But April 15th, I had the opportunity to ask one. The speaker was Robert D. Blackwill, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations. It was an event to promote his report, “Trump‘s Foreign Policies Are Better Than They Seem.”