Hey, Donald, the safe zone’s supposed to be in place BEFORE you lob the missiles. It seems, as TS Eliot put it, that Trump has committed, "The greatest treason / To do the right deed for the wrong reason."
Meanwhile, some opposing safe-zones in Syria say we should just increase refugee immigration. In other words, let’s empty out Syria, assist Assad in ethnically cleansing Shia Muslims. And, without a no-fly zone, you’re asking Syrians to flee without any protection from barrel bombs and mass slaughter.
And sorry, Donald, but it was the REPUBLICANS who voted down Obama’s request for power to take out Assad’s air bases in 2013. If GOP paper warriors like Marco Rubio hadn’t stopped Obama, those Syrian kids would be alive today.
Trump is taking out one airfield. That’s like taking out Mar-al-Lago and leaving Trump Tower. Hillary says, take’m ALL out. Never thought I’d say this until today: Damn, I miss that woman.
For years, too many of my progressive comrades have (Show me more...)
Koch Brothers celebrate their victory (from The Best Democracy Money Can Buy)
When RyanCare-TrumpCare finally ended up face-down in the swimming pool, triumphalist Democrats whooped and partied and congratulated themselves on defeating the Trump-Ryan monstrosity.
But deep in their counting house, counting their gold, three brothers cackled with private jubilation.
David and Charles Koch knew the day was theirs.
Joining them in the celebration was Brother Billy, William Koch, who will share in their $21 billion windfall that the President arranged for them only hours before TrumpCare crashed—when Trump announced his State Department had formally approved the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Let's start with that $21 billion.
The XL Keystone Pipeline would take the world's heaviest, filthiest crude from Canada's tar sands, and snake with it all the way down to Texas.
From Greg Palast’s film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits
Now here's a question I never hear from our sleep-walking media: Exactly why are we sending oil all the way across the United States to Texas. I mean, doesn't Texas already have a little oil?
In fact, Texas is drowning in oil, choking in it. But the Kochs' Texas refinery can't use much local crude. The Koch Industries Flint Hills refinery on the Texas Gulf Coast was designed specifically to crack only the world's "heaviest" (i.e. filthiest) crude.
Texas crude ain't heavy enough, ain't dirty enough, for the Kochs' Gulf Coast operation, originally designed for imports for the world's major source of heavy crude: Venezuela. The price the Kochs paid for Venezuela's oil was set by its President Hugo Chavez, and now, by Chavez' chosen successor, Nicolas Maduro.
Chavez and Maduro both told me they'd squeeze the Kochs by their tankers. They have.
Enter the Mounties: Canadians sell their super-heavy crude at a $12 to $30 a barrel discount to the Venezuelan price. If the XL Pipeline is complete, the Kochs can suck down Canada's cheap cruddy crude for a minimum savings of $1.27 billion in a single year.
The Kochs pocket billions while we fry: burning the Canadian tar sands reserve will, all by itself, raise the temperature of the entire planet by 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
Over the life of the XL Keystone Pipeline, the various Koch operations will put at minimum (Show me more...)
Get the non-fake info with investigative reporter Greg Palast.
Palast says,
"It’s no joke—and it’s far more sinister than a mere "lie."
"The US press has done a good job exposing President Trump’s looney-toons claim that millions of votes were cast against him.
"But what’s missing is what’s behind Trump’s claim — and it’s not just his cranky, whining ego looking to erase the embarrassment of losing the popular vote.
"We are witnessing the crafting of a systematic plan to steal the 2018 midterm election."
And that’s not all:
Did anyone notice that in the middle of Trump’s psycho-drama of a press conference, he said, "…I want to thank Paul Singer for being here and coming up to the Oval Office."
Those are the most dangerous words Trump has uttered since (Show me more...)
Last week, I flew to Detroit with my team at the request of a major west coast publication. When I landed, they got cold feet; assignment cancelled. Without funding to continue, I should have (Show me more...)
Officially, Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes. But a record 75,335 votes were never counted. Most of these votes that went missing were in Detroit and Flint.
How do you disappear 75,335 votes? I flew to Michigan to investigate.
Support the 2016 Stolen Election Investigation After investigating the REAL story of the recount, we stopped by the Department of Justice yesterday and handed them our Crosscheck petition, signed by 50,000 people. We have a lot more work to do and thankfully, our efforts are starting to get notice. We're not done...
Thousands of bubbles filled in next to the candidate's name couldn’t be read by the optical scanning machines in Michigan and Wisconsin but a much better machine, the (Show me more...)
After reading my report on the Kobach/Koch/Trump operation, which has removed tens of thousands of minority voters from the rolls in the swing states that surprisingly shifted to Trump, former federal judge (and now Congressman) Alcee Hastings told me Crosscheck is a criminal violation of federal law. Hastings has called for criminal indictments and written an official Congressional member letter to ask for investigation.
Hastings’ demand for justice is backed by a petition to expose and end Crosscheck’s racist attacks on voting rights. So far it's been signed by 50,000 people, including 29,507 members of 18 Million Rising, the Asian-American rights group. The group is joined by co-signers Rep. Keith Ellison, Bill Gallegos of Climate Justice, Martin Luther King III and others.
On Tuesday, December 13 I will join the leaders of 18 Million rising in Washington, D.C. to present the petition to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Stopping Crosscheck is the Standing Rock of racist vote suppression. If we don’t open the investigations now, by January 21, Kris Kobach will be Homeland Security chief and Jeff Sessions Attorney General.
There's been so much complete nonsense since I first broke the news that the Green Party would file for a recount of the presidential vote, I am compelled to write a short guide to flush out the BS and get to just the facts, ma'am.
Nope, they’re not hunting for Russian hackers
To begin with, the main work of the recount hasn't a damn thing to do with finding out if the software programs for the voting machines have been hacked, whether by Putin’s agents or some guy in a cave flipping your vote from Hillary to The Donald.
The Green team does not yet even have the right to get into the codes. But that's just not the core of the work.
The ballots in the electoral “dumpster”
The nasty little secret of US elections, is that we don't count all the votes.
In Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania—and all over America—there were a massive number of votes that were simply (Show me more...)
UPDATE: In Michigan and North Carolina the wipe-out of Black, Hispanic and young voters was massive - especially under Crosscheck. Watch my latest segment on MSNBC's AM Joy, this Saturday morning on how the election was rigged - long before the vote even happened.
Jill Stein just called to say that I am the first one to be informed that the Green Party is formally petitioning for a recount in 3 states, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Trump’s margin is less than 11,600 in Michigan, 27,200 in Wisconsin and 68,000 in Pennsylvania.
“This is the story of the theft of the 2016 election.
It’s a crime still in progress.”
So opens my film, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
And on Election night I waited for the returns to make a fool of me.
Instead, the returns made the fool a President.
And so, my vacation’s cancelled. My life’s cancelled; that is, a life of anything but sleuthing and exposing the details of the heist of our democracy.
What’s at stake?
No way around it, this is one frightening moment.
Decades of progress created with sweat and determination face destruction. Within the next six months, we may see the Voting Rights Act repealed—and civil rights set back 50 years; the entirety of our environmental protection laws burnt in a coal pit; police cruelty made our urban policy; the Education Department closed to give billionaires a tax holiday; and a howling anti-Semite as White House Senior Counselor.
But the horror we face is countered by this one hard and hopeful fact: (Show me more...)
Throughout the US election campaign one of The Donald’s main refrains was “this election is rigged.”
Turns out this particular Trump election rallying cry wasn’t a lie… Well, not entirely.
Veteran election investigator Greg Palast has uncovered the sickening truth. I spoke to Palast about evidence of widespread systemic election rigging, robbing black, hispanic and asian American voters of their right to vote in crucial states. – Enough votes to swing the election away from the Hillary Clinton victory predicted in polls – explaining suspicious exit polls inconsistencies – and towards a shock result for Trump and Republican victory in the Senate.
“Before a single vote was even cast, the election was already fixed by Trump operatives,” explains Palast.
“This country is violently divided. There simply aren’t enough white guys to elect Trump nor a Republican Senate. The only way they could win was to (Show me more...)
Before a single vote was cast, the election was fixed by GOP and Trump operatives.
Starting in 2013 – just as the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act – a coterie of Trump operatives, under the direction of Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, created a system to purge 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls of GOP–controlled states.
Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008
North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393
On Tuesday, we saw Crosscheck elect a Republican Senate and as President, Donald Trump. The electoral putsch was aided by nine other methods of attacking the right to vote of Black, Latino and Asian-American voters, methods detailed in my book and film, including “Caging,” “purging,” blocking legitimate registrations, and wrongly shunting millions to “provisional” ballots that will never be counted.
Trump signaled the use of “Crosscheck” when he claimed the election is “rigged” because “people are voting many, many times.” His operative Kobach, who also advised Trump on building a wall on the southern border, devised (Show me more...)
Greg Palast on the ground in the battleground state of Ohio: where he finds three ways the vote is, indeed, “rigged” – but FOR the GOP.
[Election Day, 2016 in Columbus, Ohio] For two decades, computer touch-screen voting machines have been derided as “push and pray” voting. You had to take it on faith that the machine records your vote as you intend. The machines lacked a “paper record” to audit and recount.
So, voting rights attorney Robert Fitrakis was thrilled to learn that many of Ohio’s voting machines would, for this election, have a brand-new anti-hacking capability. The computers could now take a photo of every voter card loaded in, time stamp each marking, and keep the images in an order that allows an audit and recount.
But there’s one thing wrong with the new tamper-proof voting machines. “They’ve decided to (Show me more...)
While the rest of the press is shocked that white North Carolina vigilantes are using racially-poisonous trickery to knock more than 6,700 Black citizens off the voter rolls, we already have the ringleader of the scheme on camera boasting of his election-snatching tactics.
The NAACP has identified the Voter Integrity Project of Raleigh, North Carolina, as the organization directing the mass mailings to voters in minority communities. When the letters marked “Do Not Forward” were returned to vigilante citizens guided by VIP, the group’s frontmen then challenged the Black citizens' right to vote. Republican officials then quickly removed these voters from the rolls despite the lack of any evidence that any are fraudulent voters.
“Colonel” DeLancy’s caging operation
VIP is headed by "Colonel" Jay DeLancy. DeLancy admitted to this reporter, on camera, that (Show me more...)
Are we crazy? Yes. We’re flat broke, but we are sending you this link to the free 60-page comic book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy drawn by Roger Rabbit Comics artist extraordinaire, Keith Tucker—and there’s no charge whatsoever. But we hope a few of you will have the heart to donate for something more important than food: getting our film into the churches, schools, union halls and activist centers in Ohio and Pennsylvania, the states targeted with the latest sick racial purge techniques I’ve uncovered for Rolling Stone.
The comic book features Rosario Dawson, “Detectives” Ice-T and Richard Belzer, Willie Nelson and Agent Orange himself, Donald Trump.
And a detective with no “off” button – Greg Palast.
It’s the first installment of our “tele-novella” comic series—by me and the genius artist who drew the comic book Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
It’s as crazy and informative and shocking and heartbreaking as the movie and book on which it based.
If you dig it, share the free download link – and get the rest of the story, the movie and book on which the comic book is based.
“…a wild and woolly ride, peppered with moments of wry sardonic humor that would make Dashiell Hammett smile. There’s so much more I’d love to tell you about what Palast dug up. But then I’d have to kill you. So you’ll just have to see “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” for yourself.”
– Paul Rosenberg – Salon | READ THE FULL REVIEW
The film’s out and playing to packed houses — and now the sequel, after a decade’s wait, to the book that rode the top of the Times list for nearly a year and Howard Zinn called, "The most important political tome of the century."
Get the book (signed) that busts the theft of the 2016 election BEFORE IT HAPPENS. Trump says the election’s rigged. He should know: his buddies are rigging it.
And I rip back the curtain that’s hiding the money behind the Donald. Trump only PLAYS a billionaire on TV — I name and get in the faces of the big bucks behind the big blond. And — cover the children's ears — the billionaire bandits behind Hillary, too.
And the new Best Democracy comes complete with a 44-page comic book by gonzo cartoonist-journalist Ted Rall. (Rall joins us from the LA Times from which he was fired for committing journalism.)
Or get the all-new "Best Democracy" sequel right now from the usual suspects (Amazon, B&N, Indiebound).
Here’s a better idea: Get the new book AND the new film on DVD—not yet available in stores—for a tax deductible donation of $85. Donate NOW — and if you do it by Monday, I’ll sign’m and send’m within 48-hours.
About that film—based on my reports for Rolling Stone, BBC and Democracy Now! As in the book, I hunt down the glove-puppet politicians who are mucking with the voter rolls, the NEW Klux Klan—and expose the billionaires whose fingers are in the gloves.
But in the film I’ve got a little help. When I’m stumped on the investigation, Detectives Tutola and Munch (Ice T and Richard Belzer) jump out of the (Show me more...)
Academy Award nominee Josh Fox has seen The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and says that it's "brilliant - not just as a piece of reporting but as cinema." Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, says Palast's film is "wonderful, really humorous and brilliant..." And TeleSur's Abby Martin says that Palast "calls these mother-f***ers out."
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy is now playing in Los Angeles and soon moving to theaters across the country.
Coming soon: Seattle (Oct 21-27 and Washington, DC (Oct 28 - Nov 3). We also have one day Gathr screenings in Oak Creek, WI (Oct 24), Smyrna, TN (Oct 26), Denver, CO (Oct 31), Houston, TX (Nov 1), Chicago, IL (Nov 2), Teaneck, NJ (Nov 4). You can sign up your own town to get a screening of The Best Democracy Money Can Buyhere.
As Gasland's Josh Fox says: Once you have this information, you know, you have to pass it on. There's a specific kind of outrage that I think only the work of Greg Palast can evoke. And it is the outrage that when we realize that our democracy is being taken away from us. And that there isn't anyone in the mainstream media aside from Greg Palast reporting on this with any reliability or accuracy or passion or intelligence - and that is itself a crime.
Follow gonzo investigative reporter Greg Palast (BBC, Rolling Stone) as he busts the new Ku Klux Klan – the billionaire bandits that are behind a scheme to purge one million voters of color in November.
This real life detective story is told in a film noir style with cartoon animations, secret documents, hidden cameras, and a little help from Law & Order detectives Ice-T and Richard Belzer, plus Divergent spirit Shailene Woodley, Rosario Dawson, Santa Claus (Ed Asner), and Willie Nelson as a stoner musician (can you imagine?).
Palast and his posse expose the darkest plans of the uber-rich to steal America’s democracy. Donald Trump plays a billionaire on TV. Palast jumps the real billionaire behind the "billionaire."
Audiences from California to Madison have laughed, cheered and given every performance a standing ovation. (Show me more...)
The film that told you Trump would steal it. And tells you who did it, and how. And what they’ll do next.
Greg Palast’s New Hit Movie The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits
A documentary unlike any other with appearances from Shailene Woodley, Rosario Dawson, Willie Nelson, Ed Asner and Detective Duo Ice T & Richard Belzer.
