Mobile home on tracks, Sun Valley CA, birthplace of the Vegas shooter. From the film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
[Los Angeles] When we were at Francis Polytechnic High in Sun Valley, Steve Paddock and I were required to take electrical shop class. At Poly and our junior high, we were required to take metal shop so we could work the drill presses at the GM plant. We took drafting. Drafting like in "blueprint drawing."
Paddock. Palast. We sat next to each other at those drafting tables with our triangular rulers and #2 pencils so we could get jobs at Lockheed as draftsmen drawing blueprints of fighter jets. Or do tool-and-dye cutting to make refrigerator handles at GM where they assembled Frigidaire refrigerators and Chevys.
We can't make this up: African-American school teacher DeAndre Harris, victim of a beating by neo-Nazis in Charlottesville in August, has been — ready for this? — charged with assaulting the white supremacists who beat him with boards, iron rods, and brass knuckles.
That is correct. Harris, in photos released by Truthout and carried worldwide, was shown being beaten close to death — has now been charged with the same crime as his attackers: “unlawful wounding”.
DeAndre Harris beaten in Charlottesville, VA Copyright: Zach D Roberts
Last night (Monday, October 9), we have learned that the DeAndre Harris story has taken a twist that would, in a different era, be surprising. With several of DeAndre's attackers still on the run — and police showing no interest in going after them — DeAndre just had an arrest warrant issued in his name. According to a media release issued by the Charlottesville Police Department, the warrant was for "Unlawful Wounding" (Va Code 18.2-51).
That's right, the young man who you can see here being beaten to an inch of his life by half a dozen white supremacists will be (Show me more...)
On Friday, August 6, thanks to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, a federal judge unsealed two documents relating to Kris Kobach’s proposed amendments to the National Voter Registration Act (a.k.a. the “motor-voter law").
The first document was a memo that Kobach brought to a meeting with President-elect Trump in November 2016, which was partially exposed during a photo op and revealed that Kobach wants to "stop aliens from voting" by drafting amendments to the National Voter Registration Act "to promote proof of citizenship requirements." The second unsealed document offers more insight into precisely how Kobach intends to do this. (Show me more...)
Their evidence: the findings of the Palast Investigations team, our sleuths and our statisticians are cited throughout as the solid factual back-up for their suit to stop the wrongful removal of tens of thousands of voters of color in that state.
(Crosscheck is that secret hit list of 7 million Americans crafted by Kris Kobach, Trump's "Elections Integrity" czar. The list, targeting minority voters was discovered and uncovered by (Show me more...)
Indivisible Chicago and the ACLU of Illinois have teamed up to call for an end the state's participation in Crosscheck, and have launched a campaign that has the support of State Rep. Will Guzzardi ( 39th District), State Rep. Greg Harris (13th District), among others.
However, Indivisible Chicago reports that the State Board of Elections has again declined to put Kris Kobach's racially-biased Crosscheck voter-purging program on the agenda for its September 18th meeting — continuing to cite that the Board "requires more information to get up-to-speed on this program."
It's absolutely WEIRD that the Illinois Board of Elections wants time to "get up to speed on Crosscheck" — when they’ve been IN THE PROGRAM for years. Shouldn’t they "get up to speed" before they send lists to Kris Kobach again? (Show me more...)
There is no reason for Crosscheck in Virginia. There’s not been a single case of someone voting in Virginia and another state. Not one case. It’s a massive disenfranchisement to stop a crime which does not exist. (Show me more...)
Kris Kobach's so-called "Election Integrity" Commission had their first public meeting in New Hampshire on Tuesday. One of the topics they discussed was claims made by a bogus Koch-funded Heritage Foundation report that 1,100 people in New Hampshire voted illegally (which Kobach repeated in his similarly bogus September 7 Breitbart column). The "evidence" that they used to back this claim up was that some people used out of state DMV ID to vote. On yesterday's edition of the Thom Hartmann Program, Greg and Thom quickly debunk the Heritage Foundation and Kobach's assertion that illegal out of state voters changed the outcome of the 2016 New Hampshire Senate race. (Show me more...)
After spearheading the launch of The Voting Rights Project in Virginia at an event on Saturday, September 9, DC's Civil Rights Center has called for the state to withdraw from Interstate Crosscheck.
In an open letter, submitted on September 12, 2016, the Executive Director of the Civil Rights Center, Dee Hunter, asked Virginia's Democratic Governor, Terry McAuliffe, to terminate the state's participation in the GOP's racially-biased-by-design voter purging program.
"Terry McAuliffe has called the Trump-Kobach vote fraud commission a machine of 'vote suppression'. Yet McAuliffe is one of the last Democratic governors to insist (Show me more...)
The event had one main goal: To put pressure on the Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe — a Democrat — to remove the state from Kris Kobach's stealth voter-purging system. Over a million voters have quietly (Show me more...)
Above: Alex Michael Ramos, Dan Borden, and three more unidentified males brutally assault school teacher De'Andre Harris in a parking garage in Charlottesville on August 12. Photo: Zach D Roberts.
On Monday, August 27, police finally arrested the second of two assailants identified from Palast Investigative Fund photographer Zach D. Roberts' Charlottesville photos. Alex Michael Ramos, who surrendered himself to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia on Monday evening, has been charged with one count of malicious wounding. Fellow attacker, Dan Borden, faces a similar charge for the brutal assault of Black school teacher De'Andre Harris, which nearly cost him his life.
Still missing, the FBI moving on the others whom the attackers must know, including the man with the gun pictured below. (Thanks to Titter user @extapdancer for digitally enhancing the shot with a program called "Unshake" — see inset.)
Above: Can you identify this man? (Click on image to view high resolution file.) Photo: Zach D Roberts.
"While we’re happy that arrests are going forward... these two men were identified immediately by journalists who covered the rally. There have been no additional identifications of any of the other participants by law enforcement," said Harris' attorney, Lee Merritt, in an interview for Democracy Now!. "We just hope that people don’t settle with these two arrests and that law enforcement doesn’t think that the job is done with these arrests."
Note that the Justice Department has brought no charges for crossing state lines with intent to commit violence. (Maybe Jeff sessions thinks that the other attackers were "very fine people".)
"I’m also concerned in these arrests that they have been undercharged. Each were charged with one felony account of a malicious assaulting," said Merritt. "We’re talking about a group of white supremacists who attacked a young black male at a white supremacist rally while shouting racial slurs… if this doesn’t set the table for hate-based criminal charges, I don’t know what will.” (Show me more...)
“Suddenly, a fight breaks out behind me. De'Andre Harris comes running out and is followed by about a dozen white supremacists, who are chasing him with clubs, helmets and shields and every sort of weapon they could find. And they shove him into a parking arm. He falls down. They keep beating him, kicking him, using whatever they can find.”
Palast Investigative Fund photographer Zach D. Roberts is interviewed by Nermeen Shaikh for Democracy Now! about the brutal beating of De’Andre Harris he witnessed and caught on camera in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017.
You can see more of Zach D. Roberts's images from Charlottesville here. Zach also got an exclusive interview with De'Andre Harris, which you can find here. (Show me more...)
Above: Dan Borden attacking De'Andre Harris in a Charottesville parking garage.
Neo-Nazi Dan Borden, who nearly beat Black school teacher De'Andre Harris to death in Charlottesville on August 12, has been arrested after being identified via photos taken by courageous Palast Investigative Fund photographer Zach D. Roberts. Borden also assaulted Roberts, who kept taking photos of the skinhead attackers even after the attackers’ pal pulled a gun.
Journalism saves lives—when it doesn’t lie.
Borden, 18, a former Mason High School student from Ohio, was charged with malicious wounding by Charlottesville police on Thursday, August 24 for the brutal assault of Harris. He was arrested the following day and is being held at the Hamilton County Justice Center in Cincinnati, OH awaiting extradition.
I am thrilled that the NAACP and the League of Women Voters are using our Crosscheck investigation evidence to stop Jim Crow in Indiana. Only 27 states left to go. Next target: Virginia, where a so-called Democrat, Terry McAuliffe needs to dump Trump's Crosscheck purges.
Dick Gregory was a HUGE influence on my work and writings — that ability to take the darkest side of America and destroy the killers and Klansman with the deadly bullet of humor. Even while wilting from hunger (he would eat no solid food until the US left Vietnam). I memorized his speeches. He asked MLK III to introduce us so he could help promote The Best Democracy Money Can Buy — and I asked him to forgive me for his material that I plagiarized in our common cause. Alev ha-shalom, Brother Greg. (Show me more...)
On August 12, 2017 a 20-year old school teacher named De'Andre Harris was brutally attacked with iron bars and pieces of wood by a group of neo-Nazis.
The attack took place in a parking garage on Market Street — right next to the Charlottesville Police Station. Our photographer Zach Roberts took photos of the attack, which have since gone viral and have been reprinted online and in newspapers around the world. However, neither Roberts, Harris, or myself have been contacted by police, the FBI or Department of Justice officials.
Since this is a federal crime, involving actors who conspired and crossed state lines, we decided to contact the FBI ourselves to seek justice for Harris. This video documents the seven calls we made on Friday, August 18 in a frustrating attempt to report the near-murder of Harris.
"I think there’s blame on both sides... you also had people that were very fine people on both sides." — Donald Trump, speaking at a press conference at Trump Tower in New York on Tuesday, August 15.
The beating with iron bars and lumber of a black school teacher in Charlottesville reveals the lie behind Trump's sickening claim that "both sides" are to blame. Our photographer's camera shows that one side are the brutalizers, the other the brutalized.
You can see more of Zach D. Roberts's images from Charlottesville — as featured on the cover of the New York Daily News above — here. Zach also got an exclusive interview with the teacher who was beaten, De'Andre Harris, which you can find here.
No, the terrorist attack on peaceful counter protesters Saturday in Charlottesville was not an isolated incident. Anyone who says that is lying to you.
The film that tells you how Trump stole it. And tells you who did it, and how. And what they’ll do next.
Greg Palast’s Hit Movie The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of The Stolen Election
New! 2017 Post-Election Edition
A documentary unlike any other with appearances from Shailene Woodley, Rosario Dawson, Willie Nelson, Ed Asner and Detective Duo Ice T & Richard Belzer.
