Greg Palast is among the best investigative journalists in the world. Our country, and the world, will change when the existing corporate media - which is rooted in greed and distractions, denials, and dumbing us down - is replaced by a media which serves the public need to be informed. The last time Greg Palast came to Portland, there was standing room only for a beyond capacity crowd. More and more are learning about the toxic nature of much of the American media, and are committed to pushing for media reform. This is such a critical issue. I am so deeply grateful to Greg Palast and all those who are fighting to pull the minds and hearts of Americans back from the brink and instead make more possible a world that will truly work for all. Peace & blessings ~ Molly
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Buzzflash.com interviews Greg Palast
"However, the Republican cry of 'Vote Fraud!' has become the cover for purges and challenges to legal voters by the millions. I even tracked down and filmed some of these so-called fraudulent voters handed me from a GOP list. Every one was a legal voter."
-- Greg Palast, Intrepid Investigative Reporter and Author
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Greg Palast and BuzzFlash go back to the election of 2000. At that time, large progressive political news sites were hard to come by – and there was only one investigative reporter who was able to unravel the theft of the Florida election: Greg Palast.
Greg didn’t just expose the mugging of democracy. As a University of Chicago trained researcher, he was able to detail how Katherine Harris used an outside vendor to create caging lists that prevented legitimate voters from casting their ballots. In fact, Greg has a laptop presentation that actually shows you the lists that Harris’s office worked from in keeping minorities from voting.
Of course, Greg’s investigation on vote theft – which has branched out widely in the intervening years – is persuasive and thorough enough for the BBC and British newspapers, but not for the corporate press in America! We kid you not.
To this day, Palast is effectively banned from reaching the mainstream American voter because television stations and big papers are owned by companies that don’t want to rock the vote. It might hurt their tax cuts or efforts to deregulate media ownership.
BuzzFlash thought that now would be a good time to revisit with our most interviewed expert on BuzzFlash, Greg Palast. After all, we have an election coming up.
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BuzzFlash: You have been investigating the coordinated and vigorous GOP effort to suppress and steal votes since the theft of the election in 2000. You and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just did a BBC Documentary on what nefarious voter suppression tactics the Republicans have in store for us in 2008. Can you summarize some of the methods that the GOP are using to disenfranchise non-Republican voters prior to the election, to prevent them from voting during the election, and to keep their votes from being counted after the polls close?
Greg Palast: It's ugly. Consider:
- In the swing state of Colorado, we found that the Republican Secretary of State wiped out 19.4% - one in five - voter names in an unnoticed mass purge.
- In swing-state New Mexico, in the February caucus, one in nine Democrats found their names missing from the voter rolls supplied by the State. The elections supervisor of San Miguel County - whose own name was missing from the rolls - has no confidence the state contractors will fix it. Our statistical analysis showed there was a direct relationship between your name and your race and income. The poor and the dark were disappeared.
- In Indiana, you heard about 10 nuns who lost their vote because their ID - drivers' licenses - had expired (they were all over eighty). But what about the others? We've calculated that 143,000 others were turned away - disproportionately Blacks and new voters.
And so on and so on.
BuzzFlash: BuzzFlash has been covering one public relations effort by the Republican National Committee to create a false context for claiming voter fraud. In short, they have been attacking a national community organizing group called ACORN with news releases, lawsuits, surrogate assaults, etc., falsely claiming (as they did in 2004 and 2006) that ACORN is engaged in the massive illegal registration of primarily minority voters. Can you explain the significance of the ACORN slander by the RNC?
Greg Palast: As RFK and I report, there are only about SIX voters found guilty of federal voting fraud in a year. SiX! Out of 178 million registered voters.
So the GOP (and Fox and CNN) are running stories about ACORN signing up zillions of illegal voters. Yep, there are a handful of phony names - but 'Mary Poppins' has never shown up to vote.
However, the Republican cry of 'Vote Fraud!' has become the cover for purges and challenges to legal voters by the millions.
I even tracked down and filmed some of these so-called fraudulent voters handed me from a GOP list. Every one was a legal voter.
BuzzFlash: Tell us a bit about the site and downloadable comic book that you launched with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on how to prevent the theft of millions of votes by the Republicans, yet again in 2008. The website is: http://www.stealbackyourvote.com.
More ... http://www.gregpalast.com/voting-fraud-is-a-fraud-buzzflash-interviews-greg-palast/#more-2110
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[*In brief, Palast advises voters to vote early; do not mail in your ballot; check on your registration in advance to make sure there is not a glitch; don't vote a provisional ballot; volunteer on election day; go to the polls with someone for mutual support; and use the resources that you can get at stealbackyourvote.org.]
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