Greg Palast, an investigative reporter for the BBC and the Observer (sister paper of the Guardian), is well-known among BuzzFlash readers for his expose on how Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris disenfranchised black voters in Florida.
Based in London (because tenacious investigative reporters are not valued in the U.S. media, he says) Greg is thorough, cynical and fearless. In March, BuzzFlash.com will be featuring Greg's new investigative reporting book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy." Greg Palast takes no prisoners. Here's Greg as quoted in news release by the Institute for Public Accuracy:
"The California blackouts are a simple case of greed run amok. The big winners in this monstrosity are Enron -- the largest career contributor to George W. Bush -- and other energy companies who have strangled the market. 'Deregulation' is a lie -- it is simply moving regulation from democratic government agencies to an unelected circle of market manipulators." (Show me more...)
Por Greg Palast
Publicado originalmente en español en: www.Americas.org
Un sobre que contiene el memorándum Plan de Asistencia a Argentina para los próximos cuatro años se ha posado sobre mi escritorio. El documento, firmado por el Presidente del Banco Mundial, James Wolfensohn, incluye la advertencia de que quienes lo reciben deben usar el documento “solamente en el desempeño de sus deberes oficiales”. (Show me more...)
by Greg Palast
In Buenos Aires, the Paris of Latin America, police gunned down two dozen Argentines in December after they chose to face bullets rather than starvation. The nation's currency had crumbled and unemployment had shot up from a grim 16 percent to millions more than the collapsing government could measure. The economy had been murdered in cold blood.
Who done it? The killers left fingerprints all over the warm corpse. (Show me more...)
by Greg Palast
When Tony met Enron I was there to witness love at first sight. New Labour was warned about Enron and its number crunchers, Arthur Andersen, after the office of Jack Cunningham, then Tony Blair's Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary, rang me in New York at 5am on 21 September 1995.
Someone in London didn't know the time difference though, from the urgency of the call, they didn't care. An American power company had launched a bid for Sweb, the former South West Electricity Board, and Cunningham had read that I had investigated the would-be buyer's funny accounting. Cunningham wanted me in London pronto.
The US seizure of the British electricity industry was the embarrassing endgame of the Tory privatisation of Britain's power industry, and Labour hoped to exploit by promising to block the US marauders and regulate the market. I was enlisted. (Show me more...)
ma . t r u t h o u t | Greg, welcome to TO. We have been looking over your new book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."
Greg Palast | Yes, now there is some prophecy in there that is coming too true, unfortunately.
ma . t r u t h o u t | You raise a number of hot-button issues. You revisit Florida. How far are we away from Florida at this point? What do we know that we didn't know before? What's the relevance to where we're at right now? (Show me more...)
by Greg Palast
I guess I'm not a nice guy. But when I heard that Enron's former vice-chairman Cliff Baxter had shunted his mortal coil, I shed no tears.
One tabloid even called Baxter a "hero" who courageously raised the alarm about his company's fantasy financials.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but this is the Baxter who last year quietly crawled out of Enron like a cockroach from a rotting log - then dumped his stock on unsuspecting buyers, thereby pocketing a reported $35m. (Show me more...)
Editor's Pick
It was a big year for muckraker Greg Palast. He broke shocking stories about the Bush Administration's spiking of intelligence probes into bin Laden and Jeb Bush's role in the Florida election theft. The Nobel Prize winner in Economics and former World Bank Chief Economist told him the bank, "condemned people to death." A gold mining company sued him for his story about their alleged connections to a homicidal regime in Africa. (Show me more...)
