The untold story of the sources of the loot controlled by Paul "The Vulture" Singer and why he needs to buy the White House

by Greg Palast for TruthOut/Buzzflash - update

Greg Palast has been investigating Singer and other finance vultures for BBC Television's Newsnight. His new book is Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores.

It's out of the closet –– or, more accurately, out of the coven.  The list of the billionaires who have given at least $1 million to Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney Super PAC, is headed by Paul Singer.  Singer and his hedge fund crew at Elliott Associates, with their donations to the Republican National Committee and other "independent" groups like the Swift Boat campaign, makes it likely that Singer is now the top funder for the GOP.

For BBC-TV, I've been tracking Singer for five years.  And this is the key fact you need to know about the man whose cash would pick our President:  Paul Singer likes to breakfast on decayed carcasses.

The carrion king is known as Singer The Vulture. I didn't give him the moniker. The name Vulture was tagged on him and his speculator colleagues by the Prime Minister of Britain and the World Bank. Recently, former Deputy Secretary-General of the UN Winston Tubman suggested I ask Singer or his business associates, "Do you know you're causing babies to die?"

What does this guy do—put poison in kiddies' milk? Worse: he takes away the milk. (Show me more...)

by Greg Palast for Truthout/Buzzflash - update
Palast is the author of Vultures' Picnic: in Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores.

The call came in to BBC Television Centre, London, from the office of Mitt Romney's billionaire backer and "advisor" Paul Singer.

Singer, top donor to the Republican Senate Campaign Committee had a message for the news chiefs at the prestigious broadcaster:

"We have a file on Greg Palast."

I bet they do. (Show me more...)

Check out CSPAN TV schedule listings here.

From CSPAN —
Greg Palast presents his investigation of the BP oil spill and talks about the corruption he says permeates the oil industry, the financial sector, and government. This event, held at the Silver Spring Civic Building in Maryland, is hosted by WPFW (Pacifica Radio).

For Firedoglake

by Greg Palast

“They threatened me. Last night I got a call and they threatened me. If I talked.”

“Pig Man #2,” a pipeline industry insider, had a good reason to be afraid.  He was about to blow the whistle on a fraud, information that could blow away the XL Keystone Pipeline project.

His information: The software for the crucial piece of pipeline safety equipment, the “Smart PIG,” has a flaw known to the industry but concealed from regulators.

The flaw allows cracks, leaks and corrosion to go undetected – and that saves the industry billions of dollars in pipe replacements.  But there’s a catch. Pipes with cracks and leaks can explode – and kill.

Federal law requires the oil and gas industry to run a PIG, a Pipeline Inspection Gauge, through big oil and gas pipelines.  The robot porker, tethered to a GPS, beeps and boops as it rolls through, electronically squealing when it finds dangers.

But whistleblowers told us (Show me more...)

By Greg Palast

This month marks the 10th anniversary of the passage of No Child Left Behind.
Before George W. Bush invaded Iraq he knew he would have to invade our classrooms first.

While the occupation of Iraq has ended the brutal occupation of our classrooms by the Forces of Stupid remains.

Herewith is a reprise of our original warning:

NO CHILD'S BEHIND LEFT

They take away your overtime, your 40-hour week, your regulatory protection against corporate marauders, your right to courtroom justice, your protection against unfair trade, even the right to get your ballot counted. But there's always hope. Hope is the last thing to go. And your hope is your kids, that they'll have an opportunity you didn't have. On January 21, 2004, the President told you they'd have to take that away too. On that night, deep into his State of the Union sermon to Congress, when sensible adults had turned off the tube or kicked in the screen, our President opened a new front in the class war. And like the one in Iraq, it began with a lie. "By passing the No Child Left Behind Act," our President told us, "We are regularly testing every child...and making sure they have better options when schools are not performing." (Show me more...)

by Greg Palast

Click on the image to watch the segment

I don't usually watch Today or any American TV because my reports appear on the British Broadcasting Corporation, a network run by highly-educated America-haters.

But there I was, last Friday, in this hotel room in Atlanta, a city pretending there's no Depression, chewing my complimentary morning donut, and Today is telling us about the "new face of American poverty." (Show me more...)

Nowhere are the ill-gotten gains of the 1% more grossly apparent than in the activities of 'debt vulture' hedge funds

by Greg Palast
as published by The Guardian America

Photo by Zach Roberts © 2011

This past Sunday, a deputation from Occupy Wall Street crossed the bridge from Manhattan and brought its protest to the Brooklyn residence of one of New York's "vultures" This type of vulture doesn't roost in a tree, but in a swish brownstone.

A "vulture" is a financial speculator who, as we recently reported, gets his hands on debts owed by desperately poor nations. The Brooklyn "vulture" targeted by OWS and Friends of the Congo is Peter Grossman. Two weeks ago, the Guardian exposed him as a financier who is demanding the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the world's poorest nation, pay $100m to the hedge fund he manages, FG Hemisphere.

Grossman, tipped off about the demonstration, (Show me more...)

By Greg Palast
Special to Truthout.org

"So this Bishop, three priests and a comedian are locked up together in this paddy wagon and ...."

"Zach! This is NOT funny, and I do NOT want to hear the punch line."

(Show me more...)

This holiday season, why not roast a One Percenter's chestnuts on an open fire?

Donate $60 or more to the Palast Investigative Fund, and I'll personally sign and send you and yours a gorgeously illustrated hardbound copy of the book Mitt Romney's favorite billionaire says, "Is full of errors" - Vultures' Picnic.

Oh yeah? What it's chocked full of, is the no-soap dope on Paul "The Vulture" Singer, Mitt's billion-dollar sugar daddy, on the BP petroleum pirates, on Goldman's sacks of ill-gotten gold and a lot, lot more.

Order by Monday and get it in time for Xmas or Hanukah.

There are many other gifts at the Palast Investigative Fund store for your tax-deductible donation. Films, books and gift-packs. (Show me more...)

by Greg Palast
Special to TruthOut.org

Palast conducted a five-continent investigation of Big Oil for British TV's premier current affairs program, Dispatches, and for BBC Worldwide. This report is based on the broadcast seen prime-time worldwide—but not yet in the USA.

Whistleblowers have told Britain's "Dispatches" that the safety software on major US pipelines contains deliberate errors—and so pipelines can — and have — busted, leaked, exploded ...and killed.

Congressional Republicans are holding extended unemployment benefits hostage until President Obama agrees to speed up approval to build the XL Keystone Pipeline. XL Keystone will slice down through the entire width of the USA, moving tar-sands oil from Canada to Houston.

The oil industry promises that the Pipeline will be safe. But the pipe is only safe if the PIG inside it can squeal.

Federal law requires the industry to run a diagnostic robot PIG, a Pipeline Inspection Gauge, that will squeal when something is wrong: a crack, dangerous corrosion, anything that might lead to a spill or explosion.

But PIGs are only as good as the software that tracks and analyzes their signals. And the software used by Big Oil has been compromised—deliberately. (Show me more...)