How do you defeat voter suppression tactics when it's fueled by billionaires' cash and partisan power? The same way the Voting Rights Act was first won 50 years ago. ...more
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.
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By Ben Gelblum | The London Economic
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 …more
by Greg Palast
Investigative reporter Palast wrote Rolling Stone’s recent exposé,
“The GOP’s Stealth War Against Voters.”
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 …more
Bernie new to Civil Rights?!?!?! He ran John Lewis’ SNCC office in Chicago ”” leading the critical fight for economic rights with Martin Luther King. If you’d read Ted Rall’s bio ”˜Bernie’ ”” as I told you to ”” you’d already know this.
Want history, not horseshit? Facts not foam?
Get a signed copy of Ted Rall’s graphic bio of Bernie or better yet, get the signed Palast & Rall Book Trio AND support our ongoing investigations into vote suppression by making a tax deductible donation. …more
By Greg Palast | For OpedNews
It was one of our team’s weirder investigative discoveries: The recently departed Justice Antonin Scalia”” alev ha shalom ”” in 2011, was ticketed for recklessly driving his black BMW.
To his family, I offer condolences. To my readers, I offer the facts. A man’s soul must be laid to rest, but history must not be buried as well, especially now that the Justice’s passing has become grounds for stories that border on historical obscenity, cf. the New York Times, “Liberal Love for Antonin Scalia.”
Love?? Well, if you want a Valentine, this ain’t it.
There’s been a lot of gleeful chuckling, for example, about Scalia’s courtroom bench “humor.” But behind his jokey comments lay a cruelty aimed at the …more
By Greg Palast for Truthdig
The movie “Selma,” like this week’s commemorations of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma, Ala., 50 years ago, celebrates America’s giant leap from apartheid.
Half a century ago Alabama state troopers and a mob of racist thugs beat African-Americans and others as they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, demanding no more than the right to vote. By the time King led 25,000 demonstrators singing “We Shall Overcome” into Montgomery, the state capital, on March 25, the president of the United States had introduced the Voting Rights Act. Free at last””to vote. Roll credits.
Yet, just a few months ago, Martin Luther King asked me, “How long until African-American citizens of Alabama””and Mississippi and Georgia””get the unimpeded right to vote?”
Obviously I was not speaking with King Jr.””a bullet stole him from us in 1968. The question was posed by his son, Martin Luther King III. I spent an afternoon at his home in Atlanta, where we pored over the latest evidence that Americans of color were blocked at the doors to the polls in the 2014 midterm elections””by the hundreds of thousands.
As King’s 6-year-old daughter serenaded us with her toy drum set, we dived into a massive, secretive database used by elections officials””almost all of them Republicans””in 28 states. The scheme, called “Interstate Crosscheck,” threatens to disqualify …more
[Greensboro, NC]
Jim Crow has risen from the crypt of Segregation. But now he’s working as Dr. James Crow, database expert. Read Greg Palast’s Election Day dispatch from Dixie, for Al Jazeera.
Here in Greensboro, Reverend Barber recites local history. It was in this small southern town that, in 1960, the beating of students conducting a sit-in at the local Woolworth’s launched the wave of non-violent protests that became the Civil Rights Movement. The state has made it an official tourist destination.
Rev. Barber’s rally also marks the 35th anniversary of the killing of five protesters by the remnants of the Ku Klux Klan, an event without a tourist marker. “We’ve been through too much to go backwards!” his is deep voice rising with the gospel sound of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.”
Greensboro is the residence of an astonishing 3,735 voters who supposedly cast ballots in the presidential election illegally in both North Carolina and Virginia. Or, at least, that is how they are listed in the Interstate Crosscheck files.
Read today’s complete report for Al Jazeera, Voting-Rights Groups Challenge Electoral Purges, about the swift …more
Atlanta, Georgia ”“ A six-month-long nationwide investigation by Al Jazeera America has discovered that voting officials in 27 states, almost all of them Republicans, have launched what is threatening to become a massive purge of black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters. Already, tens of thousands have been removed from voter rolls in battleground states, and the numbers are set to climb.
Read the full story on America.AlJazeera.com.
Also watch the exposé.
* * * * * * * * * *
Greg Palast, available to media at interviews (at) gregpalast.com, was the reporter who, for BBC TV and The Guardian, broke the story in 2000 of Katherine Harris’ wrongful purge of innocent black voters as “felons”.
[Dayton, Ohio. Tuesday November 6, 2012]
Several thousand African-American voters in Dayton, Ohio, may find their ballots left uncounted, and they, and America, won’t know it”“”“even if the lost votes change the presidency.
First, you need to know, there are two elections for President in Ohio held on two days and in two colors.
Today, White Ohio will vote: Evangelicals, rurals, small businessmen, big and bigger businessmen, the whole Rotary Club.
Black Ohio already voted. More African-Americans vote early than on the official Election Day.
The big day for African-Americans”“”“and for Barack Obama’s hopes for reelection”“”“was on Sunday, “Souls to the Polls” day, when church buses filled with the ladies of the choir and their men vote as a group. …more
Sens. Kennedy and Whitehouse Send Letter to DoJ Inspector General’s Office Seeking Probe into RNC Voter Supression Tactics
Inquiry Into What Justice Officials Knew About Griffin’s Vote Caging Activities When He Was Named as US Attorney for Arkansas
From The BRAD BLOG
by Greg Palast
A lot of advice we’re getting from our progressive friends is to take photos of your ballot and silly stuff like that. Well, that’s all about how to complain after they steal it. I have a better idea: Win, don’t whine.
#1: Gang Vote
Arrive with five! Never go bowling, make love or vote alone. And volunteer at get-out-the-vote operations. It’s worth it just for the stale donuts, cold coffee and hot democracy.
#2: Tell Them to Take Their Provisional Ballot and …
If they try to hand you a “provisional ballot,” scream bloody murder. If there’s a problem with your ID or registration, demand adjudication from a poll monitor, come back with proper ID, or demand appeal to the county supervisor of elections.But don’t just walk away. If it’s provisional or nothing, take it — then return for the count to defend it.
#3: Get to Work
Volunteer to bring out the vote. Or watch a poll — to challenge the challengers. Get credentials; don’t freelance — you’ll likely get thrown out. Either get credentials from the parties or get information on how you can slay vote-eating dragons in your area from the National Campaign for Fair Elections the umbrella group including NAACP, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law and People for the American Way (NationalCampaignForFairElections.org).
*****
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “ARMED MADHOUSE.” Go to www.gregpalast.com
Catch Greg Palast on Election Night on the new Mike Malloy Show on NOVA M Radio and some Air America Radio affiliates.
Bonnie Raitt, Larry David and friends invite you to join Jackson Browne, Ed Asner, Ben Vereen and other stars on the November 16, 6-8pm at an intimate gathering in the home of Code Pink’s Jodie Evans in Beverly Hills, California, to support the Palast Investigative Fund, a 501c3 educational foundation. For details and to request one or two of the limited number of invitations, go to http://www.palastinvestigativefund.org/november-16th-fundraiser .
Bush at the NAACP Convention
God lost this time. I counted: Bush mentioned God only six times in his speech to the NAACP today. The winner was ‘faith’ — which got seven mentions, though if you count “The Creator” as God, well, then the Lord tied it.
Coming in right behind God and Faith, other big mentions in the First Home Boy’s rap included: The Voting Rights Act, his family’s “commitment to civil rights,” the “death tax,” rebuilding New Orleans and “public school choice” and “soft bigotry.”
As the philosopher Aretha Franklin once said, “Who’s zoomin’ who?”
Let’s take it one point at a time. …more
Behind the “Delay” in Renewing Law is Scheme for Theft of ’08
White Sheets Changed for Spreadsheets
The Guardian (Guardian Title of Article: Democracy in Chains)
[New York] Don’t kid yourself. The Republican Party’s decision yesterday to “delay” the renewal of the Voting Rights Act has not a darn thing to do with objections of the Republican’s White Sheets Caucus.
Complaints by a couple of Good Ol’ Boys to legislation has never stopped the GOP leadership from rolling over dissenters. …more
Drum Major Blog
There are kooks and cranks and crazies among you who think that George Bush lost the 2004 election. For example, there’s an audio blog going around with TV star Larry David reading a story called,”Kerry Won,” a chapter in a book called, Armed Madhouse. I know, because I wrote it.
How you go about jerry-rigging a democracy has a lot to do with two other, seemingly unrelated stories, in the news this week: illegal surveillance of our phone records and the new border war against immigrants. …more
2004 Election fixxed by disenfranchising Black voters ...more
As Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell certified President Bush's reelection on Monday, we hear an address by investigative reporter Greg Palast about the disenfranchisement of black votes in the Nov. 2nd election. ...more
Author-filmmakers Michael Moore and Greg Palast joined with Representatives Corrine Brown (D-Jacksonville) and Peter Deutsch (D-Ft. Lauderdale) to demand steps, as Palast said, "To prevent Republican hacks in Florida swiping the election of 2004 as they did four years ago." ...more
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