Greg Palast's Blog, page 77
March 24, 2017
Who gets XL Pipeline Bonanza? Koch
From Greg Palast’s film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits
Stay informed, rent or buy the film on Amazon or get the signed DVD, a signed copy of the book companion or better still - get the Book & DVD combo.
* * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Suppor the Stolen Election Investigation
Visit the Palast Investigative Fund store or simply make a tax-deductible contribution to keep our work alive!
Or support the The Palast Investigative Fund (a project of The Sustainable Markets Foundation) by shopping with Amazon Smile. AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Palast Fund and you get a tax-deduction! More info.
The post Who gets XL Pipeline Bonanza? Koch appeared first on Greg Palast.
March 20, 2017
Watch The Best Democracy… Movie Right now!
Right now, this minute, you can watch The Best Democracy Money Can Buy on Amazon from $2.99, or if you prefer get a lifetime stream from Vimeo.
Or better yet, get a signed copy for a tax-deductible donation.
See the Film that Jesse Jackson is bringing to 200 churches before election day.
“Hilarious and heartbreaking. The most important movie — and the most entertaining. Standing ovation!”
- John Perkins, author, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Follow me as I bust the New Klux Klan – the billionaire bandits that are behind a scheme to purge one million voters of color on election day.
The Hysteria Factory is in full effect. Trump says a million "aliens" are swimming the Rio Grande to vote for Hillary. Fox News —even NPR— are peddling stories about dead voters, ghost voters, double voters and other berserk claims of fraudulent voting. But it’s just the cover to STEAL THIS ELECTION, to swipe the Senate.
Watch the Hysteria Factory Clip from the Movie
With the help of Willie Nelson, Rosario Dawson, and detectives Ice-T and Richard Belzer, I track down the secret billionaires behind Donald Trump and the guys who are gaming our voter rolls and funding this voter fraud Hysteria Factory.
* * * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Donate to the Palast Investigative Fund and get the signed DVD.
Download the FREE Movie Comic Book.
Rent or buy the film from Amazon or Vimeo.
Check for Movie Screenings in your area.
Visit the Palast Investigative Fund store or simply make a tax-deductible contribution to keep our work alive!
Or support the The Palast Investigative Fund (a project of The Sustainable Markets Foundation) by shopping with Amazon Smile.
AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Palast Fund and you get a tax-deduction! More info.
The post Watch The Best Democracy… Movie
Right now! appeared first on Greg Palast.
March 7, 2017
March 15 Fundraiserto support Greg Palast’s new investigation of Trump’s Billionaires
Join Jackson Browne
to honor
Greg Palast
and his team’s new investigations of
Trump’s billionaires and the plan to fix the vote of 2018
With discussion of the attack on voting rights by
Joy Reid of MSNBC
and the need for investigative reporting
WHEN: Wednesday, March 15 at 6:00pm PT
WHERE: Santa Monica, CA
Wine and Buffet
Performance by Jackson Browne
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
"Lives in the Balance" | "Running on Empty"
We are facing a democratic emergency:
Our purpose is to expose and prevent the theft of the election of 2018—and the billionaires who have turned The White House into a profit center.
$100 per person or $175 per couple
Very limited space. Get your TICKETS now.
All proceeds are tax-deductible
and benefit the Palast Investigative Fund
(checks and credit cards accepted)
If you are unable to attend but wish to support our work,
and have your support acknowledged by Greg and Jackson,
you can donate here.
Trump has claimed that millions of Americans vote illegally. The Palast team's investigation for Rolling Stone, Al Jazeera, and BBC TV proved that this claim was the excuse for "anti-fraud" measures that, in fact, blocked 1.1 million citizens of color from casting their votes in the swing states of Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and Florida in the last election.
No, Trump did not win – and Palast has showed how, in cruel detail.
Palast says, "While our work has been lauded and applauded for exposing mass vote suppression, our goal now is to expand our research and investigations while also coordinating with the Civil Rights Law Center of Washington to insure that this information is in the hands of voting rights litigators, progressive legislators, church and front-line organizations to prevent the theft of the 2018 election.''
Our film on the suppression of the vote in 2016 The Best Democracy Money Can Buy has been viewed by more than one million Americans and has become the source of fighting facts from People For the American Way to Rainbow-PUSH Coalition to the Potomac Coalition.
"What Greg Palast has done is heroic, invaluable, and must be seen by every voting rights advocate in America."
- Voting rights attorney Barbara Arnwine
Help us win this next battle for democracy
* * * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Rent or buy the film from Amazon Vimeo.
Support The Palast Investigative Fund and keep our work alive.
Or support us by shopping with Amazon Smile.
AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Sustainable Markets Foundation for the benefit of The Palast Investigative Fund and you get a tax-deduction!More info.
The post March 15 Fundraiser
to support Greg Palast’s new investigation
of Trump’s Billionaires appeared first on Greg Palast.
February 22, 2017
Millions of fraudulent voters, my a**! Palast follows The Donald’s money
A Facebook Live Event
Thursday, Feb 23 at 6pm PT / 9pm ET
Get the non-fake info, then join the conversation with investigative reporter Greg Palast.
Palast says,
"It’s no joke—and it’s far more sinister than a mere "lie."
"The US press has done a good job exposing President Trump’s looney-toons claim that millions of votes were cast against him.
"But what’s missing is what’s behind Trump’s claim — and it’s not just his cranky, whining ego looking to erase the embarrassment of losing the popular vote.
"We are witnessing the crafting of a systematic plan to steal the 2018 midterm election."
And that’s not all:
Did anyone notice that in the middle of Trump’s psycho-drama of a press conference, he said, "…I want to thank Paul Singer for being here and coming up to the Oval Office."
Those are the most dangerous words Trump has uttered since Inauguration Day.
Get the facts (and watch the cartoon!) during this special Facebook Live event.
And Palast lets you in on the follow-up to his Rolling Stone investigation. He’s digging, and the worms are crawling up the shovel. And we’ll talk about how YOU can take part in the investigation.
PASS ON THIS NOTICE. We have a lot to talk about, and a lot to expose.
* * * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Rent or buy the film from Amazon Vimeo.
Support The Palast Investigative Fund and keep our work alive.
Or support us by shopping with Amazon Smile.
AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Sustainable Markets Foundation for the benefit of The Palast Investigative Fund and you get a tax-deduction!More info.
The post Millions of fraudulent voters, my a**!
Palast follows The Donald’s money appeared first on Greg Palast.
January 17, 2017
Facebook LIVE broadcast of my film on How Trump Stole It
If you missed the massive live broadcast—we’ve decided to keep it live and free for the next 48 hours.
Join the NAACP-National Voter Fund, Rainbow/PUSH, Josh Fox of Climate Revolution and many, many more–and “share” the Facebook LIVE broadcast of my documentary–the film that exposes exactly how Trump and his cronies attacked the voting rights of a million minority voters to steal the White House.
All we are asking that you “share” the live-stream with your Facebook followers.
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, follows my crew’s undercover investigations for Rolling Stone and BBC-TV.
"...Mainstream journalism has often struggled to cover the manipulation of data and the distortion of reality driven by billionaires like the Koch brothers or even Donald Trump... Palast slices through all the B.S.”
- The Village Voice
Pass this on to your friends, your organizations, and anyone who wants to get un-stupid about the theft of the 2016 election.
The film (with the help of my friends Rosario Dawson, Shailene Woodley Ice-T, Willie Nelson and more), tells the story of the GOP’s weapon of mass vote destruction – and exposes the billionaires behind Trump and the vote trickery.
The film was updated just this week. I guarantee: you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll get revved up to resist. Trump didn’t win–his billionaire backers swiped it. We can take it back. Will you join me?
- Greg Palast and the investigations team
Make a tax-deductible donation to our Stolen Election Investigation
* * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Rent or buy the film from Amazon or Vimeo.
Support The Palast Investigative Fund and keep our work alive.
Or support us by shopping with Amazon Smile.
AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Sustainable Markets Foundation for the benefit of The Palast Investigative Fund and you get a tax-deduction! More info.
The post Facebook LIVE broadcast
of my film on How Trump Stole It appeared first on Greg Palast.
Join NAACP Voter Fund for Facebook LIVE broadcast of my film on How Trump Stole It
I have a simple request.
I’m asking that, this Thursday, at 8pm ET/5pm PT, you join the NAACP-National Voter Fund, Rainbow/PUSH, Josh Fox of Climate Revolution and many, many more–and “share” the Facebook LIVE broadcast of my documentary–the film that exposes exactly how Trump and his cronies attacked the voting rights of a million minority voters to steal the White House.
That’s all we are asking: Between 8pm and 9pm Eastern, on Inauguration Eve, you “share” the live-stream with your Facebook followers.
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, follows my crew’s undercover investigations for Rolling Stone and BBC-TV.
"...Mainstream journalism has often struggled to cover the manipulation of data and the distortion of reality driven by billionaires like the Koch brothers or even Donald Trump... Palast slices through all the B.S.”
- The Village Voice
Pass this on to your friends, your organizations, and anyone who wants to get un-stupid about the theft of the 2016 election. I’ll be leading an online discussion right after the broadcast: What do we do now?
Starting now you can share the trailer on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/GregPalastInvestigates/videos/10154917384607128/
And share the trailer on Twitter simply by retweeting this tweet:
https://twitter.com/Greg_Palast/status/820218502405619712
Please also indicate that you are "going" to our virtual event on Facebook — and share it with your friends: https://www.facebook.com/events/980244978772589/
On Thursday, January 19 at 8pm ET, go to https://www.facebook.com/GregPalastInvestigates/. (If you’re late, you can scroll back to the beginning.)
The film (with the help of my friends Rosario Dawson, Shailene Woodley Ice-T, Willie Nelson and more), tells the story of the GOP’s weapon of mass vote destruction – and exposes the billionaires behind Trump and the vote trickery.
The film was updated just this week. I guarantee: you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll get revved up to resist. Trump didn’t win––his billionaire backers swiped it. We can take it back. Will you join me?
- Greg Palast and the investigations team
Make a tax-deductible donation to our Stolen Election Investigation
* * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Rent or buy the film from Amazon or Vimeo.
Support The Palast Investigative Fund and keep our work alive.
Or support us by shopping with Amazon Smile.
AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Sustainable Markets Foundation for the benefit of The Palast Investigative Fund and you get a tax-deduction! More info.
The post Join NAACP Voter Fund
for Facebook LIVE broadcast
of my film on How Trump Stole It appeared first on Greg Palast.
December 30, 2016
I get the Blues too…
A note to all who’ve made a donation to
our Investigative Fund
You are not only keeping us alive financially, but emotionally.
Eventually, our stories make national news, but, in those months while the mainstream resists, your encouragement really means a lot.
People ask me how I keep my sense of humor when I see all these horrors, from lost votes to lost lives. The truth is, I get the blues too.
Support, good wishes, and remembering the tough world I came from are what gets me back on track.
And here’s something they can’t steal from us: a Happy New Year, from my family to yours.
Thank you,
Greg Palast, reporting
Make a tax-deductible donation to our Stolen Election Investigation
* * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Rent or buy the film from Amazon or Vimeo.
Support The Palast Investigative Fund and keep our work alive.
Or support us by shopping with Amazon Smile.
AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Sustainable Markets Foundation for the benefit of The Palast Investigative Fund and you get a tax-deduction! More info.
The post I get the Blues too… appeared first on Greg Palast.
December 18, 2016
A note in the snow
Last week, I flew to Detroit with my team at the request of a major west coast publication. When I landed, they got cold feet; assignment cancelled. Without funding to continue, I should have headed home. But I was getting tips of nasty doings with the ballots in Motown. I could get the evidence that Trump’s victory was as real as his tan.
So I tucked my long-johns under my suit, put on my fedora, and headed out to meet the witnesses, see the evidence and film an investigative report on the Theft of Michigan. With almost no sleep (and no pay), my producer David Ambrose and I put together an investigative film—and donated it, no charge, to Democracy Now! and several other outlets.
As to the airfares, hotels, cars, camera batteries, sound equipment, local assistants and the rest, the bills have piled high as the snow and uncounted ballots. So, here I was, literally out in the cold, hoping you'd see the value of top-flight investigative reporting.
So, buddy, can you spare a dime? Or $100 or so? For that, I’ll send you my new film, the one that, back in September, told you exactly how Trump would steal it. Or a signed copy of the book that goes with it: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, a tale of billionaires and ballot bandits.
I want to thank all of you who donated to get me to Washington DC to testify at the ad hoc Congressional hearing and to speak with the Justice Department about the suppression of minority votes.
(On Monday, I was joined at the Washington Press Club by the nation’s top voting rights attorney, Barbara Arnwine; civil rights legend Ruby Sales; Muslim activist Sameera Khan. They announced plans to take legal and political action against Crosscheck, the Trumpistas’ latest Jim Crow tactic, the one our team uncovered for Rolling Stone. Khan joined me at Justice to present them 50,000 signatures (we unloaded reams of paper on them) gathered by 18 Million Rising, the Asian American advocacy group, to light a fire under Justice.
On Tuesday, I joined the presidents of the NAACP chapters of Michigan and Wisconsin and other front-line voting rights leaders, to plan next steps for this week, for this year, for this decade.
My presentation to Justice, to Congressmen and rights advocates, to the press, was so much more powerful because I arrived in DC with the goods, the evidence, the film, the facts from Michigan, from the scene of the electoral crime.
So, in the end, my assignment wasn’t cancelled: I went to work for YOU. Because I have faith that my readers agree that this work is important, that I’m not on some fool’s errand.
The US media doesn’t want to cover the vote theft—because, hey, the count is over—and we should get over it. I am not over it. I am standing my ground. Let me know if you think I’ve made the right decision. Feed the team. I have nothing to offer you in return except some signed discs and books (or the Combo)— and the facts.
Continue Supporting the 2016 Stolen Election Investigation because it ain’t over and we’re not done. – Greg Palast
* * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Rent or buy the film from Amazon or Vimeo.
Visit the Palast Investigative Fund store or simply make a tax-deductible contribution to keep our work alive!
Or support the The Palast Investigative Fund (a project of The Sustainable Markets Foundation) by shopping with Amazon Smile. AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Palast Fund and you get a tax-deduction! More info.
The post A note in the snow appeared first on Greg Palast.
The Republican Sabotage of the Vote Recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin
By Greg Palast for Truthout
Photo of Michigan ballot with bubble. (Image courtesy of Palast Investigative Fund, 2016)
Before the Electoral College votes, they should know this.
Michigan officials declared in late November that Trump won the state's count by 10,704 votes. But hold on – a record 75,355 ballots were not counted.
The uncounted ballots came mostly from Detroit and Flint, majority-Black cities that vote Democratic.
According to the machines that read their ballots, these voters waited in line, sometimes for hours, yet did not choose a president. Really?
This week, I drove through a snowstorm to Lansing to hear the official explanation from Ruth Johnson, the Republican secretary of state. I was directed to official flack-catcher Fred Woodhams who told me, "You know, I think when you look at the unfavorability ratings that were reported for both major-party candidates, it's probably not that surprising."
Sleuthing about in Detroit, I found another explanation: bubbles.
Bubbles?
Michigan votes on paper ballots. If you don't fill the bubble completely, the machine records that you didn't vote for president.
Susan, a systems analyst who took part in the hand recount initiated by Jill Stein, told me, "I saw a lot of red ink. I saw a lot of checkmarks. We saw a lot of ballots that weren't originally counted, because those don't scan into the machine." (I can only use her first name because she's terrified of retribution from Trump followers in the white suburb where she lives.)
Other ballots were not counted because the machines thought the voter chose two presidential candidates.
How come more ballots were uncounted in Detroit and Flint than in the white 'burbs and rural counties? Are the machines themselves racist?
No, but they are old, and in some cases, busted. An astonishing 87 machines broke down in Detroit, responsible for counting tens of thousands of ballots. Many more were simply faulty and uncalibrated.
I met with Carlos Garcia, University of Michigan multimedia specialist, who, on Election Day, joined a crowd waiting over two hours for the busted machine to be fixed.
Some voters left; others filled out ballots that were chucked, uncounted, into the bottom of machine. When the machine was fixed, Carlos explained, "Any new scanned ballots were falling in on top of the old ones." It would not be possible to recount those dumped ballots.
This is not an unheard of phenomenon: I know two voters who lost their vote in another state (California) because they didn't fill in the bubble – my parents! Meet mom and dad in my film, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy:
How did Detroit end up with the crap machines?
Detroit is bankrupt, so every expenditure must be approved by "emergency" overlords appointed by the Republican governor. The GOP operatives refused the city's pre-election pleas to fix and replace the busted machines.
"We had the rollout [of new machines] in our budget," Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey said. "No money was appropriated by the state."
Same in Flint. GOP state officials cut the budget for water service there, resulting in the contamination of the city's water supply with lead. The budget cuts also poisoned the presidential race.
The Human Eye Count
There is, however, an extraordinary machine that can read the ballots, whether the bubbles are filled or checked, whether in black ink or red, to determine the voters' intent: the human eye.
That's why Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, paid millions of dollars for a human eyeball count of the uncounted votes. While labeled a "recount," its real purpose is to count the 75,355 votes never counted in the first place.
Count those ballots, mostly in Detroit and Flint, and Trump's victory could vanish.
Adding to the pile of uncounted ballots are the large numbers of invalidated straight-ticket votes in Detroit. In Michigan, you can choose to make one mark that casts your vote for every Democrat (or Republican) for every office. Voters know that they can vote the Democratic ballot but write in a protest name – popular were "Bernie Sanders" and "Mickey Mouse" – but their ballot, they knew, would count for Clinton.
However, the Detroit machines simply invalidated the ballots with protest write-ins because the old Opti-Scans wrongly tallied these as "over-votes" (i.e., voting for two candidates). The human eye would catch this mistake.
But Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette stymied Stein's human eye count. The Republican pol issued an order saying that no one could look at the ballots cast in precincts where the number of votes and voters did not match – exactly the places where you'd want to look for the missing votes. He also ordered a ban on counting ballots from precincts where the seals on the machines had been broken – in other words, where there is evidence of tampering. Again, those are the machines that most need investigating. The result: The recount crews were denied access to more than half of all Detroit precincts (59 percent).
I met with Stein, who told me she was stunned by this overt sabotage of the recount. "It's shocking to think that the discounting of these votes may be making the critical difference in the outcome of the election," she said.
This story was repeated in Wisconsin, which uses the same Opti-Scan system as Michigan. There, the uncounted votes, sometimes called "spoiled" or "invalidated" ballots, were concentrated in Black-majority Milwaukee. Stein put up over $3 million of donated funds for the human eye review in Wisconsin, but GOP state officials authorized Milwaukee County to recount simply by running the ballots through the same blind machines. Not surprisingly, this instant replay produced the same questionable result.
Adding Un-Votes to the Uncounted
Stein was also disturbed by the number of voters who never got to cast ballots. "Whether it's because of the chaos [because] some polling centers are closed, and then some are moved, and there's all kinds of mix-ups," she said. "So, a lot of people are filling out provisional ballots, or they were being tossed off the voter rolls by Interstate Crosscheck."
Interstate Crosscheck is a list that was created by Donald Trump supporter and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to hunt down and imprison voters who illegally voted or registered in two states in one election.
An eye-popping 449,092 Michiganders are on the Crosscheck suspect list. The list, which my team uncovered in an investigation for Rolling Stone, cost at least 50,000 of the state's voters their registrations. Disproportionately, the purged voters were Blacks, Latinos and that other solid Democratic demographic, Muslim Americans. (Dearborn, Michigan, has the highest concentration of Arab Americans in the US.)
The Michigan Secretary of State's spokesman Woodhams told me the purpose of the mass purge was, "to clean our voter lists and ensure that there's no vulnerability for fraud. We've been very aggressive in closing vulnerabilities and loopholes to fraud."
While Woodhams did not know of a single conviction for double-voting in Michigan, the "aggression" in purging the lists was clear. I showed him part of the Michigan purge list that he thought was confidential. The "double voters" are found by simply matching first and last names. Michael Bernard Brown is supposed to be the same voter as Michael Anthony Brown. Michael Timothy Brown is supposed to be the same voter as Michael Johnnie Brown.
Woodhams assured me the GOP used the Trump-Kobach list with care, more or less. He said, "I'm sure that there are some false positives. But we go through it thoroughly, and we're not just canceling people."
As to the racial profiling inherent in the list? Did he agree with our experts that by tagging thousands of voters named Jose Garcia and Michael Brown there would be a bias in his purge list?
The GOP spokesman replied, "I've known a lot of white Browns."
Jill Stein didn't buy it. Responding to both Michigan's and Trump's claim that voter rolls are loaded with fraudulent double voters, Stein said, "It's the opposite of what he is saying: not people who are voting fraudulently and illegally, but actually legitimate voters who have had their right to vote taken away from them by Kris Kobach and by Donald Trump."
Crosscheck likely cost tens of thousands their vote in Pennsylvania as well.
"It is a Jim Crow system, and it all needs to be fixed," Stein concluded. "It's not rocket science. This is just plain, basic democracy."
* * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Support the 2016 Stolen Election Investigation After investigating the REAL story of the recount, we stopped by the Department of Justice and handed them our Crosscheck petition, signed by 50,000 people. We have a lot more work to do and thankfully, our efforts are starting to get notice. We're not done...
Join us bySupporting the Stolen Election Investigation
Rent or buy the film from Amazon or Vimeo.
Visit the Palast Investigative Fund store or simply make a tax-deductible contribution to keep our work alive!
Or support the The Palast Investigative Fund (a project of The Sustainable Markets Foundation) by shopping with Amazon Smile. AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Palast Fund and you get a tax-deduction! More info.
The post The Republican Sabotage of the
Vote Recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin appeared first on Greg Palast.
December 13, 2016
Palast Report for Democracy Now!: By Rejecting Recount, Is Michigan Covering up 75,000 Ballots Never Counted?
My team and I just returned from Michigan, where we went to probe the state’s closely contested election. Trump won Michigan by fewer than 11,000 votes out of nearly 4.8 million votes cast.
Green Party presidential contender Dr. Jill Stein attempted to force Michigan to hold a recount, but a federal judge ordered Michigan’s Board of Elections to stop the state’s electoral recount.
One big question remains: Why did 75,335 ballots go uncounted?
Support the 2016 Stolen Election Investigation After investigating the REAL story of the recount, we stopped by the Department of Justice yesterday and handed them our Crosscheck petition, signed by 50,000 people. We have a lot more work to do and thankfully, our efforts are starting to get notice. We're not done...
Join us bySupporting the Stolen Election Investigation
Officially, Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes. But a record 75,335 votes were never counted. Most of these votes that went missing were in Detroit and Flint, Michigan, majority-black cities.
How could this happen? Did the Russians do it? Nyet. You don’t need Russians to help the Michigan GOP. How exactly do you disappear 75,000 votes? They call them spoiled votes. Most are lost because of the bubbles. Thousands of bubbles couldn’t be read by the optical scanning machines.
The machines in Michigan and Wisconsin can’t read these bubbles but a much better machine, the human eyeball, can easily read what the voter intended.
In Trumpville, rural Michigan, their hero, Bill Schuette, the Republican attorney general of Michigan shut down the recount. Schuette issued an order saying that no one would be allowed to look at the ballots in over half the precincts, 59%, in the Detroit area—the very place that most of the votes had gone missing.
Back in Detroit, some of the votes missing resulted when 87 machines, responsible for counting thousands of ballots, broke down.
We went to speak with the secretary of state, whose spokesman said the missing votes in Detroit were simply people who waited in line but didn’t want to vote for president.
And so the recount slogged through, uncovering missing votes and missing voters that could change the presidency. So Republicans rushed in to shut down the recount completely. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, here in Michigan—we may be way north of the Mason-Dixon Line, but the elections are still run by Jim Crow. For Democracy Now!, this is Greg Palast.
• PLEASE, say, "Count me in to count the votes" by supporting the 2016 Stolen Election Investigation for a donation of any size no matter how small or large
• Stay informed and get a signed DVD of my film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, a signed copy of the book with the same title or better still - get the Book & DVD combo
• Be listed as a producer ($1,000) or co-producer ($500) in the credits of the broadcast version of the updated, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: THE THEFT OF 2016.
* * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, now out as major motion non-fiction movie.
Donate to the Palast Investigative Fund and get the signed DVD.
Download the FREE Movie Comic Book.
Rent or buy the film from Amazon or Vimeo.
Visit the Palast Investigative Fund store or simply make a tax-deductible contribution to keep our work alive!
Or support the The Palast Investigative Fund (a project of The Sustainable Markets Foundation) by shopping with Amazon Smile. AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your purchases to the Palast Fund and you get a tax-deduction! More info.
The post Palast Report for Democracy Now!:
By Rejecting Recount, Is Michigan Covering up 75,000 Ballots Never Counted? appeared first on Greg Palast.
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