Greg Palast's Blog, page 79
October 19, 2016
FREE Comic Book Download The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Are we crazy? Yes. We’re flat broke, but we are sending you this link to the free 57-page comic book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy—and there’s no charge whatsoever.
But we hope a few of you will have the heart to donate for something more important than food: getting our film into the churches, schools, union halls and activist centers in Ohio and Pennsylvania, the states targeted with the latest sick racial purge techniques I’ve uncovered for Rolling Stone.
The comic book features Rosario Dawson, “Detectives” Ice-T and Richard Belzer, Willie Nelson and Agent Orange himself, Donald Trump.
And a detective with no “off” button – Greg Palast.
It’s the first installment of our “tele-novella” comic series—by me and the genius artist who drew the comic book Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
It’s as crazy and informative and shocking and heartbreaking as the movie and book on which it based.
If you dig it, share the free download link – and get the rest of the story, the movie and book on which the comic book is based.
You can get the signed movie DVD for a donation or rent or download it from Amazon.
You can get the signed book for a donation or from the usual suspects Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indiebound.
Or best of all, get the signed Book & DVD Combo
for a donation.
* * * * * * *
Full Week Theatrical RunsSan Francisco, CA – Fri, Oct 14 - Oct 27 – Get Tickets,
Seattle, WA – Fri, Oct 21 - Oct 27 – Get Tickets,
Washington,DC (Angelika Pop-Up at Union Market)
– Fri, Oct 28 - Nov 3 – Tickets soon
One Night Only Screenings
San Diego, CA – Mon, Oct 24 at 7.30pm Get Tickets,
Denver, CO – Mon, Oct 31 at 7.30pm Get Tickets,
Houston, TX – Wed, Nov 2 at 7.30pm Get Tickets,
Teaneck, NJ – Fri, Nov 4 at 7pm Get Tickets
* * * * * * *
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, which have been released as a feature non-fiction movie.
Donate to the Palast Investigative Fund and get the signed DVD
Check for Movie Screenings in your area. | More cities coming soon
Check out our Grassroots Special for screenings for up 100 people.
Visit the Palast Investigative Fund's 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.
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The Best Democracy Money Can Buy appeared first on Greg Palast.
October 13, 2016
I’d love to tell what Palast dug up But then I’d have to kill you…
“…a wild and woolly ride, peppered with moments of wry sardonic humor that would make Dashiell Hammett smile. There’s so much more I’d love to tell you about what Palast dug up. But then I’d have to kill you. So you’ll just have to see “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” for yourself.”
– Paul Rosenberg – Salon | READ THE FULL REVIEW
The film’s out and playing to packed houses — and now the sequel, after a decade’s wait, to the book that rode the top of the Times list for nearly a year and Howard Zinn called, "The most important political tome of the century."
Get the book (signed) that busts the theft of the 2016 election BEFORE IT HAPPENS. Trump says the election’s rigged. He should know: his buddies are rigging it.
And I rip back the curtain that’s hiding the money behind the Donald. Trump only PLAYS a billionaire on TV — I name and get in the faces of the big bucks behind the big blond. And — cover the children's ears — the billionaire bandits behind Hillary, too.
And the new Best Democracy comes complete with a 44-page comic book by gonzo cartoonist-journalist Ted Rall. (Rall joins us from the LA Times from which he was fired for committing journalism.)
Or get the all-new "Best Democracy" sequel right now from the usual suspects (Amazon, B&N, Indiebound).
Here’s a better idea: Get the new book AND the new film on DVD—not yet available in stores—for a tax deductible donation of $85. Donate NOW — and if you do it by Monday, I’ll sign’m and send’m within 48-hours.
About that film—based on my reports for Rolling Stone, BBC and Democracy Now! As in the book, I hunt down the glove-puppet politicians who are mucking with the voter rolls, the NEW Klux Klan—and expose the billionaires whose fingers are in the gloves.
But in the film I’ve got a little help. When I’m stumped on the investigation, Detectives Tutola and Munch (Ice T and Richard Belzer) jump out of the
television to help me on the hunt. Along the way, the book comes to life — in cartoons by Keith Tucker ("Who Framed Roger Rabbit")—and always back to the hard core story of an investigation in real time that takes you to the Arctic Circle, a Hampton’s billionaire bash (via a camera in my hat — really!) and to the heart of the crime scene: Ohio. (Yes, that’s Graham Nash singing.)
Yes, you can get a signed copy of the DVD alone for a $50 minimum donation, or the book for $50. But I really think it’s important to have both—so we’re cutting the donation to $85 for the pair.
And course, you can always support our work for any amount no matter how small or large.
And if you need your popcorn fix while watching, catch us in theaters in Los Angeles (right now), San Francisco (opening this Friday), DC, Seattle, Albuquerque, Portland, New York, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, Teaneck(!), and more cities.
"This movie is the weapon of our revolution." - Adjamu Baraka.
"The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Watch it — and I’ll kiss you." - Rosario Dawson
* * * * *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, which has been made into a feature non-fiction movie.
Check for Movie Screenings in your area | More cities coming soon
Subscribe to Palast's mailing list and Podcast to receive regular updates on this issue.
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.
The post I’d love to tell what Palast dug up
But then I’d have to kill you… appeared first on Greg Palast.
October 2, 2016
Gasland’s Josh Fox Calls it “Brilliant” ‘Best Democracy’ Screens Across the Country
Academy Award Nominee Josh Fox has seen The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and says that it's "brilliant - not just as a piece of reporting but as cinema." Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges, says Palast's film is "wonderful, really humorous and brilliant..." And TeleSur's Abby Martin says that Palast "calls these mother-f***ers out."
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy is now playing in Los Angeles and soon moving to theaters across the country.
Coming soon: San Francisco (Oct 14-20), Seattle (Oct 21-27 and Washington, DC (Oct 28 - Nov 3). We also have one day Gathr screenings in Oak Creek, WI (Oct 24), Smyrna, TN (Oct 26), Denver, CO (Oct 31), Houston, TX (Nov 1), and Chicago, IL (Nov 2). You can sign up your own town to get a screening of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy here.
As Gasland's Josh Fox says: Once you have this information, you know, you have to pass it on. There's a specific kind of outrage that I think only the work of Greg Palast can evoke. And it is the outrage that when we realize that our democracy is being taken away from us. And that there isn't anyone in the mainstream media aside from Greg Palast reporting on this with any reliability or accuracy or passion or intelligence - and that is itself a crime.
Gasland's Josh Fox Praises Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy from Greg Palast on Vimeo.
Gasland's Josh Fox Praises Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy from Greg Palast on Vimeo.
The post Gasland’s Josh Fox Calls it “Brilliant”
‘Best Democracy’ Screens Across the Country appeared first on Greg Palast.
September 24, 2016
Bring The Best Democracy Money Can Buy to a Cinema near you…
We're so proud that The Best Democracy Money Can Buy opened in theatres yesterday starting in New York at the Cinepolis Chelsea and hitting Los Angeles next Friday, September 30 at the Laemmle Noho 7 with more key cities to follow and is being distributed by Cinema Libre Studio. The film will also be released on DVD and On Demand on October 18.
To bring Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy to as many places as possible before the election, we need your help!
Together with Cinema Libre, we’ve partnered up with a Theatrical-On-Demand© program called GATHR to enable activists and organizations to set up one night screening events across the country at no cost to you! – Note: GATHR is USA only.
Go to HOST A SCREENING and get all the info you need.
Without your help this film could never have been made, now we need all hands on deck to get it out all across this country.To all those of you who have generously donated for a signed DVD a long, long time ago and waited patiently – The DVDs are coming hot off the press and will be sent your way next week. (if you donated for the signed DVD ages ago and have moved home since let us know)What makes us most proud is that this film was funded 100% by you, our incredible donors!
Now let's go get and the word out and show this film all over the country and expose the Billionaires & the Ballot Bandits who don't want you to see this film.
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If you're in New York or Los Angeles go check out the film that packed the house on Opening Night!
EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT STARTS
Friday, September 23 - September 29
NEW YORK
Cinépolis, Chelsea
260 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011
GET TICKETS
12.05pm | 2.45pm | 5.10pm | 8.15pm
Q&A with special Guest Chris Hedges today at 8.15pm
Q&A with special Guest Abby Martin tomorrow - Sun, Sep 25 at 8.15pm
* * * * * *
EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT STARTS
Friday, September 23 - September 29
LOS ANGELES
Laemmle's Noho 7
5240 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91601
GET TICKETS
12.05pm | 2.45pm | 5.10pm | 8.15pm
* * * * * *
COMING SCREENINGS
WASHINGTON, DC
PORTLAND, OR
SAN FRANCISCO
*****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, which will open as a feature documentary movie in New York on September 23 & Los Angeles on September 30.
Check for Movie Screenings in your area | More cities coming soon
Want to bring the film to a cinema near you?
Subscribe to Palast's mailing list and Podcast to receive regular updates on this issue.
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.
The post Bring The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
to a Cinema near you… appeared first on Greg Palast.
See the film Billionaires & Ballot Bandits Don’t Want You to see
Opens in New York
This Friday Sept 23 - 29
12.05pm | 2.45pm | 5.10pm | 8.15pm
Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening showtimes include
Greg Palast and Special Guests
Get your Tickets now
Limited seating and no premium charge
Follow gonzo investigative reporter Greg Palast (BBC, Rolling Stone) as he busts the new Ku Klux Klan – the billionaire bandits that are behind a scheme to purge one million voters of color in November.
This real life detective story is told in a film noir style with cartoon animations, secret documents, hidden cameras, and a little help from Law & Order detectives Ice-T and Richard Belzer, plus Divergent spirit Shailene Woodley, Rosario Dawson, Santa Claus (Ed Asner), and Willie Nelson as a stoner musician (can you imagine?).
Palast and his posse expose the darkest plans of the uber-rich to steal America’s democracy. Donald Trump plays a billionaire on TV. Palast jumps the real billionaire behind the "billionaire."
Audiences from California to Madison have laughed, cheered and given every performance a standing ovation.
“…a wild and woolly ride, peppered with moments of wry sardonic humor that would make Dashiell Hammett smile. There’s so much more I’d love to tell you about what Palast dug up. But then I’d have to kill you. So you’ll just have to see “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” for yourself.”
– Paul Rosenberg – Salon | READ THE FULL REVIEW
* * * *
Palast “takes viewers on a two-hour journey in which he cleverly shows the pattern that has dominated American presidential elections since 2000…he connects dots to explain why this is happening, who is benefiting, how the dirty business is done, and who the likely villains in 2016 are.”
– Steven Rosenfeld – Alternet | READ THE FULL REVIEW
*****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, which will open as a feature documentary movie in New York on September 23 & Los Angeles on September 30.
Check for Movie Screenings in your area | More cities coming soon
Want to bring the film to a cinema near you?
Subscribe to Palast's mailing list and Podcast to receive regular updates on this issue.
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.
The post See the film Billionaires & Ballot Bandits
Don’t Want You to see appeared first on Greg Palast.
September 16, 2016
Greg Palast’s The Best Democracy Money Can Buy Opens in Theaters Sept 23 NYC & Sept 30 LA
We are thrilled to announce that Cinema Libre will distribute our new film, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, in the US and select foreign territories. The movie will open in New York and Los Angeles, on September 23 and 30 respectively, before being released as widely as possible before the November 8th election.
In addition to the traditional cinema release, groups, organizations and grassroots activists will be able to arrange theatrical-on-demand® screenings via Gathr. The film is set to roll out on DVD/SVOD on October 18, 2016.
READ THE FULL PRESS RELEASE
This real life detective story is told in a film noir style with cartoon animations, secret documents, hidden cameras, and a little help from Law & Order: Special Victims Unit detectives, Ice-T and Richard Belzer, Shailene Woodley, Rosario Dawson, Willie Nelson and Ed Asner, Palast and his associates expose the darkest plans of the uber-rich to steal America’s democracy.
Music by Mario Grigorov, additional music by Graham Nash.
*****
COMING TO THEATERS
NEW YORK — SEPTEMBER 23 - 29 2016
@ Cinepolis Chelsea, 260 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011
(Daily showtimes and tickets to be listed soon!)
LOS ANGELES — SEPTEMBER 30 - OCTOBER 6 2016
@ Laemmle’s Noho 7, 5240 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91601
(Daily showtimes and tickets to be listed soon!)
SELECT SCREENINGS IN BOTH NY AND LA WILL FEATURE
A Q&A WITH GREG PALAST & FRIENDS.
*****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, which will open as a feature documentary movie in New York on September 23 & Los Angeles on September 30.
Check for Movie Screenings in your area | More cities coming soon
Want to bring the film to a cinema near you?
Contact zach [at] gregpalast [dot]com
Subscribe to Palast's mailing list and Podcast to receive regular updates on this issue.
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.
The post Greg Palast’s
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Opens in Theaters Sept 23 NYC & Sept 30 LA appeared first on Greg Palast.
September 7, 2016
Help us Stop Lynching by Laptop Sign the Petition
Greg Palast explains how it's done
A petition demanding the release of the names of voters
on the Interstate Crosscheck purge list.
Sign the Petition
Signed,
Hon. Alcee Hastings, US Congressman
* * * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, which will be released as a feature documentary movie this fall.
Check for Movie Screenings in your area.
Subscribe to Palast's mailing list and Podcast to receive regular updates on this issue.
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.
The post Help us Stop Lynching by Laptop
Sign the Petition appeared first on Greg Palast.
August 27, 2016
Greg Palast on MSNBC with Joy Reid GOP Effort to purge millions from voter rolls
Rolling Stone reports on a Republican-orchestrated effort to compile lists of voters who they allege are registered to vote in multiple states. Reporter Greg Palast and Dale Ho of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project join to discuss. Read the full article at Rolling Stone.
* * * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, which will be released as a feature documentary movie this fall.
Check for Movie Screenings in your area.
Subscribe to Palast's mailing list and Podcast to receive regular updates on this issue.
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.
The post Greg Palast on MSNBC with Joy Reid GOP Effort to purge millions from voter rolls appeared first on Greg Palast.
Palast On MSNBC with Joy Reid Sunday 10:30am est
I'll be on MSNBC's AM Joy discussing my year long investigation into the GOP's new plan to steal your vote for Rolling Stone Magazine. “The GOP’s Secret War on Voters,” exposes a scheme by 29 Republican state voting officials to remove voters, a program directed by ultra-right Trump operative Kris Kobach Secretary of State of Kansas.
Read the entire investigation before the show - right now on RollingStone.com
The post Palast On MSNBC with Joy Reid Sunday 10:30am est appeared first on Greg Palast.
August 26, 2016
The Election Crime Wave Involving 7 Million Americans & The GOP Scam Behind The Hype
by Greg Palast with Dennis J Bernstein
Image: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits Comic - Out soon
If you believe the Republican hysteria machine, there’s an unprecedented election crime wave sweeping America involving a staggering 7.2 million suspected double voters. Thousands of these supposed criminals — who, if found guilty, have committed a felony punishable by 5-years in the slammer — have already lost their right to vote, with 41,000 people in Virginia alone being struck off voter roles. Statistical analysis of the evidence uncovered by investigative reporter Greg Palast shows that one million Americans may lose their vote by November. It also shows that a high proportion of these black, white, and brown voters have one thing in common: they tend to vote blue. In this week’s Best Democracy Money Can Buy: Election Crimes Bulletin, Palast gives Flashpoints’ Dennis J. Bernstein the skinny on this election crime wave, which in reality is little more than a GOP-generated racist sham designed to filter the blue out of the votes at the polls.
TRANSCRIPT (Originally broadcast on Aug 25, 2016)
Dennis J. Bernstein: Greg Palast has got an article that just went up on Rolling Stone. Will an anti-voter fraud program designed by one of Trump’s advisors deny tens of thousands their right to vote in November?
Greg Palast: This week Rolling Stone has a tremendous investigative report, “The GOP’s Secret War Against Voters.” I know about it because I wrote it. This is an investigation I’ve now been on — I say one year in the article, but it’s really been two and a half years — uncovering a system by which the GOP has already removed tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of voters from the voter rolls — and it’s probably going to hit a million by November.
DB: The 21st century version of Jim Crow, the electronic Jim Crow. Talk a little bit about it…
Palast: Here’s the deal: 29 Republican Secretaries of State have given their voter rolls over to the Republican Secretary of State for Kansas, Kris Kobach. He’s a right-winger who was just slapped down by the Supreme Court for his racially biased voting tricks. And now he has every Republican state’s voter rolls, including the swing states of Ohio, North Carolina and Arizona.
What is he doing with these? He is cross-checking the list. What does that mean? He has a system called Crosscheck, where he’s looking for people who are voting in two states at once. For example — and this is a real example — Maria Christina Hernandez he says has voted in Virginia and she’s also voted in Georgia. I want to warn Maria Hernandez, that’s a go-to-jail, five-year felony to vote twice. Except in Georgia she’s voting as Maria Isabel Hernandez, so Maria Christina Hernandez is supposed to be the same voter as Maria Isabel Hernandez.
Now, believe it or not, the people in Kansas and this Kris Kobach — who by the way is the guy who devised the plan for Donald Trump to force Mexico to pay for his wall. According to Kobach, Maria Hernandez is not a common name, at least not common for Republicans. He can’t imagine why those are two different people, Maria Christina Hernandez and Maria Isabel Hernandez. That’s not an odd example.
DB: Other than they have different names.
Palast: They have different names, right? …And both Maria Christina Hernandez and Maria Isabel Hernandez stand to lose their votes.
DB: Both?
Palast: Both… Why hasn’t this story been all over the press before? …The reason it hasn’t been public is because no one has gotten the list. In fact, as far as I know, I’m the only journalist who asked for the list. And they told me flat out, you can’t get them. Because, think about it… If you vote twice, that’s committing a felony crime. So these are lists of the criminal suspects, which of course are police confidential.
The thing is, you know how many people are on the suspect list? 7.2 million people. Now, I wasn’t supposed to get the list, but, if you know me, I do investigative reporting. That means “no” is not an answer we appreciate. No is where we begin. When they said it was confidential, we worked until we got the first list, which was out of Virginia, which immediately sent us a letter saying, “We sent you this list by mistake…”
DB: Who is on these lists? How did they come about? Who controls them?
Palast: Kobach takes the list of 29 states’ voter lists, compares the names, and when he finds two names that are the same, those people are put on the Crosscheck list sent back to their state. They then are reviewed to have their vote taken away… Now, not everyone on the list will have their vote taken away. They make it a little complex process, frankly, to hide their steps.
Here’s how it works. For example, obviously, there’s a lot of people called Maria Hernandez in this country, and a lot of people called David Lee and David Kim, who are almost all Asian-American, and a lot of people named Mohammed Mohammed — the most common name on the planet. They are claiming publicly that they checked the first name, middle name, last name, junior, senior, address history, social security number, date of birth — they’ve got to get the right guys. But, in fact, when we got the instructions, it said, if the social security numbers don’t match don’t worry about it. And, by the way, out of 7 million, roughly none of them do.
DB: Roughly none?
Palast: Roughly none… So, yes, they have the information, but they ignore it. The middle name mismatches, out of 7 million names they’ve collected, 2 million of the voters are mismatched by middle name. We have several hundred thousand which are mismatched by a suffix such as junior, senior, or III. In other words, they have listed fathers and sons as the same person, the same voter illegally voting twice or registering twice. Both lose their vote.
Now, what is so dangerous about this? And why would Republicans be doing this? Do the Republicans have something against people with common names? Here’s the trick… This is where I got into my own background in statistics and brought in a whole team of experts who do the database management for eBay and for American Express, etc. They were horrified. They said this is just a list of first and last name matches. It’s childish. It’s dangerous. Then they did a statistical run and said it’s racially biased. Massively racially biased. Because 85 out of the 100 most common names in America are overweighed with minorities: Black-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans — who, by the way, vote nearly as Democratic as Black-Americans. People don’t realize that… It’s looking like over 80% of Asian-Americans are going to vote Democratic this year...
Yes, there are a few white names, like John Smith. But even the names like Smith — like the African-American actor Will Smith — I mean, it’s a very common name. So even the white-sounding names are substantially black, but the black and Hispanic names… like Garcia, for example, is 94% Hispanic.
DB: There are five Dennis Bernsteins. At least three of them are writers. Actually one of them is down there with you in LA. He writes on hockey.
Palast: There’s another ethnic group, by the way, the Jewish population. You have a lot of Levys. And you have a lot of ethnic groups that are not in the top 100. For example, a lot of Nepali-Tibetans have the last name Sherpa, a lot of Indians are named Singh. You have these commonalities in ethnic names, which are Democrats, which you don’t have in [Republicans]. For example, Kris Kobach, there’s one. Charles Koch, there’s two. I looked it up. David Koch, there’s three.
DB: There you go.
Palast: And, believe me, they’re not on these lists. So what’s happening is you end up with basically a hit list of ethnics. They’ve got a list of 7 million, they’re not removing all 7 million. There’s two ways that they bias the program. It’s already racially poisonous, the list. On top of this, they send out postcards to people that look like junk mail.
The junk mail experts we spoke to said this postcard is meant not to be returned. It’s inscrutable small print, doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t even say you’re accused of voting twice. It just says, please confirm your voting address. Now, most people say, well it’s confirmed, you just mailed this to me, schmuck. So people throw it away. But, which people throw it away?
According to the experts, the chance of someone under 25 (in other words, likely to vote Democratic) throwing away their card is 900% higher than someone over 65. White people respond to threatening government notices at twice the rate of African-Americans and Hispanics. So you have an ethnic difference, you have an age difference — all, again, prejudicing towards the Republican voter. So, if a few Republicans get caught, they’re probably elderly, white suburbanites who will return their card and save their vote.
Now, here’s the other trick, as our experts told us: The post office doesn’t like to tell you this but they don’t deliver all the mail in low income areas. You just don’t get it. Or, if it’s in a building with a bunch of boxes, they don’t care which box they put it in. People who have low incomes, the unemployed, and young people like students move around. They may be legal voters, but they’re not at their mailing address when these cards come in. Like students, who are legally registered, get these cards in the summer and they’ve lost their chance to vote.
And you don’t know you’ve lost your chance to vote until you show up and find out. They don’t even tell you that you’re listed as a double voter. They say you’re inactive, whatever that means. Sorry, you can’t vote.
Like I say, they were hiding the names from us. I got 2 million out of the 7 million names anyway. They will not tell us the names of the people they’ve actually finally removed, though Virginia told us they eliminated 41,000 people already.
DB: 41,000!?!
Palast: And listen to this! Kris Kobach, who came up with this system, when I said, “Look at your list that you sent to Virginia, these aren’t matches, they’re different people, different middle names.” First he said, “Those names weren’t on the list.” I said, “Sorry, but we got this list from your computer, try again.”
The other day, when I told him Rolling Stone was rolling with this, he called me up actually and said, “Yeah, that’s our list.” And he said, “But people don’t have to use the list.” I said, “Virginia used your list. 41,000 names were removed.” He said, “They can’t have removed them, that’s a violation of federal law.” He said that!!! He’s a law professor, right? Because he told them they had to go through a procedure, and they said, ah, skip it, just write the names off.
DB: Really?
Palast: That’s what most states are doing. They’re not going through some fancy procedure, they’re just writing the names off. Even if they go through a fancy procedure, these are not double voters. This is just a racist call.
* * * * * *
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, which will be released as a feature documentary movie this fall.
Check for Movie Screenings in your area.
Subscribe to Palast's mailing list and Podcast to receive regular updates on this issue.
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.
Dennis J. Bernstein is the executive producer of Flashpoints, syndicated on Pacifica Radio, and is the recipient of a 2015 Pillar Award for his work as a journalist whistleblower. He is most recently the author of Special Ed: Voices from a Hidden Classroom.
The post The Election Crime Wave Involving 7 Million Americans & The GOP Scam Behind The Hype appeared first on Greg Palast.
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