Tag Archives | Greg Palast

U.S. News and World Reports Spins, Greg Palast Explains It Clearly: Who is Penny Pritzker?

By on May 3, 2013 in News 0

FE_DA130502pritzker620x413These days there seems to be a trend for political heavyweights to seem to materialize out of thin air.  I mean, Bill Clinton was no one we knew about, then suddenly he was the Democratic candidate for our lands highest office.  Similarly, Barack Obama went from a no one in the Illinois State Senate, to the Illinois Senate – neat trick when you are from Chicago – to the Oval Office almost overnight.

In President Obama’s case now there is another example of this, his new tap for Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker.  (Who?)

Well, let’s take a little look, shall we?

First, we will go to the U.S. News and World Report website where Danielle Kurtzleben has been explaining just why Penny is so qualified.

Danielle first quotes the President;

“Penny is one of our country’s most distinguished business leaders,” Obama said on Thursday, speaking from the Rose Garden. “She knows that what we can do is to give every business and ever worker the best possible chance to succeed by making America a magnet for good jobs.”

After which she delineates some of Penny’s qualifications.  This one caught my eye.… Read the rest

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Debating The Global Media—in Kazakhstan

By on April 29, 2013 in News 0

Sun and EagleAstana, Kazakhstan: Most people wouldn’t bother going half way around the world for their fifteen seconds of fame.  Ok, so maybe there was little fame to be found but, it was still worthwhile to spend two days flying back and forth to attend the two-day annual Eurasian Media Forum in Kazakhstan, a Central Asian nation that is actually the 9th largest country in the world, with ultra wealthy oil and gas fields.

It was also one of the few countries in the world that gave up its nuclear weapons. South Africa is another one.

Kazakhstan flickered briefly in our popular culture when the film Borat made fun of the place—it was shot in Romania, not there—and more recently, figured in the investigation into the terrifying actions of the Tsarnaev ‘Bomb Brothers’ in Boston responsible for doing so much vicious damage at the Marathon. It was reported that they had also lived here although local media disputes it.  (Two Kazakh kids are said to be in jail now in the US for visa violations although it’s not clear how or if they are linked.)

The forum here deals with political and media issues and attracts top journalists and policymakers to hold forth on panels.  I was on one with none other than Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor.… Read the rest

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Steal Back Your Vote

By on June 23, 2012 in News 13

Photo: ZDRoberts (CC)

America’s best gadfly investigative reporter is gearing up for the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Annette Hinkle reports for the Sag Harbor Express:

In this election year, Greg Palast wants you to vote…but he’s afraid it may not count — especially if you’re black, Native American or Hispanic and you live in certain states — notably Wisconsin, Colorado, Florida or New Mexico.

Palast, a former private eye, has made a name for himself by exploring cases of voter suppression in this country — beginning with the infamous 2000 presidential election in which Palm Beach County, Florida became known as the home of the hanging chad.

For Palast, the real story of that election lay not in the confusing butterfly ballot which confounded the county’s predominately wealthy Jewish voters, but in two computer disks he said were slipped to him from the office of Florida’s then Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

… Read the rest

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Media Roots: Greg Palast on OccupyWallStreet & U.S. Corporatocracy

By on November 19, 2011 in News, Podcasts 4

On November 14, 2011, Abby Martin of Media Roots interviewed award-winning journalist and best-selling author Greg Palast after his talk at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley. Greg Palast, a freelance journalist for the BBC as well as British newspaper The Observer, discusses his newly published book Vultures’ Picnic, corporate collusion, the bought-and-paid-for-media establishment, the role of citizen journalism around the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and the value of organisations such as Project Censored.

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No “Home Sweet Home” Five Years After Katrina

By on August 26, 2010 in News 21

Matt Pascarella and I encountered Patricia Thomas while she was breaking into a home at the Lafitte Housing Project in New Orleans. It was her own home. Nevertheless, if caught, she’d end up in the slammer. So would we. Matt was my producer for the film, Big Easy to Big Empty, and he encouraged my worst habits. I’d worked for the New Orleans Housing Authority years back and knew they wanted the poor black folk out of these pretty townhouses near the French Quarter. Katrina was an excuse for ethnic cleansing, American style. Matt and I skipped cuffs on this shoot, but were charged later by Homeland Security (see below). While I recorded the story of hidden evils on film, Matt gathered a story which no camera can capture. Here it is. — Greg Palast

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Remembering the Fifth Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina Through Film

By on August 24, 2010 in News 6

Big EasyMoviefone heralds a Snag Films mini-fest including disinformation‘s Greg Palast film Big Easy To Big Empty: The Untold Story Of The Drowning Of New Orleans:

With the release of Spike Lee’s ‘If God Is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise,’ the follow-up to 2006′s essential ‘When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,’ the city of New Orleans is revisited five years after Hurricane Katrina to examine the progress and stagnancy of rejuvenating a still-ailing city.

Yet on the fifth anniversary of one of the most devastating natural disasters in U.S. history, Lee’s film is one of a number of documentaries to spotlight various facets of the disaster. Our friends at SnagFilms present five movies on Katrina, each looking at a different aspect of the tragedy. As we remember a government that failed and a city destroyed, these films stand as a vital testament to the city’s character, culture and resilience.

… Read the rest

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Is Voter Suppression Behind Arizona’s Anti-Illegal Immigration Law?

By on April 28, 2010 in News 9
Greg Palast in a guard tower looking out on Joe Arpaio's jail in Maricopa County, Arizona. Photo: Greg Palast/Truthout (CC)

Greg Palast in a guard tower looking out on Joe Arpaio's jail in Maricopa County, Arizona. Photo: Greg Palast/Truthout (CC)

BBC journalist Greg Palast has written a new article for TruthOut suggesting that perhaps the real reason for the insane-o “Papieren, bitte” (that’s “Papers, please” to you non-Nazis) law in Arizona is not actually about illegal immigration, so much as it is about voter suppression of LEGAL Hispanic residents.

If past trends in that state are any indicator, he may not be far off the mark. He writes:

What moved GOP Governor Jan Brewer to sign the Soviet-style show-me-your-papers law is the exploding number of legal Hispanics, US citizens all, who are daring to vote — and daring to vote Democratic by more than two-to-one. Unless this demographic locomotive is halted, Arizona Republicans know their party will soon be electoral toast. Or, if you like, tortillas.

In 2008, working for Rolling Stone with civil rights attorney Bobby Kennedy, our team flew to Arizona to investigate what smelled like an electoral pogrom against Chicano voters … directed by one Jan Brewer.

… Read the rest

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