Absolutely brilliant. I have to go get this book asap! We have all heard of the republicans stealing elections, voter fraud, the crap that happened in Florida with Bush's brother Jeb and the black vote that was railroaded. Here in Armed Madhouse, Greg Palast lays it all out for us. Read Mark Groubert's review on the book, then go buy it!
By Greg Palast
Book Review By: Mark Groubert on Thursday, September 13th, 2007
Book Review By: Mark Groubert on Thursday, September 13th, 2007
At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.Charles Bukowski
Greg Palast clearly hates George Bush and his mafia-like crime family.
But he’s also not too fond of Al Gore, Hilary Clinton or John Kerry either. Nor does he particularly like New Mexico governor Bill Richardson for that matter. The former so-called “forensic economist” a kind of socialist Sam Spade who specialized in corporate fraud, is now on the trail of political shenanigans as a TV journalist for the BBC.
Armed Madhouse, which came out in 2006, has been re-released in paperback with a new bonus chapter/afterward entitled Busted …and How to Steal Back Your Vote. It is mandatory reading for anyone interested in how the Republicans are going to steal the next election in 2008. The Chicago Tribune said it is composed of, “stories so relevant they threaten to alter history.” Powerful stuff.
Palast is also the author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, a New York Times bestseller and is a frequent guest on Air America Radio with Randi Rhodes and Robert Kennedy, Jr.
As a writer for the British newspaper The Observer the Los Angeles-born muckraker has written extensively about the war on terror. In 2006 Palast himself was charged with violating anti-terror laws by the Department of Homeland Security for filming victims of Katrina caged in a trailer park near Exxon Petroleum’s Baton Rouge refinery.
Apparently the DHS was more concerned with the filming of the oil refineries than the downtrodden refugees of Hurricane Katrina. Charges were later dropped when Palast pointed out that anyone with Google can see complete aerial maps of the so-called “critical infrastructure asset.”
Palast believes Exxon finally called off the dogs. Seems he has been nipping at the heels of the oil giant going back to the Exxon Valdez grounding, which Palast reported had less to do with a drunken sea captain and more to do with faulty navigation equipment and cost cutting.
Palast has more recently made his bones specializing in election fraud and the minutia of vote stealing.
With the upcoming ’08 presidential elections the bonus chapter/afterward is of enormous current interest. During the past three elections, Palast’s election stories have been effectively blocked by U.S. corporate media. Despite being filmed by BBC Television his work rarely makes it even to PBS here in America.
With the Democrats regaining a mini-swagger in their political strut, Palast lays out the scenario for the Republicans stealing the upcoming presidential election. In fact the longtime swagger of Bush and the smirk of Rove may be grounded in their total confidence in knowing how to steal presidential elections in perpetuity. Palast lays out in detail just how they did it and more importantly, how they plan on doing it again. Can the Democrats stop them is the only question at this point. It’s kind of like facing a football team with a massive offense and your team has a pretty good defense.
Can your team stop their offense - in both meanings of the word?
In 2000 it was caging lists. In 2004, it was provisional ballots. In 2008 it will be voter IDs. Palast lays out the case about Florida scrubbing its rolls for ex-felons or anyone who had the same name as a felon or might have known a felon. But there were other scrubbing going on. The overall genius of the National Republican Party is to work with local state officials to eliminate as many ethnic voters, aka Democrats, as possible through a myriad of methods.
For instance, Florida absentee ballots were discarded in record numbers.
In 2000 it was caging lists. In 2004, it was provisional ballots. In 2008 it will be voter IDs. Palast lays out the case about Florida scrubbing its rolls for ex-felons or anyone who had the same name as a felon or might have known a felon. But there were other scrubbing going on. The overall genius of the National Republican Party is to work with local state officials to eliminate as many ethnic voters, aka Democrats, as possible through a myriad of methods.
For instance, Florida absentee ballots were discarded in record numbers.
The ones that came from Republicans actually said so on the outside of the envelope. Nice. Election officials also used methods; such as zip code, race reporting and name recognition to achieve the same goal.
Concerning provisional ballots in 2004, Palast explains how the Republican-controlled Congress, confronted by Jesse Jackson and the Congressional Black Caucus, signed deceptive bipartisan legislation for access to so-called provisional ballots. The one thing carefully omitted was that it wasn’t required by law to actually count those ballots. No accident.
Other methods included leaving the oldest machines in poor neighborhoods and reducing their numbers over all to create 7-hour wait times and thereby crippling the election process. Secretary of State Blackwell did everything he could to reduce the number of ethnic/student/urban voters including challenging the weight of paper used for voter registration forms.
All intentional.
All incrementally effective.
Anti-conspiracy theorists in the media kept demanding a ‘smoking gun’. There is no smoking gun – just thousands of spent rounds of ammunition.
It is not two sided by the way. Republican operatives covered the landscape with various illicit techniques from phone slamming, to hidden party switching petitions that in some cases said they were for marijuana reform on the “cover” sheet.
Regarding black box voting.
Palast insists that while touch screen voting is a real threat, it is really a McGuffin that will not do as much damage as feared. It is the total overall ballot and registration dumping that caused Democrats to lose two elections they actually won with ease.
Now the new boogieman is the voter ID card needed to vote in battleground states. For Democrats, a nightmare in the making. Only 20% of Americans have passports. Not everyone has a driver’s license. And many do not have birth certificates. In many states, the phony threat of voter fraud has permitted legislation for this new method of voter elimination to be ratified. The drama will be played out on Election Day 2008, a little over a year away.
Brilliant.
And that is why they are still smirking.
Check the government’s official numbers in Ohio for the 2004 presidential election:
Spoiled ballots 103,660Provisional uncounted 33,998Absentee uncounted 15,519Ghost & blocked votes 85,950
Total Uncounted 239,127
Bush ‘victory’ margin 118,599
6 comments:
You really don't know anything about west coast politics do you?
There is no way you can stand in Bill Bradbury's Oregon and actually start talking about Republicans stealing elections. Let alone talk about special interests buying influence in Kulongoski's union bought Governorship.
Yes I can, I just did, and everyone already knows what happened with the presidential elections.
You continuously completely ignore the topic at hand again... you resort to mere "hit and run" tactics when confronted with a topic you don't like to hear.
You have yet to respond to a topic, with a supported opinion. If you want to refute anything, why not simply stick to the subject?
You are simply behaving like another follower of the Cognitive Dissonant religion.
You can't blame Republicans as a blanket cause of voter fraud. This is what you explicitly did and I am attempting to call you on it. Be polite and deferential (I realize you've had problems with this in the past).
Especially considering you are in Oregon where gerrymandering just happened and there is an active effort to allow illegal aliens to vote in elections.
Democrats electioneer in the same exact ways and did so in 2000.
In Oregon, in Texas, in Illinois and an Washington there was well documented and some convictions related to voter fraud after 2000. (Texas Democrats in particular paying for minority voters as an organized effort). The LA Times ran an in depth expose' about the issues with Oregon's vote by mail and the fact that the federal government required the Multnomah County Sherif to shut down the acceptance of crates and crates of ballots being dropped off after 8pm by unions.
As for Florida. Al Gore tried to only recount specific high democratic precints. He also tried to stop military absentee voters from having their ballots counted. His campaign was just as guilty as the Bush campaign. Your angry because Republicans had Katherine Harris and the Democrats had Janet Reno whose effots got the case handed over to the US Supreme court instead of the liberal Florida Supreme Court.
Both national parties were guilty of the same electioneering in Florida. That is the real reason for voting reform. Both parties agreed their were issues that could get way worse if it wasn't reformed to keep both sides honest.
I realize you only know the history told to you by Inconvenient Truth and other liberal base builders. Its not your fault your less than informed about the reality of history.
I blame republicans for the voter fraud that they have practiced, and perfected, to put themselves up in power. So, yes I can blame the republicans because they are the ones, your party, who has run this fine country into the ground, run up our deficit, sent us to Iraq under false pretenses.. the list is endless.
Yes, I blame them because they are the ones in power.
I don’t need to be polite when I’m out here fighting a war against the republican/neocon agenda that is built on lies, deceit, voter fraud and has proven itself to be in bed with big business.
Especially considering you are in Oregon where gerrymandering just happened and there is an active effort to allow illegal aliens to vote in elections.
Let’s put things in perspective? Shall we? On one hand we have Iraq, some unknown Americans dead, anywhere from 3,000 – 6,000 when counting soldiers and contractors (… but notice how hard it is to count contractors) and some unknown Iraqi’s dead, anywhere from 250,000 to 1 MILLION depending on sources.
Let’s throw in a couple BILLION dollars a month in expenses. Let’s throw in No Bid Contracts. Let’s throw in that the emphasis is no longer on Al-Qaeda or Bin Laden. Let’s put all of that together and compare it to the other hand.
On the other hand we have… DeLay's Gerrymander which passed the Supremes' Scrutiny http://www.blueoregon.com/2006/06/delays_gerryman.html Now.. which do you think probably has the weight of importance here?
In Oregon, in Texas, in Illinois and an Washington there was well documented and some convictions related to voter fraud after 2000.
… pssst, we’re not the ones in power. Your team is and it’s ruined our country. You guys have the reigns and you cheated to get there.
You’re doing nothing more than ignoring the claim and pointing your finger to the other guys.
Notice how you always do this. It’s your neocon Two-Step. “ da.. da ..da and Parry and Jab… da. . da.. da…. Parry and Jab.” It’s a good tactic. It works on others. But not me. When I served I was Infantry, not on a tin can with a bowling alley.
Your angry because Republicans had Katherine Harris and the Democrats had Janet Reno whose effots got the case handed over to the US Supreme court instead of the liberal Florida Supreme Court.
No, I’m pissed at your party:
a)Doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons.
b)These wrong acts help special interest, which is oil, Bush comes from oil… remember.
c)That it is at the expense of the lives of American soldiers and countless innocent Iraqi people.
d)This time and energy could be used to build the infrastructure of our own country, to build on our domestic policy, but it isn’t.
e)That these pukes lied every step of the way.
Your party is rife with corruption, scandal and one official quitting after another. If they were actually doing good and helping people, I wouldn’t mind if there was cheating going on.
But that is simply not the case.
I realize you only know the history told to you by Inconvenient Truth and other liberal base builders. Its not your fault your less than informed about the reality of history.
Notice how we speak the same language, exact same words. You think that my (our) perspective is any different towards you people whatsoever? It’s not. Your side has NEVER EVER accused my side of cognitive dissonance. Why? Because you can’t.
Sure we got a bunch of dirty hippies and tie dye freaks. That’s why your team coined Moonbats as a pejorative in reference towards us. But you guys… your team is built upon lies, corruption and free market at the expense of everything and everyone.
The republican motto, “I got mine, sucks to be you!” is alive and well in the United States of America. Your team is going down Dare!pdx. There are a lot of changes that will happen no matter how many jabs you throw in my (our) direction. Time to give this government an enema!
Sorry the gerrymander of Oregon is unimportant because its your side that does it. Is that the statement you just made?
Hillarious.
Especially considering your in power. You have the Congress, the US Senate, and the State of Oregon.
Do you really think the situation would be any different if John Kerry was President? We would still be engaging Iraq under Al Gore it just would be done with munitions from 20,000 feet (as we were before 9-11). We would have invaded and contained Afghanistan the same way under Gore as Bush.
Your party's Oregon delegation supported the preemptive strike unanimously (and they support Iraq now except come election time).
What's the difference?
Your not thinking for yourself. Your being manipulated to see the world through partisan blinders.
Republicans are not supporting Bush or the war. We are supporting the road we have in front of us. Read the issues of Iraq from the middle and the right. Read the oppositions media and actually attempt to understand the arguments.
Barrack Obama does. He at least makes real arguments attempting to build a middle ground. You just attempt to divide and attack. You might want to follow his example.
Liberals do not have a bunch of hippies. They have a confederated bunch of special interest primarily alied around public employee unions. In Oregon you may have some greeny-liberals but these do not a national party make. They also don't donate huge sums to drive your campaigns nationally.
Most of the pierced, tatooed, and hippy activists will grow up, have children, gain mortages and move onto being low turn out voters who are swingable based on simple issues like tax cuts, crime crack down, and school choice. This isn't a conspiracy. Its a longstanding voting trend.
You do have a great deal of congnotive dissonance. You mention it directly above in your blind-eye towards gerrymandering. In particular you also support M49 because it stops development yet ensures development. You support democrats who supported Iraq but "hate" neocons for that same support at that same time (notice you don't cherry-pick Hillary Clinton's comments about Iraq).
I've been reading what you've been laying down. I'm not convinced you are even really a liberal. I think you're someone discovering politics and you haven't discovered what you believe.
You are drawn probably to things that feel right or wrong but don't know the underpinnings of the philosophy or policy you support.
You'll probably get involved with the democrats. Get burned out and disgusted by the wholesale ownership of the party by special interest (this being cash payments and jobs owned by special interest groups). Then segway into being a radical Independent looking for a reform candidate. You'll fit in well on Ben Westlund's current staff.
BTW - "your sides going down" - that ascendant assumption was the reason Coyote started calling bloggers like you "moonbats." It seriously is the kind of talk scooped out by football fans wearing only body-paint in freezing weather or children playing Halo. It is not sane conversation let alone a real argument.
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