My guest today is intrepid investigative journalist, Greg Palast. He is the author of numerous New York Times best-selling books, which have been translated into two dozen languages, including The Best Democracy That Money Can Buy. His newest book, How Trump Stole 2020, just came out this week.
Joan Brunwasser: Welcome back to OpEdNews, Greg. We last spoke more than four years ago, when I interviewed you about the state of American elections: Your Vote: Raped and Pillaged - OEN Interviews Greg Palast [5.13.2016]. Here we are, four years later and we're still talking about it. And, you wrote another book about it with a very odd and scary title. How did you come to write your latest book and whatever possessed you to give it such a depressing title?
cover art for Greg's latest book: How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America's Missing Votes
(Image by Greg Palast) Details DMCA
Greg Palast: How Trump Stole 2020 is not a scary or depressing title, it's a FACT. Trump's vote rustlers have already stolen the election--but we can steal it back. That is, we can bust the burglars.
JB: I'm all ears.
GP: Here's how it works, Joan. In the past two years, 17 million -- million -- citizens have been wiped off the voter rolls -- "purged." Not because they died or were convicted of a felony. No, for about half, their only crime was VWB--Voting While Black or voting while some other color than orange-stained white.
I open in Georgia in 2018, in Atlanta, where I'm at a polling station and Martin Luther King's 92-year-old cousin has just had her behind thrown out of the polling station--she'd been voting there for 50 years. She was "purged."
Greg with MLK Jr.'s 92 year old cousin, thrown out of the polling station--she'd been voting there for 50 years.
(Image by Zach D. Roberts for the Palast Investigative Fund) Details DMCA
I sued Georgia's Purge'n General, Brian Kemp--and a federal judge hits him on the head with her gavel, orders him to cough up his secret Purge lists...and, ready for this?--we find that 340,134 voters were illegally removed from the rolls. Guess their color.
JB: Hmm. I wonder.
GP: When Kemp used The Purge to beat Stacey Abrams, the GOP took Kemp's racial vote scrub machine nationwide...spreading to Ohio -- 800,000 purged-- to the Carolina's, Michigan, swing state after swing state.
So, is it all over? Game up? No way. If we expose the steal, we can bust it. I just got my hands on the Wisconsin purge list -- that's the swing state of swing states -- and there's 152,000 names on it...students in Madison and low-income voters in Milwaukee, in other words, African-Americans and LatinX Americans.
But fear not, Joan! How Trump Stole 2020 has, at the back, a little tear-out poster, "Greg & Ted's New Improved Ballot Condom" for safe voting. No, you don't wrap it around your mail-in ballot--you follow the directions on how not to lose your vote. 22% of mail-in ballots are never counted, according to an MIT study. So pay attention, America, follow the directions on the Ballot Condom " we really can stop the steal.
JB: I sure hope so! There's lots to talk about here. So where are the Democrats? Aren't they the Good Guys, at least, relatively speaking? Why aren't they raising hell about Democratic voters getting purged and ballots rejected?
GP: Who the hell knows? I wrote a chapter, "Silence of the Democratic Lambs" which asks the same question. But let's be clear. It's not "Democrats" - my team was hired by Stacey Abrams who cited my work specifically when she declared, "I won [the Governorship of Georgia] but I won't take office" because of Jim Crow tactics.
Stacey Abrams is, you may have guessed, African-American. So, Democrats do raise their voice about vote thievery. My problem is with the Democrats Congressional White Caucus.
Also, Democrats do it too: In my chapter, "California Reamin'," I lay out how Bernie Sander got shafted out of 553,000 votes in the California Primary this past March. So, the Dems can't cry "no fair" when they steal as many ballots as the GOP.
JB: Argh... I can't go there. As a Bernie supporter, it's just too painful. Let's move on. How about mail-in voting? Is that the solution?
GP: Well, that's another chapter: "Mail-in Madness." According to an MIT study, 22% ballots never get counted. That's one in five ballots vanished. How do you save your ballot? That's why I wrote the book with the "Ballot Condom" - to show you how to protect your vote. But first, I need to tell you the awful truth-so you'll be scared enough to save your vote and save America. Are we up to it? Start reading.
JB: That's the $64,000 question. I certainly want to protect my vote. I understand that you have an offer for any OpEdNews readers who buy your book by Saturday night. Tell us more!
GP: Any OpEdNews readers who buys How Trump Stole 2020 today or tomorrow can get the audiobook for free. Send a screenshot or photo of receipt to audiobook@GregPalast.com, say "OpEdNews" and get the audiobook for free today or tomorrow only.
JB: Well, readers? Who can pass up an opportunity like that? While I don't always like what you have to say, Greg, I always appreciate that you dig it up and then serve it up for us. Thanks for doing all that heavy lifting.
GP: Thanks. I love OpEdNews!
JB: Wonderful to hear. The feeling is definitely mutual.
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Greg's website
Kemp Loses Vote Purge Suit Brought by Reporter Palast 2.9.2020
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