Thanks to OEN volunteer editor Don Caldarazzo for help editing the transcript.
I spent almost an hour talking with one of the best investigative reporters in the world, Greg Palast, about his newest book, Billionaires and Ballot Bandits. And we got into something very interesting-- that there's a war between two kinds of billionaires-- The vampire squids and the Vultures. And yes, this affects the elections and the nine ways they are going to be stolen and corrupted.
Rob Kall: And welcome to the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show -(WNJC
1360 AM), out of Washington Township, NJ,
reaching metro Philly and South Jersey.
My guest this evening is Greg
Palast. He's got a new book out-Billionaires and Ballot Bandits: How to Steal
an Election in Nine Easy Steps. Now, Greg has been on my show perhaps more
than anyone else since I started doing OpEdNews.com and my radio show, Bottom Up Radio. He's also the author
of Vulture's Picnic and the New York Times best sellers, Madhouse
and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. He's an incredible, kick-ass,
investigative reporter who doesn't hold back, as you'll find out. His reports go on DBC [Deanoz Broadcasting
Company] and in The Guardian. He has had done investigations that produced a
4.3 billion dollar jury award, and he's got a story to tell about what's
happening with this election that is horrifying, terrible, disgusting. Welcome
to the show Greg!
Greg Palast: Horrible,
terrible, and disgusting! What a way to introduce me Bob. Yeah, it's a comic book for god's sake!
Billionaires and Ballot Bandits is a comic book, a fifty-page comic book, which
happens to be surrounded by two hundred pages of my best investigative
reporting and worst jokes, which is then surrounded, wrapped up by two chapters
by Bobby Kennedy, Jr. This is all based
on our work, and Ted Rall's work and my work for Rolling Stone magazine,
investigating the theft of American elections.
It's non-partisan; I'm not here to elect Obama or his mama, but the
truth is that most of the steals, not all of it by any means, but most of the
steals are being done by GOP billionaires. Thirty-seven billionaires have
gotten together in an organization called Restore Our Future, meaning
billionaires' future, and they are using every trick in the book (and there are
nine, in the book) to shoplift the election.
And by the way, the real fight is not about Obama- these guys never
liked Romney, these billionaires; they don't care if he goes down in flames, which
he will. The issue for them is the
United States Senate. They are in the
process right now, I'm telling you, that there's going to be... there are nine
senate seats, which are going to be swiped, and I don't care if the GOP wins
them with votes, it's a question of winning them by stealing it. That is no-no if we're having a Democracy. So
we're talking, literally, about billionaires buying the United States Senate by
ballot banditry. Not pretty. It is very funny though, I've got great
stories and great comics. But, you know.
Rob Kall: Now you and
I have a similar take on billionaires. I've been writing and saying for a year
and half that we've got to de-billionairize the U.S., and you have a chapter
that talks about a similar idea.
Greg Palast: Yeah, I
say look, if you want billionaires to stop buying our elections, you're not
going to stop billionaires from donating money, because not only do we have the
Citizens United Case which says that corporations are people. You know how I feel about corporations are
people. You've met corporations that have lost their legs in Iraq, right? You
know, I mean, you've met corporations that have work injuries, they can't work
and need disability? Uh, no. Or need student loans? No. So, you know, with
Citizens United we don't stand a chance getting the billionaires' billions out
of politics. What we have to do is end billionaires, prevent the billionaires.
And that means... The reason they're swiping this election, not because they care
about the Republican party, or abortion, or any of that. In fact, almost all of them are not
Republicans, by the way, registered; they are not Republican. They're in it for the money. And that's how they make their money, by the
fix. And we have to end the fix of the economic system. If we end the economic fix, we can end the
political fix. And, for example, Romney's biggest donors actually made 5
billion dollars off the Auto Bailout. Like that? They made 5 billion off the
Auto Bailout. Romney's biggest donors made something like 9 billion dollars,
just a half dozen of them, off the Bank Bailout. In fact, specifically, one of
his million dollar donors, a guy named John "The Snake" Paulson, not Hank
Paulson, from Goldman Sachs, but John "The Snake" Paulson. And I didn't give him
the name "The Snake." That's, his bankers call him that. He made 3.5 billion
dollars by pushing the mortgage market over a cliff and then collecting on the
insurance, literally collecting" this guy collected 3.5 billion dollars on
insuring homes against foreclosures, which is usually done by home owners, so
if you lose your job, you don't lose your home? He actually took out insurance
on a million peoples' homes that he knew were going to foreclosure and then he
helped the market go under and collected 3 and half billion dollars. Ya like
that? And he gave a million dollars to Romney- the first million dollar donor
to Romney. That's what happening. So if we end that type of billionaire
burglary of the banking system (got enough B's in there?), then we can end the
billionaires ballot banditry.
Rob Kall: So these
billionaires are costing America tens, scores, hundreds of billions of dollars?
Greg Palast: Yeah,
cause see what happens is for them to make their money they have to cost a lot
more. Understand... By the way, you do
realize the big banks are still behind Obama as they were in 2009? JP Morgan, Goldman
Sachs, Citibank, United Bank of Switzerland- what are the Swiss doing in our
political system? It doesn't matter: they've got Nazi gold and we're broke, so yeah, they still back Obama, and these guys are scared of the hedge-fund
billionaires, the vulture fund managers. In fact, the number one donor for Mitt
Romney is Paul the Vulture Singer, who I've written about for five years. He
was not a Republican, but he jumped in.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
4
3
2
