Greg Palast at Brave New Films

Palast: The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked

2008-03-17T08:03:55Z

Greg Palast has a very interesting post up:

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an ‘escort’ $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush’s new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there’s a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush’s man Bernanke was using ours.

Right to the point.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.
Who are they kidding? Spitzer’s lynching and the bankers’ enriching are intimately tied.
How? Follow the money.

Where? Here:

‘Steering,’ sub-prime loans with usurious kickers, fake inducements to over-borrow, called ‘fraudulent conveyance’ or ‘predatory lending’ under US law, were almost completely forbidden in the olden days (Clinton Administration and earlier) by federal regulators and state laws as nothing more than fancy loan-sharking.
But when the Bush regime took over, Countrywide and its banking brethren were told to party hardy – it was OK now to steer’m, fake’m, charge’m and take’m.
But there was this annoying party-pooper. The Attorney General of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who sued these guys to a fare-thee-well. Or tried to.

Nobody's saying Spitzer is excused for his idiocy:

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:
“Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”

The result...

But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story – of Bush and his bankers - will not be told by history at all – now that the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.

Epilogue:

Naming and shaming and ruining Spitzer – rarely done in these cases - was made at the ‘discretion’ of Bush’s Justice Department.
Or maybe we should say, ‘indiscretion.’

You can hear The Palast Report weekly on Air America Radio’s Clout.

Palast: The South Carolina You Won't See on CNN

2008-01-31T23:48:16Z

Greg Palast has a terrific post up. Here are some excerpts, uninterrupted by my usual inane commentary. I respect his words too much to mess with them, but I will highlight parts that strike me:

South Carolina 2000: ...The cops beat the crap out of the protesters. Of course, it’s the union men who are arrested for conspiracy to riot. [...] The prosecutor: a White, Bible-thumping Attorney General running for Governor. The result: a state ripped in half - White versus Black.
South Carolina 2008:...According to CNN and the pundit-ocracy, the only question is, Will the large Black population vote their pride (for Obama) or for “experience” (Hillary)? In other words, the election comes down to a matter of racial vanity. [...]
But maybe there’s more to South Carolina’s story than Black and White. [...] At the heart of the turmoil in South Carolina in 2000 then, was not so much Black versus White, but union versus non-union. It was a battle between those looking for a good day’s pay versus those looking for a way not to pay it. The issue was - and is - class war, the conflict between the movers and the shakers and the moved and shaken. [...]

South Carolina, then, is the story of globalization left out of Thomas Friedman’s wonders-of-the-free-market fantasies. [...] This week, while US media broadcasts cute-sy photo-ops from Black churches and replay the forgettable spats between candidates, the real issues of South Carolina are, thankfully, laid out in a book released today: On the Global Waterfront, by Suzan Erem and E. Paul Durrenberger. [...] And the book talks about (cover the children’s ears!) - labor unions. [...]
South Carolina is union country. And union-busting country. But who gives a flying fart about labor unions today? Only 7%, one in fourteen US workers belongs to one. That’s less than the number of Americans who believe that Elvis killed John Kennedy. [...]

!!! (Sorry, I had to comment on that last line.)

Elected labor leaders are, in our media, always “union bosses.” But the real bosses, the CEOs, the guys who shutter factories and ship them to China … they’re never “bosses,” they’re “entrepreneurs.”

Read the whole thing. I doubt if you'll read it anywhere else.

Ecuador - The Rumble in the Jungle Part 2

2008-10-12T10:21:01Z

Chevron Versus the Cofan Indians. The biggest environmental case in history.

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Ecuador - The Rumble in the Jungle Part 1

2008-10-12T10:21:01Z

Chevron Versus the Cofan Indians. The biggest environmental case in history

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Part 2- PBS Caging Story

2008-09-09T13:37:25Z

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Greg Palast in Edinburgh 1

2008-10-12T08:41:52Z

Greg Palast gives talk in Edinburgh for wordpower for UK launch of Armed Madhouse

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Greg Palast in Edinburgh 3

2008-10-12T08:41:51Z

PART 3

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Greg Palast in Edinburgh 2

2008-10-12T08:41:52Z

part 2

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Greg Palast in Edinburgh 4

2008-10-12T08:41:51Z

PART 4

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Greg Palast in Edinburgh 6

2008-10-12T08:41:51Z

PART SIX

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Greg Palast in Edinburgh 5

2008-10-12T08:41:51Z

PART 5

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Greg Palast in Edinburgh 7

2008-10-12T08:41:51Z

PART SEVEN

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Randi Rhodes and Greg Palast part 1

2008-06-07T09:31:26Z

April 23, 2007

Greg Palast -- investigative journalist and author on how the Purge of the Prosecutors was just another cog in Karl Rove's machine designed to steal the 2008 elections.

http://www.therandirhodesshow.com
http://www.myspace.com/randirhodes

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Randi Rhodes and Greg Palast part 2

2008-08-11T22:32:19Z

April 23, 2007

Greg Palast -- investigative journalist and author on how the Purge of the Prosecutors was just another cog in Karl Rove's machine designed to steal the 2008 elections.

http://www.therandirhodesshow.com
http://www.myspace.com/randirhodes

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Randi Rhodes - The caging of African American voters

2008-06-07T09:32:16Z

http://www.therandirhodesshow.com
http://www.myspace.com/randirhodes

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Know Bush: Launching Facts that Shock and Awe, A One Person Patriot Act

2008-07-09T19:09:52Z

A Salt Lake City working mom is compelled to write anonymous KnowBush email messages, "Based on the belief that the True Shall Set You Free", spreading less-known verified facts that reveal the hypocrisy of the Bush administration, from January to October 2004.

As the 2004 election nears, she drops her anonymity to present selected Know Bush Facts onstage at the Salt Lake City Main Library.

While the presentation is almost 3 years old, it is remarkable how much information was available back then that we are only barely grasping now, AND how much is still unacknowledged by the main stream press.

If more people had seen this presentation, Bush/Cheney would have had to steal/destroy more votes to keep their stronghold on the White House.

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Greg Palast Interview

2008-10-12T08:33:53Z

Greg Palast

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Headzup: The Leak

2008-06-08T21:31:05Z

Investigative reportler Greg Palast from BBC Newsnight & Democracy Now uncovers a new and shocking White House leak! "Headzup" is Catch & Release Comedy for your mobile phones. Share headzup clips as picture messages by visiting www.headzup.tv

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Headzup: Fred Thompson to Hire Cager Tim Griffin

2008-06-08T21:31:12Z

Mr. Law & Order, probable Presidential candidate, Fred Thompson is reported to be hiring ex-Karl Rove aide, Tim Griffin to work on his campaign. Who is Tim Griffin? Well watch the cartoon and read more about him here- www.gregpalast.com And read about voter caging here- www.slate.com Download daily Catch and Release Comedy™ political cartoons to your mobile phone or iPod at www.headzup.tv

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Headzup: Rudy Giuliani on Vulture Funds

2008-06-08T21:31:17Z

Rudy Giuliani is confronted by Greg Palast on one of his top fundraiser's involvement with Vulture Funds. Read more about Vulture Funds here-- www.gregpalast.com Download daily Catch and Release Comedy™ political cartoons to your mobile phone or iPod at www.headzup.tv

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Palast - Exposes WH Criminality in US Attorney Scandal

2008-06-09T03:31:23Z

Greg Palast exposes true intent, cover up and criminal acts of Bush administration's US Attorney scandal. In summary, it's about wrongfully charging Democrats with made up crimes in order to influence the outcome of elections. In other words, it's about stealing elections or subverting our democracy. Just more evidence of the Bush administration's stated goal of turning America into a one-party state. Which comes pretty close to meeting the definition of treason.

Part 1 of 3

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Palast - Exposes Criminality in US Attorney Scandal Pt 3

2008-06-22T10:42:43Z

Part 3 of 3

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Palast - Exposes Criminality in US Attorney Scandal Pt 2

2008-06-09T03:31:19Z

On Democracy Now today Greg Palast exposes true intent, cover up and criminal acts of Bush administration's US Attorney scandal. In summary, it's about wrongfully charging Democrats with made up crimes in order to influence the outcome of elections. In other words, it's about stealing elections or subverting our democracy. Just more evidence of the Bush administration's stated goal of turning America into a one-party state. Which comes pretty close to meeting the definition of treason.

Part 2 of 3

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Dying Regime

2008-06-13T03:30:09Z

We have become a monster in the eyes of the whole world - a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us... No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. - Hunter S. Thompson

Frame accurate version on Google : http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=378229989470389403

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Be Careful What You Say

2008-06-13T03:30:23Z

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself" - Joseph Pulitzer

"If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves." - Howard Zinn

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over." - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

Frame accurate version on Google : http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=98845005530349156

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