Greg Palast

Greg Palast
Palast in hisNew York Cityoffice
Born	Gregory Allyn Palast (1952-06-26)June 26, 1952 Los Angeles,California,U.S.
Occupation(s)	Author,investigative journalist
Website	Gregpalast

Gregory Allyn Palast(born June 26, 1952)is an author and a freelancejournalistwho has often worked for theBBCandThe Guardian.His work frequently focuses oncorporatemalfeasancebut he has also worked withlabour unionsandconsumer advocacy groups.

Early life, family, and education

Palast was born inLos Angeles,growing up in theSan Fernando Valleycommunity ofSun Valley.Geri Palastis his sister.

Palast said his desire to write about class warfare is rooted in his upbringing in the "ass-end of Los Angeles," a neighborhood wedged between a power plant and a dump. He said that kids in that neighborhood had two choices: Vietnam or the auto plant. "We were the losers," he said. He was saved from the war by a favorable draft number. "A lot of people didn't make it out. Because I made it out, and my sister (Geri, a former Clinton administration assistant secretary of labor) made it out, I feel I have this obligation to tell these stories on behalf of all of those people who didn't make it out."

He attendedJohn H. Francis Polytechnic High School,and transferred to San Fernando Valley State College (nowCalifornia State University, Northridge) in 1969 before completing his senior year of high school. Palast said about high school: "Basically they were melting my brain, and I had to save myself. Before I finished high school, I talked my way into college. Before I finished college, I talked my way into graduate school."Palast then attended theUniversity of California, Los Angeles,University of California, Berkeley,andUniversity of Chicago,from which he graduated in 1974 with aBachelor of Artsineconomicsand in 1976 with aMaster's of Business Administration.Palast majored in economics at Chicago from the advice of aWeather Undergroundmember he met at Berkeley who suggested Palast "familiarize himself withright-wing politicsand learn about the 'ruling elite' from 'the inside.' "

Career

Since 2000, Greg Palast has made more than a dozen films for the BBC programmeNewsnightwith the Investigations ProducerMeirion Jones,which have been broadcast in the UK and worldwide. In addition to the films on US elections they have investigatedoil companies,theIraq War,theattempted coup against Hugo Chávez,and the vulture funds which target the poorest countries.

Palast spoke at a Think Twice conference held atCambridge Universityand lectured at theUniversity of São Paulo.

Presidential elections

Palast's investigation into the Bush family fortunes for his column inThe Observerled him to uncover a connection to a company calledChoicePoint.In an October 2008 interview Palast said that before the2000 election,ChoicePoint "was purging the voter rolls of Florida under a contract with a lady namedKatherine Harris,theSecretary of State.They won a contract, a bid contract with the state, with the highest bid. "After subsequently noticing a large proportion of African-American voters were claiming their names had disappeared fromvoter rolls in Florida in the 2000 election,Palast launched a full-scale investigation into election fraud, the results of which were broadcast in the UK by the BBC on theirNewsnightshow prior to the2004 election.Palast claimed to have obtained computer discs from Katherine Harris' office, which containedcaginglists of "voters matched by race and tagged as felons."Palast appeared in the 2003 documentary film,Florida Fights Back! Resisting the Stolen Election,along withVincent Bugliosi,former Los AngelesDeputy District Attorneyand author ofThe Betrayal of America.Palast also appeared in the 2004 documentaryOrwell Rolls in His Grave,which focuses on the hidden mechanics of the media.

In May 2007, Palast said he'd received 500emailsthat formerWhite House Deputy Chief of StaffKarl Roveexchanged through an account supplied by theRepublican National Committee.Palast says the emails show a plan to target likelyDemocraticvoters with extra scrutiny over their home addresses, and he also believes Rove's plan was a factor in the firing ofU.S. Attorneys.

After Palast was invited byRobert F. Kennedy Jr.to appear on hisAir Americatalk show to discuss, among other things, election fraud, the pair teamed up to publish a report in October 2008 inRolling Stone,concluding that the2008 electionhad already been stolen. "If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beatJohn McCainat the polls -- they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering ", Palast and Kennedy summarized.To combat the extensive acts of voter suppression that Palast and Kennedy uncovered, the duo launched a campaign called Steal Back Your Vote,which features a website and free downloadable voter guide / adult comic book.

Palast has conducted a multi-year investigation intoKansasSecretary of StateKris Kobach'sInterstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program(commonly referred to as "Crosscheck" ). The program utilizes states' voter registration lists to match possible "double voters," using their first and last names and the last four digits of theirSocial Security number.In 2014, Palastinvestigated CrosscheckforAl Jazeera America,finding that the program was inherently biased toward removing minority voters from states' voter rolls. In 2016, he followed up with a documentary film,The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,along with an article.

Energy companies

In 1988, Palast directed a U.S.civil racketeeringinvestigation into theShoreham Nuclear Power Stationproject, under construction byStone & WebsterandLong Island Lighting Company.Ajuryawarded the plaintiffs US$4.8 billion; however,New York's federaljudgeJack B. Weinstein,reversed the verdict, and the case was later settled for $400 million.The racketeering charges stemmed from an accusation that LILCO filed false documents in order to secure rate increases. LILCO sought a dismissal of these charges on the grounds thatSuffolk Countylacked authority under theRacketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Actand that the allegations of a history of racketeering did not qualify as a continuing criminal enterprise.

Palast has also taken issue with the official story behind the grounding of theExxon Valdez,claiming thesobrietyof theValdez's captain was not an issue in the accident. According to Palast, the main cause of theExxon Valdezoil spillin 1989 was not human error, but an Exxon decision not to use the ship'sradarin order to save money. TheRaytheonRaycasradar systemwould not have detectedBligh Reefitself - as radar, unlikesonar,is incapable of detecting submerged objects. The radar system would have detected the radar reflector, placed on the next rock inland from Bligh Reef for the purpose of keeping vessels on course via radar.Palast points out that the original owners of the land, the localAlaska Nativestribe, took only one dollar in payment for the land with a promise not topolluteit and spoil their fishing and seal hunting grounds.

InAn Open Letter to Greg Palast on Peak OilRichard Heinbergoffers friendly criticism of Palast, saying he conflates the "amount of oil left" with "peak (maximal) flow rates" for oil, the latter being key to thePeak Oilconcept.

On October 27, 2010, Palast wrote, "The Petroleum Broadcast System Owes Us an Apology....BPhas neglected warnings about oil safety for years!... But so hasPBS.The Petroleum Broadcast System has turned a blind eye to BP perfidy for decades. If the broadcast had come six months before theGulf blow-out,after [major accidentsin 2005and2006or afteryears of government fines], I would say, “Damn, thatFrontlinesure is courageous.” But six months after the blow-out, PBS has shown us it only has the courage to shoot the wounded.... The entire hour told us again and again and again, the problem was one company, BP, and its 'management culture.'... UnlikeShell Oil’s culture which hasturned Nigeria into a toxic cesspool;unlikeExxonMobil’s culture which remains in denial aboutthe horror it heaped on Alaska.And unlikeChevron’s culture, whichI witnessed in the Amazon.Chevron culture leftEcuadoran farmers with pustules all over their bodies and a graveyard of children dead of leukemia.

"LobbyGate" scandal

In 1998, working as an undercover reporter forThe Observer,Palast, posing as a US businessman with ties toEnron,caught on tape two Labour party insiders,Derek DraperandJonathan Mendelsohn,boasting about how they could sell access to government ministers, obtain advance copies of sensitive reports, and create tax breaks for their clients.

Draper denied the allegations.AtPrime Minister's Question TimeJuly 8, 1998BritishPrime MinisterTony Blairclaimed that all the specific claims had been investigated and found groundless: "every allegation made inThe Observerhas been investigated and found to be untrue ".

Vulture funds

Starting in 2007 Palast published a series of investigations on what aid groups and investors call "vulture funds".A vulture fund is a private equity or hedge fund where companies or people buy the debt of a poor country and litigate to recover the funds, often at the expense of aid and debt relief. Prime MinisterGordon Browncommented on the practices saying "We particularly condemn the perversity where Vulture Funds purchase debt at a reduced price and make a profit from suing the debtor country to recover the full amount owed - a morally outrageous outcome".

In 2014 Palast detailed the workings of vulture funds during the crisis of the American automotive industry:

Singer,through a brilliantly complex financial manoeuvre, took control ofDelphi Automotive,the sole supplier of most of the auto parts needed by General Motors and Chrysler. Both auto firms were already in bankruptcy. Singer and co-investors demanded theUS Treasurypay them billions, including $350m (£200m) in cash immediately, or – as the Singer consortium threatened – "we'll shut you down" by ending GM's supply of parts. GM and Chrysler, with only a few days' worth of parts in stock, would have shut down and permanently forced into liquidation. Obama's negotiator, Treasury deputySteven Rattner,called the vulture funds' demand "extortion"... Ultimately, the US Treasury quietly paid the Singer consortium a cool $12.9bn in cash and subsidies from the US Treasury'sauto bailoutfund. Singer responded to Obama's largesse by quickly shutting down 25 of Delphi's 29 US auto parts plants, shifting 25,000 jobs to Asia. Singer'sElliott Managementpocketed $1.29bn of which Singer personally garnered the lion's share.

— Palast 2014

Works

Books

• The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.London: Pluto Press. 2002.ISBN0-452-28391-4.
• Greg Palast; Oppenheim, Jerrold; MacGregor, Theo (2002).Democracy and Regulation.London: Pluto.ISBN0-7453-1943-2.
• Armed Madhouse.New York, NY: Dutton. 2006.ISBN0-525-94968-2.
• Vultures' Picnic.New York: Dutton. 2011.ISBN978-0-525-95207-7.
• Billionaires and Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps.New York: Seven Stories Press. 2012.ISBN978-1-609-80478-7.
• The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: A Tale of Billionaires & Ballot Bandits.New York: Seven Stories Press. 2016.ISBN978-1609807757.
• How Trump Stole 2020.New York: Seven Stories Press. 2020.ISBN978-1644210567.

Films

• Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.2004.
• American Blackout.2006.
• Big Easy to Big Empty[Pt 1],[Pt 2].2007.
• The Election Files.2009.
• Palast Investigates.2010.
• The Best Democracy Money Can Buy(2016).
• Vigilante: Georgia's Vote Suppression Hitman2022

Newsnight

• "Microsoft" (2000)
• "US Election 2000" (2001)
• "Bush dances with Enron" (2001)
• "Bush and the Bin Ladens" (2001)
• "Stiglitz" (2001)
• "Chavez and the Coup" (2002)
• "Iraq – Jay Garner's story" (2004)
• "US Election 2004" (2004)
• "Secret US plans for Iraq's oil" (2005)
• "Chavez and Oil" (2006)
• "Vulture Funds attack Zambia" (2007)
• "Tim Griffin" (2007)
• "Bush and the Vultures" (2007)
• "Chevron and Ecuador" (2007)
• "US Election 2008" (2008)
• "Vulture Funds attack Liberia" (2010)

See also

• 2004 United States election voting controversies
• International Monetary Fund
• World Bank
• World Trade Organization

External links

• GregPalast- 'The Writings of Greg Palast' (official website)
• GregPalastOffice- Greg Palast'sYouTubepage
• Greg PalastatIMDb
• AppearancesonC-SPAN
• Election 2004 Shoplifting the Presidency?- interview onDemocracy Now!
• Scoop.co.nz- 'OPEC& The Economic Conquest Of Iraq', Greg Palast
• New York Inquirerinterview with Greg Palast
• Palast article 'On the 2006 Mid-Term Elections'
• "A Sleeper Cell of Rove-Bots"- May 24, 2007 interview
• Greg Palast Tracks Vulture Funds Preying on African Debt- Video report byDemocracy Now!
• "Save My Vote 2020",SaveMyVote2020.org,Los Angeles, CA:Palast Investigative Fund,archived fromthe originalon September 30, 2023,retrievedOctober 12,2020,Purged? Check if your voter registration has beencancelled