Romney

Greg Palast ~ The War Between the Billionaires (And Election Theft)

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 OpEd News | November 6 2012

Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Rob Kall

Rob Kall ~ 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!

Goldman SachsGreg 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.

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Rob Kall ~ Book Review: Andrew Kreig’s Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney And Their Masters

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OpEd News | November 2 2012

Read “Presidential Puppetry: Obama, Romney and Their Masters,” a book just published this week by OpEd News contributor Andrew Kreig. and you’ll learn a lot more than you could have imagined, and you’ll start seeing the world, politics, and the justice system in a very different, clearer, smarter way.

This book exposes the puppet masters who pull the strings of leading officials in both major U.S. parties, including Obama and Romney.

Obama, for example, is reported to have worked for a CIA front company, Business International Corporation, in his early twenties. At the time, he was dating, in his first serious love affair, Genevieve Cook, the daughter of the head of Australia’s CIA.

Obama thus developed, like George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton, career-enhancing intelligence connections in his early 20s, according to the book, which draws on declassified CIA materials and other reports. Obama’s formative ties are just one of many examples of how the military-industrial complex and its Wall Street allies maintain a special relationship with presidents no matter which party prevails in any given election.

The reporting is entertaining and cutting-edge, and provides the kind of information we in the independent press believe vital to informed decision-making.

As a publisher of the author Andrew Kreig’s work, I confess to looking forward to publishing his postings because he combines investigative journalism with constitutional scholarship.

This book takes his investigations to the next level, connecting the dots to unveil a big picture that is startling, yet not surprising at all. At nearly 500 pages and 850 footnotes, the book goes into great depth to reveal the goals of those directing the candidates.

For example, I wrote last week that Mitt Romney should be regarded as “Bishop Romney” because his experience in that LDS post is longer and more relevant to voters than his single term as governor. Kreig’s book amplifies that theme into a full historical context regarding Bishop Romney and his ascendancy within the revamped, tea party-oriented GOP. From that background, Kreig portrays Romney as inspired by his sense of destiny to elevate his church and its flock in the tradition of its founder, who was assassinated during his 1844 campaign for the United States presidency.

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Michael Krieger ~ The Seventy Percent

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libertyblitzkrieg | October 25 2012 | Thanks, Kevin

Whoever expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization expects what never was and never will be. -Thomas Jefferson

Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out. -George Carlin

Barack Obama

The Seventy Percent

People are going to be pissed off no matter who wins this election and that is a very important social dynamic I believe is vastly under appreciated by the majority of mainstream pundits and analysts out there.  This is also very distinct from the environment that prevailed in 2008.  Four years ago, the financial markets were crashing and the economic future of America was circling the toilet bowl, yet a majority of Americans embraced the potential of a young, inexperienced biracial politician from Illinois who was saying all of the right things.  Despite the gigantic disappointment he has proven to be as President, there is no denying that he had all of the Democrats and most Independents under his spell on this day four years ago.

Fast forward to 2012 and the county isn’t “divided” as mainstream media talking heads like to say.  The country is pissed off.  Genuine and legitimate frustration permeates the land from sea to shining sea and rightly so.  Ever since the banker coup of 2008, crony capitalism has been institutionalized as the only real way to make money.  If you aren’t connected or “too big to fail,” sorry but America isn’t the place for you.  What makes the economic nightmare so much worse is that it is being coupled with a complete and total decimation of civil liberties.  One by one the Bill of Rights is being ignored and indeed trampled on systemically by the political and economic oligarchs emboldened by their successful takeover of the executive, legislative and for the most part judicial branches of government.  Many Independents disagreed with Obama’s economic philosophy but gave him a pass because he promised to end the wars overseas and restore civil liberties.  Instead, what we got was a President who signed the NDAA on New Year’s Eve 2011, which included section 1021, allowing for the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial until the “end of hostilities.”  Well, because now know the Orwellian “war on terror” is never-ending, the indefinite detention is forever.  The worst part is that Obama claims he didn’t want these powers yet when a group of high profile plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against section 1021 and won a ruling deeming it unconstitutional, what was the President’s response?  He appealed it to death until he found a panel of judges to agree with him.  Not only did he want this power, he seems to crave it.  Another well deserved Noble Peace Prize.

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Matt Taibbi ~ Mitt Romney Wins All-Important BS Contest

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Reader Supported News | October 6 2012

Barack ObamaOPINION ~ I didn’t watch the debate – I just couldn’t. I read it in transcript form afterwards. I know it is widely believed that Mitt Romney won, but I don’t agree. I think both candidates lost. I think they both sucked. Romney told a series of outright lies – the bit about the pre-existing conditions was incredible – while Barack Obama seemed unaccountably disinterested in the intellectual challenge of the exercise, repeatedly leaving the gross absurdities hurled his way by Romney unchallenged.

Romney’s performance was better than Obama’s, but only if you throw out criteria like “wasn’t 100% full of shit from the opening bell” and “made an actual attempt to explain who he is and what his plans are.” Unfortunately, that is good enough for our news media, which drools over the gamesmanship aspects of these debates, because it loves candidates who sink their teeth into the horse-race nonsense that they think validates their professional lives.

For instance: in my local paper, the Star-Ledger in New Jersey, I read an analysis entitled, “Romney’s debate performance was presidential game changer, analysts say.”

The unnamed authors of this analysis delivered a blizzard of sports metaphors about Romney’s performance. “It’s a new race for the White House,” they said, after Romney “changed the game with an aggressive, confident performance” – needed, because “Obama’s forces had hinted earlier that all they needed from the debate was one good punch to knock Romney out,” after the challenger “spent the summer and early fall stumbling.”

On the internet, they complemented this keen analysis with a cartoon picture of the two candidates as superheroes punching each other, complete with “Pow!” and “Bam!” Batman-style effects.

Why was Romney so effective, according to the Star-Ledger? Because “the Romney viewers saw during the nationally televised debate from Denver was the one his friends have long known: a conversational, smart, decent-on-his-feet guy, eager to defend his plans to cut taxes and change government health insurance for future generations.”

Obama, meanwhile, came off as “wonky and lacking punch,” because he was “so intent on answering questions.”

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