Greg Palast: Trump's 'Election Integrity' Commission on Mission to Purge Millions of Non-GOP Voters

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

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Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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Trump's 'Election Integrity' Commission on Mission to Purge Millions of Non-GOP Voters

Posted Sept. 20, 2017

Interview with Greg Palast, investigative journalist and author, conducted by Scott Harris

Not long after Donald Trump won the presidential election with the required Electoral College majority, he falsely claimed that he had lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by some 3 million votes because millions of illegal votes were cast for the Democratic candidate. While Trump’s accusation is baseless and has been repudiated by both Republican and Democratic state officials, the lie was a central rationale to justify an executive order establishing the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. The commission, chaired by Vice President Mike Pence – and whose vice chairman is Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach – has been tasked with studying vulnerabilities in federal elections that can lead to fraudulent voter registrations and fraudulent voting.

Critics of the commission point out that Kobach is well known as the architect of voter suppression laws adopted by states across the U.S. as well as Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant “papers please” law SB 1070. In late June, Kobach requested voter information from all 50 state governments. However, the request for voters’ names, addresses, birthdates, party affiliation and the last four digits of Social Security numbers, was refused outright by 19 states, with others unwilling to comply with key parts of the request.

At a commission hearing held in Manchester, New Hampshire on Sept. 12, Kobach was challenged for a column he had recently written for Breitbart News asserting that there was proof of enough voter fraud in New Hampshire last November to possibly have influenced the outcome of a Senate race. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with investigative reporter Greg Palast whose film documentary, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” examines Kobach’s role in employing his Crosscheck system that wrongly purged some 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls in the 2016 election. Here, Palast examines what he believes to be the true mission of Donald Trump’s election integrity commission.

GREG PALAST: The mainstream press has decided that the Kobach election integrity commission, Trump's special commission – it's all about Trump's ego because he wants to prove that he really won the popular vote. That is complete – can't say it on the air – it's not true. It is not about Trump's ego. It is about swiping the 2018 and 2020 elections. When Trump says three million people voted illegally, he's specifically citing – you have to go the rest of his statement – Trump said, people are voting many, many times. This goes back to the chard by his guy Kobach. It's not just a whacky claim – "oh it's crazy, it's insane" – no, no, no. It's worse than that. They actually have a list of three million people they claim have voted twice.

And I'm the only journalist in the United States who actually bothered to get the list – 3.6 million pairs of names they say are double voters. It's actually seven million people – Americans – who happened to ... I'll give you an example. Here's a good one: 583 guys named James Brown supposedly voted twice – once, in Georgia and again in another state. And the only evidence that put him on this list is that the first name matches and the last name matches. So James Brown. And that meant that – and this is a real example, James Thomas Brown is supposed the same guy as James Everett Brown. And James Brown, Sr. is supposed to be the same guy as James Brown, Jr. These are actual examples of this list. The middle names don't match. They don't care. Now, why would they do this? This is not about Trump's ego. In the last election, they actually removed 1.1 million people from the voter rolls. Names like Koch and Kobach, and frankly, Handpill and Palast don't get on this list.

It's names like Jose Garcia. It's names like James Brown. It's names like David Lee. Hispanic, black, Asian American names, in other words, blue voters. Democratic voters, and that's because minority voters and that is because 85 of 100 names are the most common names in America are minority names. This is Jim Crow, but instead of white sheets to scare away voters of color, they're using spreadsheets.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And Greg, I wanted to ask, as you examine this so-called Election Integrity Commission, what is your understanding of its objective. Is it simply to provide a rationale for more voter suppression measures in Republican-controlled states or is there a wider and maybe more dangerous objective that's part of this commission?

GREG PALAST: Kris Kobach said on Fox TV that he was going to try to take this system of naming double-voters, which he calls Crosscheck, from 28 Republican states to all 50 states by putting it into national law. That you're going to have to purge your voter rolls of double-voters and he's going to give you the list – which is why he asked all 50 states, by the way, to provide him the voter list. And for your information, most of those states that said that they would never turn over to Kris Kobach and this commission their voter rolls, did turn over the voter rolls.

So, what's happening here is that they want to take this system and make it nationwide. They also have a second thing that they want to do, and he made it very clear, Kobach, he's not hiding it. He wants to prove that there are a million illegal aliens who voted in the last election as well. Basically, Mexicans across the border to vote for Hillary, you know.

So this canard of the alien voters and what he wants to do, he's taking the Homeland Security list deportees and once again you're going to get names like Jose Hernandez. And they're going to say, "Omigosh, there's a Jose Hernandez who was deported, but there's a Jose Hernandez on the voter rolls of Arizona." And so they have to be removed. The illegal aliens. If they're really removing illegal aliens, why, we wouldn't object.

But they're not. What they're doing is taking common Latino names and so you find them on the deportation list, and they're knocking off American voters with similar names.

For more information, visit Greg Palast's website at gregpalast.com.