Brian Kemp is a Klansman

On Gaslit Nation, we often say that America’s history is an authoritarian one for nonwhite people. That brutal legacy flows directly through the family of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. His ancestors were among the first to bring enslaved Africans to Georgia and fought to prevent America’s Founding Fathers from banning slavery in the Declaration of Independence. Fast forward to today: Brian Kemp continues that legacy by denying voting rights to the descendants of those his ancestors enslaved. And in Georgia, you can’t even learn about this history because Kemp has worked to suppress it—that’s how he holds onto power.

As the must-watch documentary Vigilantes, Inc. by investigative journalist Greg Palast reveals, “suppressing history suppresses the vote.” Narrated by Rosario Dawson and produced by Martin Sheen, George DiCaprio, and Maria Florio, the film is available for free at SaveYourVote.org, a site launched by Leonardo DiCaprio. The name Vigilantes, Inc. traces back to 1946, when the Ku Klux Klan used it as a cover for their operations. Today, Kemp is leading the charge to use the Klan’s playbook to steal Georgia for Donald Trump in 2024, and MAGA has a new A.I. weapon. 

Palast is known for his investigative reports for The Guardian and bestsellers including The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. This week’s bonus show, out Saturday for subscribers at the Truth-teller ($5/month) level and higher, will feature the audience Q&A with Palast at our live taping. Listeners' questions at the Democracy Defender ($10/month) level and higher will open the bonus show, incuding how to explain to small business owners that serially corrupt, Kremlin asset, career criminal Donald Trump is no businessman—he just played one on TV. Look out for that special Q&A bonus episode this Saturday, exclusively on Patreon. Discounted annual memberships are available. Thank you to everyone who supports the show, especially in these hard times–we could not make Gaslit Nation without you! 

Watch Vigilantes, Inc. for free here: SaveYourVote.org

Check out Greg Palast’s work here: ww.gregpalast.com

Our next phonebank party is this Wednesday October 2nd at 6pm ET with Sister District, calling into Michigan. RSVP here: https://www.mobilize.us/sisterdistrictnyc/event/642096/

To join our “Come as You Are” Political Salons over Zoom to vent, ask questions, or just hang out, every Monday at 4pm ET through Inauguration Day, subscribe at the Truth-teller level or higher on Patreon.com/Gaslit! 

Download Transcript

Greg Palast (00:23):

Okay, so what is this again?

Speaker 2 (00:25):

The Georgia secession flag.

Greg Palast (00:27):

It's the Georgia secession flag. So this is Georgia's own state flag.

Speaker 2 (00:31):

Some people called it the Georgia Republic flag because Georgia was an independent republic for 26 days before they joined the confederacy.

Greg Palast (00:40):

This should be your future flag.

Speaker 2 (00:42):

That's what that man over there said.

Greg Palast (00:44):

What do you think?

Speaker 2 (00:45):

I agree with him. I agree with him. The way things is going, we're going to have to do something.

Greg Palast (00:49):

So is it time to rebel.

Speaker 2 (00:50):

It's time to do something, time to do something. If we don't get it back in November, well, we need to try to elect the right officials into government office. We need to get rid of woke-ism, cancel culture and all these things that's killing America.

Greg Palast (01:09):

Do you think that you can get a fair election in Georgia?

Speaker 2 (01:12):

Yep. I think now we can. Hopefully.

Greg Palast (01:16):

Why now? What's changed?

Speaker 2 (01:17):

The voter laws.

Greg Palast (01:19):

So I'm down in Georgia with these grown men dressed up for Civil War, and they're all excited about this new voting law in Georgia. A law they're certain will allow the south to rise again. Laws called SB 202 and it's 98 pages of breathtaking obstacles to voting. I mean, they've made mail-in voting nearly illegal. They've shuttered ballot drop boxes, they've cut Sunday black souls to the polls thing. And if you hand someone a slice of pizza or a bottle of water while they're waiting in line for five hours, you'll be charged with a felony crime. I'm not kidding. In Georgia, pizza is an act of civil disobedience. I've been covering vote suppression for the Guardian, BBC, Rolling Stone for two decades, and I've never seen anything like it. But what shook me up, I'm going through the bill and I see a landmine planted in it. It's barely noticeable. For the first time in Georgia history, any voter can challenge an unlimited number of other voters and stop their ballots from being counted. And when I say unlimited, I mean unlimited.

Andrea Chalupa (02:25):

Welcome to our live taping of Gaslit Nation. For our listeners and our virtual audience, drop your questions in the chat. We are joined today by the great Greg Pulast. Greg Pulast is known for his investigative reports for the Guardian and bestsellers, including the best democracy money can buy. Pulast has just released his must watch, extremely powerful, compelling film about the latest attacks on the right to vote. It's called Vigilantes Inc. America's new Vote suppression hitman narrated by Rosario Dawson and produced by Martin Sheen. Leonardo DiCaprio just released the film for free streaming on his site, save Your vote.org. And what I love about your documentary Vigilantes Inc, is that it shows what I've been saying on Gaslit Nation for a million years, which is American history is authoritarian history. And that's the reason why non-white people, especially black people, were very early in taking people like me seriously when I was ringing the alarm about Russia's attack on our democracy in 2016.

(03:33):

And that Trump's going to be a dictator. Black people, and online, people were like, yeah, we know. I guess that's American history. So your film is essential because we're living in an age of weaponized information warfare where the MAGA Republican Party, the KKK Republican party backed by the Kremlin is deliberately flooding the zone with shit as Steve Bannon says, to exhaust us, demoralize us. And so we can't act, don't know what to think, which direction to go every day. There are new crimes, new scandals, and your film Vigilantes Inc. is a brilliant grounding exercise where you watch it and you beautifully lay out the facts. You show the legacy of history, how we're living with it today, the reincarnation of the KKK, and Brian Kemp and so many others. And so thank you for making this film. Thank you for coming on my show and I'm just urging all my listeners, please watch Vigilantes Inc. It is free. It is free, and it belongs in the Smithsonian. So welcome to Gaslit Nation, Greg.

Greg Palast (04:42):

Thank you. I hope you're not suggesting I belong in the Smithsonian. Okay, well thank you so much. Your words are kind, but again, it's a movie, but it's also a movement. The point of Vigilantes Inc. is to quickly spread a warning, which is why Leonardo DiCaprio created this site for us. Save your vote.org and it is there where you can watch the film for free, but it's not just called, it would be watch this film.org, but it's not the reason. It's called Save Your Vote. By the way. It is not Save My Vote, not Save Allison's vote or Harry's vote. It is Save Your Vote. So remember the why when you put it in Save your vote.org. You start out first, it's there. You can check your registration to find out if you've already been challenged or purge or anything's gone wrong. Second, it gives you the 8, 6, 6 number for the lawyers, the flying teams of lawyers.

(05:43):

Hopefully not on election day. Please go in and vote early in person if you can. I know I can't. I have to mail in my ballot. But then we have that information, how to stop yourself from being removed from the voter rolls and make sure that your ballot gets counted. And finally, or you can start with it, it says Watch Vigilantes Inc for free. So you can stream it right there for Nada. And again, it's save your vote.org. Or if you go to my website too, which is I'm Greg Palast, G-R-E-G-P-A-L-A-S-T. You go there for free. It's right on your screen.

Andrea Chalupa (06:22):

I want to ask you, Greg, your documentary reminds me of Killers of the Flower Moon directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Lee Leonardo DiCaprio, who you obviously know and Killers of the Flower Moon is based on the nonfiction book by David Graham.

Greg Palast (06:35):

Yes.

Andrea Chalupa (06:35):

I saw in the credits that DiCaprio's Father George was involved in your film.

Greg Palast (06:40):

Could

Andrea Chalupa (06:41):

You also work with the DiCaprios to create an Oscar bait, real life crime thriller directed by Scorsese based on your film? Because the entire time I was watching it, I was like, oh, this is Killers of the Flower Moon.

Greg Palast (06:53):

Well, guess what?

Andrea Chalupa (06:54):

Tell me

Greg Palast (06:55):

Yes. The answer is we're almost done with that one. I had to take a pause to do this film, but yes, I am doing with George DiCaprio is Leonardo's father and a great documentary producer. I hope you'll get a chance to see his Ulysses Grant documentary.

Andrea Chalupa (07:16):

Wait a minute, wait. No, no, no, no. Stop right there. You're telling me that three part Docudrama that Leonardo DiCaprio was an executive producer on, was directed by George DiCaprio?

Greg Palast (07:28):

No, George is also an executive. He's a producer.

Andrea Chalupa (07:31):

Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no. You need to understand something here at Gaslit Nation. Ulysses S Grant is known as my boyfriend.

(07:39):

I am madly in love with Grant because he was the original Nazi hunter during a time of vacuum of power when it comes to the Feds. So I was just on Tristan Snell's podcast. He was the former prosecutor that took down Trump University. He wrote a book taking down Trump. And I was like, Tristan, you've got to watch this film, vigilantes Inc. And I was like, Tristan, where the hell are the feds? We've had the National Guard come in and on, on and on. And so back to Grant. Grant is the model of to get through where we are today. My mind is exploding in so many different directions.

Greg Palast (08:14):

Yes,

Andrea Chalupa (08:14):

I'm so excited and star struck, but

Greg Palast (08:17):

You did ask a question that I wasn't expecting. And the answer is yes. So what is happening is Leonardo and George DiCaprio are producing or the nonfiction follow-up to Killers of the Flower Moon. I'm the filmmaker, my same director that you saw in this film in Vigilantes Inc. America's New Vote Suppression Hitman. That's the brilliant David Ambrose. He's been directing the Follow-Up. The Follow-Up film is called Long Knife, the Osage Nation Coke Oil and the New Killers of the Flower Moon. And for those who've seen killers of the Flower Moon, where the Osage nation, at least 200 Osage Indians were murdered by their white guardians and white burgers of Oklahoma, one to 200. We don't know the exact number, unfortunately, they were murdered for their oil. But that story directed by Martin Scorsese will ends in 1924. I've worked with that tribal group for many, many years and I said they didn't end in 1924.

(09:26):

We're in 2024. So the DiCaprios are producing my documentary probably will be presented by Martin Scorsese. So he's involved too. Everyone, the Whole Killers Gang is helping us put out the next a hundred years of the story of the Osage Nation. And it is Osage. It was by stealing Osage oil that the Koch brothers made their first billion. And so we're going to tell the story of Coke Oil. We're going to tell the story of the tribe. So exactly what you're hoping to happen, we're almost done with the film, but we had to put it aside because what I saw happening with this election, and we all agreed to pause our work on the Osage film, to do this film Vigilantes Ink because we see now get ready for this. And first of all, in 2016, we don't know of any vigilante challenges in the country where people were systematically trying to individuals removing people from the roles.

(10:25):

Now understand this is a whole new thing. What do I mean by vigilantes? We had one, you'll see one woman in our film who challenged the rights of 32,000 of her neighbors. She works for Marjorie Taylor Green. She was running for vice chair of the Republican Party of Georgia. She personally challenged the right to vote of 32,000 people. Who is she? Is she the cops? Is she the government? No, she's a self-appointed vigilante. She's a self-appointed vote fraud hunter. She's saying all these 32,000 people in her county were fraudulent voters fraudulently registered. Now again, it's like saying, Hey, Andrea lives in Brooklyn. Well, you say you live in Brooklyn, but I'm going to say you don't live in Brooklyn. You shouldn't be allowed to vote or have your ballot counted. That's what's happening. But in 2016, there were none of these vigilant vote challenges. In 2020, we had 88 vigilant vote challenges all in the state of Georgia.

(11:20):

That's where the GOP and this group true the vote took this vigilante game out for a test drive. And that's where that woman challenged 32,000 people that you'll see her in my film, vigilantes Inc. Again, you can stream it for free@saveyourvote.org. And now we went from 88 vigilante challengers trying to overturn the election, trying to stop the count of votes, and it's now gone. Are you ready for this? True The vote, which is the Republican Party front group, challenging voters, and by the way, almost all them are voters of color. It's gone from 88 challengers in 2020 to this year, 40,000 challengers have already signed up with True the Vote. And that's one organization. There's about two dozen of them. That's the biggest. The other thing is they have as of five weeks ago, five weeks ago, six weeks ago now, as of six weeks ago, they had already challenged 851,000 people as of six weeks ago,

Andrea Chalupa (12:25):

851,000 people

Greg Palast (12:28):

Have already been challenged. I would say 97% roughly have no idea that they've been challenged and that their votes are unlikely to be counted in this election if they even get their ballots. Now, how does this happen? Because every state in America has some type of challenge provision where I could say, I know that Andrea is not a legal voter. She's not a US citizen. There's always been these challenge laws on the books. Most of it left over from the Jim Crow era in the Jim Crow era. So what's happened is that these dormant laws, and now in places like Georgia where it's not dormant, they literally passed SB 202 a couple years ago, which said that any voter, any voter can challenge an unlimited number of other voters in their county. Any voter can do that. And we're seeing this mass challenge happening in Arizona, in Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas, and of course in the swing state of Georgia. So again, I want to warn you, the naacp, as you'll see in Vigilantes Inc, the president of the naacp, Gerald Griggs, you may know him as the guy who put R Kelly in prison.

Andrea Chalupa (13:39):

Bless God bless him. God bless that man.

Greg Palast (13:41):

God bless. Yeah. So Gerald Griggs said, well, we're expecting, are you ready for this? In just Georgia alone, three to 400,000 challenges are coming in, three to 400,000 people are, and it's not just any people suspiciously dark skinned people, suspiciously young people. In other words,

Andrea Chalupa (13:59):

All the Joses.

Greg Palast (14:01):

Yeah, voters of color. And the color is blue. And I'm not partisan. I'm not going to tell you vote for Trump or Harris or Stein or whatever you want to do. All I'm telling you is that I'm working hard to make sure that the voters, not the vigilantes, choose our president. So give you one more example from the film. From the film, which I'm glad. Thank you for saying you loved it. I kind of like it myself, but I do. I wouldn't have made it any other one. Vigilante Vote Challenger. You'll see in the film actually dresses as a vigilante. He has the cowboy boot, the cowboy hat, and he actually has a holster with an old Wild West pearl handle, six gun in it. And he made sure that we knew it was loaded. And this guy, you may listen to him and think he's a nut, well, he may be a nut, but he's also chairman of the Republican Party in Southern Georgia, chairman of the Republican Party.

(14:53):

All 88 challenges that we had four years ago. Everyone was a white Republican operative, every single one. And again, I'm not being partisan. I'm reporting the facts, man. This is Greg Palast. I'm a reporter. And so this guy challenged 4,000 of his neighbors in Columbus, Georgia, which is where Fort Benning is based. Well, it turns out the vast majority of the people he challenged happened to be, you'll be shocked to hear this, African-American soldiers, if an African-American soldier was sent to Germany or to Syria or to Texas or California and you're a black soldier at Benning, this guy was going to take you out. And how do we find out about that? Because he picked, one of the people he challenged was a very bad choice for him to challenge, which was major Gamaliel Turner who's out here in California at Fort Yami because after the war in Ukraine, he was sent to California. He's one of America's Pentagon's top experts on what's called Warfare of the Future.

(15:59):

He's an African-American soldier, and he says career military. He's 70 years old. When he's told, he says, where's my ballot? It's a couple days before the election. Where's my absentee ballot from Georgia? So he calls up the Columbus at Fort Benning, he says, where's my ballot? And he said, well, Mr. Turner, you've been challenged. And Turner said, what does that mean? I've been challenged. We can't send any ballot. You've been challenged. He said, so what do I have? How do I un challenge? Well, how do I challenge this challenge? They said, well, all you have to do is come in to our office and prove you're an American citizen. Give us proof of your address and we'll give you your ballot. And he said, wait a minute. You're telling me two days before an election that all I have to do is show up 2,600 miles away, just show up?

(16:46):

He said, you talk to fools like that and I'm not a fool. And he said, look, this is just another Jim Crow trick. This is just a new form of a black man having to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to vote. It's the same thing, but now it's not stopping one voter, one guy, one guy sends in a list of 4,000 names, which they get from this organization, true the vote, by the way, true the vote. While it is challenged already this year, we now know that they've gone over a million challenges yet not one person of the million that they've challenged, if these are really illegal voters, have them arrested illegal voting, deliberate double registration to states or anything like that. And that's a felony crime. But it's interesting, they challenge a million people, but not one apparently has committed the crime.

(17:42):

And by the way, secretaries of States, attorney General said, look, if you have names of illegal voters, give 'em to us. We'll go arrest them. They never do that. They just take away their vote. So by the way, major Turner, as you'll find out in the film, they picked on the wrong guy because his father is the Reverend Harold Turner co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King. They picked on one of the top civil rights families in Georgia. And so in the end, the major sent down got Mark Elias, who is now Kamala Harris's chief voting rights attorney. The first time the Democratic Party has ever hired a voting rights attorney ever. And Mark Elias flew down from Washington down to Columbus, Georgia to go to federal court, just so Major Turner could vote. Literally they had to send someone from Washington DC and go into federal court, and they got major Turner's vote counted. In the end, the followup action, the major did fly 5,000 miles round trip. He also flew 5,000 miles round trip from California to be in our film in Vigilantes, Inc. America's new Vote Suppression Hit Men. Again, I'm going to say for those who just joined, you can watch that film Vigilantes, Inc. For free at the site created for us by Leonard DiCaprio, which is called Steal, excuse me, it's called

Andrea Chalupa (19:00):

Save your vote.org.

Greg Palast (19:03):

You know I once did a comic book called Steal Back Your Vote. Unfortunately, my co-author was Bobby Kennedy, and I dunno.

Andrea Chalupa (19:11):

Oh man,

Greg Palast (19:11):

This is free worming. The brain

Andrea Chalupa (19:13):

Chewing on a dog didn't give you any hints that he might be.

Greg Palast (19:17):

I mean, this is many years ago. But anyway, so it's Save your vote.org, save your vote, not my vote.

Andrea Chalupa (19:26):

What I love about your work, so, so far in this interview, you dropped a bombshell that the Genocide of Killers of the Flower Moon in Osage County, that's where the Coke Brothers family made their fortune from.

Greg Palast (19:40):

Yes, absolutely. That

Andrea Chalupa (19:40):

Massive crime. And so that film's in development, I cannot wait to watch it come back for that. And then in this film, we're talking about Vigilantes Inc. I learned so much about American history, including that slavery was once outlawed in Georgia, and Thomas Jefferson even wrote in the Declaration of Independence, a whole screet against slavery and how it has to be banned. It's immoral, it's evil. So tell us about that history and how Georgia played a role and how Brian Kemp's family is connected.

Greg Palast (20:13):

Oh yeah. So I'm going to give that finding, by the way, we have quite an amazing team. It happened to be an investigation and discovery by my director, David Ambrose, that it was the Kemp family that first brought Africans and chains to the deep South to Georgia. Now, you have to understand, this is just before the Revolutionary War. And at that time, Georgia of all places was the one territory where slavery was absolutely outlawed. And when we say Georgia, that's the entire deep South. The Georgia Territory included Mississippi and Alabama, Georgia parts of Florida. So it was the entire deep south. It's hard for people to imagine. It was the South that banned slavery, not the North but the South. And then Kemp's ancestors, they used the name Habersham at the time. Kemp's ancestors got a special dispensation from King George ii, the guy who's, as we kicked out of our continent, well, before we kicked him out, he gave Brian Kemp's ancestors the right to bring in Africans and what Jefferson, and you're saying, well, wait, wasn't Jefferson a slave holder?

(21:23):

Absolutely. And there is a, I'm not going to cover up for his hypocrisy on this, but as explained to me by some of the people who are still, some of the ancestors, descendants of the people who are at the Kemp Plantation south of Savannah, that what Jefferson was saying is that once a plantation comes in, that's the end of all the small farmers. You have no choice but to compete using the same tools, in other words, other human beings. And so Jefferson actually wrote the longest segment of the Declaration of Independence was a long screed against slavery and attacking King George for allowing the import of Africans and chains. And that was taken out of the, it's the only part of the Declaration of Independence that was removed by the Continental Congress at the objection of Jefferson's friends, the Kemp family, or at that time they're called.

Andrea Chalupa (22:21):

So we could have avoided a bloody civil war in America if we had kept that in the Declaration of Independence.

Greg Palast (22:28):

Yes. And remember you had the articles, remember there was no US Constitution at the time, and it's one of the objections that Jefferson had to the Constitution, that it did not outlaw slavery. What he wanted to do, just so his plan was to do something like the British plan where there would be a four year period of transition. It's still not good enough, in my opinion, if you're still holding onto slaves,

Andrea Chalupa (22:51):

Brian Kemp's ancestors have blood on their hands, not just for the institution of slavery, but for all that died in the Civil War.

Greg Palast (22:58):

Well, I have to say yes, and not only that, but one thing that's very important, Brian Kemp, personally, the governor of Georgia personally did not bring enslaved people to Georgia. But he's completely denied when you talk about blood on his hands, it's money in his pocket. He's one of the richest men in Georgia owns thousands and thousands of acres of toilet paper creating trees, the Georgia Pines, which are being ground up by the Koch brothers into toilet paper literally. And he gives them the trees to turn into toilet paper. This money all comes literally off the backs of the Africans that they enslaved. And his cousin, a woman named Janie Bance, is just furious with him that he will not admit where the family's money comes from. And worse you'll find in the film, and this is becoming ubiquitous in red states now, that Kemp was one of the first people to sign a bill outlawing the teaching of history where this so-called anti CRT supposedly critical race theory, but they call it that you'll lose your job and your license as a teacher if you teach.

(24:09):

So-called divisive concepts. And a divisive concept, by the way, say this, a divisive concept is anything that makes any student uncomfortable about their race. In other words, if you mentioned that the current governor of Georgia was his family brought in enslaved Africans to Georgia, you're going to lose your job as a teacher, the whole point. So he's literally making it illegal to talk about his family and their real history. He's enforcing amnesia by law. It is vile, and it's happened in Texas and with Governor Abbott. It's happened with Ron DeSantis in Florida. And the problem

Andrea Chalupa (24:50):

Is, and it happens in Putin's Russia,

Greg Palast (24:52):

And it happens in Putin's Russia, and it happens in Putin's Oklahoma too, where Oklahoma passed a law which will make the showing of my film and showing killers of the flower Moon, not only in high schools or elementary schools, no one will be allowed to see my film under penalty. And by the way, in Oklahoma, they do not only take away the teacher's license, they shut the school. The entire school goes down. If you talk about the mass murder of tribes, of people, of the Osage for their oil, you would literally close your school. And when I say your school, I'm talking about state universities as well. Universities will not be allowed to show my film. And this is happening around America, and you'll see this in the film. Now, how does this amnesia, how does this anti CRT stuff deal with voting? Well, as one of the descendants of enslaved people from the Kemp family, one of the black people said, if Griffin Watson, he said, if you suppress history, you suppress the vote because you have to understand the history of keeping black people away from the polls.

(26:04):

That's what's going on. I would also note, for example, one of the things, you go back, we don't have to go all the way back to that, to the revolutionary period, vigilantes Inc. The reason it's called Vigilantes Inc. I call the film Vigilantes Inc. Is because that was the name that the Ku Klux Klan incorporated under in 1946. In 1946, the Ku Klux Klan of Georgia came up with this plan in which they as individuals, these will do the whole vigilante thing. And they were going out to challenge every single black voter in Georgia and in many counties, they completely succeeded in challenging each one. That was 1946. And they succeeded by doing that in electing a Klansman as Governor Eugene Talmage. And believe it or not, we're going through all these vigilante challenges and no one's stopping them. But in 46, the FBI said, wait a minute, that's a violation of the 15th Amendment of the Constitution.

(27:00):

So they drew an indictment. They were about to arrest the governor of Georgia for removing black people from the voter rolls. But the governor got lucky. He had a collision with a bottle of bourbon and drank himself to death just before they cuffed him. He snuck out of the indictment by drinking himself to death. But here's the problem. That's 1946 to cover their tracks, the Ku Klux Klan incorporated itself into something it called Vigilantes Inc. And now the vigilantes are back. So the Klan plan of 46 has become the Trump plan of 2024. I want to repeat that. The Klan plan of 46 is the Trump plan. But here's the problem. In 46, if you're a Klansman and you wanted to stop a black person from voting, you had to write down their name with a pen on a piece of paper and say, don't let Joe Black vote. But today, one woman sends in, she just takes an email and she just attaches a list that she gets from this organization out of Texas. These people have taken the clan plan and they've gone from white sheets to spreadsheets where they just literally send in spreadsheets with all thousands of their neighbors names. And you'll see in the film, now that sounds a pretty dry story, but as you'll see in the film, which is why think you made

Andrea Chalupa (28:13):

Like it? It's not. It's terrifying.

Greg Palast (28:14):

It's terrifying. So I go, so I went to the woman who challenged 32,000 people. We do this undercover work, thank you, Zach d Roberts, our co-producer and undercover cameraman, and we get to this woman's house and she doesn't know who, and I show her a picture of one of her black neighbors, Tom or Horn is her name. And I said, do you know this woman? No, I've never seen her. I don't know. She was nervous. I said, ever speak to her on the phone? No, no, no. Ever go to her house. No. I said, but you challenged her right to vote. And then she said, wait, well, I can't call 32,000 people. I can't, how can I call 32,000 people? I said, but you challenged their votes. You challenged the votes of 32,000 people. You didn't call, send a note, do anything. You just took this list and you stopped 32,000 of your neighbors having their ballot counted.

(29:09):

And so her reaction, now you have to understand when you see the film, her house is filled with ammo and automatic weapons. Right next to her door was an AR 15 automatic weapon. And by the way, the kind of weird fun thing about it, this isn't like I'm not in a trailer park. This woman is really wealthy. She's got this big gone with the wind mansion, and she's dressed up with like Nancy Reagan with the red dress and the red high heels, and finally Coifed and starts. So then she throws me out, my local camera crew got scared and they ran out because they weren't comfortable with automatic weapons. And a woman was really angry. Her husband actually jumped on me. I left that out of film. It was just over the top. Then she starts swearing at me like a sailor. I couldn't use all her language because I would lose my PG rating. So I'm chased out by this arm, crazy woman screaming at me and then go, and then the next vigilante

Andrea Chalupa (30:06):

A rabid Nancy Reagan.

Greg Palast (30:08):

Yeah, well, it's probably the real Nancy Reagan, I think that she was, I won't go into what I think of what she was, but anyway, but all I could tell you is the next guy. Then we go to Doc Holiday, this vigilante dresses up like Doc Holiday. And again, you think he's just some goofball, but he's the chairman of the Republican Party, southern Georgia. And he also made it clear with his six gun, he told us, yep, it's loaded. And it's like, this isn't going to be good. Because then I had to tell him, do you know whose home you're in? He said, no,

Andrea Chalupa (30:39):

Because you invited him to this home for an interview.

Greg Palast (30:42):

I invited him to this home for an interview. I said, do you know whose home this is? He says, no. I said, well, meet your host and you have a 70-year-old African-American career military man. Come down, sit next to him. And I said, meet major Gamal Turner. You challenged his right to vote. You said he didn't live in this house that you're sitting in. You're sitting in his house that you said he didn't live in, that he doesn't live here. Here he is. And the major was really worried. I mean, this is a black man in southern Georgia, and there's a guy with a gun there who's just been tricked, and we didn't know how that was going to end up. The one thing is, I mean, you'll see an old gun in a Bible and that the majors weren't wondering what would happen if he had to grab that gun. He also had an anti-tank, a rocket launcher in his kitchen. But I thought that that'd be a little bit much. So you'll see these scenes. Some of them are really heartbreaking, some they're

Andrea Chalupa (31:44):

Funny. How did that play out then in being in the room with those two men, all of American history in that moment?

Greg Palast (31:51):

Well, because I'm used to this, for those who don't know me, Greg Palas, I'm an investigative reporter. I was one of the chief investigative reporters for BBC television in England, and I was also an investigative reporter for the Guardian newspapers. So in England, we first try to get people to speak with us on camera, but if they don't, I'm allowed out of England to go undercover, to use the false front. If I have to jump people, if I have to literally sometimes have to hide in the bushes, but we don't accept no comment. I have to go get these people, and I can't do that in American news. American News is scared of its own shadow. So it's very, very difficult to do undercover work in the us. Almost impossible. But we get the best stories that way and also the most fun, interesting stories.

(32:40):

But the woman with the gun, she threw us out, and that was a very dicey, dangerous situation. But Doc Holiday with his sixth gun, you'll see this thing where he's trying to take the gun out of his holster, and you realize this guy ain't why at Earp, he ain't Doc hol, he's taking, he can't figure out how to get the gun out of his holster. He is pulling at his gun, but you never know how it's going to go. So it can be harrowing, but he didn't run off. Some of these guys will run. We always practice like, well, what if they run? What if they start and what if they start shooting? And we do have to be careful about these things. We really take this stuff seriously. But if no one gets hurt, it's a lot of fun to do this work.

Andrea Chalupa (33:21):

So I have to ask you, Brian Kemp legalized Vigilantes Inc. To suppress the vote in Georgia. Entrenches Power Vigilantes Inc. Is what the KKK used to be, right?

Greg Palast (33:36):

Yes, yes.

Andrea Chalupa (33:37):

So doesn't this essentially make Brian Kemp a Klansman?

Greg Palast (33:40):

Well, he's using the Klan plan, but he's upped it into cyberspace, as I've said, instead of having to fill out forms and getting thousands of Klansmen to fill out a few forms, they're literally putting in spreadsheets with thousands of names.

Andrea Chalupa (33:54):

And they're using Eagle ai.

Greg Palast (33:57):

Yes, they're using something called Eagle AI is another one of their groups. That's Cleta Mitchell, by the way, who's Donald Trump's attorney? The group that's putting out these lists that because you can only challenge in your county. So they're getting, they make sure that they don't get, they screen out people like me, of course, but they'll get their vigilantes to take to suck down thousands of names in their county. Again, almost entirely voters of color. If you go to greg palace.com, you'll see a short explanation just by my producer, Martin Sheen, my favorite President, president Barlett

Andrea Chalupa (34:31):

From the West Wing,

Greg Palast (34:32):

From the West Wing, and from Apocalypse Now, Badlands, my favorite stuff, my favorite movies. So Martin will explain it to you at the top of greg palace.com, and it's worth seeing his comments. So yes, the clan plan, and what's strange is that the federal government who was about to arrest the governor of Georgia for doing this last time, why aren't they arresting the governor of Georgia now? And don't forget, while Georgia is always the point, the place where they take out these various vote suppression methods, that's where they're always taken for a test drive. I've been covering Georgia for 11 years now, and that's always where each of these tricks start. But Kemp has gotten away with this, and now it's spread to all these other states like Florida, like Texas, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin. And by the way, one of the things you can do in 23 states, including Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, swing states, if you are purged, if your name missing, don't argue with the lady behind the desk in those states. You can register on election day Reregister on the spot, say, okay, I want to reregister right now, and then you give me my ballot. So that's one thing you can do. So that's why you want to go to save your vote.org where it gives you this information, but also you can watch the film Vigilantes Inc. For Gratis.

Andrea Chalupa (36:02):

I'm so grateful for your work. And so my question to you is the federal government, including Grant and the Civil Rights Movement, Eisenhower Kennedy, they used federal power to enforce civil rights. The National Guard was sent in when needed. Why do you think the Feds are sitting back and letting our democracy burn? Why isn't Brian Kemp being arrested, being investigated and arrested?

Greg Palast (36:33):

I think there's two things. Number one is that the Democratic Party, most of the Democratic Party and most democratic leadership since Nixon won with the Southern strategy, has been very reluctant to talk about what we call vote suppression, which is a fancy term for shafting black people and brown people out of their votes. They're afraid to even bring up the subject, and that's been a big problem. Like I say, Kamala Harris finally for the first time, hired Mark Elias, the top voting rights attorney for the party to protect votes. It's a new thing. And I think the other thing is, by the way, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who I just did a kind of command performance of our film for him, and he told Kamala Harris and President Biden, you got to watch this film. So if Jesse Jackson can force the president Kamala Harris to watch this film, I think you can too. But I just want to let you know it is a movie. Bring your popcorn. It's entertaining.

Andrea Chalupa (37:30):

I compared it to Killers of the Flower Moon.

Greg Palast (37:33):

Yeah, by the way, it's not one of these PBS documentaries with a white guy in front of a bookcase, even though I'm a white guy in front of a bookcase right now.

Andrea Chalupa (37:41):

No, you hold up a pizza and show how pizza's been criminalized because you're not allowed to give food, water, pizza to people waiting in light to vote. What Brian Kemp is doing in Georgia is criminal. He needs to be arrested. You show in your film how non-white activists are being criminalized just for registering their communities to vote. They're being threatened with felonies. They're being threatened with several years in prison, and that led to one black woman dying by suicide. Another, her health took a hit. The authoritarian pressure that these people are put in the pressure cooker, they need to be rescued. There needs to be a rescue operation for Georgia because Brian Kemp is acting above the law here. Their laws, I know he's using legal warfare just like Putin did to consolidate power just like Orbin did to consolidate power. These are authoritarian tactics. And Biden who ran in 2020 on the Soul of America, and now in this election, the Democrats are saying, we're up against a dictator.

(38:48):

Everyone needs to become an expert on Project 2025. The DNC was an entire week long event on Project 2025, and yet we don't see the DOJ Civil Rights Division. We don't see Merrick Garland. We don't see the FBI, Christopher Ray's FBI, which allowed January 6th to be planned and happen out in the open. My podcast announced a pre January six co special. We said, we'll see you after the violent coup. We all saw it coming. So at a certain point is the establishment or the security forces of America just so deeply infiltrated by MAGA foreign corruption that the Democrats are just easily just blown with that wind?

Greg Palast (39:35):

Well, I think the lesson to be taken out of this is that don't expect the political party to save your vote. That's why we have that site. Save your Vote org. The Democratic Party had nothing to do with Biden's victory in Georgia, for example, is famously by 11,779 votes, so less than 12,000 votes. That was all done. For example, all these Georgians were challenged by both the state and purged from the voter rolls by the state. Many were had their votes blocked or not counted by the vigilantes. A lot of these people came in, they thought they were given provisional ballots. Now, don't ever take a provisional ballot because I call a placebo ballot. You think you voted, but you haven't. And the lady behind the desk, nice as she is, she may not know this. She'll say, don't worry, just fill out this. You don't get a regular ballot.

(40:27):

Always demand a regular ballot. Say, no, I'm not accepting a provisional ballot. But if you get a provisional ballot, you have to fill out this form. Your ballot goes in envelope, you fill out the envelope, well, it's not going to get counted unless you personally go into your county clerk's office or follow whatever rule. In many states, you have to literally physically go in and what they call it, curing your ballot, what it means is that they didn't like your idea or they couldn't find you. So then you say, here's my latest government photo id. Here's my proof of address, an electric bill, or whatever. It's a whole process. But that was organized not by the Democratic Party. Thousands and thousands and thousands of ballots, provisional ballots were cured. Thousands of ballots that were being rejected, they forced those ballots to be hand counted, to be counted.

(41:13):

That's how Biden got that margin. It wasn't the Democratic Party, it was the Voting Rights Group. I work, and you'll see in the film, I work very closely with Black voters Matter, Latasha Brown and Cliff Albright, black voters matter. I work with the naacp. I work with the ACL U. I work with several, and of course, rainbow Push, but the Democratic Party ain't there, which in a way, for me, it's easier because I'm a reporter. I won't work with the Democratic Party, but they're invisible anyway. I'd have to hunt them down, be an investigation. Where's the Democrats? Any Democrats here? No, I don't know. So don't count on the political parties to save you.

Andrea Chalupa (41:52):

T Nation is here. You're not alone in the fight. Gasoline Nation hosts come as you are political salons every Monday at 4:00 PM Eastern Can't make it live. Recordings will be available to our community on Patreon. Our salons are your space to vent, ask questions, or simply connect with other listeners who also really, really hate Nazis. Since we're having such a great time, we're continuing through Inauguration Day. We're going to get each other over the finish line. Mark your calendars for our How to Make a Podcast Workshop on Thursday, October 24th at 6:00 PM Eastern. This is your chance to learn the ropes and amplify your voice, Patreons at the Democracy Defender level or higher. Submit your questions for our monthly big bonus q and a show you shape the show. Subscribe today for these fun perks and more, including our Victory Group. Chat bonus shows and get all episodes ad free.

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Discounted annual memberships are available at patreon.com/gaslit. Listen Up America. You have the right to vote. If you show up to vote and your name is not on the list. Call the Election Protection Hotline at 1 8 6 6 6 8 7 8 6 8 3. That's 1 8 6 6 6 8 7 8 6 8 3. Save this number in your phone or go to vote.org. If the person at the polling station offers you a provisional ballot, call that election protection hotline before proceeding and let them talk you through the best process to ensure your vote gets counted. Now, spread the word that these states offer. Same day voting registration, California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine. Same day. Registration is allowed in North Carolina in the early voting period. It's all hands on deck. Everyone. Gaslit Nation is phone banking into Battleground states with Sister District every Wednesday in October at 6:00 PM Eastern and with Indivisible Thursday, October 17 at 7:00 PM Eastern, and again on Election Eve, RSVP at the Gaslit Nation Survival Guide.

(44:35):

The Gaslit Nation 2024 Survival Guide on gaslit nation pod.com to help deliver meals and supplies to those impacted by Hurricane Helene. Donate to Feeding america@feedingamerica.org. gaslit Nation is produced by Andrea Chalupa. Our production manager is Nicholas Torres, and our associate producer is Carlin Daigle. If you like what we do, leave us a review on iTunes. It helps us reach more listeners and check out our Patreon. It keeps us going. Original music and Gaslit Nation is produced by David Whitehead, Martin Berg, Nick Farr, Damien Arga, and Carlin Daigle. Our logo design was donated to us by Hamish Mite at the New York Based Firm Order. Thank you so much. Hamish Gaslit Nation would like to thank our supporters at the producer level on Patreon and Hire. Ice Bear is defiant. Sydney Davies, work for Better Prep For Trouble. Lily Wachowski. John Schoenthal. Larry Gusan D Scott and Bertino. David East. Joseph Mara Jr. Sean Berg, Kristen Custer, Kevin Gannon, Sandra Colemans, Katie maus, James D. Leonard. Leo Chalupa, Carol Goad, Marcus j Trent, Joe Darcy and Marshall. DL Sinfield. Nicole Spear. Abby Road. Jans Altru. Brosen. Mark. Mark, Sarah Gray, Diana Gallagher, Leah Campbell, Abby Zavos, Tanya Chalupa. Thank you to everyone who supports the show. We could not make Gaslit Nation without you. We're going to win.