Pack your bags…

REPOST:

Greg Palast, Author of Armed Madhouse, on How Rove May Have Already Stolen the 2008 Election
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 05/17/2007 - 4:06pm. Interviews
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
People ask me: Are they going to steal the 2008 election? No, they’ve already stolen the 2008 election. We still have a chance of swiping it back, but the reason I’ve expanded and put out the new edition of Armed Madhouse is to tell you how they will steal in 2008, and what to do about it. That’s one of the main new things. Plus a special chapter on New Orleans and my bust down there.
– Greg Palast
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You might say, since the 2000 election, BuzzFlash and Greg Palast have shared many a foxhole in the fight for democracy. He’s a workaholic, like we are — and he doesn’t flinch one iota in investigating the powers that be.
One of the things that makes Palast such an incredible asset is that he is in the I.F. Stone tradition of his doing thorough research. As much as he’s built up a Sam Spade sleuthing persona, it is grounded in his ability to shift through large piles of documents and data that most modern reporters would just look at and cry, "No way, I’ve got to meet someone for a daquiri."
Mainstream jounalism in D.C. is built on the "easy story," as in the one that is handed to you by the Executive Branch. Actually, Palast doesn’t work in D.C. much at all. He is out traveling around the country — and world — doing actual investigations into what is really going on.

Injured Missouri Firefighter Fights Dismissal
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ELIZABETHE HOLLAND St. Louis Post-Dispatch OVERLAND – Angry and bitter after watching her daughter endure 2 1/2 years of surgeries and rehab due to burns suffered in a house fire, Marolyn Schuenke confronted the Community Fire Protection District board of directors Tuesday night. "You guys all had your arms around me in the hospital saying you’d take care of her," Schuenke charged as the directors, eyes cast downward, walked to their cars following a closed board meeting called to address the termination of firefighter-paramedic Cindy Schuenke. The board members — Leo Morrow, Dan Doerr and Fran Costello — and board attorney Neil Bruntrager told reporters they could not comment on Schuenke’s status after the meeting with Schuenke and her attorney, Michael Schaller. On March 29, 2006, while searching for the mother of a fellow firefighter in a burning house in Vinita Terrace, Schuenke fell into a fiery basement. She suffered severe burns, the worst of which resulted in the amputation of several fingertips and one of her little fingers. Since the fire, she has had multiple surgeries but has maintained her desire to return to work as a firefighter-paramedic. Community’s board met with Schuenke and Schaller due to a grievance against the board alleging that the directors had failed to give Schuenke a hearing, as district policy requires, before terminating her in July. Schuenke learned she’d been fired in a letter from fire district Chief Fred Cain. "Given the nature and extent of your injuries, it is clear that you are unable to perform the duties required in that position," the letter said. Schuenke was fired despite a June 11 letter from her surgeon, Dr. Michael Smock, in which he wrote that Schuenke hadn’t reached a plateau in her recovery and that he believed it would take another year or more for her to reach a point of "maximum medical improvement." "I cannot rule out the possibility of Ms. Schuenke returning to work as a firefighter/paramedic," Smock wrote. "Here’s somebody who risked her life to try to save the mother of a fire captain in this district and now, two years later, when all the smoke and dust has cleared, they’re going to cut her loose and make her live off Social Security disability, and that’s just not fair," Schaller said. In tears after the meeting, Schuenke said her career wasn’t over. "This is what I’ve always wanted to do with my life," she said. "I’m not done yet."