Yikes! Help Greg Palast Now.

Occasionally I will toss up a post about an organization that, in my opinion, deserves support, either by way of volunteering or donations. I figure if I share these things, someone else might find something that appeals to them. I truly hope this appeals to a whole bunch of folks. Check out the August 1 post from Greg Palast, Busted and Crimes of the Times.

Cutely buried in the 18th paragraph in a story about Alberto Gonzales on Sunday was a slyly-worded updated confession by the New York Times that, in 2004, the Bush Administration leaned on its editors to spike a story about illegal invasions of citizens’ private records (”data mining”). The Times editors smothered the story. They finally ran it - a year later - after Bush was safely re-elected.

As a journalist, this makes me want to throw up.

For two reasons: First, while The Times was covering up Bush’s KGB-style data-mining operation, the Palast team was revealing its secrets. We published confidential FBI memos detailing horrific schemes for illegal spying using Bush’s favored contractor, a company called ChoicePoint Inc.

The second reason The Times ‘confession’ makes me ill: While the publishers at the Paper of Record were counting their millions, the Palast Investigative Fund was slowly going broke.

Well, we’ve made it: Last Friday, the main-stream US media, through the venerable PBS program ‘NOW’, finally broadcast our reportage on the “caging” of voters, a story we first broke 3 years ago. BEFORE the 2004 election.

We’ve made it in another way: Friday was also the day I was informed that the Palast Investigative Fund was dead broke, technically bankrupt, with way less than zero in the account.

Bluntly: if we don’t get some help, and fast, we’re sunk. We are throwing staff overboard and halting some operations while we seek funds to keep afloat.

Whoa. Somebody quick go buy that man's book! Seriously. If you don't already know Greg Palast, you should. There's a link at his site where you can make a donation to the Palast Investigative Fund, and get a signed book(s) in return. I already have the books, so he can save the postage. He can just sign my copy of Armed Madhouse next time he's in San Diego. :-)

I've met his mama. I told her she done good. I sounded like a star struck girl. I'm so embarrassed.

Palast is so damn far ahead of the MSM curve that it's pitiful. He first reported on the voter "caging" lists years ago, and the megabucks news folks are just NOW starting to pick up the story. All the while, Palast has to ask for support.

He was also an early truth-teller in regards to the Bush "energy policy", the plans for Iraq's oil, and the aftermath of Katrina.

So really now...click the link...I know you want to. Read the whole post and/or make a donation to a very worthy cause; some of the best investigative journalism around, and the god's honest truth, by way of Greg Palast.