” This Was as Grave an Attack on Our Democracy as the Russian Meddling
Except it was waged by the vice president and Kris Kobach.
Matt Dunlap is the Secretary of State in Maine, which means he is a Democratic official working in the same state government as the country’s worst governor, human bowling-jacket Paul LePage. He also was chosen to be one of four Democratic politicians on the president*’s blessedly forgotten commission on “voter fraud,” the one that was chaired by Kansas Secretary of State and all-around grifting machine, Kris Kobach. (The latest news from Kobachland has him wondering why all these white supremacists keep joining his campaign.) I attended one of the commission’s public hearings up in New Hampshire, and I was more than a little entertained watching Dunlap trying to come to grips with the basic absurdity of what he was hearing.
Last Friday, however, after the shebeen had been shuttered for the weekend, Matt Dunlap got dead serious about the farce that had gone on around him. In a letter dispatched both to Kobach and to Vice President Mike Pence, the nominal head of the commission, Dunlap laid out quite clearly the obvious fact that the commission’s true purpose was to validate the president*’s horse-hockey about how three to five million illegal votes were cast. The wheel was rigged, Dunlap wrote, and there were 23 jokers in the deck, and at least three or four on the commission. From The Washington Post:
“After reading this…I see that it wasn’t just a matter of investigating President Trump’s claims that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally, but the goal of the commission seems to have been to validate those claims…We had more transparency on a deer task force than I had on a presidential commission.”
Things got so bad that Dunlap sued the commission while it was still purportedly active, seeking access to documents he and the other Democrats on the commission had been denied. He got them, finally, in July. They were a revelation to him. One statistician was recommended by a commission member because she was sure “he is conservative (and Christian, too).”
In its own way, this commission was as serious an attack on the electoral system as anything produced at the behest of the Volga Bagmen, and this was coming directly from the White House, at the direction of the president* and at a substantial cost to taxpayers, as wish-fulfillment as regards why the president* got beat in the popular vote count. We’d have been better off handing the whole thing over to the deer commission.”
I saw it but I love Pierce’s writing, in this topic particularly:
” He also was chosen to be one of four Democratic politicians on the president*’s blessedly forgotten commission on “voter fraud,” the one that was chaired by Kansas Secretary of State and all-around grifting machine, Kris Kobach. (The latest news from Kobachland has him wondering why all these white supremacists keep joining his campaign.)”
And Pierce on Kobach’s grifting:
“There is nobody—N.O. Body—doing better journalism right now than the good folks at ProPublica. On Wednesday, working in conjunction with the Kansas City Star, they dropped a huge load of dead fish on the head of one of the least excusable hominids practicing politics today: Kansas Secretary of State—and likely Kansas’ next governor—Kris Kobach. It seems that, in addition to being one of America’s most virulent xenophobes and also one of America’s top vote-suppressors, Kobach is quite the grifter, even by the standards of the Era of Trump, which are formidable ones.
Apparently, Kobach reportedly fashioned a lucrative side career as a kind of full-service immigrant-bashing operation on behalf of any city or town run by people who were suckers enough to pay him. Kobach would help a town fashion a draconian anti-immigrant statute. Then, when the statute inevitably was taken to court, he would defend it. And because Kobach is as good a lawyer as I am an acrobat, he would lose. The town would get soaked. And Kobach would walk away with a nice, fat fee.
“Ambulance chasing” is how Grant Young, a former mayor of Valley Park, describes Kobach’s role. Young characterized Kobach’s attitude as, “Let’s find a town that’s got some issues or pretends to have some issues, let’s drum up an immigration problem and maybe I can advance my political position, my political thinking and maybe make some money at the same time.”
Kobach used his work in Valley Park to attract other clients, with sometimes disastrous effects on the municipalities. The towns — some with budgets in the single-digit-millions — ran up hefty legal costs after hiring him to defend similar ordinances. Farmers Branch, Texas, wound up owing $7 million in legal bills. Hazleton, Penn., took on debt to pay $1.4 million and eventually had to file for a state bailout. In Fremont, Neb., the city raised property taxes to pay for Kobach’s services. None of the towns are currently enforcing the laws he helped craft.
Jesus, Fremont. You hiked the property taxes to pay this charlatan? What was the vig on that? Anyway, it was nice work if you could get it.”
Enjoy!
I guess this falls campaign slogan should be, lock him up, he’s a crook.
Lord:
Maybe! 🙂
Funny, in a profoundly sad way.
” This Was as Grave an Attack on Our Democracy as the Russian Meddling
Except it was waged by the vice president and Kris Kobach.
Matt Dunlap is the Secretary of State in Maine, which means he is a Democratic official working in the same state government as the country’s worst governor, human bowling-jacket Paul LePage. He also was chosen to be one of four Democratic politicians on the president*’s blessedly forgotten commission on “voter fraud,” the one that was chaired by Kansas Secretary of State and all-around grifting machine, Kris Kobach. (The latest news from Kobachland has him wondering why all these white supremacists keep joining his campaign.) I attended one of the commission’s public hearings up in New Hampshire, and I was more than a little entertained watching Dunlap trying to come to grips with the basic absurdity of what he was hearing.
Last Friday, however, after the shebeen had been shuttered for the weekend, Matt Dunlap got dead serious about the farce that had gone on around him. In a letter dispatched both to Kobach and to Vice President Mike Pence, the nominal head of the commission, Dunlap laid out quite clearly the obvious fact that the commission’s true purpose was to validate the president*’s horse-hockey about how three to five million illegal votes were cast. The wheel was rigged, Dunlap wrote, and there were 23 jokers in the deck, and at least three or four on the commission. From The Washington Post:
“After reading this…I see that it wasn’t just a matter of investigating President Trump’s claims that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally, but the goal of the commission seems to have been to validate those claims…We had more transparency on a deer task force than I had on a presidential commission.”
Things got so bad that Dunlap sued the commission while it was still purportedly active, seeking access to documents he and the other Democrats on the commission had been denied. He got them, finally, in July. They were a revelation to him. One statistician was recommended by a commission member because she was sure “he is conservative (and Christian, too).”
In its own way, this commission was as serious an attack on the electoral system as anything produced at the behest of the Volga Bagmen, and this was coming directly from the White House, at the direction of the president* and at a substantial cost to taxpayers, as wish-fulfillment as regards why the president* got beat in the popular vote count. We’d have been better off handing the whole thing over to the deer commission.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a22652244/voter-fraud-commission-kris-kobach-attack-democracy/
Meanwhile, this neandertahl Kobach is odds on to become governor of Kansas. Tell me again how I should respect GOP voters?
EM:
I did post on this topic in an earlier post “Saturday Night News Clips.”
Run,
I saw it but I love Pierce’s writing, in this topic particularly:
” He also was chosen to be one of four Democratic politicians on the president*’s blessedly forgotten commission on “voter fraud,” the one that was chaired by Kansas Secretary of State and all-around grifting machine, Kris Kobach. (The latest news from Kobachland has him wondering why all these white supremacists keep joining his campaign.)”
And Pierce on Kobach’s grifting:
“There is nobody—N.O. Body—doing better journalism right now than the good folks at ProPublica. On Wednesday, working in conjunction with the Kansas City Star, they dropped a huge load of dead fish on the head of one of the least excusable hominids practicing politics today: Kansas Secretary of State—and likely Kansas’ next governor—Kris Kobach. It seems that, in addition to being one of America’s most virulent xenophobes and also one of America’s top vote-suppressors, Kobach is quite the grifter, even by the standards of the Era of Trump, which are formidable ones.
Apparently, Kobach reportedly fashioned a lucrative side career as a kind of full-service immigrant-bashing operation on behalf of any city or town run by people who were suckers enough to pay him. Kobach would help a town fashion a draconian anti-immigrant statute. Then, when the statute inevitably was taken to court, he would defend it. And because Kobach is as good a lawyer as I am an acrobat, he would lose. The town would get soaked. And Kobach would walk away with a nice, fat fee.
“Ambulance chasing” is how Grant Young, a former mayor of Valley Park, describes Kobach’s role. Young characterized Kobach’s attitude as, “Let’s find a town that’s got some issues or pretends to have some issues, let’s drum up an immigration problem and maybe I can advance my political position, my political thinking and maybe make some money at the same time.”
Kobach used his work in Valley Park to attract other clients, with sometimes disastrous effects on the municipalities. The towns — some with budgets in the single-digit-millions — ran up hefty legal costs after hiring him to defend similar ordinances. Farmers Branch, Texas, wound up owing $7 million in legal bills. Hazleton, Penn., took on debt to pay $1.4 million and eventually had to file for a state bailout. In Fremont, Neb., the city raised property taxes to pay for Kobach’s services. None of the towns are currently enforcing the laws he helped craft.
Jesus, Fremont. You hiked the property taxes to pay this charlatan? What was the vig on that? Anyway, it was nice work if you could get it.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a22616216/kris-kobach-immigration-lawsuit-grift/
Those cartoon are a nice illustration of the level of polarization of the US society. And the level of distrust toward the neoliberal elite.
Polarization has grown so extreme that two camps have a hard time even agreeing on the same facts.