and yes Kobach is responsible more than any other single individual for the collapse of the KS government and economy. Brownback, the guv, has given tax breaks to the big business in KS and billionaires generally and increased sales taxes on food and necessities, in other words, making up for the shortfall in revenue from those able and actually, in some cases, even asking to be taxed, by putting the burden on the poor and the needy, and now he sits around waiting for the money too start filling the coffers as it is written in the Gospel of the Trickle.
The fact that trickle down has never trickled down and will never trickle down is just one of many obvious facts that Repubs will never believe as long as Repubs exist as a sub-species, so there's no way to do anything about some airhead like Brownback and his policies once he (it?) is in office. There's a line twenty miles long with airheads waiting to take Brownback's place.
Kobach has layers of lies and deceit making it next to impossible to get people like Brownback out of office. Many many people are fed up, but what can be done? Let's look at just two of the layers.
1. The voting machines. Kobach, who is in charge of the voting mess in KS, while pretending to want to guarantee the validity of the vote, always fights as hard as possible to prevent anybody from ever checking the validity of an election. Currently, he has stonewalled Beth Clarkson's efforts to look at some of the elections where there's very good evidence that the vote is probably a machine fabrication. She has been trying to look at the votes but without any luck for years now.
2. Voter suppression. Kobach is one of the most vocal state officials in requiring the use of voter ID, birth certificates or driver's licenses or visas, etc. This is in support of his and the Repub's phony claim that there is massive voter fraud happening in the country. There is zero evidence of voter fraud; there is MASSIVE evidence of election fraud.
3. He is also leading the efforts all over the country to use lists of voters around the country who have supposedly voted or are currently registered somewhere from voting somewhere else (i.e., a James Brown in KS can be disqualified from voting because a James Brown in TX has committed a crime or for some other reason isn't supposed to be qualified to vote. Kobach has done much to spread this obviously illegal tactic around the country especially in, but not limited to, Red states.
Incidentally, Kobach in the last election cycle was in a dogfight with another very good candidate. They were very close in the pre-election polls I think, but Kobach ended up winning by 17% points, a very good bounce that I'm sure was pretty easy for the voting machine companies using one of about 3,000 methods for maliciously programming a voting machine or perhaps by having some employee or ideologue pull it off. The machines are specifically made now (I believe) to make it possible to steal elections.
UNTIL DEMS START SCREAMING TO HIGH HEAVEN DEMANDING THAT THE VOTE BE VERIFIED, THERE'S NO WAY TO GET THESE GUYS OUT OF OFFICE NO MATTER WHAT THEY DO. AS IT IS NOW, THE THE VOTING MACHINES ARE NOT VERIFIED IN ANY WAY TO ASSURE THE VOTER KNOW THAT THE RESULTS ARE INDEED ACCURATE. EVERY ELECTION ON SUCH MACHINES SHOULD BE AUDITED, THAT IS, A FAIRLY LARGE PERCENTAGE OF THE PAPER BALLOTS FROM SOME RANDOM PRECINCTS SHOULD BE RECOUNTED BY HAND TO MAKE SURE THEY SQUARE WITH THE SO-CALLED RESULTS IN THOSE PRECINCTS AND IF THERE ARE STATISTICAL PROBLEMS, THE WHOLE VOTE MUST BE RECOUNTED.
And all this is compounded by the voter suppression, gerrymandering, etc. etc. The mafia is in charge of the country and the average person is being held hostage and is helpless to do anything about it.
KS is one of the most corrupt examples but the voting corruption exists all over the country, even in blue state like MA, where the optiscans are used and paper ballots are retained in case of a need to audit or recount (which has never happened in MA to my knowledge, at least at the statewide level. I would be happy to learn that I'm wrong about this BTW).
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