Other Herculean monsters are chronicled: Kris Kobach of Kansas ("KKK" is Palast's nickname for him), inventor of Interstate Crosscheck, a rape of registration rolls similar to Kemp's that attacks John Joneses whose other data clearly distinguish thembut at the level of numerous states, and numerous ethnicities: Gonzalez's and Kim's ("Kim Crow"), who all share a political orientation that would easily trump Trump and all his thugs***: they vote Democratic.
And among Kobach's other talents, Harvard, Oxford, and Yale, is a flare for design: it is Kobach who designed a totally nondescript caging postcard that screams "ignore me" to countless recipients who could, theoretically, have salvaged their right to vote by filling out their addresses on the card and sending it back. We're talking hundreds of thousands of these postcards, small fractions of which are answered. The print is minuscule, the vocabulary dense for even a college grad and cumbersome.
Palast doesn't guarantee, by the way, that all Democrats are blue angels. We know otherwise and he offers us reviews how one blue victor after the next is unseated by computer skullduggery and the shrunken head of voter rolls, caging, etc., but never complains, never objects strenuously. Mainstream Democrats don't want to be too closely associated with discrimination against African Americans. Stacey Abrams is the exception: outspoken, angry, blunt, and articulate, and she is interviewed and co-sponsors litigation with Greg. It is his victory against Kemp that may save the world. I'll save this for the end, but Atlas is far more qualified to carry the world on slender shoulders than Thug Trump on his fat orange ones. He'd cave in a minute. Atlas is also a master statistician who knows how to summon world-class experts to study his findings in digital detail. At nights when he's not on dark bumpy roads in blizzard weather, Palast pores over statistical charts to corroborate his findings, meticulously. This is, believe it or not, one of his favorite pursuits. Much more fun than shaking hands with "KKKobach," I'd guess.
But the point is the violation of democracy and its bottom line, human rights. We are treated to history national and international in this infinitely accessible and entertaining, illustrated volume. George Washington fought for the voting rights of Jews and Catholics way back when, and African Americans got to vote before the Catholics did. Internationally, we are still the world's police force for illicit elections everywhere except here. G. W. Bush was "horrified" by a corrupt election in Lithuania and actively agitated for a retake, which happened. Where are you now, Shrub? Where were you back in 2000 and 2004? Doing the Kobach, dancing the Kemp, while Gore, Kerry, and Clinton walked off into a less than welcoming sunset.
Other angels are villains in disguise. Crosscheck, having bitten the dust, is survived by ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center--"Eric Crow"), scion of, ouch, weep, the Pew Foundation, selling inaccurate hit lists to our usual suspects and others. Selling for this good cause, of course, the Pew Foundation. I've used their webpages in research on electoral issues, but they're sometimes hard to find.
I've written too much. One of Palast's trademarks is conciseness. He also delves into environmental violations of huge proportions sponsored by the Kochs and one of his favorites, Paul the Vulture Singer. He did voluminous research and even filming of those blowhards well before anyone else had heard of them. One detail: they're touching our lives in every way large and small. If you use toilet paper, you just may be patronizing Koch Industries, whose factories produce it in massive amounts. Watch out for Bounty products and probably every other brand on the supermarket shelves.
Ultimately it all boils down to a huge power struggle rather than discrimination and other gargantuan abominations in themselves.
And to the infinitely poignant portraits of MLK's 92-year-old cousin, Christine Jordan, being denied the vote, kicked from the rosters after 50 years of voting at the same polling station; and to an emblem of the future, MLK's great-granddaughter performing at the piano, Yolanda Renee King, surrounded by Palast and her father, Martin Luther King III.
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