Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Kris Kobach: Protector of the Realm, Star of PBS News Hour

If the PBS News Hour were around in 1933 during the Third Reich, they would have hosted Goebbels, Goering, Hess and Himmler as regular guests.  These men would have been consensually validated as normal human beings who might hold some extreme opinions, but you could consider inviting them to your next dinner party to spice up the conversation.
Immigrants, poor people, Blacks, laborers don't belong here


So it is with Kris Kobach, who is the New Hour's go to guy whenever President Trump signs a Muslim ban or whenever Steve Bannon suggests we should register all the Muslims in this country, just in case.


Kris Kobach, who is the secretary of state for Kansas, was on the News Hour defending Trump's latest attempt at a Muslim ban, saying that there have been 56 terrorists attacks perpetrated by Muslims from the seven countries targeted in Trump's order so it only makes sense to keep every citizen from any of these countries out of the United States, because, after all this all about protecting the American people.


Mr. Kobach has also gone on record favoring a Muslim registry. 


Illegal immigrants are something of an obsession for Mr. Kobach; in this he makes that blonde Hitler youth esque Dutch guy, Geert Wilders look like the Welcome Wagon lady.


Wilders:  doesn't like immigrants. Says they are troublemakers
But Mr. Kobach also believes in denying the vote to potential Democratic voters, like the poor, the Black and the labor union men. Mr. Kobach likes beating up on the have nots, the undesirables.

The thing about those 56 terrorist attacks is...they never actually happened. Professor Google and his trusty side kick, fact checkers says, actually, no, never happened. There are all sorts of ways to look at crimes committed by various groups, but the only people whose origins derive from the magnificent seven who have ever been convicted of any sort of terrorist related stuff were found guilty of sending money abroad, not stirring up trouble in the United States. The Muslims who have opened fire in the USA were born here and got alienated by guys like Mr. Kobach beating on them. Well, there was the wife of the American citizen who came from abroad, but she's the exception that proves the rule. 


Basically, Mr. Kobach uses that number, 56, like a bludgeon and sounds all intimidating in his conviction, but if you listen to him on youtube, and think, "Bull" he sounds a lot less intimidating and a lot more what he really is--a cheap thug with a tie.
Their spirit lives on in Mr. Kobach: Beat on the little guys

It is true those places (Somolia, Libya, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan) must harbor some pretty scary radical Islamic dirtballs, but nobody has shown simply denying entry to people trying to get on an airplane from those countries has actually thwarted attempts by bad guys from flying here and harming us.  It does make sense to think, well that's where the wild things are, why not simply stop flights from those places?


The argument is:
1. The wild things are just as likely to fly out of Berlin as out of Somolia--attracts less attention.
2. By the same reasoning, you would have denied entry to all those Jews trying to escape Mr. Himmler and his gang of merry murderers.  After all, all those fleeing women and children and their fathers were coming from a very scary, dark place.  The rule, in fact, used by the American Secretary of State, Cordell Hull was that every refugee needed a letter from the local police to attest to the refugee's good character. The Gestapo, which was the local police for many of these Jews, was not inclined to vouch for these people, especially when they were intent on feeding their ovens.


Oh, well. We live and learn.

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