Voter fraud. It’s all the rage these days. The battle hymn of right-wing MAGAs justifying their ever contracting legislation curbing Iowans, Americans, right to vote. Access to the ballot box is elusive these days because you know - all that (wink!) voter fraud (and Black voters, disabled voters, etc).
A fraud so fraud-y nary a fraud has ever been frauded.
The lie that there has been any widespread voting irregularities or sweeping fraud is just that - a lie.
The Big One you could say.
But why aren’t Iowa Republicans tearing their hair out over the federal indictment of Woodbury County Supervisor Jeremy Taylor’s wife, Kim? I would guess it is because they don’t want to draw attention to a case that could spill over and have political ramifications for the County Board, Woodbury County GOP and the state party as well.
Here’s what we know so far.
July 31sttrial date - HAS BEEN MOVED TO NOVEMBER 13 - set for Kim Phuong Taylor who faces over 50 charges of voter fraud (KTIV)Taylor’s husband Jeremy Taylor is currently a Woodbury County Supervisor
Woodbury County = Sioux City and surrounds.
Kim Taylor’s charges stem from June 2020 - when her husband was running in the GOP primary against Rep. Randy Feenstra.
Allegedly the scheme was continued through the general election when her husband subsequently won a seat on the county board.
A Grand Jury handed down the federal indictment earlier this year
Jeremy Taylor is referred to throughout the filing as “PERSON A” but it is unclear what if any role he played in the scheme. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty - that is a reminder.
I reached out via email to Matthew Ung, chair of the Woodbury County Board of supervisors:
Hello Mr. Ung:
I am a reporter working on a story about the federal voter fraud indictment of Mrs. Jeremy Taylor.
My question is for you as Board Chair.
Jeremy Taylor is listed as PERSON A indictment, and there are witnesses (per local news reports) who place Taylor in the car when Mrs. Taylor cast the allegedly falsified ballots. This came to light in January, 2023.
Is there a county ethics board that has investigated these troubling allegations to determine whether Mr. Taylor should step aside from his duties as an elected official to restore confidence in Woodbury County elections?
Thank you,
Andy Kopsa
So keep your eyes peeled and ask questions about how this guy is still on the board when it appears a federal grand jury found enough probable cause for an indictment.
Meanwhile also going on around Northwest Iowa: Steve King.
I don’t the lung capacity to take in and then expel enough air for the longest, loudest sigh this man requires.
I have written about King forever. About his long standing nativist views, his trip to the Moscow Ritz where he lived it up with Dana Rohrabacher and ordered in room massages on the taxpayer dime. I’m sure he had a cranky L-4 from his long plane ride so no hanky panky.
I’d written about his stump speeches in Iowa where he refused to take seriously the story of a pre-teen rape victim from a frenzied family. He’d never heard of such a thing. Or rather ‘it was the first’ he’d heard of children as young as 10 years old being sexually assaulted you know - like that.
I admit at one point a former editor of mine and I longed for a scandal; one where he and Michele Bachmann made whoopee in an old broken down motel of old Highway 30 after an Iowa Straw Poll corn feed. Swoon.
King has been relatively quiet these last several years. He had to actually work to beat JD Scholten back in 2018 (by an incredibly narrow margin by IA04 standards) then was primaried out of the public eye by Randy Feenstra the following election cycle. It had to sting. I believe he’s cranked out a book since then which I am sure is a delightful read. It’s likely sewn together with homespun, erstwhile tales of his favorite eugenicists, Austrian Neo Nazis he’s known (and loved) as well as (I’m guessing) his unwavering commitment to procreation of the white race through rape and incest as part of his embrace of The Great Replacement.
But, this week, like a cicada awakening after several years slumber in a fetid pile of garbage, King uprooted himself and shed his exoskeleton on a the trunk of an old oak tree, pulled on the suit of a human man and scuttled on over the the floor of the Iowa State Capitol. Ah. Abortion bans! He heard the siren song of a thousand 10 year old rape victims being forced give birth and his moldy green heart grew three sizes that day. It’s a sign from his god that he has been called back to the fray. Seeing him back among the Trumpian GOP tells me he is going to run for his old seat.
Then to find out he is considering a lawsuit to block construction of the CO2 pipelines? Oh, he definitely is running for something.
Former Iowa Congressman Steve King says he’s in talks with three law firms about filing a lawsuit to try to block construction of carbon pipelines. King filed paperwork this morning with the Iowa Utilities Board to be on record as an opponent of the projects.
“We already know what the (Iowa) Utilities Board is going to do. They have their marching orders. They’re going to carry them out. We need to fight them every step of the way,” King told Radio Iowa. “While we’re doing that, we need to build the case to get to the United States Supreme Court.”
JD Scholten who ran against King (and narrowed a once double digit lead to single 4 pt. lead - which is a coup in IA04) who is now a State Representative read into the record parts of an op-ed King in opposition to the CO2 pipeline.
Scholten began his statement the only way one could: “even a broken clock is right two times a day.”
As an opponent of eminent domain for private gain myself I would only add in this case? The enemy of the enemy is the friend.