TV REALITY SHOW PLAYS NONSTOP

For my personal well-being, at 8 PM daily, I TRY to stop tuning into the TV Reality show playing nonstop from Trump/Musk & the DOGE Minions and MAGA Republicans, including my US REP.-SAM GRAVES

However, it’s nearly impossible to tune out! My glass half-full husband of 58-years agrees with me that the MAGA-Trump-Musk-Christian Nationalist-Project 2025-Graves takeover of our lives is illegal, immoral, cruel, inhumane, and vengeful, and that it may lead to the destruction of our country and the world as we know it. He is also good at reminding me that dwelling on and repeating the latest MAGA travesty/horror/lies to like-minded people who are well aware of what is happening already—especially to him—is only a USELESS raising of our anxieties and angst.

Indeed, our “Daily [lives] have taken on a surreal quality [since January 20] and, if we do not take some action or join an organized resistance, our discussions will consist of merely repeating the latest horror.” - so says Laurie Winer in "What to Expect When You’re Expecting Catastrophe" in her guest essay published in Timothy Snyder's "Thinking About. . . Substack" on 3/13/25.

Please join me at the “organized resistance” which Persisterhood - St. Joseph is sponsoring at 6 PM Monday, March 24: An Empty Chair Town Hall Meeting with our 6th District Congressman Sam Graves in Zoom or at Rolling Hills Library’s Upstairs Community Room in St. Joseph.

The Townhall Meeting agenda more details - including the Zoom Invite - is available here.

I first met Sam and his campaign manager/brother Todd in 2000 when he ran for Congress the first time and debated his Democratic opponent, Steve Danner, at Missouri Western. Back then, I was the APOLITICAL tenured professor and chair of the Department of English, Foreign Languages, and Journalism at MWSU, and Western’s administration recruited me to MC the debate. Sam “barely” won, garnering only 50.85 of the votes. He attacked Danner as a “tax and spend liberal” in his ads placed strategically in the rural parts of his District.

Thereafter until I retired in 2012, I contacted Sam regularly about the programs to teachers and students that Prairie Lands Writing Project (PLWP) at Missouri Western provided in the 6th District to improve writing and critical thinking. As the PLWP director, I had to raise $$ to offer our programs, primarily by charging schools districts for our services, and by obtaining federal dollars—awarded annually to PLWP from the National Writing Project (NWP) via NWP’s competitive grant application, accounting, and follow-up reporting rules. The NWP got its annual appropriation via an “EARMARK” sponsored by Democrats and Republicans alike, and Sam, then married to a Tarkio, MO, teacher, signed the letter in support of our federal dollars. Somewhere in a box in our basement, I have a picture standing with Sam in his D. C. office. I remember he rushed in for a photo, mumbled something asking about what souvenir we brought him, looked disappointed when we only gave him a portfolio of students’ winning contest entries from the 6th District—and left! And I left feeling powerless and insignificant. I had had to pay to be in Sam’s office—considered a lobbying event—out of my own pocket because I couldn’t use any of our NWP federal grant dollars to be there. At least he signed the support letter, I consoled myself—until 2011 when the Tea Party took over the House and ended Republican support for earmarks.

I didn’t pay much attention to Sam and Todd’s growing power in Missouri and D. C. until 2016 when Trump won. That was when a group of us women met in the living room of my house and created Persisterhood; we could not sit by silently as Trump and company took away our freedoms and what we treasured so much in this country.

Sam and his brother Todd were instrumental in transforming Missouri from a once Democratic state—Obama WON in Missouri and Buchanan County in 2008—into the MAGA—Herzog-Christian Nationalist-Project 2025 world we live in today. An attorney, Todd is the past chair of the Missouri Republican Party, head of the Herzog Foundation with its goal of siphoning off Missouri tax dollars to pay for private religious education; on the University of Missouri’s Board of Curators; a veteran expert in raising dark moneys and running successful attack ads on oppponents to elect MAGA candidates; and a big-time corporate agri-business farm owner.

I first met Jess Piper [“Dirt Road Democrat,” who writes “The View From Rural Missouri” and is now a national speaker at progressive, Democratic events] for the first time in Sam Graves’ Buchanan County Courthouse office in 2018. Two of Sam’s young, male legislative aides smiled and smirked at the four of us women representing “Moms Against Gun Violence.” They barely listened as Jess, a gun owner herself [and then Maryville H. S. English teacher] offered up a cogent, logical rationale for why Sam should be for banning assault weapons. As I recall, a few weeks after our meeting with Sam’s “minions,” we got the usual “form” email letter thanking us for our visit, and reiterating Sam’s belief that the Second Amendment allows everyone to own these war-time weapons.

Of course, Sam supported the 1-6-2020 insurrection and voted against certifying Biden as president. Of course he voted against the bipartisan Rebuilding America law but took credit for the new infrastructure projects that brought jobs and technology to northwest Missouri because of it. Of course, you would think he’s a decorated veteran pilot if you look at the picture he sends out on his tax-paid weekly newsletter.

Sam NEVER served in the military, but he is a pilot and likes to fly in and parade around at air shows as if he is veteran. He’s so rich that he owns FOUR airplanes.

After he divorced his wife, Sam lived with a high-powered right-wing lobbyist in D. C. He’s Anti-abortion; Anti- gun laws; and Anti-environmental laws. The MO NAACP gave Sam an “F” grade for being “totally opposed to NAACP’s Mission and Values” on its 2024 election score card, where Sam coasted to a 70% voting win over his Democratic opponent Pam Mays. NO WONDER THOUGH. He had a HUGE campaign war chest: $2,335,400 versus Mays’ measly $12,000.

And now, Sam is one of the most powerful men in the U. S. House of Representatives as chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He’s already pledged to replace funds allocated for solar and wind energy with more asphalt paving projects.

Since January 20, thousands of us in Sam’s District have called, sent online messages, and mailed him postcards about the disastrous impact of the DOGE cuts and Trump coup and our disagreement with Sam’s endorsement of these illegal and cruel actions. His only response back to us has been form “emails” justifying his support for the coup using the lies promulgated from the White House. This is why Persisterhood-St. Joseph is sponsoring the Town Hall Meeting next Monday.

We will have factual testimonies addressed to Sam about how his complicity with the MAGA/MUSK Coup is so tragic for northwest Missouri. We are recording the Town Hall and will post it on UTUBE. We will be quoting from Sam’s replies back to us and from his weekly newsletters showing how he has twisted the facts and used lies to justify his votes to endorse cutting Medicaid, killing USAID, etc. Should Sam choose to attend the Town Hall over the recommendation of the Republican Party Chair, he is welcome. We will give him a one-minute, timed rebuttal after every testimony given.

NOTE: NONE of our Persisterhood members or those giving testimonies are outside "paid" agitators. I am 79-years old, with many of our members being women in their fifties and sixties enjoying our grandchildren, traveling, book groups, local charities, etc. who were NEVER active politically until MAGA TRUMP DOGE MUSK BILLIONAIRES CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS began dismantling our government and taking away our rights and a better life for our children, grandchildren, and the environment.

IF you read to the bottom of this “rant,” I hope to see you in person or in Zoom on Monday, the 24th at our Empty Chair Town Hall meeting. Together, we MUST resist what is happening to our country.