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| Betsy Roe delivers statements opposing Jeff Sessions to the Topeka office of Senator Pat Roberts. (The statement from the group follows Carl Reed's letter below). |
The Big Blue-stem Rapid Responders are a group of 38 Kansans from 7 zip codes who have banded together to speak up for human rights in response to the election of Donald Trump.
On Jan. 24, they visited the offices of Kansas senators to urge that the senators vote No on the nomination of Jeff Sessions.
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| Carl Reed delivers his letter to the Manhattan office of Senator Jerry Moran (Letter below) |
CARL REED'S LETTER
January
23, 2017
Senator
Moran:
You
have an opportunity to show integrity and honesty. You do not have to be swept
up in the wave of bigotry and anti-democracy that is the Trump agenda. The men
and women who founded Kansas stood against Jeff Davis and would have stood just
as strongly against Jeff Sessions. You do not have to continue to produce a
voting record identical to senators from the states that blocked Kansas from
the union. You can make us proud!
I
am sure you are familiar with the letter that President Abraham Lincoln sent to
a friend in Springfield, Illinois in March of 1865.
“As a result of the war, corporations
have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the
money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon
the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and
the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of
my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my
suspicions may prove groundless.”
Within
a month the president was killed. His prayer, however, was answered for one
hundred and fifty-one years. Then, on November 8, 2016, Lincoln’s fears were
realized. On January 20, 2017, the United States government passed from a
government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” to a government
of the rich and white for the rich and white. President grab’embythepussy has
selected Jeff Sessions to enforce that change. Refuse to be a party to the
destruction of your democracy.
Carl Reed
1418 Leavenworth
Manhattan, Kansas
STATEMENT OF THE
BIG BLUESTEM RAPID RESPONDERS
BIG BLUESTEM RAPID RESPONDERS
January 24, 2017
Dear Senator Roberts:
Please protect ALL
Kansans—vote NO on Jeff Sessions!
There is so much evidence of
Mr. Session’s bias!
But today we would like to
present to you just two documents:
1)
A letter from
Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., opposing Jeff Sessions’ confirmation to the federal bench in
1986; and
2)
A letter from
Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, beaten to death in Laramie, Wyoming by
anti-gay attackers, opposing Jeff Sessions’ confirmation now.
Mrs. King writes, “Anyone who has used the power of his office
as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the
ballot by citizens should not be
elevated to our courts.” She is
referring to Session’s prosecutions of black organizers in Alabama, during
which rural African-American first-time voters were repeatedly interrogated,
threatened, and harassed. (For more, see
Lift Every Voice and Sing, pp.
183-219.) She goes on, “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of
his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black
voters.” She concludes that in trying
to suppress the black vote, Sessions attempted to achieve “with a federal
prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs
and cattle prods.” We could add, with
truth, that suppressing the black vote is what the KKK did for 100 years with
beatings, torture, and murder.
We Kansans do not want our senator to elevate a
practitioner of racist voter suppression to be attorney general!
Mrs. Shepard writes that
Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the Matthew Shepard and James
Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, but that Senator Sessions was not among
them. Instead, she writes, “Senator
Sessions strongly opposed the hate crimes bill—characterizing hate crimes as
mere “thought crimes.” “My son was not
killed by ‘thoughts’ or because his murderers said hateful things,” she says. “My son was brutally beaten with the butt of
a .357 magnum pistol, tied to a fence, and left to die in freezing temperatures
because he was gay.” She concludes,
“Senator Sessions’ very public record of hostility towards the LGBTQ community
and federal legislation designed to protect vulnerable Americans, including the
Voting Rights Act [and the Violence against Women Act], makes it nearly
impossible to believe that he will vigorously enforce statutes and ideas that
he worked so hard to defeat.”
We Kansans do not want our senator to elevate to the
position of chief law enforcement officer of the US someone who is hostile to
the LGBTQ community and unwilling to
protect vulnerable Americans.
We are a group of 38 Kansans
from 7 different zip codes.
We expect our senator to protect ALL Kansans. We expect you to refuse to vote for someone
who would make some Kansans more vulnerable and leave them without the equal
protection of the law.
Please let us know one way or the other whether or not
you can fulfill our expectations.
Thank you for your consideration!
Big Bluestem Rapid Responders
Margy Stewart, Coordinator
11003 Lower McDowell Rd.
Junction City, Kansas
66441
785.539.5592
Margystewart785@gmail.com
