During a town hall on Tuesday, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) was asked by a voter how people can make their voices heard by Republican lawmakers.
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00:00Yes, ma'am.
00:02Hey, sorry.
00:04Hey, I used to work with you a long time ago in 2011.
00:08I did town halls in Mississippi, and you came and spoke.
00:11So it's good to have you locally.
00:14And the reason you spoke at these town halls was because I was in charge of the Mississippi elections.
00:19And so even though you represent us in D.C., you still have power and influence over our local government,
00:26I mean our state government, right?
00:29And my passion since my earliest memories has always been racial and economic equality.
00:34I am extremely fearful for the fate of our state with everything that's happening in terms of the racial and economic equality
00:47is just going to be ten times worse, right, because it's targeting African American families and poor people.
00:56So that being said, I'm here today, if you would please give me just one second, to represent over 125,000 families around the nation
01:05to whom I directly speak with via Zoom calls and whatnot, due to federal agency and the state agencies that adhere to them with no oversight,
01:24that literally grosses the state agencies that literally grosses billions of dollars per state via federal uncapped dollars,
01:31incentivizes the state agency to illegally destroy our family units, and this agency targets, and I have masters in statistics,
01:39so my facts are accurate, poor black families and steals their children with no due process or reason or oversight.
01:47Given the racial targeting and it being a multi-billion dollar industry,
01:54Doge or whatever you want to say, happened to overlook not just this, but when they were cutting all the funds,
02:03didn't do anything about this agency, that despite the fact this stealing of children is tearing apart the nucleus of America,
02:13which is our family unit, particularly African American families and their extended families.
02:18So, and Mississippi decided recently that being poor alone was enough reason to strip children away from their families
02:28and placing them into the foster care system with no due process, and that is far more, that we know for a fact,
02:37foster care families are far more likely to abuse those children in the most grotesque ways possible.
02:44Due to the Medicaid cuts and all those things that are happening, it's going to get so much worse for the state,
02:54particularly African American families.
02:56And so, is there anything you can do? I just, I just ask you to please.
03:09Well, first of all, if you have individual cases that you'd like to make us aware of,
03:17we'll be happy to go through that process individually.
03:22If there's an agency that is outside the realm of what regulations call for, we'll ask for that investigation.
03:33But I want you to understand the times that we are in is when President Trump came into office.
03:41Every major oversight agency, he took those folk out and put his people in.
03:49So, I don't know how much the fox is going to do with the hen house in that respect, but we still got to make the complaint.
03:59And we make the complaints public because it's important that we do that.
04:04And so, it's important that we hear from people who have individual stories.
04:11Some people don't mind going to the mic, but if you just want to talk to us after it's over with, we'd be glad to hear.
04:21But we will not step back on advocating for the people of this district.
04:28I mean, we'll do it.
04:33At some point, we'll have the ditch fixed behind this church because a building like this should not be subjected to a ditch that's probably 30 feet deep and eroding.
04:53But we were fortunate under the Biden-Harris administration to identify some monies that were available for just situations like that.
05:04And we were able to .
05:06Now, unfortunately, this administration comes in and trying to stop the money.
05:14But you were too far along for them to get it.
05:20But there are a lot of other communities that are unfortunate.
05:25They're not this far along.
05:27Your past and others stayed on the local politician's case.
05:33And I compliment him for that because all we did was gave him the facts.
05:41And he ran with it.
05:43And so I went out before I came in.
05:47And I saw the flags and, you know, they're still not moving as fast as we want them to, but we're getting there.
05:56So we worked with communities.
05:58Reverend Ford had a problem at his church.
06:02Same problem.
06:03It was so bad, a couple of folks, one of the security folks stepped in a hole and we had to get him out the hole.
06:14So, but we worked with it.
06:16And that's what we try to do.
06:19A lot of those programs are not going to be available under this administration.
06:25And that's so unfortunate because they serve a common good.
06:30They serve a common need.
06:32But it's not a priority for this administration.
06:36And you'll see that as the upcoming budget debate takes place.
06:41And so I would encourage you to call your senators and just let them know what your opinion is.
06:52Lately, the phone has been on voicemail, but they still need to know you call.
07:04I encourage you.
07:06Yes, ma'am.
07:09First of all, Senator, I want to thank you for your leadership, particularly during January 6th investigation.
07:19I'm sure I speak for everybody.
07:22This is the most distressing time besides the civil rights movement.
07:28I have thought about that.
07:30What was happening, that was worse.
07:32But this is horrifying because it's like we're losing our country.
07:36What do you know from your experience is the most effective way we who want to reach the Republican representatives of this state?
07:49What can we do?
07:51I have demonstrated.
07:52I have called.
07:53I have written letters.
07:54But what gets them?
07:57Well, there's no one size fit all.
08:04Look, you've got a wonderful newspaper in this community.
08:09You ought to write letters to the editor raising the issues of what's not being done.
08:16You know, most politicians will always tell you, if there's anything I can do, just let me know.
08:27I'm glad you said that.
08:29So you need to figure out either in your church group, in your social group, in your hunting club, or whatever your interests are, pull those people together.
08:41Get them on a, you know, those communication trees.
08:47We even got one in our church, Pastor.
08:49You know, when we want to communicate, we just, boom, everybody get the message.
08:54Same Congress folk and senators get those same messages from people.
09:00And you need to say to them, in so many words, we don't like that vote you've taken.
09:06And mind you, I started off saying, we are a needed state.
09:12You know, it's nice to say we need to do for ourselves, but we're short.
09:20And we curse the states that are helping us.
09:25You know, California doesn't get back $2 for every dollar they send.
09:33They get back less than a dollar.
09:35Connecticut gets back less than a dollar.
09:38New York, Massachusetts, all those states that are blue states are the ones that are financing the red states' problems and support them.
09:49So we got to figure this out for ourselves.
09:53I encourage you to go to the PTAs and talk about legislation that's important for the children.
10:02Our teachers need to be organized.
10:05Our farmers need to be organized.
10:07Our senior citizens need to be organized.
10:10Look, those of you who are retired, you all have a little more time to put it together and pass it on.
10:23But it doesn't have to be complicated.
10:25Keep it simple.
10:26If you keep it simple, then the message will get over.
10:32You know, if you can play bingo and win, you can provide that message to the same people and move on.
10:43If Medicaid is cut like they're talking about, one of the largest companies that's going to be hit is nursing homes.
10:58Just about everybody in nursing homes is on Medicaid.
11:04Now, if you don't have anything, then if that person passes on, then there's no clawback provision on assets.
11:17But if I don't have a situation where I've already given my assets away, they're going to come back and try to get your house, your car, your savings account, and your land.
11:32That's called that clawback provision.
11:35But nursing homes make an awful lot of money out of taking care of senior citizens.
11:42If this budget goes through, that means if mama or daddy or grandmama or granddaddy is in a nursing home, in order for them to stay, you're going to have to pay more for them.
11:56And that's not what the program is designed.
11:59That's what we're saying.
12:00I'm not going to vote for the budget because it's projects like that that are being cut.
12:06And it's just not right.
12:08And so we'll continue to fight and push back on any of those cuts.
12:14Yes, sir.