05/03/2020
Representative Savannah Maddox, Kentucky Freedom Rally / Protest, May 2nd, 2020
“We the People are NOT SATISFIED with how Governor Beshear has handled the situation! We are NOT satisfied, and you know the other thing that I want to emphasize to you, is that it matters that you are here, because who’s house is this?! Is it the governors house?! Is it the legislatures house?! ITS. YOUR. HOUSE!!!! And you have every right to be here, and don’t let anybody tell you differently!!!!
And ya know, The other thing that I wanna let you know, is your voice IS BEING heard!! We started this, it was right at April 15th was the first protest, right at the end of the general assembly session, whenever folks came down here, and that was the first time, that at 5 PM, there were voices of Kentuckians being heard, during the governors press conference. He may not be here, and he may not be hearing you in this moment, but he’s gonna hear what you have to say, that I can promise you. In that day he could not drown out your voices. And you know what happened?! The very next day after we stood out there and protested, the very first time, he began to elude to, to TALK about a possible transition plan, or to reopen, and that was the FIRST time folks! SO THIS is what is WORKING!
And I wanna tell you a little bit about my experience over the last couple of weeks, and ya know, every single day I am hearing from hundreds of Kentuckians by phone, by email, through social media, that they haven’t had a paycheck in over a month. They’ve applied for unemployment and they can’t get through! There are no answers, they are afraid! They are angry, they are desperate, and they don’t know how they’re gonna pay their bills, and put food on the table for their families! That is WRONG! We have been kept from providing for ourselves, from earning a wage. And ya know we hear a lot about flattening the curve, and ya know the reality of it is, The hospitals are NOT full, in fact the reality of it is the healthcare workers are getting laid off in droves across the state. And ya know, another sad fact that came out just a few days ago, Kentucky is number 2 in unemployment, only behind Hawaii, in the entire nation! When the governor wants to talk about saving lives, he’s not talking about the economic devastation that we have seen rot upon our (commonwealth?)... and ya know, a lot of people have asked me, because I have been very vocal from the get-go, despite the scrutiny, despite what the courier journal says, despite what what anyone says, I have been very vocal about this issue. My opponents ask me, “what would you have done differently?” But let me tell you about the proper roll of government, in a circumstance like this in my opinion, cause ya know, we work for YOU not the other way around. It is the appropriate roll of government to provide you with the accurate information that you need about this situation, about a virus, about anything, to make good informed decisions about your health, but never to use the force of government to make you be prisoners in you OWN HOMES!!!! And before we talk about where we’re going, I wanna talk about where we’ve been, I wanna talk about how we have been BANNED from WORSHIPPING the LORD!!! We can’t go to church, and ya know, here in Kentucky, you can go to Walmart if you want, and anybody been to a Walmart parking lot lately? It’s not exactly empty. You can go to Lowes, you can go to Kroger, you can go to any of a variety of places including liquor stores, but you can’t go to church! And ya know where you can go? You can go to get an abortion. What kind of SICK, TWISTED logic is that?! You know, so many of us, hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians are out of work, we’ve been banned from traveling (to) another state, and ya know I do believe our attorney General has began to pursue litigation..(unable to understand)... there are a whole lot of other things that have happened as a result of this. You know, medical services, that’s another thing that we haven’t talked about in any great length and that governor Beshear has kind of failed at addressing, is that folks were not able to get the cancer screenings that they needed, folks were having to cancel surgeries that they have, all in the name of protecting people, but you know it will be interesting to see what the long term effects are of folks not receiving the care that they needed, all was predicated on what we find out was a farse.
