What follows is a letter I sent to Representative Hoskins in response to the robocalls that were received by the constituents of the 121st Missouri House of Representatives District . If you haven't heard about them, you can go to the Show Me Progress blog to read and listen. As this is so low and underhanded for a local race, the story was also picked up by the Huffington Post for the nation to see. I have no problem with truth in advertising, but the truth is not evident in this message, not even a grain of it. At least sources for claims are listed on the print attack pieces so we see how the truth is being bent.

I wonder how many children now have the word "pornography" in their vocabulary thanks to Denny Hoskins attempt at reelection in the 121st district. I really hope that voters see this latest attack on Courtney Cole as desperate, underhanded, and an incredible reason to vote new leadership into the Missouri House of Representatives with Courtney Cole.


Dear Representative Hoskins,
Yesterday, phone calls, paid for by HRCC, went out all over town. I am writing to thank you and your supporters for the opportunity to explain pornography, gay pornography, and the attack on Mrs. Cole to my 10 year old daughter.

This is not what politics is about. I supported your campaign during the last race and worked hard on Senator Pearce's campaign. I support candidates and not parties. The fact that you allow the HRCC to send out and keep sending out the negative pieces on your behalf is enough to make me change my mind about voting Republican when I don't know the individuals in the race.

My kids have said that this is being talked about at school. Please let me know why you think it is appropriate to align yourself with people who call with distasteful and disgusting content for children to hear. Your family values are definitely not the same as mine, and it would seem that anyone the HRCC supports is not who I want representing me, my family, or my friends in Jefferson City or anywhere else.

-Deanna Jurkowski

Glogster

PLEASE VOTE

This was sent to me as a forwarded email. I have no idea who wrote it or where it came from originally or I would gladly give credit. No matter how you vote, please exercise this privilege on Nov. 2.

This is is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.



Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing
went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'


(Lucy Burns)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her
head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

(Alice Paul)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because -why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?



(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-day sentence.)

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

(Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown , New York )
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But theactual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.


(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history,
saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk
about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history,
social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.


(Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] at [National Woman's Party] headquarters, Jackson Pl [ace] [ Washington , D.C. ]. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right))
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.


(Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk , Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.')
History is being made.

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