A couple of days ago, we reported that the Missouri Department of Social Services, Family Support Division, had awarded some amount of stimulus dollars to the “Show Me Social Justice International Film Festival“. We were made aware of this atrocious use of our tax dollars by an alert patriot who saw a billboard, checked into it and found that stimulus dollars was being used to support it.

The exposing of this extremely inappropriate use of any tax dollar, much less the borrowed stimulus dollars, irritated more than a few patriots! The good folks at the Johnson County Patriots organization led by Jeff Merrick, sprang into action when we notified them that this was occurring in their area, paid for by stimulus dollars. As most of the people who became aware of this folly of an expenditure, the issue for the Johnson County Patriot members wasn’t the festival.

Too be sure, many of them don’t agree with the “social justice” aka redistribution of wealth theme of the festival but had no problem with it being privately funded. The problem was, it is being funded in whole or in part with our tax dollars, and borrowed ones at that!

Jeff immediately sent out an alert to his members and his members took action. Phone calls and other contacts were made to Senator David Pearce and Representative Denny Hoskins. They were aware of the event but did not know that it was being funded by the state using stimulus dollars. Both elected officials were very upset that this was the case and immediately took action to find out what was going on and how this happened.

Late Thursday afternoon, Jeff Merrick received this information from Representative Hoskins’ office regarding the situation:

Rep. Hoskins has just been notified by the Department of Social Services that the Community Services Block Grant funding the Show Me Social Justice Film Festival this weekend in Warrensburg is being recalled. As a result of your contact with Rep. Hoskins, the agency has reviewed the grant application approved and determined that the actual event differs from the event described in the grant request. As this film festival is not an appropriate use of that funding, all $99,540 is being requested back. Rep. Hoskins appreciates you bringing this to his attention in time to address the situation.

I don’t know what the original grant application actually said. If it was for any film festival, it is still questionable why tax dollars were used to support it! However, I do give kudos to the department for recognizing the folly, or at least the misapplication of the grant dollars compared to the original request.

In the coming days, we will want to make sure the money is indeed refunded to the state. We will be asking patriots all across the state to contact their state representative, state senator and the Governor asking them to explain to us how this came about in the first place and to report to us the progress of receiving the refund. If a refund is not forthcoming, what actions will be taken to get the money back?

This is an excellent example of how We the People can have an impact on OUR government. It began with one individual taking the time to find out what was going on and making a contact. Then, we let as many people as possible know about the issue. Many people took action in contacting the local senator and representative who responded and got results!

We the People still own our government. We the People can and will control what happens in our government IF we are willing to take an active role. How about it? Are you?