By ELAINE WILSON-REDDY

Contributing columnist

Whistleblowers are making headlines. Nationally, there are two whistleblowers from inside one of our intelligence agencies. These two people have come forward with information that appears to put Trump in a situation so egregious the House of Representatives has initiated an impeachment investigation.

Whistleblowers bring attention to actions that are hidden in the shadows. Shadows hide secrets that would remain unknown without the courage of those who can no longer tolerate the wrongs committed in the dark.

The national whistleblowers are being reviled by Trump and his diminishing group of sycophants. Trump is lashing out at anyone and everyone he’s ever deemed to be his enemy in an effort to distract us from his latest act of Nixonian politics. He operates under the assumption that he can behave, say, and do anything he wants with no real consequences. And up to this point, he has.

Hopefully, between his phone call with the president of Ukraine and his appalling order of removing U.S. troops from the Turkish border, his apologists will realize the cost is too steep for Trump to remain in office. Given the glacial speed of governmental decision-making, this could drag into the actual 2020 election.

Whistleblowers are shining a bright light onto local shadows, too. Jennifer Kirchner is pushing back against Magistrate Phil Sammons’s sexist comments that he deemed to be jokes. Joyce Collins is pushing back against “mayor” Mike Perros’s racist comments that he, too, said were jokes.

The joke is on them. If either of them had a modicum of self-awareness they would know that their “jokes” are not funny and that their targets aren’t laughing.

Trump is calling for the federal whistleblower to be identified, and in one stupifying moment, appeared to threaten him/her with death. His apologists are trying their best to spin his actions to appear as if he was acting within his executive powers.

There are those who want the local imbroglio to settle down and disappear. Folks have said it’s time to move on. Some would love to stifle my First Amendment right to free speech to stop me from writing this column. But it’s America so speak we will.

Approximately 30 or so local citizens attended the community meeting Monday night at the Boyle Public library. It was great to see such a diverse group come together to face these issues head-on. These citizens came to the meeting to support Kirchner and Collins and to begin a conversation toward more diverse city and county management and government. And they are not happy.

There will be a peaceful protest of “mayor” Mike’s actions this Monday, Oct. 14, in front of city hall. The protest will begin at 4 p.m. and end around 5:30 p.m. We will then proceed to the city commission meeting and take part in the second Hear the Public (which “mayor” Mike wanted to do away with a few months ago).

I anticipate similar protests at fiscal court meetings. The fiscal court does not have a Hear the Public in their meetings, probably for the same reason “mayor” Mike wanted to eliminate the second one in the commission meetings: he said he was tired of taking pot shots and not being able to defend himself. 

Please come Monday to join the protest and to tell the city commission we are not going to let this die. We are going to continue the conversation. We will continue to push back in order for more of our community to have equal opportunities for employment in city hall and the courthouse, and to empower more citizens to speak truth to power.

This is the beginning of the process, not a singular event. Join us.

“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.” — Thomas Jefferson