What: May Day 50-50-1 Protest

When: May 1st from 4:30pm to 6:30pm

Where: Sidewalk in front of Kings County Government Center on Lacey Blvd. Then please stop by our Kings County Democrats booth at the Thursday Night Market Place (near the carousel) to write postcards or make more posters.

Sign up here.

Where: Sierra Pacific HS Cafeteria, Hanford

When: Saturday, May 10, 2025, 10a to Noon

Speakers: Dr. Randy Villegas, COS professor. Dr. Dan O’Connell, author of In The Struggle. And Laurie Pessante from the Sierra Club. Congressmen Valadao and Fong will be invited to speak too.

You can email Karla any questions in advance for any of the speakers at karlacalbear@gmail.com.

One of them owns the Washington Post. Another owns TwitterX. One used to host a TV show on NBC. Another owns Facebook. Joe & Mika will be added later, maybe. Not what you’d expected after what happened on January 6, 2021, eh?

Oligarchs combine government and corporate power in a person accountable to neither. They’re not elected, and can’t be voted out. They’re not subject to market discipline; much of their wealth comes from government contracts, and government decisions that favor their businesses. They build a vast personal influence empire within government and private society, and openly bully, control or get rid of elected politicians who cross them. Oligarchs are a product of weakening democracies, but do everything in their power to make democratic decline permanent, entrenching power not in we the people, but in them and their oligarchic friends.

Updated April. 2025

“…of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.” -The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio.

More dialogue on liberal messaging can be found here and here; conservative radio targets Latino communities too. Rush Limbaugh is no longer with us but the industry he created is alive and well, sadly..

Anyone know of any billionaire Liberals who might buy up some radio & TV networks for us to use?? It just might help to make activist folks’ job quite a bit easier. Just sayin’.

Cartoon courtesy of Tom Tomorrow via Daily Kos.

“Rupert Murdoch’s lie machine is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans, the poisoning of our democracy and the stoking of a cold civil war. There has never been anything like it and it is beyond terrible for the country. Bar none, Rupert Murdoch is the worst and most dangerous immigrant to ever arrive on American soil. There are no words for the awfulness of his cancerous network.” –Steve Schmidt, former Republican consultant

Democrats spent over $10.5 billion on TV & radio advertising in the 2024 election cycle. Estimated startup costs to purchase a radio station can range from $10,000 (online radio) to over $1 million (traditional FM station with high-quality equipment and studio space). Knowledge in broadcasting, audio engineering, marketing, programming, and general business management. Put a few radio stations in places like Omaha, Fresno, Kansas City, Des Moines, Indianapolis, Dayton, might help our cause – although, even media markets like Los Angeles & New York City do not have a robust progressive radio station. Indeed, the bastion of liberalism, San Francisco, once had a wonderful news/talk station, KGO 810 AM, with hosts worthy of Hall-of-Fame cred – now broadcasts Sean Hannity and other conservative hosts on its 50,000 watt blow-torch, reaching the entire western United States at night (via the ionosphere skip).

Consider that the money we spent on local TV ads, at least in the Fresno market, were matched or doubled by opposition ads; within a couple minutes, viewers would see our candidate as a great guy and a villain – it’s a wash at best. It’s a great deal for the TV station revenues who don’t even point out to viewers that Trump is an admitted/adjudicated sexual predator and convicted on 34 felony counts for fraud. It’s a win-win for them while keeping in good graces with Dear Leader. So messed up..

So, the question for Democratic leadership might ask at what point do we wake-t-f-up and finally do something about it?

Unfortunately, MAGA Republicans have majority in the House, Senate, White House and U.S. Supreme Court. After mass-deportation, their first order of business is to protect the interests of the wealthy and their tax cuts. Only working class Americans stand in their way – but we need help.

It’s important we keep the heat on Republican Rep. Valadao, 202-225-4695 in Washington, D.C. or 559-460-6070 in Hanford. More to come, we suspect..

Daily Kos has an article which explains well the xenophobic tendencies of some in our society. “Unless we are consistent with efforts before there’s an incident to have the kind of measured conversations about race and racism, we’re never going to get out of this kind of cycle,” said Elaine Gross, with the group Erase Racism.

✔️$370 billion climate/energy funding
✔️Medicare negotiates rx prices
✔️Medicare out-of-pocket cap: $2,000
✔️Medicare insulin cap
✔️3-year Affordable Care Act $ extension
✔️$5 billion drought resiliency
✔️15% corporate minimum tax
✔️1% excise tax stock buybacks
✔️Extra IRS enforcement

As it turns out, Joe Biden & the Democrats in Congress actually did work on behalf of working-class Americans.