It’s gonna be awesome and we need your help!
We have the opportunity to own 105.9 KORC FM, a radio station license in Corvallis, Oregon - home of Oregon State University. The license is currently held by Veterans for Peace who are generously giving it to us. UHM has agreed to take over the license and build a station with a physical studio in Corvallis, Oregon. By FCC rules, the station has to be broadcasting content or we will lose the license.

The license is for educational use only. There will be no advertisements! The content will be civics, related news, and music.
KORC-FM will have access to a library of other stations’ content through sharing platforms including Democracy Now!, and will also publish original content on these platforms. The reach of the station is far beyond the FM signal. The station will be able to play music, news, and political speech without censorship or copyright issues. It will also have the right to stream to the Internet. This bypasses the censorship enforced on behalf of corporate interests by sites like YouTube and Facebook. This is something we have been fighting for since we were Bernie2016TV.
We will be reaching out to syndicate content from our favorite Indie Media peers like Jimmy Dore, Krystal Ball, Lee Camp, and many more.

Of course...this is radio and we’re all about playing music! KORC-FM comes with a MASSIVE music library ~ 10 times larger than a typical MSM station. We will also be curating our own music from local and national indie artists. Interested artist? Contact us at info@uphillmedia.org
It’s not a low tech “old school” station. It is computer driven, low maintenance, runs independent of the Internet, and has backup power in emergencies. This is a powerful medium for the production and proliferation of civics related content and good censorship free music.

The station gear includes the computer with a MASSIVE music library, the antenna, transmitter, amplifiers, and Emergency Alert Systems (EAS) transceivers. It's ready to go.
The station gear is owned by Open Sky Radio (OSR), a nonprofit that helps other nonprofits buy, build, and run radio stations. UHM will sign a contract with OSR to help us setup the station (antenna and gear placement on the roof), build a studio, and grow the station audience. They have done this with lots of other orgs successfully. We’re not entering into this without some expert assistance.
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The contract is $15,000 for the station gear, install, and consulting. We will be launching a GoFundMe campaign to help pay off the contract and run the station for the first year. For more information email info@UphillMedia.org.

Thank you all for your continued support.
​
Laura, Larry, Ashley, Markus, and John

​#WeThePeople had a special guest on October 25th, 2018.  Thank you (Sadie) – John says, for setting this up and we now welcome to the show Dr. Jill Stein!
 
Our guest is headed to California tomorrow – he continues, to support a lot of Green Party candidates.  Myth has it - Jill Stein says, that the Green Party just runs a Presidential candidate every 4 years and that they go to sleep in-between elections.  That’s not true at all.  We really are a grassroots, bottom-up party. 
 
Slide:  To show perhaps that there are indeed Green Party candidates outside of Jill Stein, John puts up a slide mentioning Laura Wells who is running for House of Representatives, District 13 (CA).
 
There are some really dynamite candidates at all levels we learn.  Jill is going to Coachella where a young man - Victor Alcantara, is running for city council for the first time.  He is Latinx and a very active member of the community – she says.  Thus far, he has felt incredibly unrepresented.  Like many Latinos and Latinas he has felt thrown under the bus, previously by the Deporter-in-Chief and now by the outrageous policies of Donald Trump.  The Latinx turnout in the midterms is very uncertain for obvious historic reasons, and now Donald Trump is engaged in this horrendous persecution of refugees coming to this country in the caravan from Honduras - fleeing violence and chaos which was instigated in part by centuries of colonialism and oppression, and most recently a military coup supported by Obama, and by HRC.  They are fleeing U.S. policies and militarism and when Trump talks about the aid going to Central America, that’s mostly military aid and policing.  It’s not surprising that they are fleeing.  Anyway, it’s exciting to see many Latinx candidates coming into the Green Party.
 
Slide:  Announcing Nuestra Comunidad Primero / Our Community First.  It is a gathering in Coachella on October 26th, 2018.  Jill invites everyone in the vicinity to come along.
 
John has heard of Victor Alcantara and he was impressed by him.  Jill says that there are already about 150 Green Party members in local office, from Commissioners of Parks (and Public Property) to (Economic) Development Commissions to Library Boards and Education Boards.  We are very active at all levels of our community, but as you know we are systematically wiped out of the news cycle.  In the last Presidential election something like 75% of Americans are on record - in polls, screaming for open debate in order to find out what their other choices were, and they were systematically denied that knowledge.  In America we should have the right to vote - yet millions are denied that right, and we should have the right to know who we can vote for too.  All the things that appeal to people about Bernie Sanders’ agenda … healthcare as a human right through an approved Medicare-for-All system, strong public education, free public higher-education … We’ve been on that for a very long time.  We’ve been ahead of the curve on equal marriage, green energy etc.
 
John and Jill kid about Jill’s dog who photobombs the shot.
 
On the 27th (of October 2018), Dr. Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, Laura Wells and Kenneth Mejia will be attending the Summit for Independent Politics, where Jill is the special guest.  There are a whole series of panels focusing on key issues for the Los Angeles area, including:  Affordable housing and Prop 10; Environmental pollution and Climate change; Justice reform and specifically Police reform and Immigration reform.  These three Congressional candidates are in top-two races, so there is no chance of splitting the vote (which doesn’t happen anyway – Jill says).  In 2016 most Green Party votes came from the non-voting bloc.  They wouldn’t otherwise BE voting.  Democrats and Republicans don’t own our votes – Jill says.  Are we seeing the results of that in the popularity of the Green Party candidates in their runs - John asks?  He refers to a Democratic candidate who is also endorsed by the Green Party.  I’m seeing a lot of that – he says, where the Independent voters or the Progressives in the party - wherever they are, are coming together around the person not the letter.  Yes – Jill replies.  People have lost faith and confidence in the political parties that are bought and paid for by Big-money.  She refers to non-corporate parties and then says that many people in the Green Party say it is a Non-Party because they don’t share the tribalism of political parties but they really support the agenda.  Even more than personalities – she says, people believe that we have to form long-term alliances in order to advance a non-corporate agenda because we don’t have the corporate money, just the people and the power of our vision and the things that we need.  That need is growing more urgent by the day.  We have 12 years - says John.  Yes, if even - says Jill.  Climate change and nuclear weapons, these are not just a Donald Trump problem.  Jill says that the Democratic Establishment always talks about the right stuff - until they get into power and then they don’t do (anything about) it.  John laughs and agrees.  They refer back to Obama and the bailing out of the banks, and the disappointment of it all.
 
John says he didn’t wake up until “Bernie” and then watched MSM blackout both Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders.  Given that - he says, it’s amazing where we are at today and how we have been able to push the message through.  And talking about introspection - the Democratic Party has none at the top level, but I’m seeing a lot of battles going on at the State level – in Oregon.  We have a progressive majority here but some people at the top are still clutching on to the purse strings.  What worries Jill is that this is not new with the Democrats.  She refers to Henry Wallace and his mike being shut off, way back when.
 
Slide:  John shows another slide - advertising the Northern California Green Power Rally.  This is an event on the 28th of October 2018.  Jill Stein and the Bay Area Green Party candidates:  Aidan Hill, Saied Karamooz, Mike Murphy and Laura Wells will be there.
 
Jill is excited about the elections and especially about Rodolfo’s and Kenneth’s races.  There are no excuses because they are challenging Establishment Democrats, both sponsored by corporate money.  There is really no need to shy away from what we need.  Both of these Green Party candidates look and talk like the community they already serve.  What’s not to love about them?  Whether they win or not, it is a win to stand up and be heard – she says.  How has the response been - asks John?  They aren’t getting media coverage but they are getting great response door-to-door – she replies.  Rodolfo is very good with numbers and is keeping track of the results of his canvassing.  90% of the time when people hear and have a chance to actually learn about him, they change their vote.  The issue is money and coverage.  This is why independent media like this is so critical.  You cannot have democracy without an educated electorate.  We are seeing that lesson on steroids with the media being so toxic.  We badly need more of what you are doing, so thank you so much – Jill says to John and Laura. 
 
Any questions Laura?  Melissa from Vermont - who is in YouTube chat, wonders whether you might be planning to run for Congress, as it seems like this might be your best place to win and get exposure in order to put forth bills to save our planet and our people – Laura reports.  This is a possibility and thank you for the suggestion – Jill replies.  Where I am right now is mostly trying to help other candidates to sort of clone us, because that is what we need.  The bogus spoiler accusations are a big deterrent to successful campaigns.  I’m not in California unfortunately, so I’m trying to help these great candidates.  As regards Congress I agree, but it’s not so easy to win and Congressional Districts are big.  Jill thinks State level is a good place for Greens to concentrate on breaking in at.  It’s the best bang for your buck so to speak, and you can move on from there.  You can get out and canvass and personally go door-to-door and have contact with a State-Representative sized district.  I saw a statistic - I think on PBS NewsHour tonight in fact, that 80% of Congressional races are won by the candidate with the most money.  However even to compete you need a lot of money.  It’s crazy.  We are headed for a crash-landing in one form or another.  It is really important for us to be developing our connections at a community level and to be fighting for democracy.  I’m going to pin you down a little here – John says.  By 2020 you could be in California.  Is that what I’m hearing – he asks with a wide smile?  Jill and Laura laugh.  Now let’s see, most of my family is here on the East coast – Jill replies.  Ah, I guess - John says, everybody is hoping you will run for something.   He encourages Jill, telling her she has the credibility and that she is an asset to the Green Party and to everybody who wants to save humanity, so she really should run again.  Laura adds that Jill is an asset doing what she is doing now also.  Jill says that she very much believes that we are all assets to each other and more than the sum of our parts.
 
The critical challenge for us right now is to find ways to run without needing billions of dollars (which leave you accountable to donors).  The internet is one of them.  Many of those internet tools are being deeply compromised in this new era of McCarthyism, which is censoring us – as you well know, in every dimension – she says.  She lists legacy media, the internet, the loss of net neutrality, the censorship of progressive-left and anti-war sites, the new algorithms on social media … but e-mail can still be a very effective means of communication.  Here Jill encourages people to connect with her on social media (detail below video) and to stay in touch because we are going to have to work together for the foreseeable future – she emphasizes.  John agrees.
 
John wants to talk about accountability now.  It seems we have a Democratic Party that doesn’t want to look at itself and a surge of Progressives trying to come in from all across the spectrum.  We talked about media.  When is media going to have some introspection?  How do we deal with that?  Do we have to put people in power first - to make laws to control them again … because we don’t control this narrative?  What can we do at a grassroots level?  You can do more of what you are doing right now - Jill answers, grassroots community-based media – as the norm not the rare exception.  The big corporate media needs to be broken up.  We need anti-trust laws.  Even PBS is partly sponsored by the Koch Brothers and you see it in their programming.  The same is true even for National Public Radio.  It has all been really corporatized.  It is not only that it is not covering “good stuff”, but that the coverage they do is so skewed.  The silver lining is that more and more people - especially the young, aren’t paying attention in the same way anymore.
 
Social media is also very corrupted though - whether it is Cambridge Analytica type-stuff going on in the background ... Here Jill mentions a book that came out recently called Antisocial Media.  It is essentially an exposé on social media and how it is itself corporatized, and very much built on a predatory-sales model wherein things that are sensational get lots of eyeballs and are inherently favored by social media’s models, by Facebook, and so on.  I’ll give you one example.  The New York Times (I think) – Jill says, had a story on Jamal Khashoggi this last week.  He was harassed systematically on social media - probably by (whichever parts of) the monarchy.  The campaign against him was administered by Saudis and assisted by U.S. Corporations including McKinsey (& Company) - Financial Services (consulting).  Yet Saudi Arabia itself is a sponsor of the Atlantic Council (a think-tank for NATO) which has partnered with Facebook in order to censor so-called “Fake news” … There are much more nefarious forces at work than is widely understood.  John feels that with regard to social media, there is censorship going on but that people have some measure of choice and you are not dealing with a one-way pipeline of spun narrative coming out of a single network.  Yes that’s true – Jill agrees.  A study - John continues, which just came out shows that young people are better at coping with facts, logic and information from social media than older people who still get information from network television - which is more inaccurate.  That is a hopeful sign.  My dad will see something on Facebook that he doesn’t understand, but (that’s maybe because) he is also listening to spun narrative.
 
So – John says, do you mean that we have to put these candidates in power first in order to be able to change all this and to bring back the Fairness Doctrine and rewrite the Telecom Act?  Yes – Jill says, and it is not like Facebook, Twitter and social media have to remain a No-Man’s-Land.  Ro Khanna has been talking about an internet bill of rights.  We have to protect privacy, but we also should be protecting people from outright harassment and bullying, and protecting their freedom of speech.  It’s not an easy balance and it requires people.  Algorithms won’t do.  It should not be done by corporations.  Social media should be like the telephone - a public utility, subject to public protections and protections of our Constitutional rights.   This isn’t rocket science and again it comes down to democracy.  We don’t need representatives of corporations who are on the take from the corporate sponsors that got them elected and who are basically doing payback.  Of course we need to get money out of politics.  What makes me hopeful is that there is an inevitable mobilization going on right now.  Jill refers to the 100 million people who chose to sit out the last election …
 
Slide:  Showing various newspaper headlines attacking Jill Stein.
 
(Yola the dog) looks in and the smiles become comments about real news (versus staged – which this is not).  We aren’t paying you a whole load of money, and I’m not a six-figured anchor paid to lie.  This is real – John says, and we are trying to fix our democracy and that is what makes this right.  No worries!  Yes - Jill continues, let’s get the corporate poison out of our media, our schools, our healthcare … It’s like a poison that has permeated society and corporations have been protected with “rights” that trump our human rights and our Constitutional rights.  The largest plurality of voters is not buying it anymore, so those who want to blame and shame non-voters or third-party voters for rejecting a corrupt and brutal political system, they’ve got it wrong.
 
The solution - Jill says, isn’t less but more democracy, along with ranked-choice voting.  There are other forms of the latter, take your pick.  John agrees.  We should have a lot of experiments going on in other forms of voting – Jill says.  Maine led the way with a referendum – which was overwhelmingly passed.  The legislators tried to stop it, and the people passed it again in order to implement it and they had one of the biggest historic turnouts in the last election.  It encourages collegial campaigning and de-emphasizes negative campaigning because you are trying to get second-choice votes from fellow candidates.  It also liberates our values.  How do you have a democracy if you are only voting against what you hate the most?  It never provides guidance.  It never gives a moral compass.  We never get close to a just, sustainable or peaceful world that way.  Polls show 60% of U.S. voters and 70% of Millennials calling for a new independent political party.  We mustn’t allow ourselves to be intimidated into voting against our values.  It’s only our values that will save us.  Here too John agrees.  We are starting to see that now – he says, with a lot of Progressive wins.  It gives him hope, although he is conscious that time is limited.  He is also aware that it is late for Jill and invites her to come back another time.  She says she will do so and has some final thoughts she’d like to leave us with.  Forget the lesser evil and fight for the greater good like our lives depend on it, because they do – she tells us.  We have the power when we stand up with the courage of our convictions and we connect across issues.  The number of young people who have been locked into predatory debt (John raises his hand) is going on 45 million!  That’s almost enough to win an election right there based on bailing them out.  Add immigrants who care about their relations and friends who are threatened with deportations - that’s about 25 million and people who need healthcare as a human right … tens of millions more.  You can vote strategically if you need to, but in my view I could not bring myself to vote for a predator.  If we can reach out, hold hands and bring our fellow brothers and sisters into this political process - those who are on the front lines, then that’s the liberation for us all.
 
John sees that Donald Trump’s election has unified the three of them (Jill, John and Laura) plus Bernie around issues, rather than party.  We kind of did America a good thing in the long term, I think – he says.
 
By the way, Green and Independent voters – Jill says, would not have voted for Donald Trump.  We know that from exit polls.  What made the difference were voters who were denied the right to vote; voter ID laws; the stripping of voter rolls and the censorship of the political dialogue which made people think they had to pick between the two most disliked and untrusted candidates in our history.  If we had gotten into the debates it would have been a different ball game.
It was spoiled by Big-money and by CBS giving all that airtime to Donald Trump.  John reminds Jill that she doesn’t have to defend that position here.  We voted for you – he says!
 
Slide:  John again shows the slide with some of the headlines referring to Jill in 2016.  Markus prepared it.  One reads “Do you still feel good about that Jill Stein protest vote?”  Yes I do - he says, and it wasn’t a protest vote.  It was just my vote!  It has been awesome - he says.  I look forward to talking to you again.  And it has been great talking to you John and Laura - Jill replies.  John gives thanks all around, including to those who donated (in YouTube chat).  I really appreciate it.  That’s what it takes to keep the lights on here, just like it does when you donate to the Green Party to help them put money into the down-ballot candidates, and I suggest you do that – he says.  We need to help everybody.
 
Jill has been working on this for a lot longer than every Berner – John says.  I‘d like to say to every Progressive Democrat, that there is very little difference between you and the Green Party and you really should vote for the person that’s best to win the race, not the (letter) D.  Thank you so much Dr. Jill Stein.
 
Jill is busy so I didn’t ask her to pick a song, but she did better … We have a song – which aged well I believe.  It apparently caught a lot of crap in the past.  It is from Somebody’s Sister (Jill Stein and Ken Selcer – a great musician) singing American Dream in 1995.  Check out the lyrics … 
                                                               
… Times are changin’
It ain’t a joke
Hey, revolution
Take back your vote…
 
It is a nice song and a lovely voice that you have Dr. Jill Stein.  It did indeed age well!

​Sonia Aery is the Democratic candidate for California State Assembly – District 3.   She was interviewed by #WeThePeople on August 20th, 2018.  She is up against James Gallagher (R) in the General election.  He is loaded.  She is progressive and backed by the California Democratic Party proper … we wondered whether they looked at her website closely enough – John says!  She comes across as a friendly person.  Laura tells people how to engage and adds that some people from Sonia’s campaign are in chat to help out too.
 
Sonia is the daughter of Indian immigrants who worked hard to see that she and her brother had a better life, than they would have otherwise had in India.   She is a small business owner with an undergraduate degree in Community and Regional Development(s) and a graduate degree in City and Regional Planning.  She talks to people daily about their struggles and gets to help them through that.  So - says John, you’ll do that better than James Gallagher, who seems to be doing what he does for a lot of Corporations.  We’ll look at his money trail later. She is running for office because she feels the need to give back and help others.  Yes, it’s a huge endeavor given the Incumbent – she says!
 
I believe that people should be paid living wages, and have access to free healthcare regardless of their income.  We have to take care of our local natural resources to make sure we have a safer, healthier, cleaner community for future generations.  We’ve not had a voice in Sacramento (in the North State) for a long time, as we have been represented by a Republican.  43% of the families in my district are making less than $20,000 annually.  My opponent has over $673,000 in his campaign account (08/20/18) and is continuing to have fundraisers.  A theme of my campaign is that everything impacts everything else.  What really gets me riled up is living wages.  That 43% of families (are earning so little) up here - while costs are increasing, really is shameful!  As for Single-Payer healthcare … we are already paying for it (one way or the other).  Everything is indeed tied together – comments John.  Climate change though we are limited time-wise on … the death of the human species is probably a priority we need to address.  Sonia agrees.
 
Progressives need to talk more to the general public (rather than preaching to the choir) about the climate crisis – she says.  With all of our natural resources up here in the North State especially, we need brave leadership who understand that these multiple climate disasters that we have been experiencing from the fires to the flooding, to the horrible dam crisis last year, are a serious threat to our way of life, to our environment and to our economy.  Nearly 200,000 people had about an hour to evacuate (dam crisis) and the financial impact was devastating.  In 2005 it would have cost about a hundred million dollars to fully repair both the main spillway and the emergency one.  This past year, it cost almost $5 million a day just in emergency repairs.  So now it is going to cost close to 2 billion dollars to get it to normal safe levels!  Do you think that part of being a responsible Representative (and taking care of citizens) in your State is looking at infrastructure - with climate change in mind, and seeing where things are headed – John asks?  Absolutely – Sonia replies.  Infrastructure is important to public safety and to boosting our economy.  Investments there are essential.  The climate crisis that we are living through is also a threat to national security.  James disagrees though – says John.  He says that California is already a leader on climate change – at great cost to jobs and the economy.  He argues that other States need to catch up before California pushes on with anything else.  Since about 2010 the U.S. Forest Service up here has been defunded by the Republican-led Congress - Sonia mentions in reply.  Looking at your site – John continues, you seem to feel (contrary to your opponent) that a lot more jobs and opportunities can be created through a green energy initiative.  Yes – Sonia responds.  There are great jobs in the solar industry that we should capitalize on and up here we can definitely lead on that.  She refers to the recently passed law that says that every home in California must have solar panels in the near future.  But didn’t the current administration just drop the nice subsidies and benefits to the solar industry – John asks?  Yes – she replies, which is why it is so important to flip the house this year.  John agrees.  This – Sonia continues, is something we need bi-partisan support on.  There are a few very brave Republican leaders who are championing the issue and trying to explain to their fellow Republicans that it is for real and that the energy - the heat that we are trapping is the energy equivalent of 450,000 Hiroshima-size atomic bombs going off in the atmosphere every day!!  In very simple terms if you heat the earth you will melt the ice, and you will swamp the cities and destroy agriculture.  MSM has been denying this and that hasn’t helped us to inform the electorate - John says.  We were saying in the green room that until rich folk are directly affected by climate (change) we are not going to see change.  It seems as though that is starting to be the case.  It’s impacting the economy – Sonia says.
 
How come you are supported by the California Democratic Party, yet you support a Single-Payer Medicare for All system - John asks?  I don’t think they checked my website - Sonia says.  I was the only Democrat in the race, so I had the good fortune (cough) of getting their endorsement.  James is claiming Single-Payer will cost too much, but even the Koch brothers’ funded study says otherwise.  Sonia is embarrassed that the wealthiest nation in the world can’t provide healthcare for all its citizens.  John speaks of India.  They are going to implement some kind of healthcare plan … for the poorest 500 million people - Sonia adds.  John wonders if Sonia and parents are considering going back.  She laughs and acknowledges that the country has changed a lot since they left.  Please stay though - says John.  We need women of color in office.  It does seem – he says, that climate change has affected India an awful lot more and that they are making changes a lot faster.  Yes – Sonia replies and goes into more detail on the subject.  Healthcare (in California) - this is getting stuck at the top with Rendon, but that’s something you can help with – John says.  Sonia tells us that California is a 2/3 Democratic State – and that the North State with Republican leadership hasn’t had its voice heard in a while because the two-party system is such that apparently now neither side listens to anyone who disagrees with “them” (anymore).  As a Democratic Assemblywoman from here I’ll be more listened to – she says. 
 
John shows a slide with information taken from Sonia’s website.  There is mention of recycling.  There is also mention of expanding broadband efficiency in the interests of the education, business and personal management needs of all Californians.  Sonia discusses investing in education … tuition-free college education, community-college education, and career-technical education for anyone who wants it.  We need to be competitive.  John teases – but how will we pay for it?  We just will John - she replies, with a grin.  My friend in Holland pays 51% tax – she continues.  Socialist – John fires back!  Yes - she laughs ... and she gets a free education, free healthcare and decent roads and stuff like that.  Laura laughs at the mention of all that “free stuff”.
 
They move on to the subject of affordable housing.  California has some serious issues here - John says.  Sonia used to work in this area.  Her job was to help people through financial education.  One of main programs up here is called CHIP (Community Housing Program) and it’s incredible.  Basically this neighborhood gets together, and builds their houses together.  Nobody can move in until all the houses are complete.  It takes 6 months to a year to build each neighborhood.  During that time Sonia provided financial education, on how home ownership works - for example.  The first time she did that was right after the 2008 financial crisis.  She learned a lot at that point about the devastating effects of deregulation particularly in the financial industry.  We are dangerously close to those levels of deregulation again - she says.  This will slowly start to impact our home ownership rates in California in particular.  During the 2008 financial crisis there was a mass exodus of workers from the building trades and they never came back.  To solve this housing crisis that we have here, there are a few things we need to do.  Short term, we have to implement rent-control.  (Prop 10 in CA).  Our medium-term strategy would be to speak with local governments about reducing regulations on a local level, such as the obligation to only build single-family homes.  No – she says!  We don’t have the time nor the space for that.  We need to invest in a greater diversity of housing options.  Long term we need (career technical education) to get people back into the building trades.  When you increase the supply of employees, you help to decrease the costs of all these projects.  We can hopefully incentivize developers to start building affordable homes and make them not as difficult to build.  We have ridiculous vacancy rates in Butte County (1%).  Laura points out that in San Francisco large numbers of empty buildings are kept for investment purposes etc.  Where Sonia is though, the problem is more that there are not enough homes.  We would need - she says, 1200 units just to meet the demand - yesterday.   They talk about the affordable aspect of all of this.  According to the federal government – Sonia tells us, affordable means no more than 30% of your income, which - John says, brings us back to a living wage.
 
Elena in YouTube chat asks what people are most concerned about in Sonia’s district.  Healthcare – she replies.  It’s the same as elsewhere in the country.  How do you speak to Republicans in the district about the subject – John asks?  I just bring it back to human dignity – Sonia answers.  Are we going to let people die because they didn’t have the extra $50 they needed for their insulin medication?  One in 3 GoFundMe accounts is specifically for medical bills!  You realize – says John, we just created Single-Payer on our own?  Exactly - says Sonia.  Affordable housing is the number 2 issue. 
 
La Donna (Lokey) in YouTube chat says that Gallagher voted against prohibiting conversion therapy.  Where do you stand on this?  Sonia says that this is a practice of torture.  It is meant to try to convince people in the LGBTQ community that they can be changed.  Here Sonia adds that she is gay.  The proposal had been to label the sale of conversion therapy as a fraudulent business practice – which it absolutely is. 
 
John shows a slide with some of Gallagher’s votes over the last year.  He voted Nay on so much.  Sad – Sonia says.
 
Someone in YouTube chat asks what Sonia’s pathway to victory is.  The Assembly District has a slight lean for Republicans, but not enough to win just by partisan voting.  20% decline to state or are No Party Preference.  Those are the people that we are really targeting and we will be talking to them about the issues.
 
John shows another slide … Gallagher won 2/3 to 1/3 against a Democrat in 2016.
 
I also have a personal mission to turn out new voters – Sonia says.  Lots of young people have lost all faith in our election process - particularly after 2016, and I can’t blame them.  We want to show them that the Presidential election is probably the last thing that will impact them.  These local and State elections will have a significant impact on their lives.  We want them to know that they can really make a difference when they actually come out and vote.  Well said - says John!  Sonia feels that there has been tremendous energy around changing things at all levels of government, around first-time candidates too, and she points out most especially that people don’t want business as usual.  They do not want corporate money in politics - which is why I pledged to run a completely corporate-free campaign.  People are now seeing that it’s not Republican versus Democrat, but the Money Party versus the People Party. 
 
Slide:  John shows information from the Map-the-Money Project he is busy with.  Individual contributions make up most of Sonia’s funding so far.  It is all in-State.  He then shows us the funding information for Gallagher.  There is a massive chunk of the pie which is made up of un-coded people (where the category of donor is unknown or not yet assigned.  In this case – that is because they are very rich and powerful).  His top industries are all corporate.  His top contributors are Alcohol, AT&T, Tobacco … They are still fundraising, which John suggests means that Gallagher is afraid.  Sonia is endorsed by Planned Parenthood, Butte County Democratic Party, the California Democratic Party, (dual endorsement) from the California Labor Federation and they are working on more (08/20/2018).  She reminds people that as she is corporate–free, she does need some help from people to get her into Office.
 
Fluffy Bunny in YouTube chat wants to know whether if you don’t win this time around, you will run again.  It’s hard to say - Sonia replies.  I’m not a career politician.  It’s hard to say where I will be in 2 years.  Laura and YouTube chat remind Sonia that no matter what happens there are no losing progressive campaigns … and that her starting momentum in 2020 could be a whole different ball game.
 
John and Laura thank Sonia for running and repeat that they have learned that actually running for office is the most difficult thing to do.  Sonia is also still running a business.  She is an insurance agent.  They talk about the difficulties involved in the job - given climate change.  Sonia’s uncle lost his home to the fires last year.  One of the things she learned along the way was that if a fire crew approaches two houses - one being clear of brush and the other not, they will first try to save the one that is clear, because there is a higher chance of saving it.  She tries to advise people about this – given obviously that she is insuring them. 
 
Sonia’s song pick is The Best of Me by The Sounds.  She tells us that it is a balm for her soul these days.
  
The links are in the video description – to donate and volunteer.  Good luck on November 6th, 2018 Sonia Aery!