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In the month since we started our The TIME IS NOW fund drive, we’ve raised just $68,313 of the $250,000 we need to stay on the air. Over that time, the Trump/Musk junta has only intensified its full assault on democracy, the rule of law, the union movement, healthcare, Social Security, and our immigrant families.
With each day, the Trump/Musk junta doubles down on its authoritarian power grab. They have torn up existing collective bargaining agreements with tens of thousands of essential Transportation Security Administration officers in a move that can only be described as PATCO on steroids.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of federal civil servants have been summarily fired and the entirety of the workforce insulted by Elon Musk, a billionaire who spent hundreds of millions to buy his way into the Oval Office as the shadow President.
Unions are fighting back. This week a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to rehire tens of thousands of probationary employees, many of whom are veterans.
Last weekend, federal immigration agents entered a Columbia University residential building to arrest Mahmoud Khalil, a well-known Palestinian activist and organizer of anti-war Gaza protests. He was taken away as his wife, who is eight months pregnant, looked on.
Like 600,000 other New Yorkers, Khalil is a legal resident with a Green Card. Federal officials said they were acting on a U.S. State Department order to revoke his Green Card because of his involvement in “illegal protests.” Incredibly, he has not been charged with or indicted for any crime. It’s entirely based on President Trump’s false assertion that Khalil participated in what the President says were “illegal protests.”
A Habeas Corpus petition had to be filed on Khalil’s behalf. He was transferred to a privately run immigration detention center in Louisiana, where he currently remains. The New York Times reported that 3,000 protesters showed up in lower Manhattan outside the federal court where his case was being heard.
When WBAI asked Mayor Adams about the Khalil case and the lack of due process, he wanted to know where the news media’s concern had been about what he insists was the politicizing of HIS corruption case.
Over the last several months, about a third of our support has come from unions like the New York Taxi Workers Alliance.
We are very grateful for that. So far, over the last year, national, regional, and local unions representing two million-plus households have offered sustaining support—but that alone cannot sustain WBAI and the Pacifica Radio Network, of which it is a part.
We have seen the number of WBAI Buddies, listeners that sign up to make a recurring monthly contribution, go from 1,100 to 1,300. We need that number to more than double to sustain a progressive, non-corporate, pro-labor broadcast platform here in New York City, where the transmitter rent is close to $17,000 a month.
We knew we were in for a rough ride when President Trump pardoned the 1,500 rioters who executed the Jan. 6 violent assault on the U.S. Capitol and the police that protected it—all in a bid to derail the certification of the 2020 election.
Our political system and the corporate news media have failed to hold President Trump accountable.
It’s up to We the People.
If not now, when?
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