Tulare County’s Republican party is taking a page right out of Donald Trump’s playbook: Lie about your opponents. Why would they do that?
Here are some reasons.
One big one is they are desperate for someone to run against a popular City Council member, Emmanuel Hernandez Soto, and are trying again to smear him with lies. Back in September, they tried to run Soto off the council by saying he was “sympathizing with those who justified the assassination of Charlie Kirk”. That, of course, is a lie. Here’s what really happened.
I wrote a Facebook post, in which I said the following:
I’m afraid I don’t have much sympathy to spare for one particular victim out of the hundreds that will be injured by guns today in the United States. Many of them will die from their wounds. Most are innocent of any crime, and are victims of the easy availability of guns in this country.
Charlie Kirk may die because of the hate he fed our country. He has consistently attacked various communities, spreading lies and hatred. It’s not surprising to me that someone finally broke, and fought back.
Violence is only acceptable to me in immediate self-defense, but that’s never really been what this society has taught its members. The easy availability and glorification of guns has turned what in the past would have been fistfights into shootings.
Whether Kirk lives or dies, he’s now a martyr for the christo-fascists and Christian nationalists. They won’t take the lesson that hate breeds violence, they’ll go after the same minority groups they always have, but with more fervor than ever before.
In the next hours, claims will rocket around the internet that the shooter was gay, or transgender, or an illegal alien, or an atheist, or an Islamic terrorist, or…
Now we wait. Will Kirk live or die? Will the shooter be caught? What were their motivations? How did they acquire the weapon?
The only ones I really feel sorry for are his children. They don’t understand why this happened to their daddy. They don’t deserve this pain.
Soto “liked” my Facebook post. Desperate to get another Republican on the Visalia City Council, the local GOP jumped. They tried to skew my post to mean I was justifying the murder of Kirk (it wasn’t an assassination – Kirk wasn’t that important), and by “liking” my post, Soto was justifying it, too. Of course, that’s not what I said, and that’s not what it meant.
That didn’t stop the Republicans of Tulare County. Ten people got up and spoke at a City Council meeting on September 15, 2025, strong in their performative outrage at Soto. They called for his resignation. He did not resign.
Their post claims Soto “consistently votes against District 4’s best interests”. They then claim he voted against Chik-Fil-A and Sam’s Club, but did not provide the dates for those votes.
They really shouldn’t open the “District 4’s best interest” can of worms, though.
Checking the minutes available on the City’s website as of publication date, Soto’s record in the last 71 votes show him voting with the majority 60 times. He voted “NO”, or voted “YES” with the minority, 3 times. He was absent (for his wedding) for 11 votes. (these are total votes, not number of council meetings)
Soto votes with the majority at just under 85% of the time.
If Tulare GOP wants to claim he “consistently votes against the city’s and District 4’s best interests”, they need to admit so do all of the other Council members.
But, as is the case with MAGA and the GOP, facts don’t matter. Tell the lies, because nobody in the base will check what you say. The only priority is to get someone they think of as “liberal” off the council, and fill that seat with a conservative they can control. They can’t control Soto, and that frosts them.
If you live in District 4, vote Soto this November.
On April 17, 2026, I filed a Public Records Request with the Visalia Unified School District. You can read the request and the reasons for it (the “f-word” incident at Redwood High School) here. On April 27, I got a response, which is covered here.
They indicated they’d respond by May 18, 2026. At that point, they informed me they DID have “responsive records”, and would provide further by June 17, 2026. On June 17, 2026, I got an email with some information requested in the PRA request, and informing me the date was pushed to July 17, 2026, for further response. (I’m sensing a pattern here.)
Well, it’s July 16, 2026, and I just received this email:
Visalia Police Department Public Records Request – update
On April 19, 2026, I posted “What the Flock?“, my first entry about the proliferation of Flock Automated License Plate Readers in Visalia, California.
On April 24, 2026, I posted “Well, Flock Me!“, about a nearby community (Merced, California) disabling their Flock ALPR system after problems with unauthorized access were discovered. On that same day, I filed a Public Records Request with the Visalia Police Department, about Visalia’s recent installation of Flock cameras. The City had ten days to respond.
On May 5, 2026, I posted “Flock you later“, where the City of Visalia takes advantage of a 14 day extension to provide the requested documents.
On May 11, 2026, I posted “Flock the Lawyers“, wherein the City informs me they have to run it past the lawyers first, and they were targeting June 1, 2026 for release of the documents.
On May 27, 2026, “Flock Me A Little Bit” is the next chapter, in which the City is initially refusing to provide some of the requested documentation, since I was requesting the images in the system of a particular license plate. My license plate. I sent them a copy of my vehicle registration. The next target date for complying with my request was June 20, 2026.
On June 29, 2026, I posted to Facebook, tagging both the City of Visalia and the Visalia Police Department, that they were nine days past their own due date for information. That was at 1pm. By 3pm, I received a “supplemental response to your public records request”, via email. This response stated “The attached document shows the result of a Department audit searching for any monitoring and investigating activity for JJRJR. No data exists.” Except that wasn’t what I asked them to provide. I had no reason to suspect the Police Department deliberately did a search for my license plate, for whatever reason. What I asked for was every instance of my plate being recorded by the system. Those are two different things. They are not going to convince me that my plate has never been recorded by their system.
In that response, they also moved the date again. More information was supposed to be available July 20, 2026.
On July 10, 2026, I received this letter, and a link to a DropBox file with audit logs.
They state “The Department’s staff is continuing its diligent search and review of requested records. The Department’s staff members estimate they will be able to supplement this response on or about August 20, 2026, earlier if able.”
(From left: Luis Chavez, Nathan Magsig, Buddy Mendes, Brian Pacheco, Garry Bredefeld)
It was NOT to recognize June as Pride month.
The ongoing culture wars in the Central Valley continue, with this front in Fresno County. With the ascension of Bredefeld to the position of Board Chair, there’s been a full-on assault directed at the LGBTQ+ community. With a move to prevent the county library from taking part in any June Pride month activities, and directing staff to research privatizing the county library system, Bredefeld and his fellow conservatives have been doing everything in their power to marginalize the LGBTQ+ population of their county.
On June 16, 2026, they passed a resolution, recognizing June as Traditional Nuclear Family Month in the County of Fresno. The selection of June was deliberate, as it is traditionally and legally recognized as LGBTQ+ Pride Month in the United States. Here’s the resolution as passed:
In Bredefeld’s original resolution, there was a direct attack on the LGBTQ+ community:
WHEREAS, children are now under attack from anti-family groups that make every effort to indoctrinate children into the LGBTQ lifestyle, promote genital mutilation, abortion practices and Transgender ideology without parental knowledge or consent; and
Calmer heads on the Board got him to accept a change, removing that paragraph, and replacing it with this:
WHEREAS, single mothers and fathers, grandparents, foster parents, and those parents that have joint custody of their children are critically important to raising healthy children and are recognized for their sacrifice, hard work and devotion to their families and children; and
While the hate directed specifically at the queer community was removed, the resolution was still passed, 3-2, Chavez and Pacheco voting NO.
Expecting a furor of comments directed at his resolution, Board Chair Bredefeld restricted public comments to 15 minutes for those opposed to the resolution, and 15 minutes for those in support, with each speaker limited to one minute. Most government bodies schedule 3 minutes per speaker for public comments. While legal, it does not reflect well on any government official to be seen limiting the public’s ability to speak on a matter they consider important.
The conservatives in the Central Valley (see Porterville City Council and their recent one minute ‘oral communications’ limit) are still working diligently to undermine the progress the LGBTQ+ community has made in the past decades. Those opposed will continue to speak out, and remind them that their views are not the “one true way” many insist be imposed on others.
June remains Pride Month, no matter what the Fresno County Board of Supervisors say.
On October 14, 2025, the Tulare County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution expressing Tulare County’s stand against Proposition 50, the ballot measure before California voters to redraw Congressional district boundaries. (The proposition passed in the November, 2025 election at 64.42% in favor.)
On June 5, 2026, I became interested in who requested this item be brought forth before the Board of Supervisors, and filed a Public Records Act request. To it’s credit, Tulare County responded quickly and thoroughly.
In that request, I asked who directed the item be placed on the agenda, and who wrote the suggested resolutions (one supporting the proposition, and one opposing it). After wading through a bunch of emails, and numerous copies of the same documents providing background (everyone seems to forward responses with the attachments), it became relatively clear.
Supervisor Vander Poel, in an email to the Board of Supervisors Chief of Staff, Israel Sotelo, on September 29, 2025, said, “I was approached this weekend regarding Tulare County’s position on Proр 50. I noticed Kern County took a position recently. Can we get an agenda item set for mid October to consider the same?”
On October 14, the item was on the Board agenda, with two drafts presented. One in support of the proposition, and one opposed.
Staff researched the issue, with emails flying fast and furious from hither and yon as they worked on Vander Poel’s request.
The issue with them today is food costs. Yikes! The Purina Dragon Chow I usually get them has jumped in price. I buy in bulk, so it’s been a while since my last order, and had a bit of a sticker shock moment when I went to reorder. These lizards are getting expensive! (I at least cut down on home repair costs by moving them to a stone building. No more scorched basement beams, or crispy wall coverings!)
But, they are cute as hell, and I can’t really let them go foraging among the stray dogs and cats in the city, now can I? The occasional opossum or gopher isn’t really a big thing overall, but they don’t seem to be able to smell skunk, and when they bring one of those home, it’s… well, it’s not fun. And yes, I do let them out once in a while to stretch their wings. Even though the underground lair is quite expansive, it’s still not enough to let them really get some exercise in. Good thing they’re as nocturnal as I am! It wouldn’t do to have them seen flying around in broad daylight, now would it?
They are miffed, I must say, to hear about the Visalia City Council gutting the oak tree ordinance. Some of those very old trees make great perches from which to survey their domains. So far, I’ve been able to deflect them from plotting revenge, but as more trees disappear, it might become difficult. I’m thinking I’ll blame the King, as they’re quite enamored with the entire royalty thing, and might see it as his divine right. We’ll see.
I guess I better get my order in, before prices go even higher.
If you ask Google “what oak tree is common in the area of visalia, california?” the following are parts of it’s response:
The Valley Oak (Quercus lobata) is the most common and iconic native oak tree in the Visalia area. Visalia is home to the largest remaining stand of native valley oaks in California’s entire Central Valley.
Also,
Because these magnificent trees are tightly woven into the city’s heritage, Visalia strictly enforces a Valley Oak Ordinance. This policy requires public and private property owners to secure official permits before pruning, trimming, or removing any mature valley oak.
That is no longer true.
Something recently happened to change the status of oak trees, which had been protected by City ordinance since 1971.
Visalia’s webpage states: The City’s Valley Oak Ordinance establishes policies for the care, trimming, and removal of valley oaks. Public property owners are required to ensure the protection of these magnificent trees and must obtain permission to remove or prune valley oaks.
Check that bold text. Only “public property owners”, i.e. governments, are required to obtain permits and/or permission to trim or remove Valley Oaks in Visalia.
I first got on CB radio back when I was about 14 or 15 years old. Dad brought home a mobile radio, I think it was a Johnson 5 channel crystal controlled set, probably taken out of a car that was a trade-in at the car dealership where he worked. It had channel 17, which was the trucker’s channel around Visalia at the time. I hooked up a whip antenna on the roof, and had the radio in the garage. The first time I made a call, and got a reply, I was so scared I turned it off and ran into the house without speaking to whoever responded.
Anyway, a few radios and vehicles later, I was a hard-core CB’er. My ‘handle’ was Apollo. After the Moon missions, not the Greek god. I even got a FCC license eventually, KCQ 0827. (The FCC no longer issues licenses for CB. They gave up trying to impose any semblance of control long ago. Now about the only thing you can get in trouble for there is if you interfere with a public safety radio service.)
One of the antennas I had, was a 102″ stainless steel whip on a ball mount. They were not expensive. A new ball mount, spring, and whip might set you back $20 in the 1970s. New. Used ones were a dime a dozen. Almost.
Today, the image above flashed on my Facebook feed.
$140 freakin’ bucks?!?!
Wow.
But.
I just did a Gemini AI prompt, “what is the current equivalent amount to $20 in 1974?”
The response:
An equivalent amount to $20 in 1974 is approximately $135.10 today (in 2026).
This change is driven by a cumulative inflation rate of 575.50% over the 52-year span, meaning the average prices today are about 6.75 times higher than they were in 1974. Over this period, the U.S. dollar experienced an average annual inflation rate of roughly 3.74%.
So, sticker shock, but in line with inflation. Unless Gemini is hallucinating. Again.
The image shows a large contingent of Ku Klux Klan members in a march in Porterville, California, sometime in the 1920s. I first saw this image hanging in a restaurant in Porterville, a place called “Stan’s Cafe” (since closed). I posted this image in a Facebook ‘share’ about the blog. Someone offered a correction.
“Mr. Reeves, this photo was actually taken in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Someone has apparently altered the photo so that it reads “Porterville” instead of “Bartlesville” underneath Hammond’s signature.“
I asked for some clarification, as I had seen this image before, but never in reference to Bartlesville. This is what that person added to the comment thread:
Screenshot
I think the AI hallucinated.
The University of California Press published this image, and as you can see, there is no visual evidence of a forged or altered signature.
In an internet map search, I turned up this image of the intersection of East Mill and Main Streets of Porterville. Note how the building on the left match in both images. The other buildings shown in the Klan picture are no longer in existence.
I’m satisfied the original image is indeed of a Klan march in Porterville, California, circa the 1920s.
If anyone can definitively prove otherwise, I’ll update this post.
On June 5, 2026, I made a public records request of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors, regarding their resolution to stand in opposition to Proposition 50 on the California ballot. I asked for documentation on who requested the Board place the item on the agenda for the October 14, 2025 Board meeting. That request was satisfied later the same day, with the requester being identified as Supervisor Vander Poel. I immediately made another request, the same day, as to who wrote the voted-on resolution, and any emails, memos, or other documentation regarding the wording of the resolution. That request was responded to today, June 15, 2026. In it, they sent me various drafts of the resolution, and documentation from the state regarding the proposition (the same information from voter guides put out by the state of California). Those documents did not reveal who actually wrote the approved resolution, or who requested or influenced that wording. Their response to me today says they expect to have the rest of the information by June 29, 2026.
“As requested, the following documents are attached: Board Agenda Item Packet, Revised Board Agenda Item Packet, Proposition 50 Ballot Title and Summary, Opposition Resolution, Opposition Resolution Draft 1, Opposition Draft 2, Support Resolution and Support Resolution Draft 1.
The Board of Supervisors has completed an initial review of your request and pursuant to Government Code § 7922.535(a), has determined that your request, “in whole or in part, seeks copies of disclosable public records” in our possession. We estimate that disclosable records will be made available to you by June 29, 2026.
Thank you
Here are those resolutions, in draft forms, both supporting and opposing Proposition 50. You’ll notice those in opposition are more fleshed out than the ones in support. Foreshadowing?
Random thoughts, occasional rants, illuminating commentary, and an odd story now and then from the world of 9-1-1 dispatching. All this and more from a gay liberal atheist living in California’s Bible belt. I recently married, so MAGA beware! I’m your worst nightmare! Some names have been omitted to protect the innocent, but the guilty will be hung out to dry!
Tulare County GOP Lies in political post
July 21, 2026
Jim Reeves commentary, News, Personal Emmanuel Hernandez Soto, politics, Tulare County GOP, Tulare County Republicans, visalia, Visalia City Council, Visalia City Council District 4 Leave a comment
Tulare County’s Republican party is taking a page right out of Donald Trump’s playbook: Lie about your opponents. Why would they do that?
Here are some reasons.
One big one is they are desperate for someone to run against a popular City Council member, Emmanuel Hernandez Soto, and are trying again to smear him with lies. Back in September, they tried to run Soto off the council by saying he was “sympathizing with those who justified the assassination of Charlie Kirk”. That, of course, is a lie. Here’s what really happened.
I wrote a Facebook post, in which I said the following:
I’m afraid I don’t have much sympathy to spare for one particular victim out of the hundreds that will be injured by guns today in the United States. Many of them will die from their wounds. Most are innocent of any crime, and are victims of the easy availability of guns in this country.
Charlie Kirk may die because of the hate he fed our country. He has consistently attacked various communities, spreading lies and hatred. It’s not surprising to me that someone finally broke, and fought back.
Violence is only acceptable to me in immediate self-defense, but that’s never really been what this society has taught its members. The easy availability and glorification of guns has turned what in the past would have been fistfights into shootings.
Whether Kirk lives or dies, he’s now a martyr for the christo-fascists and Christian nationalists. They won’t take the lesson that hate breeds violence, they’ll go after the same minority groups they always have, but with more fervor than ever before.
In the next hours, claims will rocket around the internet that the shooter was gay, or transgender, or an illegal alien, or an atheist, or an Islamic terrorist, or…
Now we wait. Will Kirk live or die? Will the shooter be caught? What were their motivations? How did they acquire the weapon?
The only ones I really feel sorry for are his children. They don’t understand why this happened to their daddy. They don’t deserve this pain.
Soto “liked” my Facebook post. Desperate to get another Republican on the Visalia City Council, the local GOP jumped. They tried to skew my post to mean I was justifying the murder of Kirk (it wasn’t an assassination – Kirk wasn’t that important), and by “liking” my post, Soto was justifying it, too. Of course, that’s not what I said, and that’s not what it meant.
That didn’t stop the Republicans of Tulare County. Ten people got up and spoke at a City Council meeting on September 15, 2025, strong in their performative outrage at Soto. They called for his resignation. He did not resign.
Their post claims Soto “consistently votes against District 4’s best interests”. They then claim he voted against Chik-Fil-A and Sam’s Club, but did not provide the dates for those votes.
They really shouldn’t open the “District 4’s best interest” can of worms, though.
Checking the minutes available on the City’s website as of publication date, Soto’s record in the last 71 votes show him voting with the majority 60 times. He voted “NO”, or voted “YES” with the minority, 3 times. He was absent (for his wedding) for 11 votes. (these are total votes, not number of council meetings)
Soto votes with the majority at just under 85% of the time.
If Tulare GOP wants to claim he “consistently votes against the city’s and District 4’s best interests”, they need to admit so do all of the other Council members.
But, as is the case with MAGA and the GOP, facts don’t matter. Tell the lies, because nobody in the base will check what you say. The only priority is to get someone they think of as “liberal” off the council, and fill that seat with a conservative they can control. They can’t control Soto, and that frosts them.
If you live in District 4, vote Soto this November.
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