2025-10-04
Today! Pop up protest!
Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans have spent the past nine months selling out working families in order to give tax breaks to their billionaire friends. Now they’re taking us into a government shutdown because they refuse to negotiate with Democrats and lower healthcare costs for our families.
As the funding deadline looms, Trump has refused to support a budget proposal that would prevent millions of Americans from losing their health care. He's insisted on illegally cancelling funds our communities rely on. And then threatened to fire even more federal workers when the government shuts down. We deserve a budget that meets our health care needs and reins in Trump's lawlessness.
Let's fight to protect our healthcare.
On October 18, millions of us are rising again to show the world: America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people.
Let's do this!
LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS for the October 18th:
EVENT DETAILS: Indivisible and 50501 groups in Duluth are collaboratively planning a march and rally at City Hall on October 18th (more below).
MARCH: Groups will be gathering at nearby locations at 10AM and marching to City Hall.
HOW YOU CAN HELP: We are looking for people to organize a third group of marchers. This includes selecting a nearby starting point and leading the group to City Hall.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, please reach out to Robin at robinmcintyre19@gmail.com
In this newsletter you will find information about:
The weekly news section is shortened this week so we could get out information about today's rally.
Before you hit the streets- join our know your rights, protest safety, and de-escalation training
from ACLU
This October, communities across the country will mobilize en masse for the second No Kings national day of action- a mass mobilization against President Trump's abuses of power and federal crackdown on our freedoms. Together, we'll send a clear message: the people will not be silenced.
To prepare, join the ACLU's Protest Safety, Know Your Rights and De-Escalation Training on October 6 at 8 PM ET. This training will give you the tools to take action safely, confidently, and with key de-escalation strategies in hand. Whether you're marching, rallying, or supporting from the sidelines, you'll learn how to protect yourself, your community, and stand up for your rights.
No Iron for War
from Twin Ports Against Weapons Trade
Duluth Indivisible, Good Trouble Indivisible, Zenith City Indivisible and 50501 are joining forces for No Kings! October 18th. We practiced at Hands Off! in April, at No Kings! in June, regularly at Stauber's office, the corner of Lake and Superior, at the Coppertop and the EPA. Now let's double our impact! Invite your family, friends, and neighbors, your union, your faith community, your club or team, and your work colleagues! Join us at City Hall on October 18th to proclaim NO KINGS! Our Constitution is under attack from within - We the People have the power to stop that.
In America, we don’t put up with would-be kings. We don't put up with troops in our streets. We don't put up with all three branches of government disregarding the Constitution.
Our peaceful movement is only getting bigger and stronger. “NO KINGS” is more than just a slogan—it’s the foundation our nation was built upon. Born in the streets, carried by millions in chants and on posters, it echoes from city blocks to rural town squares, uniting people across this country to fight dictatorship and authoritarianism together. Last June there were about five million of us on the streets. Can we make that ten million next month?
Find a location near you!
This fall we will take an in-depth look at the Palestine-Israel situation along with the world’s and the Western Christian church’s response to it, and how we can accompany and advocate for justice and healing there. We will be using Munther Isaac’s new book, Christ in the Rubble: Faith, the Bible, and the Genocide in Gaza to structure our study as well as relevant videos of major voices for a better understanding of and solutions for ending the catastrophe there. Munther Isaac is a Palestinian theologian who serves as pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church of Bethlehem and the Lutheran Church in Beit Sahour.
A number of copies of the book are available for purchase at Gloria Dei for $20. We encourage you to get the book and join us this fall.
Please join us even if you have not read the book or have missed any of the earlier meetings.
Duluth Anti-ICE, anti-deportations pro-immigrant dignity rally
Protest map below. Green parking. Purple Protest site. Red no parking on church property.
Our vigil is calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to Israeli blockade of Gaza, an end to genocide in Gaza, and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. This will be a silent vigil. Many find this healing and powerful for continuing our work towards peace and justice. After the half hour of silence, there will be a group song and group reading of names and ages of some of those killed in Gaza. Anyone wanting to stay and stand longer with signs is welcome to do so! Please wear black (if you can) and a hat or scarf for head cover. Homemade signs are welcome.
Contact Christine: christineolson3@gmail.com
You can find more events on our website.
Action Toolkit
from Indivisible
Republicans shut down the federal government because they insist on taking away healthcare, jacking up health insurance premiums, and giving Trump another blank check to fuel his illegal power-grab.
This toolkit has everything you need to know about our next steps, including how to hold Republicans accountable, how to help Democrats hold the line, and how to mobilize locally.
We leave you with some inspiring words from Writers for Democratic Action MN.
This section was left brief so we could rush news of the pop-up protest held today. There will be more next week!
from Writers for Democratic Action MN
"What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make."
— Jane Goodall
It's October and many of us are exhausted beneath the unbearable and daily outrages. We have a president who uses propaganda to unleash fear and hatred. He wants to turn our country's military against our citizens. We can enumerate the human rights abuses, the shootings, and the hostilities.
What can one do in these times when democracy itself is at risk? To whom does one turn? The poet Wislawa Symborska comes to mind. She was up to the task, unafraid to take on the worst subjects. In "The Joy of Writing" she says:
Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment
Her subjects were political. She addressed the worst things: war, hatred, cruelty, oppression, and death. Her writing has unique clarity, wry wit, and irony. Perhaps she needed these qualities to avoid being hurt by her materials. She did what Emily Dickinson advised -- to tell the truth but tell it slant.
The problems we face are not new. Divisions have been here since the beginning. The president might be trying his hardest to rewrite history, but we know what happened after the pilgrims arrived in the New World. We know that settler colonialism was responsible for genocide against the native tribes who inhabited North America. We know how wealthy landowners benefited from free labor by slaves, and we know that the Civil War did not end prejudice and racism. We know that women have struggled long and hard to obtain equal rights. Even the right to control their own bodies has been a constant battle. We know that the Progressive Era of the early 1900s was followed by the McCarthy era's Red Scare, and that good people were unfairly black-listed and lost their livelihoods. We know that corporations operate on a profit model, and their bottom line is the dollar. They dislike being held responsible for environmental damage or negative health impact, and they dislike paying taxes.
In 1973, the artist Richard Serra created prescient short video, "Television Delivers People." One only need to change the word "television" to "social media" and understand the challenge we all face to access accurate news and information.
The last three lines of Szymborska's "The Joy of Writing" are these:
The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.
So let us lean on Szymborska and approach the daily disasters with her undaunted spirit. Writing is a form of power. Let's wield it.
It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you
...
So you’re here? Still dizzy from another dodge, close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn’t be more shocked or speechless.
Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.
By Julie Gard
Postcards with timely quotes, sent by a constituent to Representative Pete Stauber of Minnesota District 8
"'Postcards to Pete' is an attempt to resist, in a small way, the current daily shattering of democratic norms. Each postcard features a handwritten, pro-democracy quote that a politician such as Representative Pete Stauber of Minnesota District 8 might view as part of his own political and ethical heritage. So far I’ve quoted the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, Ronald Reagan, Russell Kirk, and Pope Leo XIV. Through regular (most often weekly) social media and blog posts, I'm attempting to create a structure for these reminders to gain strength through repetition. I am choosing to believe there is still common ground, a shared history and ethics that Americans across the political spectrum can draw upon, and that can lead some of us back to each other."
— Julie Gard
