Northern Progressive Updates
Urgent actions 2025-06-23
We are sending out another email to notify you of some urgent actions that just came across our desk.
These include:
- An invitation to meet with Ely Palestine Solidarity Group on Wednesday at 6:00pm in Whiteside Park to discuss current world events.
- Save Our Rural Hospitals: Immediate Action Needed
- Actions you can take to resist the military build-up in Iran
Events happening this week
**Gather Wednesday in Ely**
Ely Palestine Solidarity Group (EPSG)
- When:
- Wednesday, June 25 6:00pm
- Where:
- Whiteside Park (under the pavillion)
- BYOD (bring your own dinner/drinks)
- This will be a relaxed, low-key community gathering.
You are invited to join us this Wednesday, June 25th at 6:00pm in Whiteside Park (under the pavillion) for a gathering over dinner to discuss current world events. We saw many of you last week at the "No Kings Rally" and we would love to keep the conversations flowing!
Please reach out via email or Facebook if you have any questions. Thanks!
Mission Statement: EPSG has come together with the primary purpose of creating a robust network of mutual aid, consciousness raising and direct action in order to end the genocide in Palestine, and in so doing, to support the larger liberatory struggles of all oppressed peoples.
Ely Actions — What's Next?
- When:
- Tuesday, June 24 7:00pm
- Where:
- Ely Folk School
209 E. Sheridan
Ely, MN
Area activists are invited to come together next Tuesday at 6:30 at the Ely Folk School to discuss your concerns and plan our next actions.
We all wonder, "What can we do?" The advice we hear is, "Keep making a lot of noise. Publicly protest. Keep contacting your elected officials: call, email, and visit." That is happening all over! Close to 400 passionate patriots showed up a week ago for No Kings Day in Ely. They are definitely noticing, and we are making a difference here and across the country.
Please join us. We need all our best thinking as we proceed. Bring your non-violent ideas and priorities.
RSVP to Betty Firth if you can make it: bfirth88@gmail.com Or if you can't make it Tuesday, but are interested.
Urgent Actions: Cuts to Medicaid
Save Our Rural Hospitals
Call Members of Congress (especially Stauber) this week and next before the supposed July 4 deadline,
The Hospital and Clinic in Cook are at risk of closing if the Medicaid cuts in the budget bill (the Big Beautiful Bill) are passed. CALL PETE STAUBER at 202-224-3121 and tell him how devastating the impact would be on our community. Tell him we'll hold him accountable if the bill passes. Call today since the deadline is July 4.
**Sign the petition**
Save the Cook Area Healthcare System
A local citizen is mobilizing a petition drive. They need to gather signatures by July 1 in order to deliver them to Stauber by July 1.
You can also download & print a paper petition, gather signatures, and return to George Pliml by July 1. Contact him at grpliml@gmail.com to make arrangements to deliver your signed petitions.
Further information from the healthcare forum held in Cook
You can contact George Pliml at grpliml@gmail.com for more information.
Information on Medicaid cuts to rural hospitals
from The American Hospital Association (AHA)
Some printable resources on Medicaid in MN from Duluth Indivisible
Urgent Actions: Iran
5calls: Stop US Involvement in the Israel-Iran Conflict
a quick & easy action opportunity
Stop the War Buildup in Iran
Call the president and our senators.
Please contact President Trump and our Congressional Reps to say:
- No more bombs dropped on Iran!
- No war with Iran!
- No more FOREVER WARS!
- Peace not war!
Trump campaigned on being a 'peace president' that would end America's fascination with endless war.
- Didn't we learn the lessons from our misadventures in Iraq?
- Hasn't America had enough with our fascination with ‘forever wars' — that always exacerbate the problems rather than resolving them?
- Trump continually berated President Bush for his costly calamity in Iraq, a conflagration that was initiated, based wholly on false intelligence.
- It looks like Trump could be poised to make the same ruinous mistake, again without considering the law of unintended consequences.
Let's STOP TRUMP from dropping more bombs in Iran.
CONGRESS needs to reclaim the WAR POWERS authority vested in it:
The War Powers Resolution is a federal law enacted in 1973 intended to check the U.S. president's power to commit the United States to any military action or armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. It is a mechanism to maintain the constitutional balance of power between the executive and legislative branches in matters of war and peace.
- Contact Senator Tina Smith
- Phone: (202) 224-5641
- Contact Senator Amy Klobuchar
- Phone: (202) 224-3244
- Contact Congressman Pete Stauber
- Phone: (202) 225-6211
The good news is that a bipartisan group in the Congress opposes the war and is working to stop it.
- Bernie Sanders (D-VT) introduced the Senate No War Against Iran Act.
- Thomas Massie (R-KY) & Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduced the War Powers Resolution.
- Tim Kaine (D-VA) introduced a War Powers Resolution, with a likely vote next week.
Please call your Senators and your congressional representative to demand they support these efforts and keep America out of this disastrous conflict.
From Bombs to Bribes: Exposing Trump's Authoritarian Playbook
from Laurie Woodward Garcia's blog
"We must show up, speak out, and build the kind of power that turns the promise of America into a reality—one where everyone who calls this country home can live free of fear and has the opportunity to thrive."
She provides a clear list of actions here:
June 22, 2025
some background from Heather Cox Richardson
"For the first time in history, the United States dropped its 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs)—twelve of them—on another country."
Their Iran Narrative Is Unraveling
Jay Kuo
"On Saturday night East Coast time, the White House, without first obtaining authorization or even consulting with any Democrats in Congress, committed an act of war against Iran by dropping bunker buster bombs and firing Tomahawk cruise missiles at three of its nuclear facilities.
"It was a serious escalation that ended all ongoing diplomatic efforts, and it marked the entry of the U.S. into Israel's war with Iran."
Inspirations
Extra! Extra! 6/22 — Bright spots in the midst of the chaos.
from Jess Craven (Chop Wood, Carry Water blog)
"It's still tough times—tougher than ever, in fact. We're facing war with Iran; Los Angeles is still being tormented by ICE, and Republicans are still pathetic and cowardly. Cruel, too. It's awful.
"And yet. The resistance is rising. And I mean everywhere. So while things are very bad, and we're all doomscrolling a lot, I urge you to take just a few minutes to enjoy the things that have gone right this week—the people who have pushed back, the detainees who have been freed, the courts that have ruled the right way, and the people who haven't given up fighting. There are so many of us!"
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Northern Progressives Communication Committee
- General email (submit ideas here):
- hello@northernprogressives.org
- Betty Firth
- bfirth88@gmail.com
- Beth Peterson
- edithepeterson@gmail.com
- Judith Ulseth
- jgtulseth@gmail.com
- Northern Action
- northernaction.org