Strategy & Action ^
ACLU Know Your Voting Rights
Good Trouble Lives On
- When:
- July 13, 7:00pm CT
- Where:
- Online
We’re honoring the courage, sacrifice, and struggle of those who came before us by protecting and defending our right to vote.
This training will break down how to exercise your right to vote, including how to resist voter intimidation efforts and access assistance at the polls.
ACLU People Power
Organize during August recess
- When:
- July 14, 7:00pm CT
- Where:
- Online
For months, members of Congress have been making decisions in Washington that affect our rights, our communities, and our futures. Now they're coming home. During August Recess, lawmakers return to their districts to meet with constituents, attend community events, and hear directly from the people they represent. Join ACLU People Power on 7/14 at 8 PM ET to learn how to engage your elected officials, hold them accountable, and advocate for the civil liberties and democratic values our communities deserve.
Greater Minnesota Organizing Call
Peggy Flanagan to the U.S. Senate
- When:
- Every Other Wednesday (July 15, 29)
7:00–8:00pm
- Where:
- Online
This is your chance to connect with volunteers from across Greater Minnesota, get the latest campaign updates, and learn how you can help elect Peggy Flanagan to the U.S. Senate. Whether you're a longtime volunteer or getting involved for the first time, these calls are a great way to build community, share ideas, and take action to help us win.
Together, we're organizing in every corner of Minnesota and building the grassroots movement needed to send Peggy to Washington.
Justice for Lorenzo
Day of Action & Accountability Movement Call
- When:
- July 15, 7:00pm CT
- Where:
- Online
Join us for the Justice for Lorenzo: Day of Action and Accountability Movement Call on July 15th at 8 pm ET/ 5 pm PT, where we will gather in solidarity to hear from Lorenzo’s loved ones, get updates about the case, and learn how you can take action over the coming weeks to demand justice and accountability for Lorenzo and his family.
On the call we will provide tips and tactics to support you in taking actions that include a powerful visual symbol to lift up during the World Cup final (Lorenzo’s son was named Ronaldo after the soccer star) and vigils to be held across the country on or around July 25 in solidarity with community vigils taking place right now in Houston and across Texas.
The violence that took Lorenzo's life cannot be hidden behind secrecy, lies, or impunity. Justice for Lorenzo means justice for everyone living under the threat of unchecked immigration enforcement violence in our country.
Immigrant Justice Summer
a training series from Indivisible
- When:
- July [9], 23, & August 6 (& more), 7:00 CT
- Where:
- Online
The Trump administration is buying up warehouses across the country to expand its detention and deportation regime while planning for more militarized surges in major US cities. The threat is escalating. This resource breaks down what we're demanding, how communities are fighting back, and how you can get trained to respond when ICE comes to your community.
Election Protection Tabletop Workshop
Duluth Indivisible hosts the Groundworks Institute
- When:
- July 25, 9:30am–12:30pm
- Where:
- Radisson Hotel Duluth — Harborview
Great Hall
505 West Superior Street
Duluth, MN
Come work through scenarios generated in conjunction with the offices of the Minnesota Secretary of State and Attorney General about possible disruptions in our upcoming elections, and what we as a community can do to be prepared. This workshop is meant to calm our minds by thinking through concrete examples together regarding our upcoming elections. If something untoward happens, we’re executing a plan, not trying to create and execute at the same time. It’s a long road from voter registration to election certification and for most of us it has operated in the background our whole voting lives. This year, 2026, is different.
Neighbor2Neighbor
Indivisible
We're going all in to help Peggy Flanagan win her Senate primary, and last week we launched our Neighbor2Neighbor canvassing tool statewide in Minnesota.
Neighbor2Neighbor (N2N) is our revolutionary voter contact program that makes getting out the vote quick and easy. There's no app to download. No need for fancy tech. Just complete the signup form and we'll connect you with 10 likely progressive neighbors who may need a reminder to vote.
Then, you can knock on doors whenever is most convenient for you.
People who hear from a trusted neighbor are up to two times more likely to vote than those who don't. The key to turnout-and the success of our Neighbor2Neighbor program-is connecting on a personal level with those we live closest to.
Beyond the BWCA: Sulfide Mining Looming Threat to Minnesota
with Water Over Nickel, Friends of the Mississippi River, and Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA)
- When:
- July 28, 12:00pm
- Where:
- Online
"Talon Metals/Rio Tinto plans to mine a 'massive sulphide mineralization' with high levels of sulfide and toxic metals. Drilling in the huge 31,000 acre area where Talon controls private land and state leases (about 85% of the size of Minneapolis) controlled by Talon Metals in central Minnesota’s Aitkin County, Talon has already found sulfide ore both in the Sandy River and Tamarack River watershed, which flow through the Big Sandy Lake Flowage to the Mississippi River and along the West Branch Kettle River, which flows downstream to the St. Croix River."
Upcoming
- August 5: DNR Public Meeting McGregor High School
- August 12: DNR Public Meeting Blaine Sports Arena
Talon Mine Tours
Talon Mine Tours is an educational tour company led by local artists, organizers, and communitiy members who live in rural Aitkin County, Minnesota — where Rio Tinto and Talon Metals propose to build a 'nickel mining district' — purportedly for Tesla electric vehicle batteries.
We offer free pop-up mine tours as well as guided tours of nearby lakes, rivers, wild rice beds, and other places worth protecting. Private tours & other guided educational experiences are also available by request.
We serve our nearby neighbors as well as visiting school groups, environmental & community organizations, mission-aligned businesses, policymakers, and curious family or friend groups.
The Minnesota DNR’s public comment period for Rio Tinto and Talon Metal’s proposed Tamarack Project runs from July 14th – September 12, 2026.
This proposed mine is in nearly the same place as Line 3 oil pipeline, but much more destructive … this is such a water-rich place, and it’s some of the most abundant wild rice in the region, in the world really.
Public hearings are scheduled for August 5th in McGregor, and August 12th in Blaine.
Stay tuned for upcoming events
Building Trust with Community Works
from the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative (RUBI)
- When:
- July 22, 5:30 CT
- Where:
- Online
Find out how to get involved in RUBI’s on-the-ground work to build trust, address concrete local needs, and increase collaboration across the ideological divide in rural and working class communities.
What Physics Tells Us About Defeating Fascism
The rules apply everywhere
"When you excite an atom, it transfers energy to the atoms around it. It doesn’t use Roberts Rules of Order, coordinate with the receiving atoms, or need a central command structure telling it which direction to move. Energy transfers through matter according to laws that predate every government that has ever existed and will outlast every government that will ever exist. An atom moves around more, that creates what we call heat, sufficient heat applied to any system then produces changes that system; movement and time are the only variables.
"Every person who files a complaint, makes a call, sends a letter, shows up at an office, crashes a fundraiser, or loudly shows up somewhere they were not expected is an atom now excited and generating energy. They transfer energy to the people immediately around them, those people transfer it further, their actions can even become amplified, this movement and energy generates heat. Heat softens and melts and allows reformation."
The Blueprint for Beating Trump
"Democrats need to fight harder and prioritize outcomes to defeat Republicans"
"Marc Elias sits down with Brian Tyler Cohen to discuss his new book, "The Day After: How to Wield Power in a Post-Trump World," which makes the case that Democrats need to fight harder and prioritize outcomes over institutional deference to defeat Republicans. They break down the Supreme Court's latest term and the case for court reform, but also dig into the bigger argument: that clinging to norms like the filibuster risks squandering a rare chance to win back disillusioned voters. Brian lays out what he believes Democrats need to be ready to act on from day one, including voting rights reform and election integrity. They also break down how independent media is reshaping political strategy heading into the midterms."
Beyond Red and Blue
Nine groups show the conflicting values underlying today’s polarized politics
"American politics is deeply divided along partisan lines – and for many Americans, the choice between the two parties feels stark, even existential.
"But beneath that familiar red-blue partisan divide is a much more nuanced picture: Many Americans hold a complex mix of values and beliefs that don’t always fit neatly into either major party.
"Pew Research Center’s new political typology shows how this complexity plays out, sorting the public into nine distinct groups based on their political and cultural values, not their party. The result is a picture of American politics with far more than two colors in it."
The Rhythm of Reform
In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense...
"Today our Constitution and the institutions of self-government face extraordinary pressure. In the first two months of 2026 alone, we saw an invasion of Venezuela without congressional authorization, a threat to use military force to seize Greenland from a NATO ally, and a criminal investigation into Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve Board, which Powell decried as an attempt to coerce the Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates. We saw the sickening sight of federal agents killing two civilians in Minnesota in separate incidents, including, Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse at the Veterans Administration who was witnessing and protesting abuse, followed by a fusillade of lies from top officials who labeled him a “domestic terrorist” and “an assassin.” These events unfolded alongside the launch of a full-scale war in the Middle East, undertaken without congressional debate or authorization and with scant public explanation at all.
"As Canadian prime minister Mark Carney put it in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, “[w]e are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”
"At the Brennan Center for Justice, which I lead, we work to counter abuses of power every day. We are deeply engaged in the broad campaign to counter the executive power grab, including filing or coordinating dozens of briefs in the flotilla of cases addressing executive authority. We are preparing to ensure that the 2026 election will be free, fair, and secure. In that effort, we work with election officials and law enforcement officers from both parties. We do so in the face of something unprecedented in our nation’s history: a coordinated campaign by the federal government to undermine elections.
"All of this is vital work. But that cannot be all that we do. We must begin, now, to imagine a better future—a future after the wreckage. What will matter most at this moment is not just what we are against, but what we are for.
"It is emphatically the time to begin mapping out the next reform agenda."
Hands Off Our Vote 2026
Hands Off Our Vote is Indivisible’s national program to ensure all eligible voters get to cast their ballot, and that those ballots get counted
"We know that Trump and his Big Lie cronies are plotting to do everything they can to undermine our elections in 2026. Whether it’s trying to end mail-in voting, targeting registration programs, blocking vote-counting, even trying to ban states from encouraging people to vote – it’s going to be no-holds-barred from them this year as they try desperately to block the free and fair elections.
"But we’re going to cut through the noise, and we’re going to be ready for whatever dirty tricks they try. And we’re going to do it with community power and preparation, not panic."
5calls
Pick an action & make a call
Write Postcards to Swing States
Progressive Turnout Project
Sign up for our Get Out the Vote postcards. We'll send you the postcards for free, along with voter lists and instructions with proven message options. You will need to provide the Postcard Stamps (currently $0.61). All the mailing dates for these postcards are in October.
Call for Writing
Activate your voice — storytellers, poets & independent journalists wanted
Panatrope wants you for the launch their new journal!
They are accepting written work of any genre: Poetry: up to 5 pages
Short Fiction or nonfiction: between 400-5000 words.
Call for Storytellers
New show planned to launch in July
"Humans evolved opposable thumbs to be able to hold on. We evolved Story to know what to hold on to."
What’s your story? We’re celebrating the art of oral storytelling —
the every day way we all communicate with each other.
For our new podcast, 'North Star Lane', we’re collecting personal stories about connections —
to place, to the past, to each other.
Stories should be 3–10 minutes in length, and can range in tone from funny incident to elegy and everything in between.
Michael Goldberg is collecting the stories.
Send audio to him — or a note to arrange a phone call or zoom —
at goldberg.actionmedia@gmail.com.
He is also looking for storytellers for a live storytelling show in Grand Rapids,Labor Day weekend, themed On the Job. Let him know if you’d like more information about that.
North Star Lane is produced by Michael Goldberg, who lives in the woods of northern Minnesota and collects stories from his friends and neighbors. They tell stories about their connections – to place, to the past, to each other – and about things that are important to them. We think a lot of the same things are important to us all.
Be a Walking Voter Registration Booth
Talk to neighbors, friends, family, co-workers — Make sure everyone has a plan to vote.
We have business-size cards you can print & distribute.
Download & print on your own, send a digital version to your contacts, or arrange for us to get you
already-printed cards.
Once you have a card in hand you can help people you encounter use a handy QR code to get straight
to an online voter registration portal.
Organizing to Protect Democracy
Recorded training from the ACLU
In a moment when our right to vote is facing relentless attacks, understanding how elections work has never been more important.
Now, we have the electoral knowledge and skills to be active in protecting our democracy.
Why Even Try?
People who produce measurable political effects usually cannot detect them.
"A friend asked me recently whether to stop trying to change anything and simply let things happen. The question was not flippant. My friend was tired of having his heart broken, felt he was accomplishing nothing, and could not tell whether ten years of effort had made any difference to anyone. My friend also wanted to know whether continuing was a moral obligation or a bad habit.
"Exhaustion doing this work has a specific, ordinary cause. It comes from doing the work without the three things that make it survivable: regular doses at a sustainable size, scheduled rest, and other people who cover the work when one person needs a break. A person feeling this exhaustion has not reached some hidden limit, and the work has not become pointless. Something specific is missing, and it can be restored.
"Despair here is the same physiological state described earlier: produced by a threat that continues for a long time. It responds to acting rather than to winning. The feeling itself is not evidence about whether trying is worthwhile.
"The question my friend asked, whether to stop, has a specific answer. If he stops, he becomes the person he is afraid of becoming: someone who no longer cares."
"..."
"Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize in economics for documenting how ordinary communities govern shared resources, such as fisheries, irrigation systems, and forests, without either private ownership or state control. She identified eight design principles common to the arrangements that lasted for centuries. The eighth is nested enterprises: in systems that endure, governance is organized as small local units, with larger units composed of those smaller ones, as described in the Policy Studies Journal. Systems organized as a single unit, whether local or national, rarely last."
Journalism Matters ^
Witness (& the power of the humble hyperlink in the midst of AI search-summary slop)
Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
‘He did not deserve to die’: family of man fatally shot by ICE agent speaks out
"ICE officers in an unmarked car shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three, on his way to work.
We demand justice for Lorenzo and accountability for all of Trump’s thugs."
— Indivisible
"Salgado, 52, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official on Tuesday morning, while on his way to work at a construction site. Salgado’s family said he was a “hardworking family man”, had lived in the US for more than 30 years"
Trump administration stopping 4 Minnesota wind power developments
The Trump administration’s de facto freeze on wind energy puts 1,200 construction jobs, 4,400 “indirect and induced” jobs and more than $168 million in economic impact at risk for Minnesota, according to a new report from a St. Paul-based progressive think tank.
"The U.S. Department of Defense has stopped completing the mandated — and once-routine — national security review process for proposed wind farms. As a result, Minnesota could lose four wind energy projects that could generate enough power for several hundred thousand homes, North Star Policy Action says.
"The apparent Pentagon work stoppage is stalling more than 250 wind projects nationwide. If the Minnesota projects don’t move forward, the state stands to lose around $1.6 billion in direct investment."
MNsure enrollment dropped 12% in 2026
after jump in insurance costs
"The dip in insurance coverage offered on MNsure — the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace — mirrors a nationwide trend in 2026. The drop in coverage was expected after most Republican senators blocked Democratic efforts to extend extra federal subsidies that offset the cost of health care premiums — what people pay upfront to be insured — for millions of Americans since 2021.
"Subsidies under the Affordable Care Act offset the cost of health insurance premiums for families who make below 400% of the federal poverty level — in 2026, for example, $132,000 was the cutoff for a household of four. The subsidies were designed to help people who aren’t eligible for Medicaid or Medicare but also don’t have enough money to pay for unaffordable employer insurance or private insurance."
Food stamp changes will cost states billions
Raising fears about SNAP’s future
"Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act made major changes to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, including new eligibility and work requirements. Already, more than 4 million Americans have lost SNAP benefits, putting more pressure on food banks and food pantries across the country.
"But beginning in fall 2027, states for the first time must begin to fund some SNAP benefits themselves. Analyses of newly released data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show states could be on the hook for more than $9 billion. Some states, county officials and advocates fear this will remove more Americans from the safety net program and even push some states to consider dropping out of SNAP altogether."
Trump fires all Election Assistance Commission members
The firings leave the federal election agency with no commissioners & unable to act as Trump seeks to reshape voting rules
"The firings leave the four-member commission with no commissioners, meaning it cannot take official action until new members are installed. They also come days after the Supreme Court granted the president power to fire leaders of independent agencies, weakening a legal framework that for decades had insulated bipartisan federal commissions from direct White House control."
Pod Save Patriarchy
or Whatever That Sorry Platner Spectacle Was (by Rebecca Solnit)
"For at least a decade we have been told that this and that and the other thing must be tolerated in pursuit of the elusive vote of the working class or the white working class which often means the white male working class which becomes in turn a way that "working class" is too often used by middle-class pundits and politicians to justify centering the needs, desires, and prejudices of white men while insisting that this is a very progressive position to take. In other words, "working class" becomes a Trojan horse for white men.
"On the one hand most of those in the USA who could be described as working class are neither white nor male, and on the other those who are telling us that the Hunt for the Working Class must take priority over all else tend to be middle-class white men when they're telling us we must give up our commitment to other issues – women's rights, racial justice, immigrant rights, climate action. There is immense condescension in their imagined Working Class White Man whose prejudices must be pandered to, and of course those prejudices are their own or at least something they're willing to accept. (There's also a lot of nostalgia in this version of the working class, an image of that class as masculine manual laborers of the industrial variety when a lot of the working class in our fairly post-industrial nation is disproportionately people of color doing pink-collar women's work, casual and gig-economy labor, urban workers, janitors, and farmworkers.)
"As sociologist and New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom put it last October, "Their rhetoric — and the conventional wisdom that flows from it — suggests that we cannot talk about economic solutions without abandoning our commitment to the Black, Latino, gay, transgender and female poor that are the lifeblood of the Democratic Party’s base. The conceit at the heart of that belief is that poor white people are too racist, and too uniquely ignorant of their racism, to vote in their best interests. Therefore, Democrats have to accept a little racism to win the working class." Cottom is a Black woman; Black women are the single most loyal constituency of the party, the ones who vote for it in the highest numbers, but I have never heard similar arguments about how we must bend to their needs no matter what. She continues, "Our culture is built to eternally forgive men, generally, and white men of means, especially, for their mistakes. Every single time, they were young and immature and it would be a shame to hold them accountable for anything they did wrong."
Graham Platner Must Go
"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is proof positive that we need not tolerate such abuses in order to get politicians with working-class backgrounds that stay in touch with their roots"
"But it is not merely because he allegedly committed these crimes, it is because the entire mythology built up around him represents a danger to the small-d democratic movement. We will not defeat fascism by propping up the men who act as its mercenaries and collect their payment in entitlement over the lives and bodies of others. We need a diverse coalition; it will be messy, conflicted, and made of imperfect people with imperfect histories or imperfect politics; but there must, in the final analysis, be a line drawn on who we give power to. We can welcome the vote of Graham Platner the citizen, in the privacy of the ballot box, without arguing he is entitled to become one of the world’s most powerful lawmakers. In a nation of some 340 million people, we can surely do better.
"...it is profoundly insulting to armies of working-class Americans who have not committed rape, domestic violence, gotten Nazi tattoos, or posted bigoted screeds online, to suggest that such things define their class—and that acceptance of them is the only path that will connect them to high office. If nothing else, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is proof positive that we need not tolerate such abuses in order to get politicians with working-class backgrounds that stay in touch with their roots."
Red state? Blue state?
Here are the races that will likely determine party control at the Minnesota Legislature
"The largest district in surface area could be the most competitive. District 3 spans 14,809 square miles, slicing across the Duluth suburbs and Iron Range and bubbling over with debates over data centers, guns and mining.
"The Senate race is a rematch of the 2022 contest when DFLer Grant Hauschild eked by Republican Andrea Zupancich with just less than 51% of the vote."
Wall Street Wants to Change the Rules for Your 401(k).
It Could Put Your Retirement at Risk
"Financial firms want a bigger piece of the $10 trillion in America’s 401(k) plans, and the Trump administration is planning a regulatory rollback to encourage less-regulated — and often riskier — investments."
Inspiration ^
Remembering Congressman John Lewis
Good Trouble Lives On
"A civil rights icon and member of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Lewis of Georgia was a freedom fighter for more than 60 years. Called one of the most courageous activists the Civil Rights Movement ever produced, he dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties and building what he called the 'beloved community' in America."
Minnesota begins distributing $40 million in rental assistance
"A $40 million boost to a state homelessness prevention program will soon reach thousands of Minnesotans.
"The divided Legislature approved the extra housing assistance in the 2026 legislative session, funneling the money to the Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance Program, which provides supportive services and financial assistance, such as rent deposits, rent payments or utility payments.
"Gov. Tim Walz proposed the rental assistance funding in the wake of Operation Metro Surge, when thousands of immigration agents flooded Minnesota, causing many immigrants to hide at home — in some cases, forgoing work — for fear of arrest, deportation and violence. Hundreds of immigrants were detained despite holding valid work permits, causing some immigrants to lose their jobs, and families their breadwinners.
"The $40 million is expected to provide housing stability to 11,000 Minnesotans, according to a press release from Walz’s office."
Cloquet man named Bush Fellow for Ojibwe language preservation
"When Alex Kmett first became interested in learning his ancestral language of Ojibwe as a teenager, he didn’t have the resources available now.
"Twenty years later, Ojibwe language preservation efforts have been made both nationally and locally, such as the Ojibwe-language version of “Star Wars” and the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College Ojibwe Language program. However, Kmett hopes to continue to strengthen language revitalization efforts."
Quiltmakers, Keepers of American History
Combatting moves to erase history with stitching, batting, and squares of fabric
"This July 4, 2026, marks the 250th anniversary of “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.” During the past 18 months, the current administration has pressed the National Park Service to remove American stories from its visitor center walls and websites. Erasures within American history are not new, but the systematic approach of the current regime conveys its blatant disrespect and hostility for Americans, especially the Black, Brown, and LGBTQ Americans who have fought for civil rights. The grassroots will step up, using performance and visual arts to keep these stories visible. Women have a crafty tradition of encoding history in quilts that are both a vehicle of history and its witness.
"Genny Güracar is now in her 90s. Back in the mid-1970s, she was teaching for the YWCA of Palo Alto California adult education programs....
For Genny, the quilt is not a relic of the 1970s. It is a form of witness. Quilts have tracked the things going on in people’s lives for hundreds of years, she says, and this one is no different. As she wrote: 'This quilt is a continuation of a long tradition of women’s creativity in needlework. We join and carry on the work of our foremothers who in quilting reflected on and recorded the history of their times.' And in 2026, she notes: 'We are part of our history. Making our own history.' Genny points out that women were long excluded from the formal art world, and that quilts are now recognized as works of art — another kind of progress worth naming.
