Who Will You Bring to Our No Kings Rally?
No Kings Mass Rallies June 14th
No Kings mass demonstrations are planned for hundreds, nearing a thousand, sites around the country. Everywhere except Washington, DC, where a wannabe dictator will be throwing himself a $45M "Dear Leader" style military parade for his own birthday (now THAT is fraud, waste, and abuse!).
The goal is to continue building the cadence of mass protest until we are regularly reaching the point at which 3.5% of the population is active, showing up to protest the rise of authoritarianism in the United States--or about 11-12 Million people nationally. That means we need to increase the scale of the Hands Off rallies (April 5th) by 4X.
In the Mohawk Valley, where we had about 1500 people show up at our three rally locations that day, 4X = 6000.
Is that even possible? We think it is. How?
Everybody who came to a Hands Off Rally on April 5th needs to bring 4 friends to a No Kings Rally on June 14th!
Our IMV No Kings rallies are June 14th, 12-1:30pm, in Rome, New Hartford/Utica, and Herkimer.
1) Sign up now for the rally site you'll be at.
Rome (Fort Stanwix): https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/event/787411/
New Harford/Utica (Burrstone Road): https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/event/790932/
Herkimer (321 E. Albany St.): https://www.mobilize.us/nokings/event/791119/
2) Share the registration link with your friends by text, email, social media. Invite them to carpool with you.
3) Make your posters! (We have a party for that--see below!)
We are still looking for volunteers for each of the three sites. We need safety marshals, chant leaders, and even media spokespeople. Email us if you can help, and which site you'll be at: IMV@Indivisiblemv.org. (Please note, safety marshals need to arrive one hour early and stay 30 minutes after the rally ends).
If you want to be more involved in No Kings rally planning and/or promoting, you are encouraged to join the national call today at 3:00 pm. Use this link to sign up: https://mobilize.us/s/nOHXRA
We need everyone to spread the word. In eight years of organizing big rallies, we have never attempted anything with such a big goal. But the time is now.
We can see the Republicans in Congress about to hand Trump all the power he wants--to decimate Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, steal our personal data, our federal infrastucture, our civil rights, constitutionally guaranteed due process, and ultimately to remove any checks by the courts to enforce rulings that challenge him.
It stops with us. Mark your calendar now. Register for No Kings, and recruit everyone you know to join you.
No Kings Poster Making Party
We will need lots of extra posters on June 14th for people who arrive without one. That's where you come in with your creativity, artistry, or just willingness to roll up your sleeves.
Poster Making Party for June 14th No Kings Rally
Wednesday, June 4th, 6-9 pm
Cherrywood Club House
1 Cherrywood Blvd
Clinton (just off Rt 5).
Questions? Email Teresa: tvane27@hotmail.com
Climate Crisis Working Group
LET’S GO TO ALBANY & MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD:
Rally for Solar Power on MAY 28th: The Accelerate Solar for Affordable Power ("ASAP") Act will increase the distributed solar goal to 20 gigawatts by 2035, enact utility interconnection reforms to lower costs, and continue support for solar projects that lower electricity bills for businesses, homeowners and renters. With federal policy uncertainty threatening our New York solar success story, state-level policy leadership is now more important than ever before.
Register Here: https://www.nysolarroadmap.org/take-action
Final Push for NY HEAT ACT on June 5th:
We only have a few weeks to push the Assembly to pass NY HEAT before the session ends mid-June. Join Renewable Heat Now for the last NY HEAT Albany lobby day of the legislative session!
QUICK ACTION TO TAKE NOW:
The Packaging Reduction & Recycling Infrastructure Act has passed out of the Assembly Codes Committee and will be in the Senate Finance Committee next week. YOUR VOICE can make the difference in helping ensure passage this session. Click here to email your legislators about this critical bill now. Together, we can make New York a nation-wide leader in reducing plastic packaging.
News You Might Have Missed
Congratulations to Colt Brumm, who won a threeway race for a seat on the Holland Patent School Board. Colt and Sue Brumm are longtime IMV members who have themselves volunteered for many candidates, including Celeste Friend. As busy parents of young children, they embody making political action local, bite-size, and fun. IMV not only congratulates Colt, but also offers appreciation to the IMV volunteers who have supported his run for School Board this year and in the past.
Recently, letters by Regina Kekis and Margie Thickstun have been published in the Daily Sentinel. Great job! There were also good letters by Mike Corbett and Sally Carman. Sally's letter was especially powerful because it gave a personal testimony about a family member who needs Medicaid without work requirements. Keep those LTE's coming--especially if you have a story to tell or direct knowledge of how the Republican budget bill harms you, your family, your business/farm/job, or your community.
On May 7th, Sarah Reeske held a OneNYS Indivisible call that was full of good information and tools. Here was what she covered, in case you missed it. And one really cool tool shared by a group leader from the Capital Region was a single sheet "Alternatives to legacy media" that their group distributes to people who come to their meetings. We loved it and wanted to share it with you here: Alternatives to Legacy Media.
The Bad Budget Bill: A Special Ask for You if You Live in NY21
From Ezra at Indivisible:
"House Republicans just passed their Medicaid-slashing, billionaire-enriching megabill (aka the Republican Tax Scam) in a 215-214 vote.
This fight isn’t over, and this bill can still be stopped! Even now, as Speaker Johnson and his pals prematurely pop their champagne, we have two clear paths to killing this bill:
We can defeat the bill outright in the Senate by pressuring four Senate Republicans into abstaining or voting against it.
If the Senate changes even one word of the bill -- and GOP Senators are already pledging major rewrites their House counterparts won’t like -- it’ll go back to the House for another vote, giving us a second chance to block it there.
Let’s break that all down a bit more. To start, it’s important to remember that Republicans are using what used to be a fairly unusual legislative maneuver -- reconciliation -- to skirt the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster. To do that, the House and Senate must agree to pass the exact same bill, down to the letter, in both chambers.
But Senate Republicans simply aren’t going to pass the House’s bill without major changes. Vulnerable senators are concerned about draconian cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. Others think the cuts should be even more ruthless, or are annoyed at some of the deficit-ballooning deals Johnson had to make to get this thing through the House.
There are no easy fixes for Republican leadership here. The divides are so deep, and the cuts so politically toxic, that we have a real shot at flipping four votes to stop reconciliation in the Senate outright, just like we did in 2017.
Even if a bill does squeak through the Senate, it’ll be significantly different from what the House just voted on. That means another tough round of deal-making, infighting, and politically risky votes for House Republicans -- with no guarantee of success.
MAGA Republicans will be furious that some of their cuckoo, extremist ideas got stripped out.
Swing-seat Republicans will be furious they need to vote twice to cut Medicaid and SNAP -- especially if the Senate strips out special concessions Johnson promised to secure their yes votes in the first place.
And Trump will be furious he’s not simply getting his way, instantly and unquestioningly.
If that happens -- and if we keep relentless pressure on vulnerable Republicans -- the bill may never pass the House a second time. Getting it across the finish line in one chamber took a herculean effort. Passing it again, with two chambers involved and weeks of additional pressure, will be even harder.
Whether we stop the reconciliation bill in the Senate or in the House, there’s no doubt we can still win this fight! But we’ll need to ratchet up pressure on Republicans in both chambers right now.
You can also use this tool to send them an email."
So, if you are in NY21, we are asking you to make that call or send that email right now. Elise Stefanik is not exactly on the fence, but she needs to know the danger she is in, and as a MAGA movement leader, she's going to carry that knowledge with her when she is interacting with more vulnerable members of her caucus.
Sum Up and Inspiration
Thanks to everyone who came to IMV's May meeting on Zoom on Wednesday! We had a bunch of people who stayed on the call for Sarah Reeske's Orientation to IMV presentation. If you missed it, but want to know more about IMV, you can see what you missed here.
We know this was a tough week if you follow the news. The horrible Project 2025/Trump budget passed the House. Here’s a list of just some of the awful things House Republicans voted in favor of. Use it to hold Republicans accountable, educate your neighbors, and keep the fire burning for the hard work still ahead:
Empty stomachs for millions of kids and seniors thanks to the largest cuts to food assistance (e.g. SNAP) in US history
Higher home electric bills driven by huge cuts to clean energy investments that fund most new power sources
Runaway college costs and bigger student loans caused by billions of dollars being cut from loan, loan forgiveness, and Pell Grant programs
More challenges to holding Trump accountable after Republicans slipped in a one-sentence provision that would make it extremely difficult for courts to hold Trump administration officials in contempt for violating court orders
10,000 new ICE agents at a time the agency is arresting political opponents, defying court orders, and deporting US citizens
New attacks on the trans community as Republicans inserted a last-minute change banning Medicaid from covering gender affirming care
Tax breaks for people buying gun silencers (“Who asked for this? The assassin lobby?” asked one Democratic lawmaker)
Millions of patients denied cancer screenings and reproductive care due to the defunding of Planned Parenthood and banning of abortion coverage under ACA insurance plans
Hospital layoffs, service cuts, and closures thanks to historic cuts to vital healthcare funding
14 million people kicked off their healthcare due to major cuts and restrictions on Medicaid and other healthcare programs, like the Affordable Care Act
But...there is good newsi in the midst of the horrible.
The Democrats stood unified; not a single one defected to vote for the bill.
Our NY22 Member of Congress, Rep. John Mannion, not only voted against the bill, he attempted to add an amendment that would have invalidated any part of the bill that raised health care costs for working families. In addition, he posted videos daily in the lead up to vote, criticizing the content of the bill and the sneaky and secretive methods the Republicans used to pass it. This is a world of difference to the previous NY22 Rep. Brandon Williams.
As noted in the section above from Ezra at Indivisible, there is still a long way to go before this budget bill becomes law, and we have time to continue to mobilize and protest. We had about 25 people show up in Utica last Friday in the middle of the afternoon for a pop up rally. Expect more pop up rallies in the days ahead!
We are not giving up. We are just getting started. We were made for this moment.
No one let go of anyone's hand.
Breathe, then push.
Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Follow us on Bluesky: @Indivisiblemv.bsky.social, on Instagram's Threads.net/@indivisiblemohawkvalley, on X (Twitter) using @indivisiblemv and of course on our Facebook page and IMV Activism Group.
