Please vote for the CD-08 U.S. Representative we need and deserve

Northern and Central Minnesota need and deserve a representative who has the courage to meet with all of us, listen to our needs, the intelligence to understand the problems, work hard to find solutions, and the commitment and ability to fight to make our lives more affordable and livable. 

The first time I met Trina Swanson and heard her speak, I was impressed by her strong and straightforward manner and her pledge to improving the lives of ALL her constituents. 

Unlike Pete Stauber who refuses to have open town halls where he might be challenged and instead has hastily publicized phone-in town halls where callers and questions are screened to make him look good; Trina has had the courage to travel to every county in CD-08 and meet as many people as possible. 

When she met a Stauber supporter who had been given the false idea that Stauber was responsible for the new $1.8 billion Blatnik bridge project in Duluth, Trina used her know-how and honesty to prove that Pete had misled him and she gained a supporter. Indeed, Stauber voted no to the huge job-producing infrastructure project initially, changing his vote only when he saw that he could benefit. 

Trina is a new face as a political candidate, but has experience serving in government, is a lawyer with management skills who, when faced with making compromises in her job by a Trump administration bent on destroying government service for people, resigned from her job of 14 years rather than do something against her conscience.

Stauber has chosen to support Trump legislation almost 100% of the time, including the One Big Beautiful Bill, which cuts Medicare/Medicaid funding that rural hospitals and clinics depend on, stops tax credits that keep health insurance affordable, eliminates food assistance protections for veterans and others in need, shifts $32 million in food assistance and healthcare costs onto Minnesota counties, and gives tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy. 

Stauber, like Trump, chooses to lie and blame problems on others, lacks the courage to tell the truth, and has sold the future of the BWCAW and possible future jobs in northern Minnesota to a Chilean mining conglomerate which lacks a clean record on protecting the environment from nickel/copper mining spills which leak a battery acid form of toxic waste poisoning the water for plants, animals and people.   

Together we can send Trina Swanson to Washington to provide new leadership for our region and build a future where people can afford to stay, work, and raise a family. 
Let’s do this!
Barbara Lund Gabler
Lutsen, Minnesota

School district should go back to drawing board

Once again, the voters of ISD 709 – Duluth Public Schools – are being asked to voluntarily increase the school district share of local property taxes by an amount that is unreasonable and for a length of time that is equally unreasonable.  

As it did in 2024, the Citizens Research Council is recommending that the voters turn down this request.
Many District residents do not feel that the continued academic struggles of too many Duluth students should result in adding more funding to a system which fails so many. Most residents believe all students should, at the very least, be able to read, write and do math at grade level. They also believe, with much justification, that district failures will not be remedied by rewarding the system financially.

The district has sent out a lot of information on the referendum and claims it is being honest and transparent about the effects of a “Yes” vote.  But the purported “transparency” is anything but. For example, one glossy mailer estimates the tax impact of homes of three different values. But buried in the fine print is the statement, “Both levies would increase at the rate of inflation each year.”  

Not only do we find this to be an astonishing clause, but there is no information included on the tax ramifications after year two. The inflation rate in recent years has been at about 3% but is far from fixed at that number. The life of an approved levy increase would be 10 years. The math is quite simple: 3%, compounded annually, results in property taxes rising by more than 30% by year 10. Automatic increases, year after year.

It gets better, and this is the kind of lack of transparency by the school district that is nothing less than blatantly dishonest. State law allows a school board, by a simple majority vote, to extend the levy for another10 years after the approved levy expires with the same inflation escalator included. So,10 years from now, four people, school board members, would be able to extend this levy without any kind of taxpayer consent or approval. And the starting numbers will be the inflated numbers from the expiring levy. This alone, we believe, fully justifies a resounding vote of “No” on Nov. 3.

 If that is not enough, the district is asking voters to approve not one but two different levies at a current cost of an additional $180 in the first year, which would then be inflated annually for likely the next 20 years. Amazingly, there are no guarantees that if approved these levies would satisfy the district’s appetite for more cash in the future. There are some additional reasons for not obligating the taxpayers for the next potentially 20 years, such as declining student enrollment, that should cause voters to be cautious.

We are recommending a “NO” vote on this referendum package.  Hopefully the district can present a more reasonable proposal in the future.
Citizens Research Council
Duluth, Minesota
 
The success of the Epstein Class

The founders of the United States had had enough of hereditary nobility, so they eliminated the king, princes, dukes, earls, viscounts and all titles of nobility. Many now think this was a mistake. Fortunately recent changes made to our laws and norms have restored hereditary nobility to the United States. Our new hereditary nobility is the Epstein Class.

In the past several decades wealth has been concentrated in the hands of about 1% of the people. With that concentration of wealth has come a concentration of power. Since the turn of the century wealth and power have been used by the few to put laws in place that favor them, the corporations they own, and the wealth they control. While most laws govern only little people, Epstein Class laws favor the wealthiest 1%. Free speech now equals the amount of wealth a corporation or person possesses and that wealth driven speech can be used anonymously and constantly for the good of the Epstein Class through every media outlet. 

In the past 20 years the Epstein Class has been successful at mostly eliminating inheritance taxes for the very wealthy. That way they can pass on wealth to dependents without impediment, thus ensuring that the Epstein Class can perpetuate itself through its offspring indefinitely. For each successive generation of the Epstein Class, besides inherited wealth, more wealth is accumulated through tax breaks for the most wealthy corporations and individuals in our society.

Now that the Epstein Class has complete control of our federal government, they have replaced democracy with a form of monarchy. Members of the Epstein Class now manage our space program, national defense, and allocation of funds to all programs that were formerly controlled by our federal government. They are using tax dollars to glorify themselves through advertising, monuments and are even starting to put their likenesses on money. Foreign policy is decided by the Epstein Class for their own benefit. They manipulate market trades, betting, contracting, laws and rules for their own benefit and the benefit of other Epstein Class members without oversight.

Now that the United States has the Epstein Class as hereditary rulers, the rest of us can stop wasting time worrying about liberty, justice and equality and get down to the work of supporting our rulers. While the descendants of the Epstein Class rule, our descendants will toil away to pay the extravagant bills the Epstein Class runs up as they squander resources and degrade the environment. 

Time to forget about the no kings nonsense. All hail the Epstein Class! Their success is our future.
Jason Maloney
Washburn, Wisconsin

Are you helping?

The idea of the common truth has slipped and receded from our culture.  The erosion of truth has been going on for quite awhile and yet since Mr. Trump’s re-election it has never been so forceful, so harsh, and so extreme. The amount of lies and constant back and forth of his dictates has people’s brains shutting down. Not to mention the reduction of newspapers and media where we use to turn to for common truth.

I wonder if every time we have dialogue we will have to find commonalities so basic and then go from there? Like all humans need water to live and air to breath – and so do other animals and insects. Actually, all life needs water and air. So a common truth could be we need to protect our water and air and share it with the rest of life.

Do you know that the scientific community overwhelmingly agrees that we have until 2030 to cut our fossil fuel emission in half or humanity will suffer devastating consequences? Are you actively finding ways to reduce your dependence on fossil fuels? Do you use your voice to tell your representatives?  And are you promoting and voting for political change? 

As heat waves, floods, droughts and fire storms share their truths with us, that the atmosphere is being super heated by our fossil fuel use, can we align our actions to a common truth that the Climate Crisis is threatening our world?
Amy C. Wilson
Port Wing, Wisconsin

Just more Republican scapegoating

Perpetrators of pandemic-related fraud in Minnesota have been prosecuted, or are still in the process of being prosecuted. The main instigator of the Feeding Our Futures fraud (a white woman) has been sentenced to prison. The price of that fraud is estimated at between $250 million and $350 million
Also, the Small Business Administration suspended 7,900 pandemic loans in Minnesota totaling another $400 million for suspected fraud unrelated to FOF. According to economist Dean Baker, the General Accounting Office found a nationwide total of $300 BILLION of pandemic-era fraud in the US. Minnesota has 2% of the U.S. population, and if it had experienced fraud at the same rate as the country in general, it would have suffered $6 billion in fraud.

But Minnesota, far from being an outlier, was way below the national average. In fact, the libertarian Cato Institute has ranked Minnesota near the bottom (46th out of 50 states) for public corruption.
It is tragic that Somalis living in Minnesota have been scapegoated despite the fact that the vast majority of them had nothing to do with fraud. But that’s how racism, and fascist propaganda, work – identify some “outsiders” to be scapegoated, and exploit the fears and ignorance of the majority to manipulate that majority. Minnesota ranks near the bottom in public corruption, and most Somalis had nothing to do with fraud, but the truth will never get in the way of Republicans’ propaganda, because they can’t campaign on what they’re really up to.
David A Sorensen
Duluth, Minnesota

Smilin’ Pete screwed Minnesotans again

Minnesota’s minerals have supported generations of good-paying union jobs and helped build communities across our district.
As the federal government funds expansion of mining operations in right-to-work states rather than in Minnesota, we need to make sure our natural resources continue to benefit Minnesota workers and families. 
In 2026 alone, we’ve seen two major investments announced that would use Minnesota iron to create jobs elsewhere. First, U.S. Steel announced a $1.9 billion investment in Arkansas, promising jobs to Arkansas, but none for Minnesota, then five months later, Mesabi Metallics announced a $15 billion investment in lowa to process Minnesota iron ore. This was supported by $10 billion in financing through the federal Export-Import Bank, which is controlled by Congressional Republicans, including Pete Stauber.

Minnesota has a proud history of union labor, and we should be doing everything we can to protect it. Our iron ore should help create good-paying jobs here at home, not just fuel economic growth somewhere else. But Pete Stauber cut us and Union Labor out of the deal. Vote Trina Swanson. She is FOR Union Labor and FOR Minnesota 
Sanda Oslin
Grand Marais, Minnesota

Lisa Demuth lies just like Trump

With Lisa Demuth saying that all the crimes were committed by Somalians here is false. Most of them have not.  Most of the shootings, like the one at the Annunciation church and the shooting of Melissa and Mark Hortman, have been committed by white males not Somalians.
As for the so-called gang shootings I haven’t heard of any. I asked some of my friends who live down there and they also have never heard of some of what she’s saying and one lives in Edina so she would have known about it if it had happened.
Another thing Lisa Demuth and the republicans vetoed all gun prevention bills that would have helped reduce gun violence.
I would also like to say that whenever I’ve been down in the cities every Somalian that I met hasn’t been anything but nice, like the cab drivers and I never felt unsafe around any of them. 
She sounds just like President Trump when she talks about them in her commercials.
Cecilia Hill
Duluth, Minnesota