Options/updates for the week of September 22, 2025
- Blowing Rock Persisters
- Sep 24
- 3 min read
Good news--over 100 people lined Stadium Drive for Indivisible High Country's Fed Up with the GOP Protest and Food Drive. Countless others walked or drove by, honking and waving. Meanwhile, members of local and state GOP drove past, including the chair of the Watauga County Commission, State Senator Hise, and State Representative Pickett. We remain appalled that our representatives chose to associate with U.S. Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, known for his bullying tactics as a politician and his failure to protect young people when he was a wrestling coach.
Also, check out Indivisible High Country's new website.
More good news--yesterday was Sun Day, and celebrations of clean energy took place across the country. We will always be amazed by the power of the sun.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Tuesday, September 23, 2025 5:30-8:00 pm
Boone Area Chamber of Commerce
La Quinta Inn & Suites in Boone (or live streaming online)
Saturday, September 27, 2025 5-8 pm
Watauga High School
300 Go Pioneer Drive, Boone
Rally tickets $25.00, includes BBQ dinner to eat-in or takeout
Anderson Clayton is worth seeing, if you can make it. Learn more about her from this 2023 NPR article.
Thurday, October 2, 2025 5:30-7:30 pm
Blowing Rock Chamber of Commerce
Blowing Rock School Auditorium
Find more upcoming events on a new calendar on our homepage https://www.blowingrockpersisters.com
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES
We draw this week's calls from NC House Representative Graig Meyer's substack (always worth a read):
1. Tell Senators Budd and Tillis to co-sponsor the No Political Enemies Act to protect individuals and organizations from politically motivated harassment and prosecution from the federal government (aka: protect our free speech).
Senator Thom Tillis phone: (202) 224-6342 webform: https://www.tillis.senate.gov/
Senator Ted Budd phone: (202) 224-3154 webform:https://www.budd.senate.gov/contact/
2. Contact your state representatives to urge them to fully fund Medicaid. Tell them we don't want anyone to lose healthcare coverage, and we don't want medical providers to shift higher costs to the rest of us.
NC Senator Ralph Hise phone: 919-733-3460 email ralph.hise@ncleg.gov
Either NC Representative Ray Pickett 919-733-7727 email ray.pickett@ncleg.gov
Or NC Representative Destin Hall 919-733-3451 or destin.hall@ncleg.gov
3. One call we'll add: ask U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx to support bipartisan legislation to exempt coffee from tariffs.
US Representative Virginia Foxx phone: (202) 225-2071 webform: https://foxx.house.gov/connect/default.aspx
4. Carolina Forward shared a call to action stating that Congress must extend ACA Premium Tax Credits by Sept. 30th. Find out more and contact your Foxx, Budd, and Tillis if you agree.
WORTH READING
Pod Save America offered a thoughtful discussion of the roots of political violence and how to prevent it in a recent interview with political scientist Lilly Mason.
This is a good moment to state our values as persisters: While we often must criticize the actual harm and hypocrisy of Republican policies, we always, always, ALWAYS condemn violence. We believe that violence of any kind is a problem, not a solution. We want to solve our differences peacefully because peace is what we want--a peaceful, free society guided first and foremost by kindness and compassion for all. We strongly support free speech and peaceful protest, even by those with whom we disagree, both because that is what it means to be a free society and because these are essential tools for nonviolent resistance. Learn more about nonviolent resistance at Albert Einstein Institute website.
Finally, you won't be surprised that we agree with Robert Reich's recent substack, especially this: "Finally, the best antidote to feelings of panic, helplessness, and stress is activism. The more we speak up, write our members of Congress, push the leaders of our companies and universities to take strong stands, organize locally, participate in demonstrations, boycott companies that are surrendering to the tyrant (such as canceling our Disney+ subscriptions), and protect the most vulnerable among us — the better we feel and the stronger we become."
Note: We will not be sending out an email next week, but you can still see upcoming events on our website: https://www.blowingrockpersisters.com/.
