Recap of this week in the revolution: NC governor upholds DEI while courts uphold gun safety in NY and religious freedom in TX. Trump bullies Paramount while Supreme Court clears path for mass firings and RFK Jr. takes food and medicine away from the needy. ICE terrorizes civilians in LA while Trump appoints a wanna-be cop killer to the Justice Department. Join the fight by signing up for One Million Rising training.
The Good...
Josh Stein, 2019.
Image by YouTube from Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Governor Josh Stein vetoed several anti-DEI bills targeting North Carolina's government and school system after they were passed by the state legislature, stating, "Rather than fearing different viewpoints and cracking down on free speech, we should ensure our students learn from diverse perspectives and form their own opinions."
Stein also criticized the bills themselves, saying, "These mean-spirited bills would marginalize vulnerable people and also undermine the quality of public services and public education."
One of the bills would ban government agencies from using DEI concepts in hiring decisions, ban the use of state funds to support DEI programs, and ban the state from applying for federal grants that require compliance with DEI policies. Two bills aimed at dismantling DEI offices in the school system (K-12 and higher education) and prohibit instruction on what they call "divisive concepts." The fourth bill vetoed stated that North Carolina would only recognize two sexes.
Image by Konchai Klangkanasub from Pixabay
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the groundbreaking New York gun industry accountability law in a ruling on Thursday. The law prohibits gun companies that do business in New York from knowingly engaging in unreasonable conduct that endangers the public.
Specifically, the law requires gun companies to implement safeguards against straw purchasing (When a person buys a gun for someone else who is prohibited from possessing a firearm or trying to hide their name from the transaction), gun trafficking, and theft. Companies who fail to take meaningful steps to prevent these types of transactions are subject to lawsuits if such transactions result in harm to anyone.
Major gun manufacturers Smith & Wesson, Glock, and Ruger, along with others, filed a suit to block the law on the grounds that it would put them out of business. But the law has been in place for over three years, and there is no evidence that their concerns are valid.
El Paso, Texas, borders both Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on the southwest and New Mexico to the west and north.
The tactics of tyranny are well-known, and the Trump regime is following them to the letter. One of the key tactics used is intimidation. The tyrant will target a representative individual or organization and attack them, hoping that similar individuals or organizations will try to protect themselves from similar attacks by "anticipatory obedience."
A Catholic charity in El Paso, Texas, is not playing the regime's game. Annunciation House operates in the spirit of Christianity, offering service, solidarity, and community to migrants, refugees, and economically vulnerable people. Here, volunteers live and work with the poor and the migrants in the community, following in the footsteps of Jesus.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is on a mission to put a stop to this free exercise of religion. Pope Francis has referred to Paxton's war on Annunciation House to be "sheer madness." On July 1st, the court found that Paxton's deplorable assault "violates the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act by substantially burdening Annunciation house's free exercise of religion." The judge also included this statement:
“[T]he Attorney General chose to harass a human rights organization with impunity and with disregard to his duty to faithfully uphold the laws of Texas and the United States. As the top law enforcement officer of the State of Texas, the Attorney General has a duty to uphold all laws, not just selectively interpret or misuse those that can be manipulated to advance his own personal beliefs or political agenda.”
Make no mistake: MAGAts like Paxton are not taking a stand against Christian persecution. They are persecuting Christians right along with their relentless persecution of Muslims, foreigners, anyone who supports LGBTQ+ rights, and anyone who doesn't agree with their white supremecist, hate-filled rhetoric.
The Bad...
Donny 2-Dolls didn't like how he was portrayed in a 60 Minutes interview during his 2024 presidential campaign. Instead of defending the journalistic integrity of their show, Paramount was pressured by controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone, to pay the settlement, hoping that doing so will help facilitate the sale of the company to SkyDance media because her family is deeply in debt and she hopes to personally profit from the pending sale. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has to approve sales of media companies that use public airways, so the settlement is obviously an attempt to buy the good graces of the Trump regime in the hopes the FCC will not object to the sale, which has to be completed before October.
Donny 2-Dolls claims that the deal includes at least another $16 million worth of free ads on top of the settlement. Paramount claims that the settlement does not include "any promises or commitments made to President Trump other than those set forth in the settlement." One of them is not telling the truth.
Image by Matthieu Landretti from Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
In an 8-1 vote, the Supreme Court overrode the orders of lower courts that temporarily froze the haphazard staffing cuts of multiple government agencies. Only Ketanji Brown Jackson voted to support the freeze, which was initiated on the grounds that these agencies were given funding, including funding for staff, by an act of Congress, and therefore required Congressional approval to make such massive changes to any agency's budget.
A joint statement from the parties that brought some of the initial suits stated, "This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution."
The Trump regime has never cared about what's in the Constitution, and apparently, neither does the Supreme Court. It's more than a little ironic that the only power the president or the Supreme Court have are granted by the very same Constitution that they are trying so hard to destroy.
RFK Jr., April 2, 2025.
For the past 30 years, exemptions to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act have been enacted to allow immigrants without legal status access to community health centers as well as health and nutrition services for low-income families.
On July 10, Kennedy overturned these exemptions and cut off the most marginalized people in our country from access to aid, claiming that his actions "protect vital resources for the American people."
In addition to being cut off from access to health care and nutrition assistance, these changes also strip access to family planning, mental health, and substance abuse programs. After all, if you're going to abuse a subset of the population, you might as well make sure you inflict as much damage as you possibly can, right?
The Ugly...
American Gestapo agents in Los Angeles on June 12, 2025 (Not MacArthur Park incident).
Around 11:00 am on July 7, a fleet of Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) and unmarked vans descended on MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, California. Immigration agents in full tactical gear poured out of the vehicles, joined up with other agents on horseback, and formed a skirmish line to march through the peaceful park. No one knows why they were there, although at least one group of agents took some time to take photographs of themselves. "Look, ma! I'm terrorizing civilian families in a public park! Aren't you proud of me?"
LA Mayor Karen Bass came to the park to confront the Gestapo agents and demanded that they leave, which they eventually did, but not before the official in charge, Gregory Bovino, made it clear that she "better get used to us now, 'cause this is going to be normal very soon. We will go anywhere, anytime we want in Los Angeles."
Bass told the press that the Trump regime "is continuing what I have framed as an all-out assault, a military assault on our city." She pointed out that, among the park patrons who suddenly found themselves surrounded by about 100 unidentifiable people dressed up as soldiers in a war zone were children attending a day camp and local health clinic employees providing medical services there in the park.
The Trump regime has just appointed to the Justice Department a January 6th insurrectionist who repeatedly urged fellow rioters to kill the police officers defending the US Capital. Jared Wise, whose name has nothing to do with his intellectual capacity, was charged with two felonies and four misdemeanors before being pardoned by Donny 2-Dolls before a verdict could be reached in his case. During the assault on the capital building on January 6, Wise can be heard encouraging those who were assaulting the police officers to "kill 'em, kill 'em, kill 'em!'"
In return, the Trump regime has appointed him to the Justice Department, where he will be working in a group investigating anything that thin-skinned Trump perceives as an attack on him or his idiotic agenda.
What can you do this week?
Sign up for this free three-part training on strategic non-cooperation tactics to fight authoritarianism
We've shown the Trump regime that their terrible policies are not supported by the people of this country at the thousands of rallies held around the cournty, and the world, over the past six months. This is good, and it should continue. But in and of itself, it is not enough.
The time has come for us to do more than show the world that we oppose of the regime. It's time we start taking direct non-violent actions against this fascist regime.
Indivisible is launching the One Million Rising—a national training effort that seeks to train at least one million people in the strategic logic and practice of non-cooperation to interfere in the implementation of the regime's destructive policies.
Keeping you informed...
People often think the economy is simply about supply and demand, but college professors often give their econ students this challenge:
Suppose you have a very popular restaurant, and there is a long line of people waiting for tables on weekend nights. Simple supply and demand would suggest you should raise the price of the food until the supply (tables available) matches the demand (people waiting in line). But this is something restaurant owners don't do.
Do you know why this is a bad practice? You can tell that Donny 2-Dolls has absolutely no idea. Read the article to explore why price-gouging like the restaurant example or the Trump tariffs are bad for everyone.
85 years ago, silent-film star Charlie Chaplin used his first film with dialogue to speak against fascism. That speech is as relevant today as it was when it was recorded:
On the lighter side...
