Quote of the Week
“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.” — Haile Selassie
Action of the Week: Standout Rx for Democracy
Join us on Thursday, August 6th, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., for a Standout Rx for Democracy at the Longwood Medical Area with Brookline Indivisible Activist Evenings and Lady Liberty Mobsters. Our Laughtivism “Urgent Care Clinic for Democracy” will be there to connect with the hundreds of medical professionals who frequent this area. Register here or just show up at the intersection of Longwood Ave and Jamaicaway.
Elections Actions Team
Read Indivisible’s new toolkit Hands Off Our Vote: A Toolkit for Election Protection on how you can push back against the shenanigans that the current administration has planned for the 2026 midterm elections. Also check out our list of resources here and see the regularly updated list of action opportunities here.
The Elections Action Team’s next meeting will take place on Monday, August 31st, at 7:00 p.m. If you’re not already on our distribution list, please email elections@newton-indivisible.org to receive the Zoom link.
Laughtivism Action Team
Plan ahead to join us at our next meeting on Wednesday, August 12th, from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in person at our regular meeting place. We are going to focus on saving the elections. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to keep your eyes out for cartoons, articles, quotes, and actions that are inspiring and funny related to the elections. For more information and location, contact laughtivism@newton-indivisible.org.
Massachusetts Legislature Sluggish to Respond to Federal Attacks
Massachusetts legislators opened this legislative session by promising a more productive and transparent legislative session. But Massachusetts earned a rating as the least effective state legislature in 2025. And at the beginning of the last week of July 2026, which ends the formal 1.5-year legislative session, Massachusetts was still at a paltry grand total of 13 new statewide laws for the entire session. Just one of those was a law responding to the specific threats of the Trump administration.
One bright spot is that, on the penultimate day of the legislative session, the legislature finally passed the long-sought Protect Act. See the final Protect Act. Ironically, just before enacting the Protect Act more than 18 months after the second Trump administration began, the legislature designated it an emergency law explaining in the preamble that “deferred operation of [the Protect Act] would tend to defeat its purpose ….”
The next time you speak with your legislators ask them why they acted so sluggishly in response to the Trump administration’s war on our state’s economy, people, and values. Don’t we deserve better?
Newton Resists ICE: The People Call for Action
On July 29th, a large crowd of Newtonians, many sporting yellow, appeared at City Hall to hear the Laredo administration’s answers to the April 15th public hearing on Newton’s response to ICE. Watch the recorded event. Some progress has been made due to our activism. The administration: will install Welcoming City signs at entry points to Newton; will look at recommendations from ACLU best practices to address our concerns about the limitations of our Welcoming City ordinance; and reported training all department heads and making ICE-response training available to other city staff with a desire for such training. Our continued pressure is required for further progress. Join the new coalition, Newton Resists Ice, formed to take action on this urgent issue.
A Culture of Impunity
Watch Professor Marie Gottschalk of the University of Pennsylvania discuss how corporate crime, white collar crime, and law enforcement crime goes largely unpunished—in stark contrast to street crime. According to Gottschalk, our culture of impunity enables the twin evils of state violence at home and imperial violence abroad and led to Trump’s rise. In her book Crime and No Punishment: Wealth, Power, and Violence in America, Gottschalk writes “The United States is an exceptionally militarized, lethal, and violent country. The growing concentration of economic, political, and military power is draining America of vital resources to sustain healthy and peaceful communities. It is pushing more people to the margins where a police officer, a prison cell, a tent, a military recruiter, or a deadly dose of fentanyl-laced heroin is waiting for them.”
People Power Primer: Constitutional Interpretation
Read Slate’s article Taking Back Your Democracy on the people’s power to interpret the Constitution. Law professor Larry Kramer explains the Framers were not judicial supremacists. As an educated citizenry, do we now really consider ourselves incapable of interpreting the Constitution? First, let’s practice distinguishing between what the Constitution says and what judges and justices say about the Constitution. Second, let’s practice reading the words of the Constitution and deciding what we think they mean. Third, whatever you decide about a given question, talk about your answer with other people. We the People have the power to correct the Supreme Court when it wrongly interprets the Constitution.
Malicious Prosecution Must Remain Intolerable
The DOJ moved to dismiss the indictment of Olympic canoeist David Hearn for allegedly vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. After Hearn’s attorneys suggested that the DOJ had misled the grand jury to obtain Hearn’s criminal indictment and argued that the entire grand jury record should be reviewed—the DOJ admitted “damage to the … Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor … and the rush to complete the project ….” Read the DOJ’s 20-page motion (deflecting responsibility). Hearn was threatened with a 10-year prison sentence after he stopped to satisfy his curiosity about the state of the pool more than a week after the hubbub about the peeling liner and algae began.
Remember Hearn as a demonstration of how far the federal government has gone to avoid embarrassing Trump about something as trivial as the state of a pool.
Support Women’s Rights: With Postcards
Mass Citizens for Life, the state chapter of a well-funded activist organization whose aim is to impose a strict traditional family structure by limiting options for and removing freedoms of women, plans to hold its annual banquet at the Newton Marriott. Learn more. The Indivisible Massachusetts Coalition (IMC) Feminist Action Team invites Indivisibles to call, email, or send a postcard to the Newton Marriott asking them not to host a group whose mission is to eliminate women’s rights. Postcards will be available for signature at Saturday rallies.
The Team also invites Indivisibles to help organize a Newton protest on September 25th. Contact info@newton-indivisible.org to join that effort.
Rallies
Join us this Saturday, August 8th, from noon to 1:00 p.m., at our 74th RESIST standout in Newton Centre Green at the intersection of Beacon and Center Streets. Bring your own signs. Check out The Big List of Protest Signs for ideas. Contact rallies@newton-indivisible.org for more information.
August Fundraising Opportunity
During this month, National Indivisible will match every donation up to a limit to local groups. Although we are a volunteer organization, donations help us pay for meeting expenses and publicity. Please help us keep growing and resisting!
More Opportunities to Take Action
Please visit our Opportunities to Take Action page for a listing of important ongoing initiatives. The list is updated weekly along with our newsletter.
Contribute Newsletter Items
To submit items for inclusion in our Newsletter, please send them to newsletter@newton-indivisible.org and include an image if possible. Submissions will be edited for brevity and clarity. The submission deadline is Monday at 8:00 a.m., and the newsletter goes live on the website and is sent to our mailing list on Tuesday mornings.
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