Our focus this week is on the likelihood that the Trump MAGA regime will soon be sending National Guard troops from Texas or another red state to Chicago, and what we can and must do in response. We'll start with some lightly edited messaging courtesy of ASO Communications because how we talk about it is really important. And we should all be talking about it to our family and friends. We need to grow the number of people who are activated and expand the tent of the movement. (To see all of the messaging guidance go to: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bGWn9QbHzeKsTTTUZqY_k972_mXUhmXGO6p16EWlXXw/edit?tab=t.0)

The MAGA regime is once again stoking violence against our families and our communities, in order to advance their agenda of abductions and intimidation, violating our freedoms and our right to equality under the law. 

Americans across races, backgrounds, and parties value our freedoms. But this MAGA regime of the bullies for the billionaires is occupying our communities, forcing the military and law enforcement on our families, and turning our government into a weapon against its own people so they can seize more power. Families are joining together to free America, demanding our leaders stop this assault on our freedoms, our families, and our futures.

Marc Elias's recent post on Democracy Docket provides some invaluable insights. Think about it this way - the use of troops from another part of the country to put down a center of resistance (blue cities) is a classic and quite advanced authoritarian move. Putin sent troops from the Urals and Siberia into Chechnya, China sent Han Chinese to attack the Uyghurs. Why? Because troops drawn from the same area are going to be far less reliable if/when they are given illegal orders to target civilians who are also their neighbors. 

Elias notes, “Let me be clear: that is not law enforcement. It is aimed at provoking a response and a counter-response. It is calculated to trigger a cascading series of events that could turn violent and provide an excuse for Trump to escalate even further. … Trump isn’t actually worried about fighting crime or enforcing immigration. He’s testing deeper waters, seeing how far he can get with this direct assault on state sovereignty and democracy itself…. This is not just about Chicago … It is part of a broader authoritarian project aimed squarely at 2026. Trump said it himself: he will violate the Constitution to ban vote-by-mail, impose a national voter ID law and take control of ballot counting. If this works, he can send troops into every swing state to 'secure' the polls in 2026."

“Our country now faces its ultimate test: can American democracy withstand the authoritarian playbook that has crushed opposition movements around the globe? The risk is not abstract. It is here, it is in Chicago, it is now."

Fortunately, Governors Newsom and Pritzker, and Mayors Bass and Johnson are standing strong, and will continue to assert state sovereignty and use the legal system to block Trump. Just yesterday a federal judge ruled that the deployment of thousands of troops to Southern California clearly violated the law. But Trump will appeal and may not wait for a more favorable decision (were it to come) to do the same in Chicago. 

Citizens have a crucial role to play. It requires vigilance, organizing and above all, voting. This really is an existential fight for our democracy.

SO ... Get ready to stand in solidarity with Chicago, to make it clear that civil society WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS. But to do it peacefully! PLEASE ATTEND IF YOU CAN!

Why — send a message to MAGA: Stay out of our Midwest cities and off our streets!  We stand with Chicago in solidarity.

We hope to have signs available, but supplies may be limited. If you'd like to make your own, here are some ideas. You can also print 8 1/2 x 11 signs from the file. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x2oBZROjcZVq7P2HcLdcODEKws7HZDuh/view?ts=68b89470

Here is a link to the flyer about the event. Feel free to share!  https://drive.google.com/file/d/13BCwpH4nKPZlpOdDt1SGP6ron-3U2Lgg/view?usp=drivesdk

THERE IS URGENCY TO THE PUSH-BACK. We can't allow the authoritarian breakthroughs to become normalized and embedded in the culture. We can't let our kids think that this is just the way it is, because they will not remember anything else. 

Any time - Join Indivisible's Signs of Solidarity Campaign

Signs of Solidarity is a national campaign encouraging businesses, construction sites and restaurants to post signs declaring that ICE is not welcome on the premises, and is prohibited from entering spaces designated as private or employees only. Indivisible has developed a terrific toolkit that provides a guide that explains what to do and why, and pdfs of the signs to print to ask businesses to post . You can sign up for Signs of Solidarity Canvassing at: https://act.indivisible.org/signup/signs-solidarity-canvassing/ or just do it on your own, or with a friend.

From Cheryl Maranto, co-chair,

As most of you know, both of our amazing newsletter editors, Nancy Kaplan of Grassroots North Shore and Debbie Patel of Worth Fighting For Wisconsin, are recovering from surgery - both are doing well! So I am left to try to fill both pairs of very large shoes for several weeks. Read on!

We have lived through yet another week of a veritable firehose of truly terrible news, and evidence of authoritarian breakthrough. I am not going to recount any of that. Rather, I am going to review the difference between optimism and hope, and why I choose hope - and you should too. Then we'll get into all the ways that you can do something to fight for our country and our democracy. Choose one or more!

If you don't have time to read through all the prose about hope, skip down to THE RESISTANCE and ACTIONS.

HOPE

“Optimism is the belief that things will turn out all right; hope makes no such assumption but is a conviction that one can act to make things better in some way … During the Vietnam War, a U.S. Navy vice admiral who was held for more than seven years in a North Vietnamese prison noticed a surprising trend among his fellow inmates. Some of them survived the appalling conditions; others didn’t. Those who didn’t tended to be the most optimistic of the group. As the vice admiral, James Stockdale, later told the business author Jim Collins, “They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go … And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.” https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/09/hope-optimism-happiness/620164/

“Long-term hope is not about looking on the bright side. It is a mindset that helps people endure challenges, tackle them head-on and keep their eyes on the goal—a virtue that Dr. King and other community leaders exemplify.” (Yes Magazine, April 19, 2024)

Here's an extended quote from Marc Elias (as quoted by Jess Craven). 

'Hope is not a naïve emotion. It is a sober responsibility. (emphasis added) Hope is what we do when the odds are long and the options limited. It is the stubborn act of trying when despair feels easier. Rather than a passive optimism, hope is the commitment of those who believe they can make a difference, however small.

I am hopeful when I see everyday Americans stand on street corners, in the heat of summer or the cold of winter, holding signs to protest Trump’s cruel treatment of migrants. They cannot reverse policy alone, but their visible witness matters. It reminds all of us that cruelty is not normal, that silence only benefits the oppressor. (emphasis added)

I feel hope every time an opposition leader — elected or not — stands up to Trump and the GOP, making their efforts to subvert our elections just a little more difficult. Each obstruction slows the march toward authoritarianism. Each act of courage buys time for others to organize, resist, and fight back. (emphasis added)

Most importantly, I have hope when people refuse the cool cynicism of despair. Despair is peddled by the right to convince us that resistance is futile, and it is echoed by too many on the left who would rather sit back and say all is lost. Cynicism asks nothing of us; hope demands everything. When people choose to act rather than surrender, that is what keeps democracy alive." (emphasis added) (Chop Wood, Carry Water, 8/26)

And finally, from the New York Times 5/8/25

"So far, American society’s response to this authoritarian offensive has been underwhelming — alarmingly so. Civic leaders confront a difficult collective action problem. A vast majority of American politicians, chief executives, law partners, newspaper editors and university presidents prefer to live in a democracy and want to end this abuse. But as individuals confronting government threats, they have incentives to appease, rather than oppose, the Trump administration.

Civil society leaders seek to protect their organizations from government attacks: Chief executives need to protect shareholders and future business opportunities, media owners must avoid costly defamation suits and adverse regulatory rulings, and university presidents seek to avoid devastating funding cuts. For any individual leader, then, the price of defiance can often appear unbearably steep. Although they acknowledge that everyone would be better off if someone took the lead and defied Mr. Trump, few are willing to pay the price themselves. This logic has led some of America’s most influential figures, including politicians, billionaires, chief executives and university presidents, to stay on the sidelines, hoping that someone else steps forward.

Strategies of self-preservation have led too many civil society leaders to retreat into silence or acquiesce to authoritarian bullying. ...It usually doesn’t. And acts of individual self-preservation have serious collective costs. For one, acquiescence will probably embolden the administration, encouraging it to intensify and broaden its attacks. Autocrats rarely entrench themselves in power through force alone; they are enabled by the accommodation and inaction of those who might have resisted.  (emphasis added) Appeasement, as Churchill warned, is like feeding a crocodile and hoping to be the last one eaten...

So far, the most energetic opposition has come not from civic leaders but from everyday citizens, showing up at congressional town hall meetings or participating in Hands Off rallies across the country. Our leaders must follow their example. A collective defense of democracy is most likely to succeed when prominent, well-funded individuals and organizations — those who are best able to absorb blows from the government — get in the game.

There are signs of an awakening. Harvard has refused to acquiesce to administration demands that would undermine academic freedom, Microsoft dropped a law firm that settled with the administration and hired one that defied it, and a new law firm based in Washington, D.C., announced plans to represent those wrongfully targeted by the government. When the most influential members of civil society fight back, it provides political cover for others. It also galvanizes ordinary citizens to join the fight.

America’s slide into authoritarianism is reversible. But no one has ever defeated autocracy from the sidelines." (emphasis added)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/08/opinion/trump-authoritarianism-democracy.html

*************************************************************

I choose hope because it is my nature. But I am doubling down because I recently learned that I am going to be a grandmother (at last!). I can't bear the thought of my grandchild having to grow up in a fascist dictatorship. And make no mistake - that's where we're headed if we don't work every day to find new ways to resist, to throw sand in the gears of the MAGA machine, to buy time, and to prepare for bold action when the opportunity for breakthrough happens. This is a long-term project.

THE RESISTANCE

The "soft secession" of blue state governors and attorneys general

"Democratic governors have been holding emergency sessions on encrypted apps, attorneys general have been filing lawsuits within hours of executive orders, and state legislatures have been quietly passing laws that amount to nullification of federal mandates. Oregon is stockpiling abortion medication in secret warehouses. Illinois is exploring digital sovereignty. California has $76 billion in reserves and is deciding how to deploy it. Three sources on those daily Zoom calls between Democratic AGs say the same phrase keeps coming up, though nobody wants to say it publicly: soft secession.

Not the violent rupture of 1861, but something else entirely. Blue states building parallel systems, withholding cooperation, and creating facts on the ground that render federal authority meaningless within their borders." (emphasis added)

medium.com/@carmitage/its-time-for-americans-to-start-talking-about-soft-secession-8d0183ac94cf

NOTE:  We have the chance to create a Democratic trifecta in Wisconsin in 2026. Our election work will be critical!

Here's a great example  of resistance from Free DC:

“Instead of joining the crowd decrying our vacuous political leadership, Free DC is pushing them to get better — and aims to ultimately move them. Over the weekend, Free DC sent a letter to politicians telling them what they need to do.

“Remaining silent will tell this administration we consent to their actions,” they wrote. “We do not. … Please speak out against what is happening as soon as you are able.”

"They gave a variety of suggestions, but the key was “don’t act normal.” This is the same lesson taught by our great social leaders who made noncooperation an active practice [like MLK and Ghandi]. 

"When someone does something awful, acting normal normalizes it. Noncooperation from different pillars of support is the antidote. (emphasis added)

"This notion of the “pillars of support” is something Free DC has been teaching about. Rather than seeing a regime as having the power to do whatever it wants, the pillars of support approach sees a regime’s power as being held up by institutions, organizations and groups — such as the military, police, media, business elites and religious bodies. Withdrawing the support of these pillars through nonviolent resistance, a regime can be weakened or even toppled.

"Understanding the pillars of support can help regular folks see that we have real influence. A video from Choose Democracy further explains the tool.” Free DC Models Resistance https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/08/free-dc-models-effective-resistance-to-trumps-takeover/

So let's end with some good news, and then we offer an array of actions that you can take to make a difference!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE! Hear Heather Cox Richardson recount the story of the passage of the 19^th amendment (on its birthday 8/26/1920 – 105 years ago) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj1UQuJjrXI

ASSAULT WITH A DEADLY SANDWICH? A grand jury of fellow citizens in Wash. DC refused to indict the former DOJ employee for felony assault after he threw a Subway sandwich (I heard tell it was salami) at an ICE officer.

BIG WIN IN IOWA! In 2024, Donald Trump won Iowa’s first state Senate District by 11 points. In this Tuesdays special election, Democratic candidate Catelin Drey won an upset 10-point victory, as the district swung blue by 21 points since the presidential election. Drey defeated Republican Christopher Prosch.  https://newrepublic.com/post/199671/democrats-flip-iowa-seat-district-trump-won-double-digits

COLLINS BOOED - Republican Senator Susan Collins’s ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday turned into a public shaming as more than 200 protestors gathered to jeer her. This was Collins’s first public, press conference-style event in her home state in nearly a decade. Video shows the room erupting in boos as she approached the front of the room to cut the ribbon for a new Main Street in Seaport, Maine. The boos eventually turned into chants of “Shame! Shame!  Shame!”  https://newrepublic.com/post/199666/protesters-susan-collins-shame-boos

And to end this long tome, here is some remarkably, unadulterated amazingly good news that I bet you haven't heard about. Chris Hayes recently interviewed Bill McKibben, the noted climate activist on his podcast "Why is This Happening?" The Chris Hayes Podcast - YouTube. McKibben reports on the revolution in solar energy that gives us the means right now to power the entire planet with zero emissions, transforming our energy system. Solar power is not only the biggest source of new energy now - it's the biggest new source of energy EVER. Even Trump can't stop the inexorable economics of solar energy. The clean energy revolution IS HERE! Listen to the podcast!

Fittingly, the musical number for this week is "Here Comes the Sun" https://youtu.be/KQetemT1sWc?si=S8EP-IAhyCjNHLz0

ACTIONS

SHOW JUDGES SOME SUPPORT AND LOVE - The judicial branch is the ONLY branch of the federal government that is standing up to Trump. Write letters of thank you to the judges who have held firm in upholding the rule of law, and suffered attacks from Trump and threats from his followers, including:

Judge James Boasberg, (Ordered flights to CECOT halted, tried to hold the DOJ in contempt) U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, 333 Constitution Avenue N.W., Wash. D.C. 20001

Judge John McConnell, (tried to block the freeze in federal funding) U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, One Exchange Terrace, Federal Building and Courthouse, Providence, RI 02903

Judge John Coughenour, (blocked Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship) U.S. District Court for the District of Western Washington, 700 Stewart Street, Suite 2310
Seattle, WA 98101

 Or write letters of shame and disappointment to Chief Justice John Roberts, Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20543

You'll never hear from any of them, but they just might read it. And for those under attack, it might help them take heart.

SIGNS OF SOLIDARITY BUSINESS CANVASSING 

Sign up for a Signs of Solidarity canvass to support our immigrant neighbors and stand up to fascist ICE raids. Looking for concrete ways to counter ICE terror? Talk to local businesses about putting up signage to help protect employees from ICE raids and show solidarity with immigrant communities. Our toolkit has all the info and materials you’ll need.

USE THE 5CALLS APP OR GO TO 5CALLS.ORG Demand that your representatives stop the military deployment in DC, Demand general access to updated COVID vaccines, Demand action against gun violence and more. 5 Calls makes it easy! It gives you a script and you can just click to call your reps.

Did you know? Grassroots North Shore is celebrating its 20th anniversary on Sunday, September 14, at Maslowski Park (2200 W Bender Rd, Milwaukee) from 4:00 - 5:30pm. We have much to celebrate, even in this troubling times, so I hope you will join us for cake and inspiration. John Nichols, executive editor of The Nation as well as serving as the magazine's national affairs correspondent, will keynote the event. Those of you who have been fortunate enough to hear him speak in person know what a treat lies in store for us. You can get a flavor of his uncompromising progressive positions by visiting his posts on Bluesky. And you can sign up to attend the celebration now.

Here is what John Nichols posted about the Trump's corrupt order to redraw the Texas congressional electoral map so that Republicans can flip five seats currently held by Democrats: "If Trump can order the warping of congressional maps so that Republicans maintain a House majority, even when their policies are despised, then the basic premise of representative democracy is crushed. And the system of checks and balances is threatened as never before."

The effort to rig the congressional maps is not confined to Texas. J.D. Vance has gone on the road to pressure other Republican held states to redraw their maps ahead of the 2026 mid-terms also possibly including Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, Florida, and Georgia. For an excellent account of the pressure campaign and what we can do to hobble it, visit Indivisible's page The Redistricting Coup is Underway. After providing a synopsis of the crisis, Indivisible offers instructions for fighting back, whether people live in one of the 15 states where Democrats have what's know as a trifecta — the governor and both houses of the legislature are controlled by Democrats — or they live in one of the five states with Democratic governors in split or Republican controlled legislatures. Wisconsin, of course, is one of the five. More on what YOU can do to combat Trump's scheme below.

Ironically organizations like ours have spent years organizing and working toward an end to partisan gerrymandering. So we find ourselves in an odd and for some an uncomfortable spot. The League of Women voters continues to work on People Powered Fair Maps, on the core principle that partisan gerrymandering saps democracy by cementing the political power of a minority party despite the clear views of the voters. Other organizations, however, see the Trump regime's project as such a fundamental threat to our democracy that they are changing their position on the issue. A leader among them, Common Cause has posted the following:

Governor Gavin Newsom is leading the way with passionate speeches and a plan to put a redistricting proposal up for a special election in November so the voters can weigh in. Take two minutes to watch one of his speeches. Newsom's pollster has found that the measure that will be put to voters in November has overwhelming support: "57% of California voters backed the redistricting measure, while 35% opposed and 8% were undecided." Other national leaders are also stepping up. Here's what the Majority Leader of the Maryland House has proposed: "I'm introducing legislation to redraw Maryland congressional districts if any other state cheats & draws new maps outside of the census period. Seems Trump has convinced Texas, Missouri & others, and FWIW TX did it years ago & got away with it because nobody responded."

For several reasons too complex to explain here, Wisconsin is not in a position to redraw its congressional maps this year even though our 50-50 state is represented in congress by six Republican representatives and only two Democratic ones. But there is something just as important as redistricting that Democrats and progressives in Wisconsin can do to change the balance of power in our state. Two of the six districts currently held by Republicans are in fact flippable! According to Dave's Redistricting's information about the partisan lean of each Wisconsin congressional district, the 3rd congressional district — currently represented by Derrick Van Orden — leans toward Democrats with 48.9% and Republicans with 48.5% of the vote. The 1st congressional district — currently represented by Bryan Steil — leans ever so slightly Republican: 49.4% GOP versus 48.3% Democratic. According to those numbers, both of them can be flipped!

And by the way, lest you think those two congressional districts might not be winnable, in the spring 2025 election for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat, Susan Crawford won handily in BOTH DISTRICTS. I don't have the exact figures but a rough calculation based on the counties included in those districts show that Crawford won something like 54.5% of the vote in CD1 and 53.3% in CD3. The key to such victories, I am convinced, is turning out voters who share our values. That effort starts now.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party is already using phonebanks to call into CD3. You can join one of their phone banks to connect with voters. Grassroots North Shore is contacting voters in CD1 to talk to them about the draconian cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other social safety net programs the Republican majorities in the House and Senate approved. Representative Steil voted for these cuts. So we are asking people to call his office to express their disapproval and to call on Representative Steil to propose legislation to restore the funding to these programs. Sign up with us to make calls.

But enough about rigging the maps. There are other dangers to our elections on the horizon. Let's start with the ridiculous depth of ignorance Trump displays when he posts that he is going to "lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS" and ban the use of some (unspecified) voting machines. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo picks that post apart: "The president has basically nothing to do with election administration. States run American elections. Period. Congress, within certain parameters, can make laws with standards that states must apply. But states still administer them. This is a foundational, constitutionally-mandated and structural feature of the American republic."

He goes on to note that the courts have crowned Trump a de facto absolute monarch within the federal government. In other words, resistance from federal agencies and actors is pretty futile since the courts have ruled that he can now fire anyone in the federal government for no reason. On the other hand, states have a separate sovereignty, "a sovereign authority that is separate from the hierarchy of federal power." He concludes with this key reminder: "the president can’t fire governors or mayors or secretaries of state or anyone else in a state government." Trump can do some damage to states, by sending in troops or illegally withholding funds. "But the existence of these bundles of sovereign power are simply beyond his reach. And that is the opposition’s greatest power, its strategic depth to parry and contest the designs of a lawless demagogue while the forces of opposition build."

To me, the frantic efforts to redistrict in red states, the bogus announcement that an executive order can outlaw mail-in ballots, and the general air of panic about the coming elections show Trump's belly, as it were. His election rigging efforts show his fear. Meanwhile, the Epstein issues continue to percolate. The Alaska "summit" was a nonstop display of weakness and servility. The meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky that included Trump calling his puppet master Putin in another display of cowering before the great dictator showed us just how far Trump is from his self-portrait in the Art of the Deal. We see him as a charlatan, a liar, and an ignoramus. And of course a felon. Our persistence in opposing his lawless rule will bring him down, beginning with retaking the majority in the House of Representatives. Let's all DO SOMETHING to make that happen.

TAKE ACTION

Defeat Congressman Bryan Steil (Wisconsin Congressional District 1). We're starting early to let Steil's constituents know that he represents billionaires while taking away programs that are vital to his voters! Make phone calls to ensure his voters know that Representatives Steil voted to slash Medicaid funding and money for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) when he approved the Big Ugly Budget Bill (BUBB). In the next few weeks, Congress must hammer out appropriation bills to allocate funding for specific agencies and programs under the BUBB budget framework. So this is the perfect time to revisit the draconian cuts to the social safety net and restore critical programs like Medicaid and SNAP! Sign up.

Help Milwaukee kids start the school year in style! The Democratic Party of Milwaukee County is providing school supplies — backpacks, binders, folders, pens/pencils, and crayons/markers — to children who need them for school this year. The two School Supply Giveaway events in Walkers Point and North Milwaukee were HUGE successes: they "sold out" their inventory in less than an hour! So the Dems are doing it again on Saturday, August 23, with your help.

You can drop off donated items at the Lisbon Ave Office (8405 W Lisbon Ave) from 12-7pm today through Friday and before 12pm on Saturday OR on the porch of 4405 N Marlborough Drive anytime before Saturday. Thank you so much for helping us get these supplies to MPS students in need!

Join the Concerned Citizens at their weekly protest at the corner of Downer and Bradford. They protest every Saturday from 1:00 to 1:30 and would welcome participation from likeminded people such as the supporters of Grassroots North Shore. For more information, contact Susan McAninch.

Write News Boosting postcards for Swing Left. Swing Left's innovative News Boosting postcard program needs your help! There are 311,716 target households across Virginia, and we want to make sure all of them receive 10 postcards with 10 separate news headlines before elections this fall. Sign up now to help — each volunteer will send just one headline and have 3-4 weeks to write their 100+ cards before the assigned mailing date. Swing Left is measuring the effectiveness of this new approach on both turnout and vote choice in a large randomized controlled experiment, which will help inform Democratic strategy. So we're hoping we won't have to reduce the number of headlines that we can send to these key voters. Thanks for all your activism!

Make 5 Calls to the relevant elected officials on the issues that matter to you. The top issues for the Milwaukee area on the 5 Calls site are opposing the nomination of E.J. Antoni for Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, stopping the Trump administration's election Interference, fighting the redistricting power grab, supporting Ukraine, and denouncing Trump's takeover of D.C. and demanding statehood. But there are dozens more issues that might concern you more than these top five ones. Just click on an issue to get a background briefing followed by a short script you can use or modify. If you type your address in the location box at the top, the site will display who to contact together with phone numbers to use.

Today's newsletter begins with an urgent action: Take five minutes to join others across America in a rapid response.  Trump has declared a bogus "emergency" – a horrible crime wave – and called up the Washington National Guard to quell the non-existent emergency! So we need to respond in huge numbers.

A key difference between the avenues of resistance and noncompliance in L.A. and those in D.C. is the fact that D.C. is not a state and so lacks a governor who could refuse to grant permission to federalize the National Guard, as Governor Newsom has done in California. And he has filed a federal lawsuit contesting the use of troops to engage in domestic law enforcement. But in Washington, D.C., the president himself has direct authority over the National Guard. One thing D.C. has going for it, however, is that the deployment has only a 30-day window. Then Congress must approve it or it would no longer be legal. That's why it is an URGENT MATTER for you to call your members of Congress now, while Trump's approval continues to decline. The theory is that if Trump begins to be weak enough, his hold over GOP senators and reps will also weaken. So do your part and CALL.

Unfortunately, there are so many egregious actions emanating from the Trump regime's bullies that is almost impossible to keep focused and engaged in actions that will grow the massive resistance and noncompliance this turn to authoritarianism requires in order to defeat it. That's why I urge you to attend the final session of One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism this evening from 7:00 - 8:30pm. While the assault on our cherished values and our democratic form of governance has been and continues to be swift, our fight to restore it will take time and persistence. We simply cannot afford to give up and give in. Our children, our grandchildren and their children are depending on US to fight back so they too can thrive in a democratic republic as we were privileged to do.

In their Substack Our Moral Moment, Bishop William Barber and Jonathon Wilson-Hartgrove this week offered America Needs Real Economic Populism, with the sub-headline "The vulnerability Trump exploited is MAGA's Achilles Heel." Although it's a common myth that poor people are mostly Black and brown folks, the largest demographic remains poor whites, the essential MAGA base. Barber and Wilson-Hartgrove explain that "the poverty and financial vulnerability that isolates millions of white people is the experience of more than half of Americans who lack financial security. Poverty isn’t a rare glitch in the current US economy. It is a feature of our economy’s design." And so Trump promised to make America affordable again all while turning his back — and considerable power — on their needs.

Here's how Barber and Wilson-Hartgrove sum up the trajectory of the regime: "Trump has not delivered for poor and working people. He has, instead, persuaded Republicans in Congress to join him in passing the largest transfer of wealth from low-income Americans to the rich in US history. As his executive tariff tax goes into effect, prices will rise for everyday Americans while they face the very real consequences of higher health insurance costs, cuts to healthcare services, shuttered rural hospitals, and family farms filing for bankruptcy." Hence the need for the real economic populism they call for: policies that would "raise wages, guarantee access to healthcare and education, and bring down prices for people who are feeling the pain of Trump’s giveaways to billionaires."

Tracking the inflation we are beginning to experience is the website Don't Inflate Our Plates. At least today, as I am writing this, the site's front page features information about the price of beef in Texas — "up 46.69% in the past 157 days" — and provides a link to show its work. When you look up the price of beef in Wisconsin, the site shows it as having risen 16.70% since 2024, based on "the Kroger API, which reflects real-time in-store prices from Kroger and affiliated banners." It's a site worth watching and using in our messaging to the people who are most affected by rising prices: the middle class and the poor.

Yet, as Paul Krugman, renowned economist and Nobel laureate, has pointed out countless times, Trump lies about why he imposes crippling tariffs (aka taxes on American consumers) and then the media fail to report what's actually happening: "the president of the U.S. is making drastic policy changes in order to cure a problem that only exists in his imagination." "The question," he writes, "is how something like the agreement with the European Union, in which the U.S. imposed taxes on its own population while Europe made meaningless promises on investment and energy purchases, leads to headlines like this: Trump is Winning His Trade War. What Will That Mean for the Economy?"

There's a lot of problematic reporting on the regime's attacks on basic civil liberties, Trump's insistence on white-washing American history, and his extortion of universities. The media's coverage is much like its treatment of his trade policies. So we need to be absolutely clear! There is no crime wave. Our well-documented history cannot be deleted to protect Trump's injured feelings and to expunge the role that slavery, African-Americans and other Blacks, and minority communities play in our culture. And while there is undoubtedly some antisemitism on college campuses, it can be found there, Krugman writes, "because you can find antisemitism everywhere. But I’m a lot more afraid of MAGA, which is infested with actual Nazis, than I am of a few leftist college students." Hence the title of his July 31 essay "The Media Can’t Handle the Absence of Truth."

In some election 2026 news, Swing Left is targeting Republicans they are considering vulnerable. Among the 15 on the list is Derrick Van Orden in the 3rd Congressional District in Wisconsin. He's in our sights also! Although there are two court cases in Dane County courts to challenge Wisconsin's gerrymandered electoral maps, these cases will not be resolved before the 2026 elections. But Democrats only need to flip THREE seats from red to blue nationally to gain control of the House. We can do our part by flipping TWO in Wisconsin: CD 1 and CD 3. Those incumbents need to go. The Wisconsin Democratic Party is running phone banks in CD 3, Van Orden's district. You can sign up for one or more of them. Or you can use Grassroots North Shore's phone lists to make calls into CD 1, Bryan Steil's district. Contact Nancy Kaplan for more information and to sign up.

Finally, word of a new challenger to Bryan Steil just emerged. Mitchell Berman, a Racine County nurse, is the second Democrat to come forward. (Randy Bryce, who ran against Steil in 2018, was the first.) So there will be a primary in this race in August. Berman's launch video stresses his working class background and his rural Wisconsin roots. The Wisconsin Examiner, in a piece by Erik Gunn, has coverage of Berman's views. Since this is one of the districts Grassroots North Shore intends to help flip, I hope you'll take a look.

TAKE ACTION

The Dems are hosting a second School Supply GiveAway on August 23. Caryn Melton, 4405 N Marlborough Drive in Shorewood has agreed to be a drop-off point for donations from the North Shore. Caryn will have a receptacle on her porch for them.

The county-wide goals the party has set for donations of school supplies are pretty ambitious. So if you can, purchase and donate SOME of the material kids will need this school year. Here's a list of items to donate:

• Backpacks - 250
• Binders - 250
• Folders - 250
• Pens/Pencils - 50 to 100 packs
• Crayons/Markers - 50 to 100 packs

The School Supply Giveaway will take place on August 23. So not a lot of time. Get right on it!

This weekend the Democrats are holding a Weekend of Action. In Glendale on Saturday, August 16, Democrats will be doing High Traffic Canvassing in Glendale. On Sunday, August 17, there will be canvasses at the following locations:

• Lakefront Dems at the Brady Street Market
• Glendale
• Grafton and Cedarburg
• Menomonee Falls and Sussex
• New Berlin

Help take control of the House of Representatives! Make phone calls to make sure their constituents know that Representatives Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden voted to slash Medicaid funding and money for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) when they approved the Big Ugly Budget Bill (BUBB). In the next few weeks, Congress must hammer out appropriation bills to allocate funding for specific agencies and programs under that budget framework. So this is the perfect time to revisit the draconian cuts to the social safety net and restore critical programs like Medicaid and SNAP! Sign up..

First, the good news: in special elections so far this year, Democrats have outperformed expectations, in some cases by a lot. Take the special election for a state senate seat in Rhode Island. Vice President Harris won the district in November 2024 by a healthy 11 points. The Democrat who won the special election yesterday got 83.6% of the vote! And that's not a typo. It's a 56 point Democratic overperformance. (See Daily Kos, August 5, 2025.)

On April 3, NBC News reported that "in 16 special state legislative and congressional elections held so far this year, Democrats have bettered their margin of victory or defeat compared to the 2024 Trump-Harris battle by an average of about 11.5 points, according to data collected by the political site The Downballot. The Democrat overperformed in 14 of those 16 contests, including flipping deep-red state Senate districts in Iowa and Pennsylvania."

On June 11, G. Elliott Morris reported that there were six special elections in legislative districts on June 10. "Democrats beat expectations in five of the six." He goes on to note that "the median seat [in all the special elections held by June 11] has moved 13 points toward the Democrats since November 2024." And according to his analysis, the districts where Democrats overperformed had not already been trending blue before these special elections. In other words, the movement he was seeing in spring 2025 was NEW!

It's not just special election data that is showing MAGA's vulnerability as we speed toward a hugely consequential election in 2026. Trump and his regime have reached nearly record-breaking unfavorable scores in recent polls — second only to Trump's record disapproval at this same point in his first term! The New York Times daily average of polls shows that only 44% approve while 53% disapprove. The Civiqs poll of registered voters has his approval rate at 42% with disapproval at 54%. Although big margins approve of Trump in obvious places like Alabama, Kentucky, and Oklahoma, he's barely above water in Florida (49% approve, 47% disapprove). In Texas, where MAGAites are trying to steal five congressional seats by rigging the maps, only 45% approve while 51% disapprove of Trump.

That same Civiqs poll shows Latino men disapproving of Trump by 21 points while Latino women disapprove by 40 points! According to polling of 1,600 Latino voters nationwide, "only 34% of Latino voters approve of Trump's handling of the economy, while 63% disapprove." The falloff in Hispanic support may make stealing those five Texas congressional seats a little harder than it may at first have appeared, at least if the rigged maps they just drew up were based in part on voting performance in the 2024 election.

Rigging electoral maps has become the hot topic of the day since Trump has announced that MAGAs are "entitled to five more [congressional] seats" in Texas (Politico, August 5, 2025). In both New York and California, moves are afoot to redraw their congressional maps to yield more seats for Democrats, although it may be more difficult in those places because they have already implemented non-partisan redistricting laws. Not so in Maryland, Illinois, and other blue states. The issue is a contentious one: many Democrats and progressives have fought long and hard to achieve fair maps, as we have here in Wisconsin. But the same has not happened in red states. That imbalance leaves Democrats at a significant disadvantage in the upcoming elections.

Many of us want to preserve the progress we've made. But it is worth looking back to the way Republicans gerrymandered Wisconsin in 2011 and locked Democrats out of legislative power for 14 years. The same kind of thing seems to be happening now at the national level, where the consequences may be considerably more dire. It's a tug of war between sticking to a fundamental principle to ensure fairness and fighting fire with fire, so to speak. If you have 10 minutes, listen to former Representative Katie Porter defend Governor Newsom's plan to respond if the Texas redistricting plan moves forward and think about where you come down on this issue.

Wisconsin is not in a position to counter Texas in effect cheating in the 2026 congressional elections, in part because Republicans still control both houses of the legislature here. But we can do our part in another way: by defeating Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden next year. And the time to begin that effort is now! In the next 10 days, we will begin phoning into Steil's district urging voters to call the congressman and tell him to reverse the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP he voted for in the Big Ugly Budget Bill. The Wisconsin Democratic Party has organized virtual phone banks (VPBs) to call into Representative Van Orden's district right now. Sign up to make calls NOW.

As you know, we have a big Wisconsin Supreme Court contest coming up. The shape of that race is not quite as settled as it typically is at this point in the calendar. Although she does not seem to be raising money or undertaking other typical campaign functions less than eight months ahead of the 2026 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, Justice Rebecca Bradley has "sharply criticized Taylor for opposing Marsy's Law, a constitutional amendment aimed at expanding and strengthening the rights of crime victims" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 6, 2025). Whether Bradley seeks re-election or not, we're sure to see more of the same: attacks trying to tarnish Judge Taylor's record, both as a legislator and as a jurist. We must not wait to begin fighting back.

So we are beginning to canvass with the Democrats for the weekend of action on August 16 and 17. In Glendale on Saturday, August 16, Democrats will be doing High Traffic Canvassing in Glendale. On Sunday, August 17, there will be canvasses at the following locations:

• Lakefront Dems at the Brady Street Market
• Glendale
• Grafton and Cedarburg
• Menomonee Falls and Sussex
• New Berlin

It's time to do more than buckle up. To brace for impact. Or even to plan. We need to act NOW to save what we can of our democratic republic. So let's all take action!

TAKE ACTION

Make phone calls to make sure their constituents know that Representatives Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden voted to slash Medicaid funding and money for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) when they approved the Big Ugly Budget Bill (BUB). In the next few weeks, Congress must hammer out appropriation bills to allocate funding for specific agencies and programs under that budget framework. So this is the perfect time to revisit the draconian cuts to the social safety net and restore critical programs like Medicaid and SNAP! Sign up.

The groups that came together to set up the framework for NO KINGS are hosting a series of three trainings this summer — called One Million Rising — to move us beyond showing up for rallies and marches. Don't get me wrong. Those events are absolutely necessary. But they are not, by themselves, sufficient. So every one of us — and I do mean EVERYONE — needs to find some additional way to engage, resist, and help grow the movement so that we achieve the numbers needed to defeat the evil engulfing our country.

The organizers explain it this way: "Across the country, authoritarian forces are getting bolder and more dangerous. Trump and his allies are not hiding their agenda: mass deportations, rollbacks of civil rights, weaponized courts, and full-scale attacks on our democracy. We don’t have to wait until it’s too late. We can stop this. But it’ll take all of us — not just on single days of mass action, but through sustained organizing in our communities."

The first two parts are online at YouTube (see the links below). The third one is being held on Wednesday, August 13. So sign up for it now! Each segment runs 90 minutes. So it's a serious time commitment. But absolutely essential. (Also, you don't need to have watched sessions 1 and 2 to sign up for session 3. It's helpful but not essential.)

1. One Million Rising Session 1: The Moment & Your Mission - July 16. Watch on YouTube.
2. One Million Rising Session 2: How to Make it Happen - July 30. Watch on YouTube.
3. One Million Rising Session 3: What Now? July 13, 7:00 - 8:30 CDT. Sign up.

One quick word about Epstein and then the rest of the newsletter can focus on what's really going on, ok? So the story about the breakup in the Trump-Epstein bromance changes almost every day. And every time it gets creepier and more openly reveals Trump's knowledge of Epstein's pedophilia, and perhaps Trump's connivence. We've had the 2002 gush (New York, October 28, 2022): Jeffery is just a "terrific guy" who happens to really enjoy his social life with beautiful women "on the younger side." Several more bombshell stories later, we now have yesterday's account — belied by the actual timeline of events — that he banned Epstein because Jeffery "stole his people" (like Trump owned them) including Virginia Guiffre who was 16 at the time and who committed suicide three months ago!

The break between the two men did not happen in 2000 when Giuffre was "stolen," however, but four years later — in 2004 (listen to this PBS account). So that's where we are: lie piled on lie as usual. Will it make any difference to voters' views of the man, to their views of what he is doing to our country? Who knows. Because the Epstein files have such salience with the MAGA crowd in so many different ways, it could. And already it's having a measurable effect on independents (a mere 29% approve of him according to a new Gallup poll).

Nancy Pelosi has called the whole Epstein saga a distraction. While I disagree, it's true that there are lots of other consequential news we need to know. Beginning with understanding our right to protest and to keep ourselves safe while doing so. And that's what our One Million Rising Workshop is designed to address.

So let's get to the heart of where we are as a country and where we seem to be going. In my amateur opinion, what we are witnessing is a full-scale assault on our cherished structure of three independent and co-equal branches of government: Congress, Judiciary, and Executive. And that's because the executive branch — helmed by the president and surprisingly aided by the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) — is gobbling up the other two branches of government, and indeed its own internal, quasi-independent structures designed to promote accountability or to exercise its professionals' best judgment with as little political pressure as possible. Here's what I see.

Congress and the power of the purse. In an interview with Steve Inskeep on PBS recently, Jonathan Martin, a journalist with Politico, notes that the Republicans in Congress are giving up their "most prized power, which is the ability to control federal spending. You know, lawmakers crave the ability to direct spending in their states and districts." He was directly addressing the so-called rescissions package that retroactively "approved" what amounted to the illegal impoundment of congressionally mandated funds to various agencies and grants. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 prohibits presidents from failing to spend "money that has been appropriated by the U.S. Congress" and SCOTUS found the law to be constitutional (Wikipedia). Even with the passage of the rescissions package, the Trump regime is still sitting on billions of dollars of legally appropriated funds. So illegal impoundment continues.

The US Senate's power to advise and consent to high-level appointees and judgeships nominated by the president. In at least two different districts, the president has brushed aside the legal obligation of that federal judicial district's judges to appoint a US attorney if there is no Senate-confirmed one after an interim US attorney has served for 120 days. The judges can choose to appoint the person who had been the interim US attorney in their district, but they are under no obligation to do so. In the two cases in question, the Northern District of New York and in New Jersey, the Trump regime is trying to circumvent the law by firing the attorney the judges elected and installing the previous interim attorney as the first assistant US attorney in that district, "triggering a separate law that elevates top deputies to lead the office in an acting capacity for up to 210 days." In the New Jersey case, the Department of Justice "argues that acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba was properly appointed because the administration fired the deputy selected by judges to replace Habba before their order could go into effect." The stratagem circumvents both the district judges' legal role AND the Senate's to advice and consent.

The Federal Judiciary. "Group Founded by Trump Ally Stephen Miller Sues John Roberts in Bid to Control Courts" shouts a headline at Democracy Docket from May 2, 2025. The suit, which Democracy Docket calls a "brazen but unlikely attempt to seize control of the federal court system," argues "that the Judicial Conference of the U.S. and the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts — two key judicial branch bodies that frame policy and handle the basic functions of the federal courts — are executive branch agencies." Talking Points Memo's headline reads "John Roberts in Court Filing: I Manage the Judiciary, Not the President." The article notes a central irony: "Roberts and the Republican-appointed majority on the court have spent this year rejecting similar arguments when applied to independent executive branch agencies. As they’ve dismissed those arguments, granting more power to President Trump, they’ve carved out exceptions that make sense practically but which legal experts criticize as incoherent: the National Labor Relations Board may not be an independent agency, the court ruled in May, but the Federal Reserve is."

Just yesterday, Attorney General Bondi "filed a misconduct complaint against...Judge James E. Boasberg, the chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, 'for making improper public comments' about the president and his administration" (shared from the New York Times, July 29, 2025). The NYTimes article cites several additional actions against federal judges: in February against the judge "overseeing a challenge to Mr. Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military," in June suing Maryland judges, "accusing them of intruding on the president’s inherent powers to 'enforce the nation’s immigration laws,'" and in July accusing "members of the federal bench in New Jersey of being 'rogue judges' during a fight over who would be the state’s next acting U.S. attorney."

Independent Agencies within the Executive Branch. These include such entities as the National Labor Relations Board and the Merits Systems Protection Board. But the court oddly carved out a tortured reason why the same principles would not apply to the Federal Reserve Board. The ruling granted the Trump regime's request to "pause orders by federal judges that required government officials to allow board members at two independent federal agencies to stay in office after President Donald Trump tried to fire them" (SCOTUSblog, May 22, 2025). In some cases, firing some members of these independent boards has rendered the boards unable to act because they lack a quorum!

This abbreviated account hardly touches on all the rot and corruption we are seeing. So let's face it: America as we have known it is in serious trouble. Rather than watch our entire system of government collapse in front of our eyes, though, we are planning to take power back from the MAGA hordes now running Congress into the ground. The 2026 elections will tell us a lot — probably all we will need to know — about our country and its potential for recovering from what currently ails us. But we're not waiting until a year from now to get busy. I hope you will join us. In particular, Grassroots North Shore will be organizing phone calls and texts to voters in Wisconsin Congressional District 1 (Bryan Steil's district). And the Wisconsin Democrats have organized virtual phone banks to call into Wisconsin Congressional District 3 (Derrick Van Orden's district). Please sign up to participate in one action or the other. The volunteer page will provide a more detailed explanation of each.

TAKE ACTION

The Comité sin Fronteras, an immigrant-led arm of Voces de la Frontera, needs volunteers to respond to raids in Milwaukee and Wisconsin. Involvement can range from taking "verifier" training to be able to identify and report ICE presence in your neighborhood, to actively participating in monthly planning and discussion meetings, to financial support.

Verifier training is every held every other Saturday from 1-3 (Aug 2, 16 and Sept 6, 20). A verifier travels quickly to reported nearby locations to confirm or deny ICE activity. This requires reliable transportation and some daytime flexibility. Please use this form to sign up.

Concerned Citizens at Eastcastle hold a protest every Saturday from 1:00 to 1:30pm on E Bradford Avenue between N Downer Avenue and N Prospect Avenue. Concerned Citizens are a group of Eastcastle residents but they would welcome some participation of other like-minded people, and especially supporters from Grassroots North Shore. We need to show as much support as we can for self-organizing groups like this one. So if you have an hour to give and a sign left over from the Hands Off or No Kings rallies, drop by to stand — or sit — with these good folks!

Forward Scholars, a specialized tutoring program for a select group of Milwaukee Public Schools, is gearing up for tutors for the 2025–2026 school year! We’re looking forward (pun absolutely intended!) to another incredible year together. As of July 10th, Forward Scholars has 133 amazing tutors signed up — but our goal is 315, and we need your help to get there!

We are expanding to 10 Milwaukee schools this year and send this recruitment message for friends, neighbors, and colleagues. Every new tutor means more students get the one-on-one support they deserve. If you're interested, please submit the 👉 Forward Scholars Interest Form '25-'26 School Year. Attend the next virtual session for volunteers on Aug. 7th at 1 PM. Register with friends or contacts who may be interested in tutoring.

t seems like there's more than a week's worth of news to report; there's just so much of it. The media have a laser-like focus on the Jeffrey Epstein case — all except Faux News, of course. But before we get to the firehose, I want to mention two programs Grassroots North Shore wants to promote.

The first is a joint production of Grassroots North Shore and our sister organization Worth Fighting For Wisconsin, called the One Million Rising Workshop, featuring former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin Jim Santelle. Today, federal forces — including military forces ordered to act against American civilians, ICE and other federal agents ordered to snatch people off the streets, and national guard troops co-opted by the federal government — are acting with impunity. We have seen what they have done in California and Chicago.

Are we prepared for them here? It's critically important that we understand what "The Feds" can and cannot do, and understand what our best response would be if they do what they aren't supposed to do. To make sure we're ready, we will provide an overview of a One Million Rising training the leadership attended on July 16. (You can see the whole training on YouTube.) The trainers described how Trump and his would-be authoritarian regime have worked to take over the “pillars of support” that undergird political leaders. Then we’ll dive into one of the pillars: Military / Police. We’re calling it “The Feds.” Jim Santelle will guide our discussion and help explain our rights as we protest, accompany immigrants to ICE/Court hearings, etc., and track ICE or other federal activities. Please sign up to participate.

The second is a Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition on a STATEWIDE TOUR, coming to Waukesha on August 20. So save the date and plan to attend one. Why? Because we may have fair maps now, but they’re only temporary. Without lasting legislation, we risk going back to a system where politicians pick their voters — and ignore the will of the people. When maps are rigged, we don’t get what we want or need: clean air and water, strong public schools, affordable healthcare, and real accountability. We need to enshrine in law, and ultimately in the state constitution, an Independent Redistricting Commission to take the task of drawing electoral maps out of the hands of politicians — who tend to produce gerrymandered maps to protect the party in power and their incumbents — and into the hands of voters. The Wisconsin Fair Maps Coalition is mounting this tour to hear from YOU. But if you can't attend, you can read a first draft of a proposal, written by activists and volunteers with the Fair Maps Coalition, here and comment so it can be revised to reflect the ideas of Wisconsin's citizens.

Now on to tariffs — the very mention of the word starts me yawning. As you may know, Trump has been very busy announcing a new rounds of them, many of them seeming as arbitrary as the last ones. According to Reuters's timeline of tariff and trade deal announcements since the Orange Man took office, July has been a busy month for them. Threats of draconian tariffs came up on July 3, 6, 7,10, 12, and 15. For example, on July 3, he says he will "place a 20% tariff on many Vietnamese exports, with trans-shipments from third countries through Vietnam facing a 40% levy." On July 10, it was Canada's turn: "a 35% tariff on imports from Canada in August and plans to impose blanket tariffs of 15% or 20% on most other trading partners." On the 12th it was "to impose a 30% tariff on imports from Mexico and the EU" and on the 15th, it was a "19% tariff on goods from Indonesia." Finally, yesterday, the man singlehandedly destroying the global economy says he struck a trade deal with Japan that "lowers tariffs on auto imports to 15% and spares Tokyo from punishing new levies on other goods." Only "lowers" is a misnomer since the 15% tariff on auto parts and imports is certainly lower than the 25% tariff he announced on April 3, 2025, but still higher than it had been before Trump started his trade wars.

The impact of Trump's trade strategy, if we can call it that, has already been felt — and not in a good way — in Wisconsin. Joe Schultz of Wisconsin Public Radio, writing in yesterday's Urban Milwaukee, claims that "President Donald Trump’s tariffs are making it harder for Wisconsin businesses to predict the price of raw materials and are straining decades-long relationships with trade partners — and more tariffs are expected to take effect next month." He goes on to say that "tonnage through the Port of Milwaukee since the start of 2025 was down by about 30 percent as of May compared to the same period last year."

The TACO tag just won't go away. Every week, it seems, brings a new tariff threat and a new tariff "reduction." Once a month or so, we hear that the tariff the Trump regime had imposed some time earlier is now going to be postponed, maybe for 90 days, maybe just for three weeks. And unpredictability seems to be the point. Stock markets in Japan and around the world rallied after the trade deal was announced: "Share prices rose sharply in Tokyo, where the Nikkei index of leading Japanese companies increased by 3.5%. European markets followed, with the FTSE 100 gaining 0.4% to close at a fresh record high of 9,061. US markets posted further gains with the Dow Jones rising by over 1% and the S&P closing up 0.78% at a record high" (The Guardian, July 23, 2025).

The mainstream media seem to consider this trade deal a success and a "win" for the Trumpistas. Here's CNN's take: How Trump turned the tide in his trade war. And from Axios: How Trump has shifted trade war psychology. "Six months ago, the prospect of a 15% tariff on all goods from a major trading partner like Japan — vastly higher than seen in modern times — would likely have spooked financial markets and caused a wave of economic worry. Now it brings relief.... Financial markets and manufacturers alike...[have] concluded that it's not so terrible, considering it could be worse." So my head still hurts, just not as much as it was when I was still smashing it into the wall? Some win!

The outrage about the Epstein files coming from both the MAGA base and increasingly from Democrats is kind of deafening. Much of the coverage, though, focuses on Trump's betrayal of his promise to be the most transparent administration EVER. Or something like that. ("I like transparency here. And I’m the most transparent President in history." In the White House Archives. ) But the real issue is the tissue of conspiracy theories that grew up around the pedofile's activities. You see, Epstein was supposed to be the center of a cabal of elites, especially prominent Democrats like the Clintons. Members of the cabal supposedly paid Epstein money to pursue the sexual abuse of children while the "deep state" was (and is) withholding the files to protect the elites. (See Why do Trump's MAGA followers care so much about the Epstein files? ABC News, July 19, 2025). And Trump was supposed to expose EVERYTHING. Now the administration wants everyone to move on. As a result, at least in my naive opinion, it is now impossible for it to release enough information to satisfy the baying hordes. Because whatever they manage to release, the information will never corroborate the whole fabulous (in the sense of a wildly unbelievable) conspiracy.

Enough of that. Let's turn to a mystery here at home. Speculation runs rampant about Justice Rebecca Bradley's lack of fundraising for her supposed re-election bid. A week ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that she had raised NO MONEY during the finance reporting period that ended in June. Meanwhile, Judge Chris Taylor, who is running for the seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, has raised "raised more than $583,000 since she launched her campaign in May." That two-month haul outpaced "Justice-elect Susan Crawford's $460,000 haul in the same timeframe." The Journal Sentinel's article does not reach the obvious conclusion, but several other media outfits have: WPR went with the headline Justice Rebecca Bradley is up for election. But will she be on the ballot?. Mark Belling was an early bird on this story, writing on June 11, before the June 30 closure of the finance period, EXCLUSIVE: Rebecca Bradley Unlikely To Run For Reelection To Wisconsin Supreme Court: "Sources close to Bradley say she has been discussing her options on a run with close advisers and political strategists. Those familiar with Bradley’s thinking say she has not made a final decision but that it is unlikely that she will run."

Bruce Murphy's latest in Urban Milwaukee has a pretty interesting view: "Does Justice Rebecca Bradley Face An Enthusiasm Gap?" He writes that "speculation abounds: that she’s tired of being a minority judge on the high court, which is no fun. That she’s not excited about undergoing the personal attacks that are inevitable in a hard-fought, red-versus-blue election." But he wonders whether "Republicans aren’t excited about working for her reelection." Republicans, he speculates, "will want to portray Chris Taylor as a liberal extremist" but may find it difficult to do because, as Murphy says, Bradley holds "some of the most extreme views in modern Wisconsin history." Needless to say, it is probably easier for Chris Taylor to win in a race with an open seat than it would be for her to run against an incumbent.

There's a lot more to cover, alas. But it's time for everyone to hop off the couch and DO SOMETHING to make our state and country just a little bit better!

TAKE ACTION

Fighting Oligarchy Coalition community assemblies:
In Milwaukee, Saturday July 26, at 2:00pm. Turner Hall Ballroom, 1040 N Vel R Phillips Ave.
In Franklin, Sunday, July 27, at 2:00pm. Whitnall Park, 5879 S 92nd St.

A broad coalition of labor unions, grassroots organizations, advocacy groups, and working-class leaders has launched the Fighting Oligarchy Tour, a two-part journey across Wisconsin to build support for The New Wisconsin Idea—a bold economic justice vision for a state that works for the working class, not the billionaires. The coalition is calling out the corporate greed that has left working families behind while billionaires grow richer. With a clear message—“Make Wisconsin work for the working class, not the billionaires”—the tour aims to galvanize communities around a shared vision for economic justice for every Wisconsinite. Download the event flyer for a synopsis of the New Wisconsin Idea.

Ozaukee County Fair Volunteers Needed: Please sign up to work a shift at the Ozaukee Dems' booth at the Ozaukee County Fair, July 30 - August 3. We're only asking for 3-4 hours of your time. It’s fun, it goes by fast, and you never are there alone Please sign up TODAY!.

From WisDems: Poll Workers are essential to the voting process and protecting the rights of voters and small-d democracy. It also provides an opportunity for you to serve your community in an essential civic capacity and to get to know your neighbors better. Sign up to become a poll worker for the 2026-2027 election cycle! Curious about what it entails? Join our Poll Worker Info Sessions! These 30-minute Zoom sessions will run every Tuesday night (5-5:30pmCT) and Thursday afternoon (1-1:30pmCT) throughout this summer and fall. We’ll discuss the specifics of the nomination process, as well as the requirements and basics of being a poll worker, and you can ask our team any questions that you might have!

Also Weekly Voter Protection Phonebanks are back!! Love talking to voters and giving them an opportunity to protect our democracy? You’re in luck! Help our team recruit poll workers for the 2026-2027 election cycle at one of our weekly phonebanks! We’ll train you how to make phone calls to potential poll workers, and provide a script. Our phonebanks will run weekly on Monday nights from 5-7pm CT. Head to the signup page now to find one that works for you.

From Vote Forward: In April 2023, Vote Forward volunteers sent tens of thousands of handwritten letters to voters across Wisconsin, encouraging them to participate in the state’s Supreme Court election. With our letter writing campaign in this year’s Pennsylvania Supreme Court election already underway, we’re counting on volunteers like you to help us replicate the impact we made in Wisconsin.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has made rulings with enormous implications for voting rights in recent years, including striking down the state’s gerrymandered congressional map in 2018 and extending the mail-in ballot deadline amidst the pandemic in 2020. It’s safe to say the outcome of this year’s retention election will also have huge implications for the future of our democracy, so will you sign up to send letters to voters in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court campaign today? Sign up.

From Postcards to Swing States: Sign up to write postcards to rally Democrats to vote in the November 4 elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Here's how it works:

1. We mail you the postcards for free, along with voter lists and instructions with proven message options. Expect delivery within 1-2 weeks of when you sign up.
2. You handwrite one of our short message options and hand address the voter's address. Please do not make up your own message.
3. You provide Postcard Stamps (currently $0.62) and mail the postcards on the October date indicated on your instructions.

News Boosting postcards, a new program this year. Sign up now to help write our innovative News Boosting postcards to spread the truth to voters across Virginia. Target voters will receive 10 postcards between July and October — each volunteer will send just one headline and have at least four weeks to write their 100+ cards before the assigned mailing date.

We're measuring the effectiveness of this new approach on both turnout and vote choice in a large randomized controlled experiment, which will help inform Democratic strategy.

See the 1-page flyer that explains this new and innovative effort in greater detail.

Yesterday, there was more bad news from the Supreme Court (SCOTUS). In the latest shadow docket ruling the court once again overruled lower courts by allowing the Trump regime to fire federal workers en masse while the lower courts continue to deliberate, and deliberate, and deliberate on the matter. There was only one written dissent — from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. "She said President Donald Trump is unleashing a 'wrecking ball' on the federal government, and she slammed the court’s majority for its 'demonstrated enthusiasm for greenlighting this President’s legally dubious actions in an emergency posture' "(Politico, July 8, 2025). The lower court's injunction at least temporarily stopped the Trump regime from laying off employees at the departments of State, Treasury, Transportation, Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration, among others. The Supreme Court has now made it possible for those agencies to take their own figurative chainsaws to their workers.

Jackson's dissent comes with a dire warning: she has "no doubt that executive lawlessness will flourish because of the decision" and she predicts "executive power will become completely uncontainable" (ABC News, July 8, 2025). Justice Sotomayor, who voted with the majority to stay the lower court's injunction, defended the ruling: "I agree with Justice Jackson that the President cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates. Here, however, the relevant Executive Order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force ‘consistent with applicable law’ … and the resulting joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management reiterates as much." It's not clear, however, that agencies are in fact doing much planning. And the federal government can easily be decimated by the time any court rules on the merits of these cases. Stay tuned.

Apparently, last week's catastrophic flooding and rising body count did not factor into the SCOTUS decision. Vacancies in important positions in the National Weather Service MAY have played a role in the failure of the area's officials to respond adequately to warnings, though there seems to be a lot of finger pointing going on around this tragedy. According to a Snopes report (July 9, 2025), "The weather service issued a series of timely alerts: a flood watch early in the afternoon on July 3, a flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m. July 4, and a flash flood emergency at 4:03 a.m. July 4, before any in-person reports of flooding had been received." The 4:00 a.m. warning did specify that it was an emergency, which should have triggered evacuations.

According to the National Weather Service, a flash flood WARNING is issued "when dangerous flash flooding is happening or will happen soon." It goes on to say "this is when you must act quickly as flash floods are an imminent threat to you and your family. You may only have seconds to move to higher ground." In other words, a flood warning is a serious matter requiring fast action. A flash flood EMERGENCY, like the one issued at 4:03am, is "issued for the EXCEEDINGLY RARE situations when extremely heavy rain is leading to a severe threat to human life and CATASTROPHIC DAMAGE from a flash flood is happening or will happen soon. Typically, emergency officials are reporting LIFE-THREATENING water rises resulting in water rescues/evacuations." At the time the emergency warning was issued, the Guadalupe River was already rising, but the warning should have alerted authorities to react quickly to move people out of harms way.

In other court news, the ACLU is suing again to stop Trump's assault on birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court issued a ruling that could allow the government to deny citizenship to certain American-born children – so the ACLU is suing again. In an email to supporters, the group wrote:

In a bright spot for this litigation round-up, we should not ignore a huge loss for the Trump regime: "A federal judge ruled as unlawful an executive order by President Donald Trump that barred asylum by claiming an 'invasion' at the southern border and the need to protect states" (Wisconsin Examinar, July 2, 2025). The July 2 ruling prevents the Department of Homeland Security from enforcing the executive order. Although Judge Moss put his order on hold for 14 days to give the federal government time to appeal the ruling, he also "also agreed to certify a class for potential asylum-seekers, which comes after last week’s Supreme Court ruling that curtailed nationwide injunctions from lower courts. Certifying a class was suggested by the court to give judges an avenue to make an order broader."

In local court news, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel looks at the results of today's hearing in the case of Judge Hannah Dugan: Once on a fast track, a trial for Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan now likely months off. A U.S. Magistrate Judge's report on the motion to dismiss the case recommended denying the motion. But that is not the end of the story. "During the four-minute hearing, the defense and prosecution agreed that the next round of filings on the defense's motion to dismiss will be filed later this month. Then it will be up to [U.S. District Judge] Adelman to rule on the motion in August at the earliest." Either way the case goes, the losing party can appeal to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Nothing about our system of justice seems to be expeditious enough to meet the moment. And for the duration, presumably, Judge Dugan remains suspended with pay.

And while we're on the subject of litigation, I almost missed an announcement from mid-June that a Wisconsin lawsuit seeks to ban Elon Musk from offering $1 million checks to voters. "The lawsuit filed ... by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign says that Musk’s actions create 'the risk that Wisconsin elections will become an open auction, where votes go to the preferred candidates of the highest bidders and the election outcome is determined by which candidate has a patron willing and able to pay the highest sum to Wisconsin voters.'" Our own former chair, Debbie Patel, is one of the plaintifs in the suit. The remedy the suit seeks — an order that Musk and his affiliated PACs never offer similar payments to voters again — seems simple and obvious enough. With another supreme court election scheduled for April 2026, we will be watching!

Budgets, we like to say, are moral documents. They tell us what the authors value in unmistakeable terms. So before the president could sign the One Big, Bad Budget Bill into law on July 4, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffires used his "magic minute" to deliver the longest House speech in history — 8 hours and 46 minutes! — blasting the bill as immoral for taking from the poor to give even more riches to millionaires and billionaires. Although it was clear that the bill would pass, and that Democrats lacked the votes to prevent it, Jeffries' speech delayed the proceedings so that at least Republicans would have to hold their vote, not in the wee dark hours of the morning, but in the bright light of midday. His speech shone a rhetorical spotlight on the heart of the matter: the bill is "a giveaway to the wealthy that would strip low-income Americans of federally-back health insurance and food aid benefits" (Reuters, July 3, 2025).

At almost the same moment as the One Big, Bad Budget was being passed in Washington, Governor Evers signed the new biennium budget for Wisconsin, what he hailed as a welcome compromise. Here are the provisions the Washington Examiner highlighted: "The budget cuts taxes by $1.3 billion, makes investments in the University of Wisconsin system, boosts public schools’ special education reimbursement rate to 45% and allocates about $330 [million] for child care." The timing of Evers' signature was significant: "a provision in the state budget that increases a Medicaid-related hospital assessment from 1.8% to 6%, the current federal limit, to supplement the state’s Medicaid resources" needed to be signed into law before the president could sign his Big, Bad Budget Bill that would restrict Wisconsin (and all other states) from raising the assessment. That provision is "estimated to result in over $1 billion in additional Medicaid revenue that will go back to Wisconsin hospitals."

It's important to recognize that not all Democrats voted for the budget while some Republicans did. Wisconsin Public Radio notes that "In both the Assembly and the Senate, the bill had bipartisan support — as well as bipartisan opposition." Even though the bill passed in the Assembly, "most Democrats and one Republican opposed" it. Still, "during a long day of debate over the new state budget, Democratic lawmakers repeatedly said the [new legislative] maps ... made a difference." We may actually be seeing the positive effects of having fairer electoral maps because those new maps led to much smaller Republican majorities in both houses. Hence the need for compromise. Let's hear it for fairness, a quintessential American value.

COUNTY & STATE FAIR VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

SIGN UP TO VOLUNTEER with the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County: "Please consider signing up for 1, 2, 3 or more shifts. This year, the State Fair runs July 31st–August 10th. We could really use your help and experience. It's important that we can represent Democratic Party values, find volunteers to win elections, give our friends the information they need, and let the other side know we're not going away. To do this we need people to volunteer at the State Fair Booth. The issues we face in the future are crucial and we will have the opportunity to come in contact with thousands of people during our time at the fair. We appreciate all the help that we get. There will be 3 shifts per day: 10:00 a.m.-2 p.m.; 2-6 p.m.; and 6-9 p.m. Free admission to the fair is included!" Sign up.

Sign up with the Fighting Oligarchy Coalition: The FOC is seeking volunteers to table/organize at county fairs around the state. FOC will have printed copies of the Economic Justice Bill of Rights flyers and other lit about the impacts of the Big Beautiful Bill. The sign-up form lists all the counties' fairs with in order by their dates so you can sign up for any one (or more) that you want. Sign up.

TAKE ACTION

SIGN UP FOR TRAINING with Indivisible: This summer, Indivisible is launching One Million Rising—a national effort to train one million people in the strategic logic and practice of non-cooperation, as well as the basics of community organizing and campaign design. This is how we build people power that can’t be ignored. You’re invited to join us—and lead. Let’s build a force bigger than fear and louder than hate. Let’s get ready. Let’s get organized. Let’s stop Trump. Sign up.

POSTCARDS TO SWING STATES: "In just the first three weeks of sign-ups for our innovative News Boosting postcard program, volunteers have signed up to write 560,000 postcards. But we still have 2,568,960 postcards to go to complete this important study.

What is News Boosting? We're sending postcards with useful headlines to Democratic-leaning voters in Virginia to combat disinformation and to make sure they learn how harmful the Trump/GOP agenda is for most people. Target voters will receive 10 postcards between July and October—but each volunteer will send just one headline and have at least four weeks to write their 100+ cards before their assigned mailing date.

We're measuring the effectiveness of this new approach on both turnout and vote choice in a large randomized controlled experiment, which will help inform Democratic strategy." Sign up.

WRITE POSTCARDS FOR NOV 4, 2025 ELECTIONS: "Our large postcard campaign for the November 4 elections is well underway! We're just over halfway to our goal of sending 6.9 million postcards to rally Democrats to vote in the important November 4 elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Both Virginia and New Jersey have important gubernatorial and state legislative elections this fall. And in Pennsylvania, the Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court is at stake." Sign up.

NO MORE CUTS TO NOAA: The Union of Concerned Scientists and MoveOn have created a petition to Congress: "Protect NOAA: Our Safety in a Climate-Changed World Depends on It." Although the petition was created before the tragic flooding and loss of life in Texas, it seems especially apt right now. Sign the petitiion.

For the 4th of July holiday, let's begin the newsletter with uplifting, positive news for a change.

NO KINGS Day was a huge deal and a monumental success. G. Elliott Morris, author of the substack Strength in Numbers, undertook what he calls a collective crowdsourcing effort "involving many members of the independent data journalism community." Here's what that early report found:

Here in Milwaukee, at least 12,000 people turned out! Grassroots North Shore was no small part of its success: we provided a donation page to raise the funds needed for the sound system and the porta-potties and other rally needs and we provided lots of the publicity also. We owe a big thanks to Cheryl Maranto who did much of the heavy lifting for the event.

So give yourself a treat and watch Indivisible's compilation of the more than 2100 protest events nationwide. It takes about 2.5 minutes. The Milwaukee protest shows up at about 1:48. But the song playing over the images is well worth your time for the whole thing.

In other welcome news, the Wisconsin Supreme Court overturned the 1849 law "that had banned abortions in nearly every situation" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 2, 2025). The MSJ piece makes sure you know that it was the liberal justices who "affirmed a lower court's previous decision that overturned the 19th Century law." Surprisingly, perhaps, the New York Times has a much more comprehensive account of the context and the effects of this latest Wisconsin Supreme Court decision in its article Wisconsin Supreme Court Strikes Down 1849 Abortion Ban (gifted so you can get past the paywall).

There's mixed news about the bienniel budget in the works for Wisconsin. Yesterday, Republican and Democratic legislative leaders and Governor Tony Evers "reached a tentative agreement on the 2025-27 state budget, agreeing to invest hundreds of millions in the University of Wisconsin system, to create new grant and payment programs for child care facilities, further boost investment in special education and cut $1.3 billion in taxes" (Wisconsin Examiner, July 1. 2025). The deal, however, is not completely done: "elements of the spending plan could change before the final bill gets to Evers' desk" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 2, 2025). The legislature's Joint Finance Committee has released the bill. The Assembly and the state Senate will vote on it this week.

According to another article in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, complaints and unhappiness about the compromise have appeared both on the left and on the right. Wisconsin Public Education Network, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, WISDOM, W.E.C.A.N. ane WEAC released a joint statement statement detailing the bill's shortcomings from their perspective: Public Education, Health Care, Criminal Justice, and Child Care Advocates Urge NO Vote on State Budget Deal.

On the national front, the Senate squeaked out enough votes, with Vice President J.D. Vance providing the tie-breaker, to pass Trump's Big Bastard Budget Bill. But the Senate's amended version still needs to pass the House of Representatives where the so-called "Freedom Caucus" want yet more changes, as of 1:30 pm CDT on July 2, The Guardian reports: "It remains unclear if he [Speaker Mike Johnson] has the numbers needed to pass the bill as the House prepares to take a key procedural vote to get the bill closer to final passage." But there's still time to twist arms to get the product to the president's desk so he can sign it with his usual tacky flourishes on July 4, as he has been demanding.

In tariff news, there's this nugget: "Trump's tariffs beat up economy as private sector loses jobs in June." The Daily Kos post explains that "President Donald Trump's destructive trade policy appears to finally be having the devastating impact on the job market that economists predicted, as ADP reported on Wednesday that private employers shed 33,000 jobs in June amid uncertainty created by Trump’s nonsensical tariffs." Just as experts had foretold.

Finally in schadenfreude-inducing reports, the AP's headline reads "Tesla sales plunge again as anti-Musk boycott shows staying power and rivals pounce." The story emphasizes Musk's political views as a key driver: "Sales of Tesla electric cars fell sharply in the last three months as boycotts over Elon Musk's political views continue to keep buyers away, a significant development given expectations that anger with the company's billionaire CEO would have faded by now." The New York Times article, which I won't link to, blames Musk and the company's focus on self-driving cars rather than putting resources into new models aimed at attracting buyers and calling its current offerings an aging lineup.

TAKE ACTION

Support Judge Hannah Dugan: On Thursday, July 9, there is a hearing scheduled in the Judge Dugan case at the Federal Courthouse, 517 E. Wisconsin Ave, Milwaukee. A faith vigil outside the courthouse is schedule to begin at 7:30am with the program starting at 8:00am. The hearing is an in-person status hearing although Judge Dugan is not required to attend. The judge presiding over the case, Judge Lynn Adelman, has delayed the July 21 trial date in the federal criminal case to ensure there is enough time to rule thoughtfully on the defense's motion to dismiss the case altogether. So even though the defendant need not be present at this hearing, it's important for her supporters to show up! Hope you can make it.

The Omnibus Big Bad Budget Bill:It's not too late to call your Representative, especially if your rep. is a Republican, to register your view that the House member should vote NO on the reconciliation bill currently being "tweaked" so it can garner enough Republican votes. You can find the number for your congress person here. Call now! Especially if your representative is Glenn Grothman! (And by the way, after weeks if not months of swearing he could not possibly vote for the budget-busting bill the President is pushing, Senator Ron Johnson nevertheless voted "yes" when it came time to pass it.)

From the ACLU: Send a message to US Representatives. This piece mentions Medicaid cuts but really homes in on how its spending items "turbocharge President Trump’s mass deportation machine. The bill includes $170 billion for immigration enforcement – with $45 billion allocated for the detention of more than 750,000 children, families, and adults in ICE detention facilities notorious for abuse. " Send the message.

From the Democratic Pary of Milwaukee County: Volunteer with the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County at State Fair. This year, the State Fair runs July 31st–August 10th. There will be 3 shifts per day: 10:00 a.m.-2 p.m.; 2-6 p.m.; and 6-9 p.m. Free admission to the fair is included! So Sign up for one or more shifts!

Any questions or having problems with sign up, please contact Mary Jonker, [email protected] or call 262-497-4672.

So we bombed Iran and all we have to show for it is this lousy Battle Damage Assessment (gifted from the New York Times, June 24, 2025) and this paltry newsletter!

Seriously, though, this will be a short one. Technically, I am on vacation. But stuff still happens, both nationally and in Wisconsin. In today's TAKE ACTION section, you will find two easy-peasy things to do, both urging you to contact an elected official to vote no or to veto some legislation. So when you get to that section, just pick up your phone or go to your computer and take care of business!

In addition to those two activities, Debbie Patel together with her co-host Brittany Vulich is holding a garden party to support the Comité sin Fronteras (Committee without Borders) on Sunday, June 29, at 3:00pm at her house (9130 N Spruce Rd, River Hills). It's a Friend- & Fund-Raiser Garden Party. So registration is required. The financial goal is to raise $5,000 at this event, which Debbie will match. Donations can be made online. All funds will be used to support immigrants in the greater Milwaukee area, and will go where the need is greatest.

Comité is a group of young immigrant leaders and activists focused on immigration reform. Today’s immediate focus is training volunteers to verify and document ICE raids. We do not interfere or break laws. Instead, we help immigrants know their rights, and bear witness when those rights are violated. This work helps all of us in the fight to protect democracy and the rule of law. Do what you can to get behind this effort. Donate here. Register to attend here.

A big topic in the national news is the fate of the "One Big Beautiful Bill" in Congress and, more importantly, in public opinion. Sahil Kapur at NBC News surveys the polls for us. One interesting poll he cites comes from Fox News: "A Fox News poll found that 38% of registered voters support the “One Big Beautiful Bill” based on what they know about it, while 59% oppose it." There are a bunch of other polls in his piece showing the same sort of public response. Read the whole thing.

While the Big, Ugly, MAGA-backed reconciliation bill bumbles along in the Senate, Wisconsin's legislature seems even more bizarre as it tries to pass its budget bill for the 2026-2028 biennium. Here's how the Wisconsin Examiner summarizes the current state of affairs: "With the state’s budget deadline less than a week away, the Wisconsin State Assembly approved a slate of bills that would create new programs but withheld funding, which Republicans said would come later. Democrats criticized Republicans, saying they couldn’t trust that the funding would actually be passed." Meanwhile Governor Evers has said publicly that he will not sign a budget if it fails to provide funding for the Child Care Counts program.

In an effort to see into the future — sort of like holding up a wet finger to the wind to find out what the weather will be like 18 months from now — a post in Daily Kos today (June 25, 2025), extrapolates from a very good primary for progressives in New York City and also in Syracuse and Buffalo. The blogger calls it a "strong night for left" and implies that it augers well for the midterms. Let's hope he's right.

And that's all for today. Stay cool but get busy.

TAKE ACTION

We expect the Big Bad Budget Bill debate to begin on the US Senate floor Wednesday evening, with a final vote on Thursday. The House may vote on the final version on Friday or into early next week. Contact Senator Ron Johnson and tell him to VOTE NO!

Contact information for Senator Johnson:
email web form
phone his Washington, D.C., office: (202) 224-5323.
phone his Milwaukee office: (414) 276-7282.

CALL TO ACTION: Urge Governor Evers to VETO the Modern-Day Poll Tax  
Wisconsin lawmakers just passed AB 87 / SB 95, a bill that would strip voting rights from people with past convictions unless they can afford to pay restitution and fees, even after serving their time and completing probation. Let’s be clear: this is not about justice. This is a Jim Crow-style poll tax designed to silence voters and suppress turnout, particularly in Black and brown communities. We need your voice right now to help stop it. TAKE ACTION NOW: Send a letter to Gov. Evers using this form. Learn more from the CCWI Press Release.