Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:48 and sunset is 8:12, for 14 hours, 24 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 69.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1921, Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis confirms the ban of the eight Chicago Black Sox, the day after they were acquitted by a Chicago court.
It’s a theme here at FREE WHITEWATER — because it’s a reality in Wisconsin and America — that we do not live in conditions of political bipartisanship. See Seeing Once Again That Wisconsin’s Not a Bipartisan Environment, The WisDems’ Bipartisan Delusion, and That ‘Bipartisanship’ Didn’t Last Long — Because It Was Never There. Even the supposed bipartisan budget deal in Wisconsin was wrongly described. See Vos Admits That Worry Over National GOP Policy Compelled WISGOP Deal With Evers. (While both Evers and Vos described the deal as bipartisan, Vos struck a deal from weakness in 2025 to avoid a worse political fate for the WISGOP in 2026. Vos was only working across the aisle because he saw the boundary of that aisle contracting toward himself.)
It’s reassuring, however unfortunate the national circumstances, to see a meeting of Democratic governors where they are encouraging a robust response to Republican gerrymandering in Texas:
(MADISON, WI) — — A number of high-profile Democratic governors are ready to fight — ardently throwing support behind their colleagues who have said they will draw new Congressional maps to favor Democrats before the 2026 midterm elections in order to directly counter Texas Republicans’ moves to do the same for their party.
Texas GOP lawmakers just this week released their first draft of the state’s new congressional map that could flip three to five Democratic seats in next year’s midterms.
On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom promptly responded, saying he’d spoken with state legislators and members of Congress about holding a special statewide election on Nov. 4 for Californians to vote on new congressional maps — ones that would likely favor Democrats.
Convening later in the week for a summer policy retreat on the shores of Madison, Wisconsin, a number of leading Democratic governors have backed Newsom and any other blue state leaders who are taking an offensive position on redistricting.
The Democrats each did so reluctantly, calling Texas Republicans’ efforts “unconstitutional” and “un-American” with hopes that the courts intervene before any new maps steered by either party are implemented. In the meantime, they said it’s time to fight against the Trump-championed GOP redistricting, especially now that other Republican-led states, including Missouri, might follow suit.
“That is so un-American, and it’s a constant threat to our democracy,” Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers said about Republican proposals. “So I’m really pissed, frankly, and we are going to do whatever we can do to stop this from happening.”
Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, the Chair of the Democratic Governors Association, explicitly got behind Newsom, Kathy Hochul of New York, JB Pritzker of Illinois and any other governors who are weighing counteraction through special elections, special sessions or additional means of redrawing congressional maps.
“I have never believed in unilateral disarmament, and so while I may not want to participate in certain activities, if I have to, in order to level the playing field, I would support my Democratic colleagues who decide to answer in kind,” Kelly said in an interview.
See ABC News, Democratic governors throw support behind Newsom, back partisan redistricting, Everett Post, August 2, 2025.
Yes, indeed. I am not a Democrat, but it should be plain by now that Democratic officeholders who do not fight are despised by the members of their own party. It is necessary, and well past time, to answer in kind.
Volcano erupts for the first time in more than 600 years in Russia’s Far East: