Dan Lipinski literally inherited his Illinois seat from his father, and has held it since 2004, despite voting against a $15 minimum wage and against a woman's right to choose to have an abortion.
Rep Dan Lipinski (@RepLipinski) is Congressman for Illinois's 3rd congressional district; he voted against marriage equality and opposes abortion and and the $15 minimum wage. He is up for re-election next November.
Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Illinois) dislikes abortion, Barack Obama, the affordable care act and marriage equality, and likes religious discrimination, domestic surveillance and denying federal benefits to gay couples.
If you're wondering why he even has a "D" in his title, here's a clue: he inherited his seat in congress from his own father, courtesy of the state Democratic party. — Read the rest
Dan Lipiniski is the worst Democrat in Congress, a man who literally inherited his seat from his father and has spent his career in Congress opposing minimum wage laws, access to abortion, and rights for LGBTQ people, taking massive contributions from literal railbarons in exchange for fighting railroad safety rules.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a long history of being reactionary assholes who support the worst kind of corporate Democrats while libelling progressives and selling out to America's greediest and most rapacious corporate lobbies, so the latest move isn't much of a surprise, but it's still pretty fucking terrible.
California's Democratic Governor Jerry Brown repeatedly vetoed universal
healthcare after the state legislature voted it through; Democratic state majorities in NY, CT and NJ refused to enact legislation to close the "carried interest" tax loophole that makes billions for hedge-fund managers; Rhode Island Democrats went on a slashing spree, taking down pensions for teachers, firefighters and other public servants while the finance-affiliated state treasurer funneled the pension funds into her pals' underperforming hedge funds; Democrats in NJ gutted the tax bill to give millionaires an easy ride; New York Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo shut down the state anti-corruption commission, only to have his top aide busted for being horrifically corrupt.
The Wall Street Journal profiles rich "train buffs" who buy vintage Gilded Age railcars and refurbish them, then pay to have them hitched to Amtrak trains and pulled between their city houses and their country places.
Four Democratic challengers backed by United Working Families (linked with the progressive Working Families Party) have successfully challenged establishment Dems backed by Chicago's legendarily unassailable "Democratic machine," effectively winning their offices at the same time, because the Democrat candidate always gets elected to those offices, thanks to Republicans not bothering to field candidates (leaving a vacuum that is sometimes filled by Holocaust-denying Illinois Nazis).
The sleazy hook-ups, blazing rows and secret love child of Britain’s Royals, in this week’s tabloids
David Daley's hugely important 2016 book Ratf**ked: The True Story Behind the Secret Plan to Steal America's Democracy uses original documents to trace the Republican master gerrymandering plan — which gave them disproportionate control in several states, allowing them to redraw federal districts to repeat the feat at the national level — to meetings in 2009; but a pair of leaked Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) powerpoints show that GOP strategists were scheming and fundraising to ensure that their candidates would wield power regardless of popular support at least a year and a half earlier.
Arthur Jones is standing uncontested to be the GOP's candidate in Illinois's 3rd Congressional District, representing suburban Chicago; he has run for office several times on a white-supremacist, Holocaust denial platform, calling the Holocaust "the biggest blackest lie in history."
Progressive candidates, backed by the likes of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, Moveon, Our Revolution and Justice Democrats, are outraising Republicans (including Ted Cruz!) and establishment Democrats with the backing of the DNC and the Democratic Party establishment.
As Xeni wrote, yesterday's vote to de-fund the NSA's warrantless dragnet surveillance came within a whisker of passing. 205 Reps voted in favor of asserting innocent Americans' right not to be spied upon; 217 voted against, and 12 abstained — enough to have carried the day. — Read the rest
