Rep Steve King (R-IA, @SteveKingIA, 202.225.4426) is a notorious Islamaphobe, surveillance advocate, conspiracy theorist, xenophobe, and all-round asshole; he's held his seat since 2003 but now he is being primaried by his own party and challenged by a celebrity ballplayer turned Sanders Democrat, J.D. Scholten -- a native Iowan who decided to move home and run against King during the first Woman's March, in January 2017.

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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. Read the rest

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. Read the rest

Whenever we drive on the Ronald Reagan Expressway, my daughter asks me to remind her what Reagan was famous for, and I have to recount as much as I can recall: brought us to the brink of nuclear extinction, murdered a generation through homophobic indifference to the AIDS crisis, put the War on Drugs on overdrive, funded terrorists throughout Latin America, grew the national debt by trillions, and literally allowed astrology to steer the course of the nation. Read the rest

For decades, Democrats in power and in opposition have traded away labor laws and rules that protected unions in order to gain short-term advantages in political horse-trades, and now, with union membership down from 26 to 10.7% since the Reagan years, districts that formed Democrats' "blue wall" have been poverty-struck and have flipped for Trump. Read the rest

Days after Montana Democratic Governor Steve Bullock signed an executive order banning ISPs that violate Net Neutrality from supplying state government agencies, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (also a Democrat) has followed suit, with an even stricter executive order. Read the rest

A Quinnipiac poll of 1,212 voters taken last week found that Bernie Sanders was far and away the most viable Democratic candidate (76% approval), beating Oprah (69%) and Gillibrand (25%) -- and that moreover, his approval ratings were highest among women and people of color, putting a lie to the stereotype of "Bernie Bros" as young, middle-class white male political radicals who are oblivious to the more moderate preferences of others. Read the rest

When Rep Tim Murphy resigned in shame after he was outed for pressuring his mistress to get an abortion while serving on the "House Pro-Life Caucus," it triggered a special election in Pennsylvania's 18th, a rustbelt district in the southwest corner of the state, where a strong Democrat candidate named Conor Lamb is polling high against his Republican opponent, torture advocate Rick Saccone, who served as an Army intelligence support consultant at Abu Ghraib prison after its torture scandal. Read the rest

While plenty of people have evinced a belief that delivering a single speech qualifies Oprah to be president (presumably with Dr Oz as Surgeon General and history's smoothest selljob for invading other countries on flimsy pretenses), the young, motivated Warren-Sanders wing of the Democratic party are a lot less enthusiastic. Read the rest

When Congress voted last week to renew the NSA's controversial Section 702 powers, which gives the spy agency the power to conduct mass, secret, warrantless surveillance on Americans, they also voted down a bipartisan amendment that would have limited the president's ability to abuse these powers, injecting the barest minimum of accountability and proportionality into a system that Republican and Democratic presidents alike have abused for decades. Read the rest

Whistleblower and torture survivor Chelsea Manning has filed papers to challenge Senator Benjamin L Cardin for his seat in the 2018 midterm elections. Read the rest

After Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai killed Net Neutrality -- a deed so indefensible he literally won't defend it -- activists announced their intention to pressure 30 Senators into calling for a vote to overturn it. Read the rest

Someone is shopping a password-protected PDF of a forged lawsuit against Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to the DC press; the forgery attempts to trick journalists into thinking that Schumer is being sued by a female former staffer for sexual harassment. Read the rest

Yesterday, the DNC's Unity Reform Commission unanimously adopted a resolution that slashed the number of superdelegates -- appointed officials who, in aggregate, hold the balance that determines the winner of the Democratic primaries -- from 715 to 315, and requiring the remaining superdelegates to cast votes that reflect the wishes of their states. Read the rest

As the Republicans plow ahead with their plan to transfer trillions of dollars from the poorest Americans to the richest, to the expense of children's health, teachers, grad students, cities, people in populous states, etc, the Democratic party establishment is finally receptive to the idea that America is in the grips of class war, and have openly declared their willingness to fight back in that war. Read the rest

Vice reporter Eve Peyser spent a weekend on the road with Bernie Sanders, and writes vividly and charmingly about the personal habits and behind-the-scenes homeliness of the famously non-materialistic, idealistic senator. Read the rest

The Data Security and Breach Notification Act (S2179) was introduced by three Senate Commerce Committee Democrats, Bill Nelson [D-FL], Richard Blumenthal [D-CT] and Tammy Baldwin [D-WI] in the wake of the revelation that Uber hid a breach involving 50,000,000 riders and 7,000,000 drivers for over a year after paying hush-money to the criminals who stole the data. Read the rest