Michael Madigan has served as chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party for 20 years (prior to that, he was Speaker of the Illinois House for decades); if you donated to the party in Illinois, Mr Madigan used your money to fund mailers that smeared progressive Democratic hopefuls as being secret Tea Party members, Donald Trump supporters and opponents of universal health care. 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
Back in the days of the Howard Dean campaign, it seemed that the political left had a near-monopoly on brilliant, technologically sophisticated "netroots" activists, a situation that carried over to the Obama campaigns. But by 2016, the Pepe-slinging alt-right showed that earlier right-wing cybermilitias weren't just warmed over jokes with an unhealthy appreciation for Conservapedia -- they, too, could fight effectively by forming decentralized open source insurgencies that allowed autonomous activists and groups to change the political landscape. Read the rest
The average donation to first-time socialist candidate for Minneapolis City Council Ginger Jentzen is $25, and she accepts no corporate money. She's running on a platform of citizen oversight of the police, rent controls, and a $15 minimum wage. She's outraised any other candidate in Minneapolis history. Read the rest
Across America, Sanders-inspired left-wingers -- many of the them Occupy veterans -- are contesting local elections, challenging the establishment Democratic machine as well as the GOP, and they're making enormous progress. Read the rest
In June, Chokwe Lumumba, Jr. was elected mayor of Jackson, Mississippi on a platform that promised to make it the "most radical city on the planet;" this week, Randall Woodfin creamed incumbent opponent William Bell in the mayoral race for Birmingham, Alabama, with a platform that promised free community college for Birmingham high-school grads, expanded pre-K, and more money for public transit and job training. Read the rest
The establishment wing of the Democratic Party has spent decades receiving dump-trucks full of money from the insurance industry and then, totally coincidentally, explaining that the time isn't right for single-payer for completely unrelated reasons. Read the rest
