The Progressive Midwesterner

U.S. Representative and white nationalist Steve King (R-IA) has been stripped of all of his committee assignments by an unanimous vote of the steering committee of the House Republican Conference in response to disgustingly bigoted remarks that King made, which were published by The New York Times in an article by the Times 's Trip Gabriel: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?...Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?” Those words are not mine, and they are not those of Gabriel. Those words are those of Steve King. Before I explain the significance of Steve King losing all of his committee assignments, I will directly address King's offensive remarks. There are major reasons why white nationalist, white supremacist, and Western civilization are offensive terms. Those terms are all offensive because they are used to describe a political system in which...

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) is considering a bid for U.S. House Speaker , as it's not clear if the presumed Speaker-designate, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), has enough votes to be elected speaker in the upcoming Congress that will be sworn into office in January of next year. While I'm open to the idea of new leadership of the House Democrats (I believe that U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) would be a fantastic House Speaker, although, if I recall correctly, she is running for Democratic caucus chair instead of the Democratic nomination for House Speaker), nearly all of the serious opposition to Pelosi within the House Democratic caucus is ideologically to the right of Pelosi, meaning that, if Fudge or anyone else who is supported by the faction of anti-Pelosi Democrats who want to shift the Democratic Party rightward is elected Speaker, there will be immediate criticism towards Fudge or whoever else the new Speaker would be from progressives and Pelosi loyalists, two factions...

You may have come across a few headlines in the national media about a woman who accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct running for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives this year. She has a name. Her name is Rachel Crooks, and she is a fantastic candidate. Let me make it clear: Rachel did not decide to run for a state house seat in Ohio because of what Trump did to her, in fact, Rachel makes this point clear in her campaign website's biography page . Rachel is running for a state house seat in the 88th Ohio State House district ( includes all of Sandusky County and most of Seneca County ) because she wants to make her community and her state a better place to live. As someone with extensive experience working with international college students at Tiffin University and Heidelberg University, Rachel has helped do the hard work to make America a more inclusive country. As a state house candidate, Rachel has promised to support common-sense progressive ideals to make ...

Tomorrow, voters in Ohio's 12th Congressional District will vote in a special election to fill the district's vacant U.S. House seat. Recent pre-election opinion polling has shown that the election is expected to be extremely close, although support for Democratic nominee Danny O'Connor appears to be surging in the lead-up to the special election. One recent pre-election opinion poll had O'Connor only one percentage point behind Republican nominee Troy Balderson, well within the poll's margin of error, and a different pre-election opinion poll had O'Connor ahead of Balderson by only one percentage point, also within that poll's margin of error. The 12th District of Ohio was gerrymandered by Republicans to be what would be considered in 2012 to be a Republican stronghold. After cracking the Columbus area into three Republican-leaning districts after the 2000 Census, Republicans in Ohio, after the 2010 Census and despite Ohio losing two congressional distr...