The Progressive Midwesterner

With less than two months until the March 20 major-party primary elections in Illinois, Marie Newman, who is seeking the Democratic nomination in the Chicago-area 3rd Congressional District of Illinois, is making it completely clear why she's running against incumbent U.S. Representative Dan Lipinski . As many of my blog's readers already know, Dan Lipinski is one of the most right-wing members of the U.S. House Democratic Caucus, having voted against expanding health care access for millions of Americans, co-sponsored unconstitutional legislation to restrict the right of women to make their own health care decisions , has opposed LGBT rights, voted against the pro-immigration DREAM Act, and has voted with fascist Republican President Donald Trump over one-third of the time . Lipinski's voting record is so awful, two of Lipinski's colleagues, Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutiérrez , have endorsed Newman's campaign against Lipinski . Marie Newman, on the other hand, ...

Last night, Democratic nominee Patty Schachtner defeated Republican nominee Adam Jarchow in a special election for a seat in the Wisconsin State Senate, doing so by a margin that would make Katie Ledecky's runaway swimming performances look like photo finishes by comparison. Based on election night results , Schachtner received 54.82% of the total vote to Jarchow's 44.55% of the total vote in the 10th Senate District of Wisconsin, a district in western Wisconsin where Donald Trump got 55.30% of the vote in the 2016 presidential election . There was one other state legislative special election in Wisconsin, and that was for a Wisconsin State Assembly seat in the Milwaukee suburbs-based 58th Assembly District of Wisconsin. While the Republican candidate won that race, the Democratic candidate in that race got well over 40% of the total vote in a district that is usually one of the most Republican areas of not just Wisconsin, but the entire country. While far-right outside gro...

If there's one thing that's been a constant in the Donald Trump era of American politics, it's that Republicans are willing to associate themselves with disgusting perverts and organizations that enable disgusting perverts. The latest example of this is the incredibly tone-deaf U.S. Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN), who bragged on Twitter yesterday about meeting with the head of USA Gymnastics (USAG), Kerry Perry, to discuss "fostering a culture of athlete safety (and) empowerment": Had a great meeting this morning with @USAGym new President/CEO Kerry Perry who shared her focus of fostering a culture of athlete safety & empowerment. Welcome to Indy, Kerry! #IN05 pic.twitter.com/5GYrD3T62g — Susan W. Brooks (@SusanWBrooks) January 15, 2018 In case you've been living in a cave for the last several months, I remind everyone that USAG was the organization that enabled sexual predator Larry Nassar for many years. Nassar, who was the team physician for the U.S....

Multiple media outlets, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and St. Louis CBS affiliate KMOV-TV , are reporting that Eric Robert Greitens (last name pronounced GRAY-t · nz , interpunct denotes central vowel sound similar to "a" in "ago"), the Republican Governor of Missouri, committed an extramarital affair before being elected governor and threatened to blackmail the woman that he had a consensual sexual encounter with: Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and his wife, Sheena Greitens, issued an extraordinary statement late Wednesday acknowledging that he had an extramarital affair in the past and that the couple “has dealt with this together honestly and privately.” [...] (KMOV-TV) played portions of an audio recording that the then-husband says he made in March 2015, surreptitiously, of his then-wife confessing to a sexual encounter with Greitens days earlier. The Post-Dispatch also has possession of the audio, and the newspaper has interviewed the ex-...

I will note that I am currently serving a two-year term as an election judge in my home county of Vermilion County, Illinois, and I may be asked to serve as a poll worker in the March 20, 2018 primaries here in Illinois. If I am asked to serve as a poll worker in the primaries here in Illinois this year, I will do so to the best of my ability and in an impartial manner in accordance with Illinois state laws. This blog is completely separate from any election judge duties that I may have in the spring of 2018. However, I am also a registered voter here in Vermilion County, and I will publicly mention that I intend to vote for Mary Catherine Roberson for Vermilion County Clerk . As far as I know, Mary's campaign lacks a website or a Twitter page, although her campaign does have Facebook and Instagram pages. Mary is, like me, a progressive Democrat and a lifelong Vermilion County resident who strongly believes in the right to vote. Mary is a critic of the now-dissolved Kobach Co...

Prior to entering the very large Democratic primary field for Governor of Wisconsin, Paul Soglin publicly opposed Scott Walker's corporate welfare giveaway to Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn, which will result in billions of dollars of Wisconsinites' taxpayer dollars being used to fund a private corporation. However, just a couple of weeks or so before Soglin publicly compared the Foxconn giveaway to $100 million NFL tickets, he was all in for corporate welfare for Foxconn if they set up shop in Madison , which is the city where Soglin is currently mayor: Madison Mayor Paul Soglin said Thursday he is recommending Taiwanese electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn take over the shuttered Oscar Mayer site or either of two undeveloped sites on the city’s edges for what is believed to be a possible medical-related facility. [...] The mayor said he would be willing to consider offering tax incremental financing for a potential Foxconn project, but he said the...

On December 3, 1818, Illinois was officially admitted as the 21st U.S. state to join the Union. Thus, December 3 of this year, 2018, will be the 200th anniversary of Illinois becoming a U.S. state, and 2018 is Illinois's bicentennial year. That reminds me that Illinois does have an official state state, which is titled Illinois , although very few Illinoisans know the words to it, and the song Illinois is probably the least recognizable state anthem to the point that songs like Yankee Doodle (Connecticut's official state song), Georgia On My Mind (Georgia's official state song) and Rocky Mountain High (one of Colorado's two official state songs) are more recognizable to many Illinoisans that our own state's official state song. In case you're wondering what the song Illinois sounds like, here is a performance of the song Illinois by the University of Illinois's Varsity Men's Glee Club. As far as I know, a new state song is not currently a prio...