Aaron Camp

Anti-abortion Democrat Michael Puhr seeking appointment to Illinois State Senate seat currently held by Mike Frerichs #WarOnWomen

In just a few weeks, Mike Frerichs, who represents me in the Illinois State Senate, will be sworn in as the new Illinois Treasurer. This will result in a vacancy in the 52nd Legislative District of Illinois, which is a microcosm of the state and includes parts of Champaign and Vermilion Counties, including the cities of Champaign, Urbana, and Danville.

Three Democrats have publicly acknowledged…

A tale of three Wisconsin Democrats on economic messaging #StopWageTheft #StopRTW #DemocraticMessaging

Most, if not all, Democratic members of the Wisconsin State Legislature are opposed to so-called “right-to-work” legislation that allows non-union members to benefit from union contracts without paying union dues, but, when it comes to conveying their opposition to right-to-work legislation that Republicans intend to propose in Wisconsin sometime after the new state legislature is sworn in, some…

ENDORSEMENT: Rebecca Kemble for Madison (WI) Common Council District 18 #WIpolitics #TeamKemble

Most of my attention on the Spring 2015 elections in Illinois and Wisconsin has been on the Chicago, Illinois mayoral race for obvious reasons, but I’m going to briefly talk about a race for a seat on the Madison, Wisconsin Common Council (“common council” is a Wisconsin term for the legislative branch of a city) in the northern part of that city.

The race I’m refering to is the District 18…

Scott Walker absolutely sucks at holiday greetings #ThankYouAndMolotov #WalkerFAIL #GOPfail #Molotovgate

In case you missed it, Scott Walker, the Republican Governor of Wisconsin and likely candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 elections, greeted Franklyn Gimbel, a Milwaukee attorney who wanted a menorah, a nine-branched candle tree that is lit during the eight-day Jewish holiday Hanukkah, displayed in the Milwaukee County Courthouse when Walker was the county executive of…

The Progressive Midwesterner's 2014 Person of the Year: Ruth Bader Ginsburg #NotoriousRBG #PoY2014

I promised you that I would pick someone very notorious to be The Progressive Midwesterner’s 2014 Person of the Year.

Well, I’m proud to announce that my 2014 Person of the Year is…Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Justice Ginsburg, widely thought of as the most liberal of the nine justices on the conservative-controlled Supreme Court, has earned a loyal…

Judy Baar Topinka, the Republican Comptroller of Illinois, died early this morning after suffering a stroke. She was 70 years of age at the time of death.

I’m not an attorney, but here’s the part of the Illinois Constitution that deals with filling vacancies in the state comptroller’s office (Article V, Section 7):

If the Attorney General, Secretary of State, Comptroller or Treasurer fails to…

George W. Bush-era CIA torture program violated human rights and made America less secure #StopTorture #CIAfail #IndictBushCheney #CIAreport

The report by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the CIA’s program of torturing enemy combatants who were captured by the U.S. in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, which was active during the administration of former Republican President George W. Bush, has been declassified, and here is the executive summary of the report.

According to the report, the George W. Bush-era CIA’s…

Michele Fiore, a Republican member of the Nevada State Assembly from Las Vegas who will become the majority leader (#2 Republican) of the state assembly once Republicans officially assume the majority in that chamber, has had over a million dollars in federal tax liens filed against her and her business:

Michele Fiore, the newly crowned Assembly majority leader-to-be, has had more than $1 million…

Rand Paul, who criticizes Democrats for being war hawks, is trying to declare war on ISIS #GOPhypocrisy

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who is trying to find a way to run for re-election to the U.S. Senate and run for president simultaneously despite being legally prohibited from doing so in his home state of Kentucky, tried to get an Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) against the Islamic militant group ISIS (also known as ISIL and Islamic State) attached to a completely unrelated bill pushed…

Currently, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) lacks a true standard bearer of any kind. This is because Democrats have virtually no power in Wisconsin state government: not counting federal offices like U.S. Senate and U.S. House seats (Democrats hold one of the two U.S. Senate seats and three of the eight U.S. House seats in Wisconsin) and officially non-partisan offices like state…

Why is the Democratic Party of Wisconsin scrubbing entire pages of their website? #FireMikeTate

Democratic Party of Wisconsin (DPW) Chairman Mike Tate and the rest of the incompetent DPW leadership team has been caught red-handed scrubbing entire sections of the DPW’s website.

This pageis supposed to contain either the DPW constitution or a link to it. Instead, it contains an error message reading, “We’re sorry, the page you were looking for could not be located.  Please double check the…

Protesters calling for an end to racial profiling by police officers in Missouri and elsewhere in the United States who are marching from Ferguson, Missouri, where unarmed teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by then-Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, have been the target of racist attacks.

However, this time, those racist attacks are coming from a Democrat.

Keith English, a Democratic…

Illinois House Democrats fail to pass minimum wage increase #MikeMadiganFAIL #RaiseTheWage #GutlessDemocrats

How I feel about Illinois House Democrats failing to pass a minimum wage increase (image credit to National Football League, CBS Sports, and C.J. Fogler)

On November 4, an overwhelming majority of Illinois voters voiced their support for increasing our state’s minimum wage to $10 per hour.

However, despite the fact that the Illinois Senate passed a minimum wage bill, the Illinois House of…

(READER DISCRETION ADVISED) Why the no indictment decision in the Eric Garner chokehold killing by the NYPD was total hogwash #JusticeForEricGarner

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article includes a YouTube video that depicts the death of Eric Gardner at the hands of NYPD police officer Daniel Pantaleo. Reader discretion is advised.

A Staten Island grand jury decided not to file any chargesagainst New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer Daniel Pantaleo, despite the fact that Pantaleo killed Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black man who sold untaxed…

Wisconsin Republican state legislator plans to introduce right-to-work-for-less bill, calls for general strike begin #WarOnWorkers

Chris Kapenga, a far-right Republican member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Delafield, intends to officially propose a right-to-work-for-less billsometime after the new Wisconsin State Legislature is sworn into office next month, although Kapenga hasn’t set a timetable for when he’ll introduce the legislation in the state assembly. Furthermore, Republican leaders in both chambers the…

It’s been only a couple of weeks since Jennifer Shilling, a Democratic member of the Wisconsin State Senate from La Crosse, was unanimously selected by the Democratic state senate caucus to be the new minority leader of the state senate, yet she’s already pissing off Wisconsin progressives and rural voters in a big way.

Shilling assigned 2 state senators to the Wisconsin State Legislature’s Joint…