There's more than just choosing candidates for President at stake when the Illinois Primary rolls around February 5. For instance, in our home 3rd Congressional district, puppet incumbent Dan Lipinski is facing an actual opponent this time in Assistant State's Attorney Mark Pera. Lipinski owes his seat in Congress to the greasy maneuvers of his father, Bill. The elder Lipinski, who held the seat for 22 years, won the Democratic Primary in 2004. Amid denials......

Yesterday, we focused on the presidential candidates that made their way to the YearlyKos Convention at McCormick Place. But the event wasn't just Democratic hopefuls trying to connect with bloggers and grassroots activists from around the nation. The annual event was also an opportunity for progressives around the country to get out from behind their laptops for a few days and talk to each other, sharing tactics, experiences, pitfalls, strategies and ideas, networking with other......

While most of the city was partying down at Lollapalooza this weekend, a different type of party was going on just a few blocks south of Grant Park: YearlyKos, the annual convention hosted by DailyKos, the netroots weblog started by Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, and filled with content, news and views by a motley crew of bloggers from around the nation (including Dick Durbin!). Saturday was a big day for the bloggers by the lake, with......

Tomorrow is the kick-off the YearlyKos, DailyKos's annual "unconventional" convention for grassroots Internet political activists, or "Netroots" community. This year's party will be hosted in Chicago, at the illustrious McCormick Place. Launched in 2002 by US Army veteran Markos Moulitsas as a response to "an oppressive and war-crazed administration", DailyKos now gets around 600,000 hits a day, and has become a widely read marketplace for left-wing ideas on the Internet. This year's convention is being......

A couple of our favorite political bloggers, Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos and Jerome Armstrong of MyDD, will be in Chicago tomorrow evening to discuss their new book, Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics. Crashing the Gate examines how political consultants are damaging the Democratic party by charging exorbitant rates to deliver substandard advice that alienates candidates from the voters, and how the internet is changing the political landscape by......

Chicago has had its share of Wile E. Coyotes, and now New York does too. In other NY/Chicago news, Daily Kos was interviewed in the NYT. The CTA has approved a contract to test a mobile security network where they'd be able to stream real time video from buses directly to emergency response vehicles like police cars, CTA vehicles and the CTA Control Center. Harold's Chicken is going all fancy for its Wicker Park......

Attention Alan Keyes. There's not a lot left to say re: Maya Keyes, but in case you missed out on the story, hit Wonkette, Arch Pundit, Chillinois (Best. Name. Ever.), and Daily Kos. Chicagoist called both the Keyes and Obama campaign offices, and neither would comment, which seems, at least for now, like the way to go.......