Portside

All 550 candidates of the Communist Party (CP), Turkey that will be running in the upcoming elections in June are women. According to a recent statement released by the CP, the reason for choosing all women candidates is not simply about the active participation of women in the political struggle but because it is only women who can represent the rebellion against a social order that thrives on murdering and humiliating them on a daily basis.

Social Security surfaced in the very first days of the campaign, thanks to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie going after the program with the zeal of a born huckster, demanding to raise the retirement age. In 2010 equivocation and deficit-reduction obsession from President Obama squandered Democrats' good will on the subject. But this year anything less than an embrace of expansion this time is likely to leave the base unsatisfied.

Even as class appears to play a bigger role in Chicago politics, racial, ethnic and other identities will impact elections as long as keep impacting everyday life. But campaigns like those for Garcia and for many of the council members are already forging a shared progressive politics.

In the first round, Stamps and Sadlowski Garza were double-digits behind the incumbents in their respective wards: Emma Mitts in the 37th Ward and John Pope in the 10th Ward. But they say the fact that Garcia forced Emanuel into a runoff increases the energy around the elections and, with luck, drives more people to the polls.

Johnson gave full credit to the movement. “The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change, designed to stir reform. He has called upon us to make good the promise of America.”

John Oliver: Guess Who Can't Vote? Anita Sarkeesian: What I Couldn't Say. Jimmy Kimmel: Message for the Anti-Vaccine Movement. Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief. Netanyahu Remix: Sit! Stand! Iran, Iran, Iran! .

A profound crisis of identity burdens the Democratic Party. What does the party really believe? Whose interests will the nominee truly fight for? Democrats lost their old soul long ago. The 2016 election could become the decisive moment that either transforms the party with an aggressively liberal economic agenda or clings to the past and the “corporate-friendly” straddle devised a generation ago by Bill Clinton’s New Democrats.