Portside

Gig economy companies were not true pioneers. The truth behind their dominance is their aggressive market takeovers, aided by their precarious labor model. The piece wage’s effect is to induce workers to toil longer and harder for less.

Will fear, exaggerated threats, and pork-barrel politics be enough to keep the Pentagon and its contractors fat and happy, even as the urgent priorities of so many of the rest of us are starved of much-needed funding?

New York Democratic legislators are trying to tax stock trades and capital gains. Wall Street is horrified by such a development — but luckily, their millions in campaign contributions have helped create a solid friend in Andrew Cuomo.

Clarence Thomas has an expansive view of free speech for campaign donors. For most everyone else, not so much.

A new report shows that three-quarters of the money that individuals donated to pro-Democrat outside spending groups in 2018 came from finance founders and executives.

In what may seem a paradox, the worse off Illinois government gets the more the wealthy are willing to spend to gain control. It is part of a national trend that has seen ever escalating spending battles for even down the ballot offices. Down the ballot, a $1 million legislative race in Illinois used to be an oddity. Last year 23 topped $1 million, with five between $5 million and $6 million, according to Redfield’s analysis of state campaign finance records.

Leaked court documents from ‘John Doe investigation’ in Wisconsin lay bare pervasive influence of corporate cash on modern US elections

The Clinton campaign has aggressively sought campaign donations from the biggest financial interests and Clinton has personally taken millions of dollars in speaking fees from Wall Street and the health care industry. Meanwhile, Sanders has generated enough true popular excitement and small donations to be financially competitive at a presidential level.