One thing not well understood outside of Maine: Graham Platner’s candidacy is the manifestation of the labor movement's long-overdue revolt against the Dem Party establishment that sold out the working class. This kind of defiance almost never happens - and it scares the hell out of Dem leaders👇

Among the most interesting (at least to me) parts of this story is how much Platner threatens a certain kind of liberal's self identity, belief in elite credentials, loathing of those deemed "low class" & faith in Dems' ladder-climbing wait-your-turn culture inside the party's fake "meritocracy."

🚨NEW: Maine's @grahamformaine.bsky.social is plotting a political revolution against oligarchs & both parties' leaders. They're freaking out. My journey with the candidate who told me his plans to do what Dems never do: wield power. A story with new reporting & brutally frank comments. Pass it on.

Trump and JD Vance are escalating a national “war on fraud” to justify crackdowns on benefits programs. But one of the groups helping fuel that crusade has a fraud problem of its own. The Lever found its top leaders are facing fraud, corruption and financial misconduct allegations.

As support for Israel becomes more politically risky, pro-Israel donors have found a new trick for funding Democratic candidates. They are moving money through the Better Blue Fund, a new group backed by longtime AIPAC-linked donors that is raising cash for Democrats facing primary challenges.

People might not remember it, but Stephen Colbert first emerged doing a terrific show that was the one place on TV that allowed non-corporate viewpoints. Watch him berate me as Che Guevara, then watch him ask whether in the future he will still get to keep his TV show. It's eerily prescient.

🚨 HAPPENING NOW: The Lever investigated a $12 million ICE surveillance contract awarded to a company with phantom clients, disappearing executives and a bizarre origin story as a sailboat holding company. Now Congress is demanding answers. This is why independent journalism matters. Pass it on.

I made the dumb life choice of being in an industry that now requires me to try to compete in the attention economy — my way of coping thru that without succumbing to nihilism, mental illness or narcissism is to just accept low-grade persistent sadness as an occupational hazard.

America's political system produces Democratic presidents who "respect" the parliamentarian killing stuff like a minimum wage increase, and Republican presidents demanding the firing of the parliamentarian unless he gets funding for his palace.

New reports say the U.S. is seeking sweeping control over Greenland’s military, infrastructure, and investment deals. That makes our earlier reporting even more urgent: Trump’s Greenland push could benefit tech investors eyeing the island’s vast mineral wealth.

Big Pharma just lost at SCOTUS trying to stop Medicare drug price negotiations. Reminder: taxpayers spent $11.7B helping develop all 10 of the first drugs selected for negotiation. Then drugmakers turned around and charged Americans prices they couldn’t afford.

🚨 NEW analysis from @DavidSirota.com An oligarch-funded think tank is trying to preemptively undermine Medicare For All even before Democrats win back power. Some candidates are rejecting the ploy.

🚨NEW: I scored an exclusive interview with the man who helped create the unitary executive theory & the imperial presidency now being wielded by Donald Trump. A deep-dive discussion with Reagan's Attorney General Ed Meese. Search "Master Plan" in your podcast app & pass it on.

In an interview with @levernews.com last week, Maine Senate candidate @grahamformaine.bsky.social preemptively responded to the NY Times story that came out today. I didn’t know precisely what he was responding to — but now I do & these comments now hit even harder than when I first heard them👇

Today was the last day of the last regular legislative session of @emilyforco.bsky.social’s time in the Colorado House. After she won her first underdog election, it has been 8 years of very hard work and late nights in a thankless job — and our whole family is extremely proud of her.

🚨 EXCLUSIVE: New Alzheimer’s blood tests are being sold as a breakthrough. But for cognitively normal people, a positive result can be deeply misleading: In one study, only 18% of people who tested positive went on to develop dementia. So why are drugmakers pushing mass screening?

NEW: Graham Platner on his interaction with NY Times reporters about "working class" & how elite media tries to derail class solidarity: "It's everybody who isn't making their money on an immense amount of wealth...all of us don't own anything & a couple people own damn near everything...Fuck off."

🚨THIS STORY IS INSANE: Photos suddenly gone. A website scrubbed. Stock images depicted as company execs. A business "partner" that says they've never worked together. The Trump admin gave a no-bid multimillion-dollar contract to surveil immigrants to a firm steeped in mystery.

“There's a segment of the party that believes we're in a battle to protect institutions. Thats deeply wrong. The institutions are gonna fall...It’s a question of who’s gonna rebuild them." My discussion from Maine with @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social / @grahamformaine.bsky.social strategist Morris Katz

“There's a segment of the party that believes we're in a battle to protect institutions. Thats deeply wrong. The institutions are gonna fall...It’s a question of who’s gonna rebuild them." My discussion from Maine with @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social / @grahamformaine.bsky.social strategist Morris Katz

A Democratic House frontrunner worked as a lobbyist for Oracle — Larry Ellison’s Big Tech giant with ties to ICE — while serving in office. Now crypto is spending $300K to put him in Congress, after he pushed a pro-crypto bill.

🚨 ICE awarded a $12M immigrant-tracking contract to a tiny vendor whose “lead computer scientist” was represented by a stock photo also used by therapy and life-coaching sites. After The Lever asked questions, the executive vanished from its website.

NEW analysis from David Sirota: Democrats keep telling themselves Trump’s rise had nothing to do with the 2008 crash, banker bailouts, and mass foreclosures. That comforting fiction could help create the next Trump — one just as malicious, but far less incompetent.

🚨NEW: Establishment Dems & some of their liberal fans are desperately denying that their party's donor complicity & failure to deliver created backlash conditions for Trump's rise. Some populist Dems are speaking out & warning that Dems must avoid repeating the same failure.

🔥MUST WATCH: Dem congressional candidate @chrisrabb.com is surging in polls in the final weeks of Pennsylvania’s primary election - and he just teed off on the disillusionment that happened during the Obama era that led to Trump & what Dems must now do. Subscribe to @levernews.com - and pass it on

The Resistance Dems/Never Trump corporate faction of the Dem Party that remains hostile to Graham Platner is also the party faction that cheered Dems proudly embracing Dick & Liz Cheney, the duo who lied America into war & created authoritarian powers Trump is now wielding 🤔

apparently I’m now trending on Twitter/X because I interviewed Graham Platner 😂

"There should be no place in the Democratic Party for someone who is chummy with Silicon Valley tech bros. There should be nobody who has a close relationship with fossil fuel companies." — Dem Senate candidate @grahamformaine.bsky.social Full interview at @levernews.com YouTube page - pass it on

AI may be making us dumber, but it's worth remembering that the stupidification process has been going on a long time - the Internet has taught an entire society to log on and post angry detailed comments about articles they proudly refuse to even read

If you're looking for media content that only confirms your priors & only boosts politicians you've been inculcated to worship, you aren't actually seeking journalism that holds power accountable - you are seeking party propaganda that soothes your ego. www.levernews.com/journalism-i...

"There should be no place in the Democratic Party for someone who is chummy with Silicon Valley tech bros. There should be nobody who has a close relationship with fossil fuel companies." — Dem Senate candidate @grahamformaine.bsky.social Full interview at @levernews.com YouTube page - pass it on

"I think the first thing to understand about Senator John Fetterman is that he is an asshole." - Pennsylvania Democratic State Rep. Chris Rabb (@chrisrabb.com) Rabb is now surging in the polls in his Democratic primary campaign for Congress against AIPAC money

NPR's Morning Edition today featured @levernews.com reporting on the private equity takeover of bowling in America. Listen to the NPR segment here: www.npr.org/2026/05/08/n... Read our original story here - and pass it on👇

This important NYT story sheds light on how the US became an oligarchy. * Also, would it have killed the Times to give a shout out to David Sirota and The Lever for their excellent podcast, The Master Plan, which covered much of this ground. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/u...

A person who purports to be a reader of my work sent me this email, which made me literally burst out laughing for a full 30 seconds.

How liberals & conservatives were inculcated to now believe the press must serve their political parties, venerate their politicians & confirm their priors - rather than scrutinize power. Why accountability journalism is becoming a niche artisanal product in an ocean of audience-captured clickslop👇

🚨 HAPPENING NOW: Join our livestream: The Lever’s David Sirota is sitting down with Pa. State Rep. Chris Rabb for an exclusive interview on his run for Congress, AIPAC’s attacks on his campaign, what Obama got wrong during the financial crisis, his recent rally with Hasan Piker, and more.

🚨NEWS: Following a @levernews.com investigation, a federal antitrust case is being filed against the private-equity backed conglomerate taking over America's bowling alleys. The suit accuses Bowlero of perpetrating “the veritable destruction of the decades-old pastime of bowling."

Obama is unveiling an $850 million shrine to himself - funded by Wall Street tycoons, a health insurer & tech moguls that got rich during his tenure as millions were foreclosed on & as this billionaire class now fleeces America. Presidential shrines are monuments to oligarchy - pass it on👇

Look, I'm not from Maine so what do I know...but one takeaway from my trip to Maine is that Republicans & Online Libs’ strategy of constantly insulting thousands of Mainers attending Platner rallies by calling them Nazis — this probably won’t be an effective way to reduce support for his campaign.

David Sirota asked Graham Platner about Tucker Carlson telling the NY Times he wants to meet Platner. We asked Platner if he'd appear on Tucker's show - and how he thinks about engaging with conservative media. Full interview will be on The Lever's YouTube page. www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_sJ...

giant overflow crowd at an event for Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner in Old Town, Maine on a rainy Sunday evening

Meet the 42 House Democrats who just voted with Republicans to renew warrantless surveillance power for Donald Trump and Stephen Miller — pass it on clerk.house.gov/evs/2026/rol...

In 1995, Clinton repealed the rule requiring drugs developed at taxpayer expense to be offered at "reasonable" prices. In 2000, the Senate blocked Wellstone's bill to reinstate the rule. Americans pay the world's highest prices for drugs we already paid for. Dems should reintroduce Paul's bill.

DOGE staffers brought in by Trump to hunt “waste” at Treasury got access to Americans’ most sensitive financial data — and mishandled it. A watchdog says basic cybersecurity safeguards weren’t fully in place. One worker even sent names + payments data across the gov. Another got power to edit it.

🚨SCOOP: Emails obtained by @levernews.com show Dem Rep. @jahimes.bsky.social urged Dems to vote for a bill giving Trump warrantless surveillance powers - just before Himes under pressure publicly said he was doing the opposite & insisted he was telling lawmakers the bill was "not acceptable."

The Trump admin just moved to block Illinois from limiting swipe fees—protecting the Visa / Mastercard duopoly. After calling fees a “ripoff,” Donald Trump now says federal rules override the state law. 🚨 Banks can ignore it starting July 1.

🚨NEW: After 2024, Dem operatives went on @podsaveamerica.crooked.com to lament the party lacking coordination among billionaire slush funds - so they built a billionaire-funded machine now trying to buy Dem primaries. After a new bombshell story, populist Dem senators are demanding the DNC say no.

🚨NEWS: The Supreme Court case is this week considering a Trump-backed case designed to block cancer victims' lawsuits against pesticide corporations. Nature just published a study suggesting pesticide exposure may be linked to accelerating rates of cancer in young people.

🚨NEW INVESTIGATION: @levernews.com exposes the secretive billionaire-funded political machine that's aiming to crush populist Democratic candidates, pressing Democrats to be more corporate friendly - and pushing the boundaries of campaign finance laws.