About The Hankster

The Hankster, a news source for independent voters, got up and running in April, 2006, and is now the country’s preeminent independent political blog. Our boast: “All the news that gives the parties fits!”

Provocateur/ pundit/ organizer Nancy Hanks is a long-time activist in the independent political movement who’s done it all: petitioning to put independent candidates on the ballot from New York to Texas and points east, west, north and south; fundraising for the independent think tank, the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), and its online counterpart, IndependentVoting.org; running as an independent for New York City Council from Queens, New York City’s most diverse borough; serving as an officer of the Queens County Committee of the Independence Party of New York (of the IP NYC Organizations) since 2006, currently Chair; conducting research for the Neo-Independent, a magazine that addresses the concerns of independent voters; producing gavel-to-gavel video coverage of the New York City Charter Revision Commission hearings on nonpartisan municipal elections throughout the spring and summer of 2010, when a coalition of independents and good government types went head to head with party diehards over the right of independents to participate on a level playing field

In October of 2008, Hanks led a workshop for political activists and bloggers at Performing the World, a biennial international conference/ festival of performance activists.  Her “Blogging the World: An Online Stage for Activists (Or Performatory Blogging for Everyone)” was simultaneously a face-to face and virtual dialogue among bloggers, their readers, and community organizers about community-building, democracy, and – naturally – blogging. Independent strategist and CUIP President Jackie Salit deemed the workshop the beginning of a "blogging and slogging" coalition. In 2010, her workshop was called "Blogging and Slogging: Performing Grassroots Democracy in America and Around the World (Performers of the World, Unite!)" and featured video statements from conference attendees answering the question "What does democracy mean to you?" Her most recent workshop at PTW 2012 in October, "Developing Democracy," was live-streamed on Bambuser.

Feisty, funny, fiercely independent, the Hankster has become a respected voice in the ever-expanding universe of independent political reporting and analysis; Nancy Hanks hosts an online radio show at BlogTalkRadio/Hankster, and is a guest blogger on The Moderate Voice, Donklephant, and Third Party and Independent Daily. She appeared frequently during the 2008 primary season on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Indie Talk/Blog Bunker with Joe Salzone.

You can email her at hanksnan@gmail.com and you can also find her on Twitter and Facebook .