One of the purported leaders of left-wing online journalism closed its doors yesterday, laying off its unionized staff.  Sam Stein reports for the Daily Beast: ThinkProgress, the influential news site that rose to prominence in the shadow of the Bush administration and helped define progressivism during the Obama years, is shutting down.  The outlet, which served as an editorially independent project of the Democratic Party think tank Center for American Progress (CAP), will stop current operations on Friday and be converted into a site where CAP scholars can post. Financially, these are very tough times for political websites, including American Thinker.  Advertising rates have declined more than 50% from their peak, and for us, survival means tightening our belts and working even harder.  But unlike us, ThinkProgress was always heavily subsidized by its nonprofit parent, whose list of big-bucks donors is impressive...(Read Full Post)