Posts by: Michael Snook

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is on the wrong side of an assault weapons ban, a progressive group argues Monday in a new attack ad released in the congressman’s home state of Kentucky… The ad hits out at McConnell, up for re-election in 2014, for taking money from the gun industry. The ad debuts ahead of a Senate hearing this week on an assault weapons ban—something President Barack Obama’s administration wants after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The committee believes McConnell’s opposition to a ban could lead to loss of votes for him this year… The ad is set to run on broadcast and cable in Lexington, Louisville, Bowling Green and rural Paducah markets and has an initial buy of $25,000, according to the committee. Monday’s ad brings the total spent by the PCCC on McConnell to $100,000.

On Sunday, the liberal advocacy group the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which was a major supporter of Warren’s Senate campaign, launched an online petition urging the SEC to try banks.

“Taking Wall Street banks to trial is necessary for real accountability,” the group wrote. “As Elizabeth Warren says, trials allow the public to learn the truth and allow regulators to better do their job of protecting the public. We call on you to end your practice of ‘too big for trial.’”

In advance of any upcoming budget deal, progressive groups have begun pushing House Democrats to sign a letter to President Obama indicating that they will not back anything that cuts entitlement benefits. As of Wednesday, the letter, originally written by progressive Reps. Alan Grayson (D-FL) and Mark Takano (D-CA), had 10 additional signers.

The coalition pushing the letter, including the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, MoveOn.org and Credo Action, announced it also added two unions, the National Nurses Union and the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, to the list.

The groups said 110,000 supporters had also signed the letter within 24 hours of it being put online and supporters have placed more than 4,000 calls to members of Congress.

As Congress continues to debate a possible replacement to the $1.2 trillion in sequestration-related cuts set to kick in on March 1, a coalition of progressive organizations on Wednesday launched an effort urging Democratic lawmakers to reject to any deal that entails cuts to benefits from popular entitlement programs.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy For America, MoveOn, CREDO Action, Rebuild The Dream, the New York-based Working Families Party and Social Security Work are endorsing a letter to President Barack Obama, signed by Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) and Mark Takano (D-Calif.), warning against cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is behind the ad, and they released some polling earlier this week as well, showing that 82 percent of Kentuckians favor criminal background checks for gun owners (versus 13 opposed) and 50 percent favored an assault weapons ban (versus 42 opposed). It was conducted by Public Policy polling, rated by Fordham University as the most accurate pollster in 2012.
Now, in more PPP polling results released first to The Nation, we see that hitting McConnell for his gun industry backing is indeed fertile territory in Kentucky.

A progressive group attacking Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on gun control is expanding its ad buy through Tuesday after receiving thousands of donations following the initial airing of the ad. The ad, launched by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, began airing earlier this week. Within the first 24 hours of its airing, PCCC raised over $25,000 from more than 1,500 small-dollar donations, and it has raised overall $50,000 from more than 3,000 donations since it began.

That money raised will go towards airing the ad during the upcoming Cardinals basketball game, the Sunday morning political talk shows in Lexington and Louisville, Ky., and to bracket the State of the Union in both Kentucky and Washington, D.C.

A group whose aim is to elect progressive Democrats to Congress released an ad Tuesday hitting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for opposing gun control legislation while receiving campaign donations from gun manufacturers. The spot, from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, will run on broadcast and cable television in McConnell’s home state, as well as in Washington, D.C., including on CNN.

Republican Mitch McConnell knows that as Republican Senate Minority Leader and a symbol of the party establishment, he’s the target of conservatives, tea partyers and others on the right… But now some progressives have him in their sights, believing the Kentucky Republican’s opposition to gun reform offer Democrats a foothold in McConnell’s 2014 re-election race.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee on Tuesday launched an ad campaign against McConnell over his gun stance.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee released an ad Tuesday pressuring Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on gun control. “I was born and raised right here in Kentucky. I served my country as a marksman and we were trained to use guns safely. It’s unthinkable that guns meant for war could be used on civilians and children,” says Rodney Kendrick, a Kentucky gun owner, in the ad.

A group called the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is hitting Mitch McConnell this morning with a new ad campaign in both Kentucky and Washington, D.C. It features Kentuckian Rodney Kendrick of Berea.

New York City Council candidate Yetta Kurland, who is running for the seat of mayoral contender and Council Speaker Christine Quinn, was endorsed by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a national organization that fights for progressive issues and candidates around the country.

With the last outstanding race for a New York State Senate seat called on Friday, campaign finance reform in the Empire State is also looking like a winner. Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk’s victory over Republican George Amedore means there are now a majority of sitting senators who support the passage of reform, including the public financing of elections statewide.

Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, also credited “a grassroots army” for Tkaczyk’s victory. “Members of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee worked with our allies to make 25,000 calls to voters and 215 donations, and helped secure the 19 vote margin of victory,” Taylor said in a statement.

Earlier this month, after President Obama struck a deal with Republicans to avert the fiscal cliff, a top official from a leading liberal organization accused the president of being “clueless about how to use leverage in a negotiation.” Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, lamented in an interview with The New York Times, “Republicans publicly admitted they lost the tax debate and would be forced to cave, yet the president just kept giving stuff away.” But on Wednesday, Green and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, as well as a host of other like-minded groups that have not been shy about criticizing the president and challenging mainstream Democratic orthodoxy, were singing a far different tune. Stephanie Taylor, another co-founder of the liberal advocacy organization, offered support for the new gun control proposals unveiled at the White House just more than a month after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. “We applaud the White House plan to think big and take bold action against gun killings,” Taylor said in a statement. “The PCCC is all in for this fight, investing time and money in Republican and Democratic districts until Congress passes major gun legislation that includes an assault weapons ban.” The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is one of several groups that broke with the president during the recent fiscal cliff standoff, but are now standing ready to unleash their troops of grassroots activists as his administration pursues changes to the nation’s firearm laws.

Grassroots progressive groups pledged to get behind the gun violence prevention plan proposed by President Obama Wednesday. Less than an hour after Obama announced a sweeping plan to prevent gun deaths, including proposals to ban high-capacity magazines and so-called assault weapons as well as universal background checks for firearms purchases that require Congressional approval, progressive groups promised to use their sway to push the measures on Capitol Hill… The Progressive Change Campaign Committee also signed on to Obama’s legislative push on gun control. “The PCCC is all in for this fight, investing time and money in Republican and Democratic districts until Congress passes major gun legislation that includes an assault weapons ban,” said Stephanie Taylor, a co-founder of the group.

Progressive activists fired a shot across the bow of congressional Democrats on Wednesday, warning them to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid or face a primary challenge. Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said Democrats would face a “nuclear war on the left” if they supported cuts to the safety net programs. “We will probably have a fractured party for the next two years” if Democrats cave to Republican demands, Green said on CSPAN, “which would be to the detriment of this president and very unfortunate. There will absolutely be Democratic primaries in the next round of congressional elections. We would probably start right away recruiting challengers.”

The liberal advocacy group that helped draft Elizabeth Warren into the US Senate campaign in 2011 is now trying to make Barney Frank her junior senator. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee sent an email to 25,000 Massachusetts members Wednesday afternoon asking them to sign an online petition urging Governor Deval Patrick to appoint Frank as the state’s interim senator. The group also launched a website, AppointBarneyFrank.com.

Adam Green talked about the work of his Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and the organization’s agenda for the 113th Congress.*He also outlined what progressives would like to see from President Obama in his second term.

When Massachusetts Democrat Elizabeth Warren and the rest of the 2013 class of liberal senators start work this month, they’ll have to do more than figure out the byzantine ways of getting things done in Washington. They’ll also have to decide how seriously to engage a progressive movement that sees their assent a historic opportunity to shift the Democratic Party to the left.

“The cavalry is arriving,” said Adam Green, cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “A lot of news coverage after the election focused on Democrats winning two seats, but the big story for us is the composition of the Democratic caucus has moved in a massively progressive direction.”

The criticism from the left mirrors past complaints when Mr. Obama included tax cuts in his stimulus package, gave up on a government-run option in health care negotiations and temporarily extended Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy two years ago. Liberals said Mr. Obama should have capitalized on his re-election victory and the expiration on New Year’s Day of all of the Bush tax cuts to force Republicans to accept his terms. “The president remains clueless about how to use leverage in a negotiation,” said Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal advocacy organization. “Republicans publicly admitted they lost the tax debate and would be forced to cave, yet the president just kept giving stuff away.”

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee sent an email to Democratic senior staffers in both the House and Senate at 3 p.m. ET Monday, after word trickled out that a deal in the works would only raise taxes for households making $450,000 and above (or $400,000 for individuals.) The email, obtained by TPM, argued that Democrats have no practical reason to cave on taxes and would actually have increased leverage if Congress blows through the midnight deadline to avoid the cliff. “Democrats hold the cards, and our leverage increases in less than 10 hours if we hold strong,” the email, signed by the group’s co-founders Adam Green and Stephanie Taylor, read.

Preserving Social Security should never have been all that difficult.

But it took Harry Reid to settle the issue —at least as regards the miserably long and absurdly inappropriate debate of 2012.

“We’re not going to have any Social Security cuts,” the Senate majority leader said on the floor of the chamber Sunday. “It’s just doesn’t seem appropriate at this time.”… The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which did so much to strengthen the backbones of Reid and other Democrats, responded in with the proper mix of celebration and resolve. “Democrats stood firm — and Harry Reid declared from the Senate floor that no deal would pass this year that touched Social Security,” declared PCCC co-founders Stephanie Taylor and Adam Green in a message to the hundreds of thousands of PCCC members who contacted Congress with messages opposing any cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. “Today’s victory shows that activism works. In 2013, we’ll keep fighting any proposed cuts to these benefits.”

Social Security was worth fighting for in 2012.

And because activists prevailed—with an assist from Harry Reid—it will be worth fighting for in 2013.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is urging Democrats to hold their “bright line position” on taxes and entitlements ahead of a meeting Friday in which President Obama will reportedly offer congressional leaders a scaled-back deal to avert the fiscal cliff.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee says a majority of House Democrats have pledged to vote against any budget deal that includes the “chained CPI” Social Security cut. The PCCC’s conclusion is based on a count of signatures on a 2011 letter and a statement from the Congressional Progressive Caucus this week.

For Obama, these voices are significant. He is losing the allies who should be in the forefront of the fight to seal any deal he reaches with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Without a solid base of Democratic votes in the House and Senate for it, this deal won’t be done. And make no mistake: a fiscal-cliff compromise that compromises Social Security should not be done. Period. That’s the message coming from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which as usual has moved rapidly — and effectively — to build mass opposition to a cut that will only happen if Americans are unaware of the threat.

Outside liberal groups are keeping up pressure on Democrats to ward off a deal that includes any changes to Social Security. Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, threatened primary challenges for Democratic lawmakers flirting with supporting the CPI change and warned that progressives were already getting mobilized to lobby members. “People are under the kind of delusional idea that the American public would applaud cutting their own grandparents’ Social Security benefits because compromise is just that important,” Green said in an interview. “Well, it’s not. There’s a good compromise and a bad compromise.”