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Today, PCCC members and local activists are holding media events across the country to hold their Republican representative responsible for the government shutdown.

In front of closed Republican district offices in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Indiana, Colorado, Florida, and Kentucky, local activists, veterans and furloughed workers will share their stories of how the shutdown is hurting their community and the economy.

Tune in to the Livestream below atAi??12pm ESTAi??to watch our event happening today in Louisville, Kentucky holding Sen. Mitch McConnell accountable.Ai??Then, chip in $3 here to help sponsor a district event next week!

We’re coordinating on today’s events and more next week with our allies at Democracy for America, AFGE, AFL-CIO, Kentucky Jobs with Justice, Louisville Young Democrats, Progressives United, MoveOn.org, CREDO Action, USAction and Center for Community Change.

This morning at 12:01am, Congressional Republicans forced a government shutdown. This has real-world consequences for millions of Americans: disabled veterans could be hurt, some Social Security services will be disrupted, and many working families will struggle to put food on the table.

This shutdown will end in one of two ways:

1) Democrats will cave and cut vital programs like Social Security
2) Republicans will cave to immense public pressure

Thousands of us are pressuring Congress together with phone calls to make sure Republicans cave. We’re also running online ads targeting Republican Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to make sure they feel extra pressure back home.

So here’s what you can do:

Make a call to your Congressperson — click here for the script and number to call.

Donate $3 to help us continue to run the targeted online ads and keep pressure on Boehner and McConnell.

Watch Elizabeth Warren say what’s at stake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMloSXqzMw4

PCCCai??i??s first endorsement for the election cycle, Carl Sciortino, is gaining a lot of momentum this week!Ai??

Carl is the clear progressive choice to represent Massachusettsai??i?? 5th Congressional District: he supports prosecuting Wall Street bankers, Elizabeth Warren’s Glass-Steagall bill, increasing Social Security benefits, Medicare For All, and reversing Citizens United. A self-proclaimed ai???Massachusetts liberal,ai??? heai??i??s got the support of other progressive leaders like Reps. Alan Grayson, Mark Takano, Keith Ellison, and Raul Grijalva.

Carl put out a heartwarmingly awesome ad this week and garnered a ton of media coverage — MSNBCai??i??s Chris Hayes said ai???This ad’s basically a masterpiece.ai??? Carl has gotten coverage in Politico, Boston Globe, Washington Post, the Daily Beast, the New York Times blog, and more. Heai??i??s appeared on MSNBC and CNN, and will be on again this weekend!

Hereai??i??s the ad:Ai??http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3S1zcbWkoM

Click here to donate to keep it on air and show Massachusetts voters the progressive choice for Congress!

But candidates donai??i??t just win on their own — even though Carlai??i??s got incredible progressive values and a strong campaign team, he needs volunteers to Call Out The Vote and let voters know Carl’s the bold progressive choice.

Our Call Out The Vote system is super easy to use — you can do it right from your home, we give you the script, and youai??i??re only connected to live people (no busy signals, no voicemail, no disconnected numbers). In the 2012 election, PCCC members made over 2.2 million calls that changed the election, and over 574,000 calls for Elizabeth Warren alone.

Click here to sign up for call shifts, AND to watch Carlai??i??s awesome ad featuring his Tea Party dad.

My family is from Massachusetts, so I’ll say it: Call Out The Vote is wicked easy, and wicked satisfying.

I do! Which is why earlier this year, I applied to be a member of the PCCC’s inaugural P100 class. I was lucky enough to be accepted and my progressive finance training began.

My name is Lacey Connelly and I’m a new fellow here at the PCCC. We’re working to train 100s of up-and-coming activists to work on progressive campaigns this cycle and I couldn’t be more happy to pay my experience forward!

I attended the first P100 training in Chevy Chase, MD back in March. I learned so much about prepping and staffing call time, planning fundraising events, and putting together a fundraising media plan that I was confident enough to go to Kentucky and kick-start a fundraising operation for a new candidate for Congress. Now I’m working for the PCCC to recruit the next class of progressive campaign workers!

Our next training will be in Madison, WI on September 28th-29th and will focus on developing finance staff to work on competitive races in 2014.

You really should click here and apply!

We’ll review all applications and the most qualified applicants will be contacted for a follow up interview. The 25 finalists will be notified three weeks prior to the training. Apply as soon as possible — the final deadline is September 2nd. After the training, the PCCC will work to place you on a progressive campaign so you can put your skills to use getting good peopleAi?? elected!

If you can’t make the training in WI but want to hear more about future trainings, go ahead and apply; just click “Interested in Future Trainings.”

Retired Kentuckian autoworker Kirk Gillenwaters of Louisville is counting on Social Security being there for him when he retires. He’s been working since age eighteen and will soon need the benefits he’s earned.

Kirk’s senator, Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (who calls himself the “proud guardian of gridlock”) wants to cut Social Security.

We’ve teamed up with Kirk to make a hard-hitting TV ad that shames McConnell for hurting the families he’s supposed to represent. Take 30 seconds to watch the add — and donate $3 to air it on Kentucky TV.

read more…

Today, Social Security celebrates its seventy-eighth birthday, having come into being with the signing of the Social Security Act by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on August 14th, 1935.

Originally conceived as a public service that would allow elderly Americans to retire with dignity, Social Security has been expanded over the years to also cover people with disabilities, children who have lost parents, and surviving spouses.

For nearly eight decades, Social Security has paid out benefits to tens of millions of Americans. In 2008, the year that the house of cards built by Wall Street banks came tumbling down, Social Security paid $615 million in benefits to over fifty million Americans. Even in times of economic hardship, Americans have always been able to depend on Social Security.

Thatai??i??s why itai??i??s crucial that we give Social Security a raise.

Senators Tom Harkin, Mark Begich, Brian Schatz believe that Congress should expand, not cut, Social Security. Theyai??i??re introducing legislation to expand benefits and scrap the cap to ensure that wealthy families pay the same rates as the rest of us.

Over 400,000 people have signed on in support of their plan. Have you? Click here to sign the petition and add your voice to the hundreds of thousands calling on Congress to expand Social Security.

Today, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is proud to announce that we will host a first-of-its-kind Open Debate in the special election for Congress in Massachusetts.

All 5 Democrats running in the primary to replace now-Senator Ed Markey in the House of Representatives have agreed to participate in our Open Debate, where the public submits and votes on the questions. This is also Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s home congressional district.

Open Debates will be a game changer in our political process — ensuring that questions get asked that the public actually cares about. What starts in Massachusetts will hopefully become the norm for local, state, congressional, and even presidential debates in the future.

The debate will be held Saturday, August 10, at 11am Eastern and will be broadcast live online at OpenDebateQuestions.com. At this site, the public can submit questions, vote, learn about the candidates, and sign up for a reminder to watch the debate.

While this debate is a first, the idea of Open Debates is not new. During the 2008 presidential campaign, I was happy to work with Internet guru (now Harvard Professor) Lawrence Lessig to lead an amazing alliance of progressives, conservatives, and techies who came together around the Open Debate Coalition. This coalition includedAi??MoveOn, DailyKos, Arianna Huffington, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions, RedState, Craig from Craiglist, Jimmy Wales from Wikipedia, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Personal Democracy Forum, Aaron Swartz, and many others.

Our coalition had two core Open Debate principles:

1.Ai??Debates are for the benefit of the public. Therefore, the right to speak about the debates ought to be ai???ownedai??? by the public, not controlled by the media. [M]edia companies [should] release rights to presidential debate video to ensure that …

This past week, following the July 23rd national launch of our campaign to expand Social Security with Senators Tom Harkin and Mark Begich, we held four successful events – in Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Texas – to talk about the senators’ plan to expand Social Security, and discuss new polling that shows voters overwhelmingly support expanding Social Security, not cutting it.

In Texas, Dr. Andrew Achenbaum of the University of Houston succinctly described Social Security as “the basic compact we all share against risks” and encouraged Texas Senator John Cornyn to consider supporting the Harkin/Begich plan.

In New Jersey, PCCC co-founder Adam Green challenged the frontrunner for Frank Lautenberg’s Senate seat, Cory Booker, to take a stand for Social Security outside of the statehouse in Trenton. (Booker responded later that day on Twitter, saying he opposes cutting Social Security and considers raising the retirement age to be a cut).

In Massachusetts, progressive elected leaders from the City of Cambridge and the Massachusetts General Assembly joined with activists to recognize that millions of Americans depend on Social Security today and millions more are expecting to be able to receive the benefits they’ve earned in the years to come.

And in Kentucky, PCCC’s Karissa Gerhke discussed new polling that shows voters in the Bluegrass State want Social Security protected and strengthened, not weakened.

Together with Democracy for America, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee asked five hundred and eighty five voters in Kentucky for their reaction to the Harkin/Begich plan. 51% of respondents said they supported increasing Social Security benefits, while only 24% were opposed.

Question: A proposal in Congress …

Newark Mayor Cory Booker, widely considered to be the frontrunner in the race to fill Frank Lautenberg’s Senate seat in New Jersey, said today that he is opposed to cutting Social Security benefits, including raising the retirement age.

At a midday Expand Social Security press conference conference in Trenton, at the New Jersey statehouse, PCCC co-founder Adam Green called on Booker to declare his support for expanding Social Security. PolitickerNJ reports:

ai???Social Security is more important than ever,ai??? said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

ai???Even in the red state of Kentucky, voters support the expansion of Social Security,ai??? he said. ai???There is no excuse for Democrats right here in the blue state of New Jersey not to.ai???

Green called out Newark Mayor Cory Booker by name, arguing itai??i??s especially important for the raceai??i??s frontrunner to ai???declare his supportai??? on the issue given Bookerai??i??s ties to Wall Street.

Following the press conference, Booker responded to a tweet from Jason Comstock, who asked, “Do you support cuts or other changes to Social Security or Medicare?” Booker replied, “No. None & if anything expand Social Security.”

read more…

The U.S. Senate is on the verge of failing students – again.

Weeks after allowing student loans to double, senators from both parties are introducing legislation that would send future students’ borrowing costs even higher.Ai?? Their proposal is worse than doing nothing – undergraduates could pay up to 8.25% interest rates and graduate students would pay even more. Current students would only be offered a teaser rate – and then their rates would go up too.

Thankfully, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is fighting back and standing up for students. Here’s what she had to say about this raw deal yesterday on the floor of the U.S. Senate:

“We should not go along with any plan that demands that our students continue to produce huge profits for the government… This is wrong.”

ai??i?? Senator Elizabeth Warren, July 18th, 2013

Senator Warren is doing her part to defeat this bad deal, but she needs our help.

IfAi??SenateAi??Democrats hear from voters today that they oppose this deal, we can stop it.

Can you make a call to your U.S. Senators and ask them to oppose the bad student loans deal? It’s easy and we’ll give you the right number to call, plus a few key points you can make.

An outpouring of public opposition will show Congress that students deserve better than to be used as profit centers, and embolden Democrats to side with students.