UPDATE:Ai??Ed Schultz has joined the PCCC in opposing the Keystone XL Pipeline!Ai??Watch him say “I was wrong” and come out against the pipeline.

PCCC Co-Founder Adam Green was recently asked by Ed Schultz for his thoughts on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Click here to listenAi??to Adam discussing the issue:

ai???We see whatai??i??s happening in West Virginia right now when polluters have their way and entire rivers and water lines get polluted. There are these explosions, you can Google and see, pipelines erupting and causing huge fireballs in communities and we know thatai??i??s part of the risk. As Michael Brune [Executive Director of the Sierra Club] was saying, we donai??i??t have to choose between two bad options. The obvious path forward is to find clean energy sources and not kind of checkmate ourselves into, do we transport this toxic stuff to our communities by rail or by pipeline? We need a third choice.ai???

Adam also noted how disagreements over Keystone has the potential to create fractures within the Democratic coalition which plays into the hand of Republicans:

“I just donai??i??t like a ai???process of elimination’ argument; I donai??i??t like feeling boxed in to making a horrible choice. If there is a legitimate reason, Iai??i??m interested in hearing that, but the net effect ai??i?? looking at this in a big picture perspective ai??i?? is I see a Republican advantage to dividing labor vs. the environmentalists. Thereai??i??s so many bad things that we need to be united against that I just see this as a huge wedge issue and I think the default should be taking it [Keystone XL] off the table, not approving it.ai???

Rather than focus on the pipeline, Adam urged the Democratic Party to champion an aggressive clean-energy jobs agenda:

ai???Imagine a situation where the president said, ‘We are going to …

The “Grand Bargain” — the mythical agreement between Democrats and Republicans to cut entitlement spending — has died…

A lot of the credit, people on and off the hill say, goes to outside progressive groups who began the momentum against the “”chained CPI”” cost-of-living adjustment, which cuts Social Security benefits by recalculating the growth of benefits with an index that doesn’t rise as quickly as inflation…

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee was one group that put the Social Security cuts at the forefront of its advocacy. And in July, it led a big strategic shift that would keep swinging the conversation — it decided to “”stop playing defense”” and go on offense, leading the push to expand Social Security benefits.
It rallied in support of bills to strengthen Social Security benefits. One such proposal was a bill from the liberal Sens. Harkin and Brown, which would increase benefits by undoing the cap on payroll taxes at $113,700…

“This is a huge progressive victory — and greatly increases Democratic chances of taking back the House and keeping the Senate,”” PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor said after Obama announced he was dropping the cuts from his budget on Thursday. “”Now, the White House should join Elizabeth Warren and others in pushing to expand Social Security benefits to keep up with the rising cost of living.”

President Barack Obama’s facing more opposition to one of his judicial nominees — this time from the left.
A coalition of 27 groups — including NARAL Pro-Choice America, Human Rights Campaign, MoveOn, Democracy for America, the National Organization for Women and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee — is urging the Judiciary Committee to reject the nomination of Michael Boggs, a state court of appeals judge in Georgia whom Obama has nominated to the U.S. district court there.

In November, congressional leaders went on offense. Senators Tom Harking and Sherrod Brown introduced a bill to [expand] Social Security [benefits]. Elizabeth Warren took to the floor to declare that the tide had changed. Unions rallied their members to flood Congress with calls, and Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Move On and others gathered millions of signatures for petitions (while at 360,000, Fix the Debt fell far short of its 10 million goal.)

What happens when you mix FDR-style populism with a Paul Krugman-esqe love of wonky policy? You get the so-called “Warren wing” Democratic candidates…

The Progressive Campaign Change Committee, which has a long history of supporting Democrats left of center, has partnered with more than a dozen of these candidates, calling them part of the Warren wing.

[Warren] is the model on which progressive Democrats see a path to victory. And it suggests that traditional progressive policy can transcend partisan boxes (appealing to libertarian and even some Republicans) if they’re presented in a different package — a less politically seasoned, more populist and more defiant package.

“That’s why you see the PCCC supporting candidates who are not involved in politics, who are younger, who are idealistic,” [Lee] Rogers said. “This is the bold part of the Elizabeth Warren wing.”

“We’re going to stand up and say no. We’re not going to take it,” Rogers said.

“Elizabeth Warren has spoken to the needs of the little guy who is struggling in our economy. We’ll be working with progressive groups to ensure that every Democratic candidate running for president, including Hillary Clinton, is asked whether they agree with Elizabeth Warren on key economic populist issues like more Wall Street reform and expanding Social Security benefits instead of cutting them,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a nearly 1 million-member progressive advocacy organization. “Democrats would be smart in the primary and general election to be more populist and stand up for the little guy more on economic issues. That’s the right way to think about distance between themselves and President Obama.”

“Victims of the Fort Lee lane closures hold press conference Tuesday at noon at the foot of the George Washington Bridge to share their stories and call on Gov. Chris Christie to resign if he was directly involved in the scandals, This press conference will be sponsored by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and NJ Working Families Alliance. The event will also feature a joint petition by the two groups signed by 10,000 New Jersey residents calling on Christie to resign if directly involved, which is located at ChristieResign.com.

“Local residents who were stuck in traffic will return to the scene of the crime to tell their personal stories and hold Christie’s administration accountable for their abuse of power,” said Keith Rouda, PCCC organizer.”

Alarmed by the rise of super-PACs, major allies of the Democratic Party are rallying behind new legislation that would provide federal matching funds for small-dollar donations…

Liberal groups said the bill would force lawmakers to pay more attention to voters.

“It’s all about changing incentives for politicians. Instead of sucking up to big-money donors, they will be sucking up to everyday people. That’s the bottom line,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “Politicians are much more likely to act against foreclosures and big polluters and issues like the minimum wage if they are talking to normal people.”

Democrat Shenna Bellows, who is running against incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, received an endorsement Tuesday that could add cash to her campaign effort. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee said it has already begun soliciting funds for Bellows, who is the former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. The group, which says it raised $2.7 million for candidates during the 2012 election cycle, has 5,700 members in Maine and nearly a million across the country…

“We call Shenna Bellows the ‘Elizabeth Warren of civil liberties’ because she’s campaigning boldly on constitutional freedom and economic populism,” said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “Like Elizabeth Warren’s challenge to former Sen. Scott Brown, many insiders thought Susan Collins was unbeatable. Until now.”

“The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has endorsed Democrat Shenna Bellows for Senate in Maine.
The endorsement follows a strong fundraising quarter for the candidate, during which she outraised Sen. Susan Collins, bringing in $331,000 to Collins’ $315,000.
PCCC co-founder Stephnaie Taylor compared Bellows, the former executive director of Maine’s American Civil Liberties Union, to another prominent PCCC-backed politician: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

“”We call Shenna Bellows the ‘Elizabeth Warren of civil liberties’ because she’s campaigning boldly on constitutional freedom and economic populism,”” Taylor said in a statement. “”Like Elizabeth Warren’s challenge to former Sen. Scott Brown, many insiders thought Susan Collins was unbeatable. Until now.””
PCCC is fundraising for Bellows’ campaign from its more than 5,700 members in Maine and nearly 1 million members nationwide.”