The Daily Change

A new poll out today finds that the majority of Americans view former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden as a whistleblower, not a traitor. The poll also finds that a plurality of Americans think the government has gone too far in so-called “anti-terrorism efforts” like indiscriminate surveillance:

A majority of U.S. registered voters consider Edward Snowden a whistle-blower, not a traitor, and a plurality says government anti-terrorism efforts have gone too far in restricting civil liberties, aAi??pollAi??released today shows.

Fifty-five percent said Snowden was a whistle-blower in leaking details about top-secret U.S. programs that collect telephone and Internet data, in the survey from Hamden, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University. Thirty-four percent said heai??i??s a traitor. Snowden, 30, worked for McLean, Virginia-based federal contractorAi??Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. (BAH)

Thousands of people have donated to assist the legal defense of Edward Snowden. Donate at SnowdenLegalFund.com. Click here to chip in a few dollars to defend Snowden.

Last week, student loan rates doubled as Congress failed to come to an agreement to prevent rates from going up. Rates will now jump to around 6.8 percent.

This comes on top of already rapidly rising tuition rates. According to the Department of Education, the average cost of tuition, room, and board for a college student in the latest data available was $18,497 — $22,092 for students at four-year colleges.

But if students were in Ireland, they’d pay a lot less. To start with, they wouldn’t pay a penny in tuition, college is fully subsidized. They would be paying only for their room and board, and a small student fee at some schools (it was around 2,000 Euros average in 2011).

Americans pay more for their college than any comparable nation — something that has actually driven some students overseas to attend school, with 10,000 Americans seeking their education in Canada and 15,000 in the UK in 2012.

There have been some programs floated to reduce this burden on American students. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has floated a plan to reduce student loan interest rates to the same low rates Wall Street banks get from the Federal Reserve while Congress works on a more long-term solution. And lawmakers in Oregon are working on an innovative plan to make college tuition-free while students are attending and then have the students who went to four-year public universities pay back 3% of their future salaries over twenty years in order to fund college education (students at other schools like community college would pay less).

Weai??i??ve started a petition to support Warrenai??i??s bill. Click here to sign on and help us get started on ending the student debt crisis.

You should follow BoldProgressives on Twitter here.

Last month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) joined twelve of her colleagues “in sending a letter to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The letter calls for an investigation into recently disclosed NSA programs to determine whether they are conducted within the statutory authority granted by Congress and to ensure that American citizens’ civil liberties and privacy are protected.”

Now, she has upped the ante, joining a new letter of 26 Senators — 21 Democrats and 4 Republicans — in writing directly to the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in demanding answers about the NSA’s spy programs. Here are a few of the questions that the letter is asking:

How long has the NSA used PATRIOT Act authorities to engage in bulk collection of Americans’ records? Was this collection underway when the law was reauthorized in 2006?
Has the NSA used USA PATRIOT Act authorities to conduct bulk collection of any other types of records pertaining to Americans, beyond phone records?
Please provide specific examples of instances in which useful intelligence was gained by reviewing phone records that could not have been obtained without the bulk collection authority, if such examples exist.

The letter also calls out Clapper for “misleading the public” with statements saying that the NSA doesn’t hold data on US citizens.

We wouldn’t even know about the NSA’s spying without Edward Snowden’s heroism. Thatai??i??s why thousands of people are fighting back at SnowdenLegalFund.com. Click here to chip in a few dollars to defend Snowden.

Here’s a snippet from an email from Laura Davila, PCCC web developer and Texan, who joined the citizen filibuster of Senate Bill 5 in Texas this past week. Laura explains why she joined the filibuster and asks you to support Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, who waged a 13-hour talking filibuster on the issue:

My name is Laura and I am the PCCC’s web developer and a proud Texan. This week I was part of something I never expected to see in my home state.

Hundreds of us took action against anti-choice legislation by occupying the Capitol and standing with Senator Wendy Davis over 10 hours of filibuster.

Together, we stopped one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the country — a bill that would have effectively shut down all but 5 of the 47 abortion clinics in Texas.

Wendy Davis is nothing short of a hero to Texas women today.Ai??She deserves our support.

Can you thank Wendy Davis by donating $3 to her Senate race? Click here to donate.

I was lucky to watch Wendy Davis begin her filibuster in the Senate gallery. When Republicans used procedural tactics to shut down her filibuster, those of us in the gallery cheered and chanted so loud that Republicans were unable to organize the vote in time and missed themidnightAi??deadline by a mere 2 minutes.

Last night’s victory was an astonishing moment in Texas history, proving that if our representatives stand up and show bold leadership, we will help carry them to victory. But, as Representative Sefronia Thompson reminded us during the home stretch last night, “Our work has just begun.”

Let’s keep the momentum going and show Republicans that “women will not be bullied” anymore.Ai??Stand with me in supporting Sen. Wendy Davis in her next race.Ai??

In solidarity,

— Laura Davila,Ai??PCCC web developer and proud Texan

The Pennsylvania legislature is currently locked in a battle over the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, with Republicans in the state lining up against the expansion.

Last night, health care activist AJ Marin, working to support the expansion, chalked the following messages outside Governor Tom Corbett’s (R-PA) mansion:

For this act of chalking on behalf of the uninsured, Pennsylvania police did this:

That’s right, they arrested him. Here’s the arrest citation, saying he made a “derogatory remark” about the Governor:

To recap, Corbett is denying 700,000 Pennsylvania citizens access to health insurance, and Pennsylvania’s police just arrested one man for protesting that fact with water-soluble chalk.

As news breaks that Edward Snowden has been charged with espionage and has left Hong Kong, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is announcing today that we raised over $25,000 for this defense fund at SnowdenDefenseFund.com for his legal fees. This came from over 1,300 small dollar donations, with the average donation being around $22.

Edward Snowden is a whistleblower — he revealed that the Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about whether the government was collecting millions of phone and Internet records from ordinary Americans. Lying to Congress is a crime, and this program is likely unconstitutional.

Glenn Greenwald, who broke the NSA spying story inAi??The GuardianAi??newspaper,explained Ai??toAi??MSNBC’s Chris HayesAi??how Snowden’s actions are not espionage:

GREENWALD: I think itai??i??s very surprising to accuse someone of espionage who hasnai??i??t worked for a foreign government, who didnai??i??t covertly pass information to an adversary [or] enemy of the United States, who didnai??i??t sell any top secret information […] Ai??[Snowden] simply went to newspapers, asked newspapers to very carefully vet the information to make sure that the only thing being published are things that informed his fellow citizens but doesnai??i??t harm national security. That is not espionage in any real sense of the word.

At the end of the day, this is about whether the people own their democracy. The people depend on Congress to represent us and exercise oversight. If a secret part of our government can break the law, lie to Congress, and spy on millions of ordinary Americans, than the people donai??i??t own their government.

Thatai??i??s why thousands of people are fighting back at SnowdenLegalFund.com. Click here to chip in a few dollars to defend Snowden.

Texas Republicans are currently in the process of trying to passAi??House Bill 60 (HB 60), which would place a ban on abortions after 20 weeks of gestation, among other measures.

TheAi??House State Affairs Committee was scheduled to take a vote on HB 60 last night, but it was met with something the Republicans did not expect: a 10-hour long citizen filibuster by hundreds of Texans.

One by one, speakers opposed to the bill testified against it, starting around 4:45 PM. Their emotional testimonies lasted almost ten hours, ending with the committee adjourning without voting on HB 60.

PCCC web developer Laura Davila was one of those speakers who testified against the bill.Ai??”This was the first time I ever attended a political event like this, and I couldn’t have been more proud to be there. Ai??I went out last night to show solidarity with the pro-choice movement, but also to testify against the bill which our Lt Governor confirmed would ultimately shut down so many clinics in TX,” said Davilla about the testimonies last night. “Sure, constitutionally women would still have a right to get an abortion until 20 weeks after conception, but it would take hours of time to even reach a facility for many Texans, and as one man said in his testimony last night, the disadvantage this would have on women in west Texas, rural areas, the Panhandle, and the border is no different than the limitations Jim Crow laws had on the right to vote for African Americans.”

Davilla snapped these pictures at around 12:30 AM, when the testimonies were almost stopped because lawmakers claimed they were “redundant”:

Hundreds of Texans packed into the room to protest HB60.

Texas lawmakers opposed to HB60 assuring the …

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is at Netroots Nation, and our co-founder Adam Green is on a panel titled “Weak Democrats Vs. Strong Progressives: Lessons From The Social Security Fight” alongside Ai??Reps. Alan Grayson (D-FL) and Mark Takano (D-CA) and Credo Mobile’s Becky Bond talking about how progressives build political power. Blogger Heather “Digby” Parton will be hosting, and we will use the panel to discuss how progressives have been fighting President Obama’s proposed cuts to Social Security benefits and how progressives are fighting back and even proposing to expand these benefits instead. Hear behind-the-scenes stories on power, progressive organizing, and the Democratic Party.

Below you can watch a livestream of the panel, Ai??which will begin at 7:30 PM EST today, with a pre-game conversation starting at 7:15 PM EST.

Click here to share this live stream on Facebook.

Click here to share this live stream on Twitter.

Are you a Daily Kos member? Click here to rec a diary about this event.

Click here to chip in a few dollars to progressive heroes who’ve signed the Grayson-Takano letter promising to vote against any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits.

PCCC fellow Andrew Villeneuve will also be live blogging the panel as it happens.

Panel Liveblog

Hey everyone, it’s Andrew. Welcome to our live coverage of Weak Democrats vs. Strong Progressives: Lessons from the Social Security Fight. If you’re able to tune in to our livestream above, you’re welcome to follow along from home in addition to reading live updates here in this post. We’ll be getting started in just a few minutes!

4:30 PM: Here we go! Again, we are livestreaming this panel above. Feel free to tune in and watch from home. Heather Parton, who blogs as Digby, will moderate our discussion for the next hour and fifteen minutes.

4:43 PM: …

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) today announced that she will vote against Michael Froman, President Obama’s nominee to be the U.S. Trade Representative. Warren cited her concerns with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secret trade agreement that the administration has been negotiating that may threaten the worker and environmental rights. The administration has refused to disclose the text of the negotiations to the wider public.

“If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States,” said Warren in her speech. “I am voting against Mr. Froman’s nomination later today because I believe we need a new direction from the Trade Representative — A direction that prioritizes transparency and public debate,” she concluded.Ai??Read the full text of her speech below the video.

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

FULL TEXT:

Thank you Mr. President.

I rise today to talk about trade agreements and the impact they have on our economy. Trade agreements affect access to foreign markets and our level of imports and exports.Ai?? They also affect a wide variety of public policy issues – everything from wages, jobs, the environment, and the Internet — to monetary policy, pharmaceuticals, and financial services.

Many people are deeply interested in tracking the trajectory of trade negotiations, but if they do not have reasonable access to see the terms of the agreements under negotiation, then they can’t have real input.Ai?? Without transparency, the benefits from an open marketplaces of ideas are reduced enormously.

I am deeply concerned about the transparency record of the US Trade Representative and with one ongoing trade agreement in particular — the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

For months, the Trade Representative who negotiates on our behalf has been unwilling to provide any public access to the composite bracketed text relating to the negotiations.Ai?? The composite bracketed text includes proposed language from …

Since Glenn Greenwald’s blockbuster story on indiscriminate NSA spying on phone and Internet records, there has been appropriate outrage about American privacy and basic fourth amendment freedoms.

But there has been less attention on the fact that the national security state, largely through its outsourcing to private intelligence and defense contractors like Edward Snowden’s former employer Booz Allen Hamilton, has basically become a welfare program for the very rich. Here are a few numbers showing how:

$763,000: That’s the reimbursement cap for defense contractors — almost twice what President Barack Obama makes and over three times what vice president Joe Biden makes. Repeated attempts to lower this cap have failed.
3.2 Percent: That’s the unemployment rate in Arlington County, Virginia, the hub of the intelligence contractor state and location of the headquarters of Booz Allen Hamilton. InAi??In January 2010, during the height of the recession, the widerAi??United States had an unemployment rate of 9.8%, while ArlingtonAi??maintained an unemployment rate of only 5.1%.
50-60 Percent:Ai??In 2007,Ai??that was the estimated percentageAi??of “the workforce of the CIA’s most important directorate, the National Clandestine Service (NCS), responsible for the gathering of human intelligence,” that was “composed of employees of for-profit corporations.”
70 Percent: That’s the percentage of the intelligence community’s secret budget that has gone to private contractors, despite the fact that only one in four intelligence workers is a contractor — a sign that the privatization of the security state is driving up costs.
$107Ai??million: The amount the top executives at the top five Pentagon contractors made. That’s “43Ai??percent more than the heads of the five biggest U.S. banks, who made $75Ai??million.”
$20 Million:Ai??That’s the compensation of Booz Allen Hamilton’s top five employees in the 2010 fiscal year. TheAi??Washington Post reportsAi??that the “Ai??vast majority of” the company’s revenue “about 98 percent…comes …

Yesterday, eight progressive organizations — the Progressive Change Campaign Committee,Ai??MoveOn, DFA, CREDO, Rebuild the Dream, Wolf PAC, Working Families Organization, and Daily Kos — sent an open letter to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. John B. LarsonAi??(D-CT), chairman of theAi??House Democrats’ Task Force on Election Reform, and Ranking Member Robert Brady (D-PA)Ai??urging them to take up legislation to create real citizen-funded elections — and not a weaker system that would reward candidates who continue to rake in big-dollar contributions. The letter reads as follows:

Leader Pelosi, Representative Larson, and Ranking Member Brady:

We have been following the work of the Task Force on Election Reform. We write to applaud your leadership and attention to the critical issue of campaign finance reform ai??i?? and to inform you that we stand ready to mobilize millions of Americans around strong legislation that brings forth citizen-funded elections for Congress.

For us, the goal of such legislation is to increase the power of ordinary Americans in our democracy and to incentivize candidates to spend their time talking with ordinary Americans instead of special-interest donors. We ask you to put the full weight of Democratic Leadership behind a bill that achieves those goals ai??i?? a bill such asAi??The Fair Elections Now Act (HR 269, Yarmuth)Ai??andAi??Grassroots Democracy Act (HR 268, Sarbanes).

While these two bills have differences, their core similarity is that they create a robust system of matching funds for candidates who opt to only raise small-dollar donations. This would be game changing. Candidates would be incentivized to spend their time courting ordinary Americans and would have dramatically less incentive to court big-money, special-interest donors. We understand that progress is being made on merging these bills into one, and we look forward to rallying the public around such a bill.

We cannot get behind …

The Obama administration is currently working with numerous countries to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) a massive new trade agreement. Labor, environmental, and human rights groups worry that this trade deal may undermine financial regulation, offshore American jobs, reduce environmental protections, and decrease access to medicine.

The best way to ensure this does not happen is to let Americans know what’s happening in the negotiations. Unfortunately, while over 600 corporate advisors have access to these negotiations, most Members of Congress, the public, journalists, and civil society do not.

Today, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called on U.S. Trade Representative nominee Michael Froman to reveal these secret trade negotiations by revealing the bracket text of the agreement or at least provide information on the level of detail on negotiations made available to advisory committees. From the text of a press release from Warren’s office, detailing a letter to Froman:

United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) today, in a letter to United States Trade Representative (USTR) nominee Michael Froman, called on his support for increased transparency in trade negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Sen. Warren expressed concerns about the Administration’s record of transparency specifically during the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.

“If members of the public do not have reasonable access to the terms of the agreements under negotiation, then they are unable to offer real input into the process,” Senator Warren wrote in the letter. “Without transparency, the benefit from robust democratic participation – an open marketplace of ideas – is considerably reduced.”

Sen. Warren highlights the Administration’s unwillingness to provide to the public composite bracketed text relating to the negotiations. This text includes proposed language from the United States and other countries, and serves as the focal point for negotiations. She noted that the Bush Administration, while not embracing full transparency, at least released a scrubbed …

The Guardian has just published an article about and video interview with the man behind the NSA leaks. 29 year-old Edward Snowden works for the massive defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and is a former technical assistant to the CIA. Snowden explained to the Guardian that he realized he was risking extreme harm to himself by revealing the government’s spying programs, but that he wanted the public to know the truth about the massive surveillance state. “What they’re doing” poses “an existential threat to democracy”, he warned, and also said that the NSA “routinely lied to Congress,” which would be a crime.

We’re raising money for aAi??Edward Snowden Legal Defense Fund to help him defend himself and tell his story. Can you chip in $10 and tell others too?

Read more from The Guardian:

The individual responsible for one of the most significant leaks in US political history isAi??Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former technical assistant for theAi??CIAAi??and current employee of the defence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden has been working at the National Security Agency for the last four years as an employee of various outside contractors, including Booz Allen and Dell.

The Guardian, after several days of interviews, is revealing his identity at his request. From the moment he decided to disclose numerous top-secret documents to the public, he was determined not to opt for the protection of anonymity. “IAi??have no intention of hiding whoAi??IAi??am becauseAi??IAi??knowAi??IAi??have done nothing wrong,” he said.

Snowden will go down in history as one of America’s most consequentialAi??whistleblowers, alongside Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. He is responsible for handing over material from one of the world’s most secretive organisations ai??i?? theAi??NSA.

In a note accompanying the first set of documents he provided, he wrote: “IAi??understand thatAi??IAi??will be made to suffer for my actions”…

He …

After last week’s explosive revelations from The Guardian and Washington Post about the government’s massive spying and cyberattack programs, there has already been one important victory — the United States is once again debating its massive security state.

Here’s empirical data showing that. Google Trends maps news headlines over time. Here’s a headline search from 2004 to the present. As you can see, news about spying hasn’t been this high since January 2006 (approximately the time of the Bush-era NSA scandal):

MSNBC reportsAi??that “the PCCC is…marshalling an organized response.” Click here to sign aAi??Ai??petition calling on Congress to immediately investigate this surveillance and share the results with the public. Click here to sign on.

Today, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) — the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus — issued a statement condemning the NSA spying programs revealed this week:

ai???This indiscriminate data collection underminesAi??Americansai??i?? basic freedoms.Ai?? While there are legitimate law enforcement uses for this data, the scope of the program isAi??aAi??serious case of mission creep andcreates a veryAi??slippery slope.Ai?? Gathering this data just in case it contains something useful does not qualify as an urgent law enforcement exercise.

ai???Our citizensai??i?? right to privacy is fundamental and non-negotiable. Domestic surveillance should only be conducted when there is an imminent need for information.Ai??The dragnet nature of this tracking suggests there was no such imminent threat, making this is a misuse of sections of the Patriot Act to collect the personal information of millions of Americans.Ai??The program weai??i??re hearing about today seems not to respect that boundary.Ai??It, and any other programs the NSA is running with other telecom companies, should end.ai???

Weai??i??ve launched a petition calling on the House and Senate Judiciary committees to immediately investigate this surveillance and share the results with the public. Click here to sign on.Ai??

Last night, news broke that the NSA had requested and gained access to the phone records of millions of Verizon customers. Today, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) put out a statement condemning this massive surveillance program:

“This type of secret bulk data collection is an outrageous breach of Americans’ privacy. I have had significant concerns about the intelligence community over-collecting information about Americansai??i?? telephone calls, emails, and other records and that is whyAi??I voted against the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act provisions in 2011 and the reauthorization of the FISA Amendments Act just six months ago.ai???

ai???This bulk data collection is being done under interpretations of the law that have been kept secret from the public. Ai??Significant FISA court opinions that determine the scope of our laws should be declassified. Can the FBI or the NSA really claim that they need data scooped up on tens of millions of Americans?ai???

We’ve launched a petition calling on the House and Senate Judiciary committees to immediately investigate this surveillance and share the results with the public. Click here to sign on.Ai??

The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald tonight reported that the government’s National Security Agency ordered Verizon to turn over the phone records of millions of Americans for a three-month period starting this April and ending July 9th:

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largestAi??telecomsAi??providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order,Ai??a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk ai??i?? regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

The disclosure is likely to reignite longstanding debates in the US over the proper extent of the government’s domestic spying powers.

We’ve launched a petition to the House and Senate Judiciary committees to immediately investigate the NSA’s conduct and share the results with the public. Click here to sign our petition.

Patriot Coal, a massive coal company that operates mines along Appalachia and the Illinois Basin, moved recently to get out of its collective bargaining agreements it has with its unionized workforce represented by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). A judge recently ruled that the company will be allowed to this, essentially giving it the ability to abandon its responsibility to workers who spent their whole lives working for the company. As many as 20,000 workers are expected to lose long-term health benefits.

Yesterday, the workers decided they weren’t going to allow their retirements to go down without a fight. Hundreds of protesters rallied outside a Henderson, Kentucky courthouse. 15 protesters were arrested, including workers from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Illinois.

“If there is no justice, Peabody, you will have no rest, you will have no peace,” said Dan Kane, who serves as the the United Mine Workers’ secretary-treasurer, at the rally. “You may depend on the poisonous words of a judge to let you out of a debt, but let me tell you, we’ll decide when it’s over, and it ain’t over yet.”

You should follow BoldProgressives on Twitter here.

After the passing of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) will first appoint someone to replace him temporarily and then will be in charge of holding a Senate election for a permanent replacement.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and NJ Working Families Alliance have launched a petition and online ads calling on Christie to hold the Senate election during the November 5th gubernatorial election this year. Here’s a portion of a PCCC email sent today arguing for a November 2013 Senate election:

New Jersey deserves representation in the U.S. Senate that is chosen by the people — as many New Jerseyans as possible — in a way that does not waste millions of taxpayer dollars that could be spent on education and jobs.

Can you sign our petition with the NJ Working Families Alliance urging Governor Christie to allow voters to elect a senator duringAi??the general election onAi??November 5, 2013?

It’s been reported that the governor could push the special election to 2014 in order to depress voter turnout when he is on the ballot in 2013.

Or, he could waste millions of taxpayer dollars on a special election one month before this year’s general election.

Again, this would be so that fewer voters participate in both elections and Republicans have a better chance.

And here’s a snippet from a New Jersey Working Families Alliance email today:

New Jerseyans deserve to elect their senator this year in a way that ensures maximum participation and doesn’t waste public dollars that should be going to creating the jobs this state desperately needs.

Indeed, New Jersey’s 2009 gubernatorial election hadAi??a turnout rate of around 46 percentAi??– and this was in a governor’s race with historically low turnout. In 2010, this dropped toAi??a turnout rate of 37.8 percent.

UPDATE: Christie has announced that he will be holding …

News broke last week that President Obama will be nominating former Bush Deputy Attorney General to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Comey’s nomination has stirred a debate about civil liberties and the surveillance state, but one issue that has not arisen is what he plans to do about the bureau’s approach to financial fraud.

As former S&L crisis regulator William K. Black notes, the FBI’s staff dedicated to pursuing white collar crime have been greatly reduced after 9/11. Around 500 FBI white collar crime specialists were shifted to national security functions. As Black says, that was “quite understandable. But what’s not understandable is the administration refused to allow the FBI to replace those folks.”

Check out this 2008 infographic from the New York Times laying out the decline in the FBI’s capacity to pursue white collar crime:

As Comey will be faced with a Senate confirmation hearing, Senators should ask him if he plans to reinforce the FBI’s financial crimes investigators.

The right to vote is under attack. From discriminatory “voter ID” laws to inconsistent and unequal provision ballot counting techniques, many voters around the country — especially those from low-income or minority backgrounds who are most targeted by voter suppression — are asking whether they even have this right anymore.

To rectify this, freshman congressman Mark Pocan (D-WI) along with fellow congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) has introduced a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to a vote. It reads simply as follows:

SECTION 1: Every citizen of the United States, who is of legal voting age, shall have the fundamental right to vote in any public election held in the jurisdiction in which the citizen resides.

SECTION 2: Congress shall have the power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation.

Want to support this proposed amendment? Call the Congressional Switchboard atAi??(202) 224-3121 and ask your Member of Congress to support the Pocan-Ellison amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the right to vote.

You should follow BoldProgressives on Twitter here.

Last night, almost a hundred Montanans attended anAi??early organizing meet-up in Missoula. Among the attendees were progressive Democratic State Representative Ellie Hill,Ai??Pat Noonan, Bryce Bennet, and former Democratic congressman Pat Williams.

The gathering attracted the support of 75 additional Montanans, who signed a petition in support of a Schweitzer run for Senate. Additionally, the house party raised over $1059 to put towards Schweitzer’s run that he would get on day one of his campaign.

Here are some pictures from the event:

Click here to join our Draft BrianAi??SchweitzerAi??for Senate campaign.

(OrAi??donate $3 that Brian will receive on Day OneAi??of his campaign, so he can hit the ground running.)

Jason Furman

Bloomberg reported late yesterday that President Obama plans to nominate Harvard economist Jason Furman as his next head of his Council of Economic Advisers.

This would be very bad news for progressives because of Furman’s advocacy for right-wing policies. Here’s five reasons why Furman shouldn’t be Obama’s top economic adviser:

He’s An Advocate Of Job-Killing “Free Trade” Deals:Ai??In an article in the Harvard Law & Policy Review, Furman criticized the growing opposition to so-called free trade deals — which have trade rules rigged in favor of big corporations and do not actually enact unfettered trade. He criticized this oppositionAi??as a “serious threat to our economic well-being” and offered support for more job-killing trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea (those agreements are expected to cost the United States over 200,000 jobs).
He Supports Wal-Mart’s Anti-Worker Practices: Ai??Furman wrote an article calling Wal-Mart a “progressive success story,” and praised the “progressive benefits of everyday low prices” — which are subsidized by the low wages of not only its American workforce but Chinese workers in factories earning as little as $120 a month. He said that the”mere fact that more than 1.3 million Americans work at Wal-Mart demonstrates thatAi??its compensation is at least as good as the alternatives” — despite the fact data shows that the company’s workers earn “12.4% less than retail workers as a whole and 13% less than large retail workers in general.”Ai??He dismissed criticism from progressives, saying, “Some have pointed to Costco (which has higher wages and more generous benefits), Ai??arguing that if Wal-Mart were more generous with its employees it would do better at attracting, Ai??motivating, and retaining them, increasing its total profits. I have no ability to judge whether or Ai??not this is true, …

The past six months has seen numerous one-day strikes by fast food workers across the country, in cities like Chicago, New York City, and Detroit. The point of these strikes is to draw attention to the low wages and little to no benefits that fast food and other retail workers receive.

Today, this strike wave hits Seattle, as workers at dozens of stores have started walking out.Ai??ai???Iai??i??m sick of seeing my co-workers and me essentially get pushed and pushed and barely be able to eat,” saidAi??Taco Bell employee Caroline Durocher to labor journalist Josh Eidelson. “And I think itai??i??s time that we pushed them back.ai???

Activists on the ground are taking pictures from the scenes of the strikes. Here’s a sampling:

Crowd chanting “we’ve got your back” (photo credit: @Molly_O)

Qdoba workers (photo credit: @GoodJobsSeattle)

Sign outside of a Taco Bell. (photo credit: @RaiseupMKE)

Arby’s workers on strike (photo credit: @Molly_O)

You should follow BoldProgressives on Twitter here.

Late last year, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) held a seven day strike that won more money for arts and music education, more compensation, funding for supplies and textbooks, among other concessions.

As the CTU strike was occurring, some commentators and Mayor Rahm Emanuel claimed that it would harm kids because it reduced the number of days they were in school. But if students were harmed, it certainly isn’t showing in graduation rates released today. Chicago Public Schools announced that it had record graduation rates this year, with 63 percent of high school students graduating. That’s up five percent from the 2010-2011 school year.

Unfortunately public education continues to face hurdles in Chicago — as the city moves ahead with plans to close almost fifty public schools. Check out our friends at Progress Illinois for updates on the continuing movement against the school closures.

You should follow BoldProgressives on Twitter here.