The Daily Change

Since news broke that the IRS inappropriately audited a variety of grassroots tea party groups, Congress has started a number of investigations aimed at figuring out why the agency engaged in this behavior.

But a bigger question is, why did the IRS target such small, mostly grassroots organizations for audits and ignore massive political players? As the Conservative Intel’s David Freddoso points out, the median income of the groups targeted by the IRS was $16,700.

While the IRS was looking at groups with such a small budget, it ignored the groups with the most money. Here’s the top 3 501(c)(4)s from election 2012:

Crossroads GPS: Karl Rove’s dark money organization spent more than $70 million in election 2012, all of it undisclosed.

Americans For Prosperity:Ai??This Koch Brothers-founded organization spent over $33 million, mostly to attack Obama. It can be assumed much of this money came from the Kochs, but we actually have no idea where it came from exactly because it is not required to be disclosed.

American Future Fund: This pro-Romney group spent nearly $24 million, not a penny of it disclosed to the public.

Following the IRS revelations, there have been calls on capitol hill for increased scrutiny of how IRS grants social welfare tax status to groups. Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) said that “we need to examine the root of this issue and reform the nationai??i??s vague 501(c)(4) tax laws,” and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) complained that “the lines blurred between [political organizations] and 501(c)(4), and [the IRS has not seemed] to have done anything about it.”

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Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and David Vitter (R-LA) have introduced legislation that would lay the groundwork for breaking up the biggest banks — a cause Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been fighting for since she took office.

To understand why this legislation is so important even though Congress already passed into law a financial reform bill, recall that the biggest so-called “too big to fail” banks on Wall Street are now actually bigger than they were during the financial crisis where they were bailed out.

Neil Barofsky, a New York University academic who served as the watchdog for the Trouble Asset Relief Program (the bank bailout), appeared on CNN last fall and explained how the banks are bigger than ever and that they continue to believe they’ll be bailed out if they fail:

BAROFSKY: If you just look at the map, the fact is the banks are 20 to 25 percent bigger than they were before the crisis. And that we haven’t changed the incentives. The way the incentives are “too big to fail” because of the presumption of bailout is it drives these institutions into taking more and more bigger and bigger risks. Again, the presumptions are they’ll keep the profits, and the taxpayers will eat the losses.

Watch it:

Weai??i??re launching a campaign to pass the Brown-Vitter bill that would break up the Big Banks. Click here to join.

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As we wrote in March, the city of Chicago unveiled plans two months ago to close over 50 schools, mostly in the poorest areas.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan has sparked fierce protests, with thousands of protesters hitting the streets last weekend to oppose the school closures –arguing that they would put children at risk by having to travel further to overcrowded schools.

But while the city insists it must close these schools to close budget gaps, it has just announced that it will be dedicated as much as $100 million in public funds for the construction of a new basketball arena at DePaul University — which is about a third of the cost of the project.

Emanuel justified such a large public investment by saying that building the arena and surrounding event center will bring “huge opportunity” to the city of Chicago in the way that it would attract business and tourists.

This statement came at around the same time the Board of Education — despite desperate pleas from city residents as, Progress Illinois documents here — voted in favor of the mayor’s plan to shutter 50 schools. The Board, it should be noted, is not elected like it is in some municipalities. It was appointed by Mayor Emanuel.

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Yesterday, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) aggressively questioned Treasury Secretary Jack Lew about efforts to break up so-called “too big to fail” banks. She noted that under the previous Treasury Secretary, the administration failed to support a Senate amendment to break up these banks.

She then probed Lew about if he would support such efforts.

LEW: I think we’re on a path now which is the right path, which is to implement Dodd-Frank and then to take stock when we’re done implementing Dodd-Frank. […]

WARREN: Ai??The question is though, Secretary Lew, this is about concentration. We all said back in 2009, 2009, the problem that caused the financial crash in part was concentration in the banking industry. And what do we see now? We see more concentration. […] How big do the biggest banks have to get before we consider breaking them up? They’re thirty percent larger now than they were five years ago. Do they have to double in size? Triple in size? Quadruple in size, before we talk about breaking up the biggest financial institutions? […]

LEW: There are many things going on and I’m not trying to avoid addressing the question of “too big to fail,” I’m trying to address quite clearly that that’s an unacceptable policy. But I think we have to take in account all the factors that together add up to systemic risk.

WARREN: Fair enough, Mr. Lew, Secretary Lew. But I really think the evidence suggests that concentration is one of those factors. And that when we see the largest financial institutions getting bigger and bigger, it tells us we are not clearly on the path to resolving “too big to fail.”

Watch it:

We’re launching a campaign to pass the bipartisan Brown-Vitter bill that would break up …

As Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has said, the nation’s biggest banks have essentially gained “too big for trial” status, and the federal government has failed to prosecute any executive at a Big Bank for financial fraud.

While Wall Street has escaped prosecutions, thousands of Americans have been arrested in the course of protests against the banks. Yesterday, at protests at the Department of Justice, at least 17 Americans were arrested — and there were more arrests today. In October 2011, one month after the start of Occupy Wall Street, at least 1,000 Americans had been arrested in these protests. As of May 2013, that number is 7,736 — according to the website Occupy Arrests, which tracks arrests.

Help us stand with these protesters.Ai??Click here to sign our petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission asking it to end ai???too big for trial.ai???

This afternoon, dozens of homeowners who have faced abuses by Big Banks rallied outside the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, D.C. They demanded that the agency finally prosecute Wall Street banks who have become, as Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has said, “too big for trial.”

The march, consisting of well over a hundred demonstrators, started at Washington, D.C.’s Freedom Plaza. The marchers came from as far as Portland, Oregon, and large contingents came from cities plagued with foreclosures, such as Atlanta and New York City.

“We’re really excited over the last two and a half days we’ve had residents from around the country who’ve lost their homes or who are fighting to save their homes, come together toAi??commitAi??to training for change, to bring the movement back to their community, to keepAi??fightingAi??for their homes, and also to risk arrest today as we march to the DOJ and refuse to leave until we get a meeting with Eric Holder, until we get aAi??commitmentAi??that he’s going to start going after banks,” said Tim Franzen, who works for the quaker social justice group American Friends Service Committee. “And it’s not just about jailing bankers, it’s about bringing resources back into our communities. Wealth that has been stolen. Trillions of dollars of wealth has been stolen from our neighborhoods and you can just drive through them and see the consequences. The boarded up homes. People on the street. We are not on a crisis of economic resources, it’s one of priorities. And that’s what we’re here to say today.”

The demonstrators marched to the Department of Justice, where they rallied outside the main entrance. At that entrance, several police armed with pepper guns and other crowd control weapons at first pushed the demonstrators back, …

Ai??Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green was on MSNBCai??i??s The Ed Show yesterday, and part of what he discussed was the organization’s Draft Brian Schweitzer campaign. Schultz asked Green what the main difference between Schweitzer and current Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) would be. Green explained how he would have a game-changing presence in the Senate and be a bold economic populist:

GREEN: Brian Schweitzer, if he decides to run for Senate, which he’s considering, would be an absolute game changer. He is kind of a prairie populist, a farmer who ran for governor, got re-elected and just finished his second term. And his bedrock principle is standing up for the little guy against big corporate interests. That’s what he did as governor and he’s named people like Teddy Roosevelt and Paul Wellstone as his political icons. So we’re working with thousands of people across the state of Montana on a Draft Schweitzer movement.

SCHULTZ: Is he kind of the model Democrat in the middle of the country?

GREEN: He is absolutely the model Democrat. Particularly on economic populism issues. And to have someone from the perceived red state of Montana out there talking about trust busting, out there saying that the corporations own this government and we need to take it back again, will be a game changer. He will be an amazing partner to Elizabeth Warren.

Watch it:

The Draft Brian Schweitzer campaign has alsoAi??gotten local media coverage in the Missoula Independent:

ai???We look for game changers,ai??? Green told the Indy during one of several stops in western Montana early this week. ai???People who will both represent their state well and have a systemic impact on the culture of politics in Washington. Brian Schweitzerai??i??s authenticity and economic populism is something that the Democratic Party sorely needs …

Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Adam Green was on MSNBC’s The Ed Show yesterday, explaining how Democrats shouldn’t embrace politically disastrous cuts to Social Security benefits and instead should follow the lead of Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) Mark Begich (D-AK) and talk about expanding benefits. Green also covered the growing Draft Brian Schweitzer campaign to get the former Montana Governor to run for Senate:

GREEN:Ai??In 2012, oneAi??presidentialAi??ticket explicitly ran on the idea of cutting social safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare, and that ticket was soundly defeated by Barack Obama. He does not have a mandate to cut Social Security benefits […] We’re actually getting ready to go on offense in the Senate, rallying around people like Tom Harkin from Iowa and Mark Begich from Alaska who are not only saying these cuts are on the table, they want to expand Social Security benefits. So it’s in the best interest of the Democratic Party not just to help millions of people right now, but to make sure their base comes out and that they don’t commit political suicide by supporting Social Security benefit cuts right now.

Watch Green’s appearance:

Call your Member of Congress and ask them to sign onto the Grayson-Takano letter vowing to vote against any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits.

Sign on as a citizen supporter of the Grayson-Takano letter.

This week, PCCC co-founders Adam Green and Stephanie Taylor were in Montana. They personally informed Brian Schweitzer that thousands of people want him to run for U.S. Senate, and kicked off an on-the-ground effort to recruit others to the draft effort.

The Missoula Independent’sAi??Alex Sarkariassen wrote thisAi??great articleAi??covering this growing movement to Draft Brian Schweitzer for Senate:

Schweitzer:Ai??Drafting a “game changer”

Adam Green has been following Brian Schweitzer from afar for years. Even before he co-founded the Washington, D.C.-based Progressive Change Campaign Committee with former union organizer Stephanie Taylor in 2009, he saw Schweitzer as “an authentic guy who says what’s on his mind and generally stands up for the little guy.” Now Green and Taylor are trying to draw Schweitzer out of his post-gubernatorial life on Georgetown Lake and convince him to run for the U.S. Senate in 2014. They’re already primed to hand him $24,000 in contributions the moment he declares.

“We look for game changers,” Green told the Indy during one of several stops in western Montana early this week. “People who will both represent their state well and have a systemic impact on the culture of politics in Washington. Brian Schweitzer’s authenticity and economic populism is something that the Democratic Party sorely needs right now, and could have huge ripple effects across the nation if he has a bully pulpit in Washington, D.C.”

PCCC has collected 16,000 signatures from supporters of its “Draft Brian Schweitzer” campaign, and Green and Taylor have already talked directly to Schweitzer about their initiative. “They’re taking note,” Green says of those around the former governor, adding that mounting grassroots supportai??i??and the money raised so farai??i??could sweeten the pot as Schweitzer makes up his mind. …

PCCC has been successful before in recruiting winners. The organization convinced Sen. Elizabeth Warren …

With the resignation of the acting head of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over a series of audits of conservative organizations, the agency is under intense public scrutiny. Ai??But this furor ignores little-noticed numbers released last month — they show that the IRS’s audits of wealthy taxpayers revealed massive tax-dodging by the richest Americans.

In 2012, the IRS ramped up its audits of wealthy taxpayers, and shockingly found a massive rate of under-paying taxes. It audited one in eight tax filers with incomes over $1 million, concluding that about 75 percent of these millionaires failed to pay the taxes they owed. Altogether, the agency collected an additional $4.8 billion in taxes from these taxpayers after the audits were conducted.

As the press and politicians look at the IRS’s conduct with regards to auditing political nonprofits, it’s important to remember that these audits can be a powerful tool for making sure that wealthy taxpayers are paying what is legally required of them. If last year’s numbers are any indication, increasing audits of wealthy taxpayers will reveal under-payment and help us raise the money needed to fund the government.

With the retirement of Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), Montanans have a chance to elect a real progressive — former. Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has spearheaded a “Draft Schweitzer” movement that held its first house party in Billings, Montana yesterday.

The event was held at the home ofAi??Hans and Deborah Abbey, and it is the beginning of a campaign that plans to recruit 500 volunteers, identify 5,000 supporters, and raise $50,000, which Schweitzer would get on day one of his campaign should he choose to run.

We talked to Barb Skelton, one of the organizers behind the event. Skelton has actually known the Schweitzers since she was a child, having grown up near their ranch. She’s worked in politics for 40 years, partly thanks to the influence ofAi??Kathleen Helen Schweitzer, Brian’s mother.

“I think he’d do what’s absolutely good for Montana,” she said, explaining her enthusiastic support for a run by Schweitzer. “I think he’s a real progressive thinker.”

She cited his work after leaving office as evidence that he’s committed to progressive, populist causes, saying she’s “glad he got involved in Stillwater Mines, saving 1,700 jobs there” — referring to an effort by Schweitzer to oust the leadership of a local mining company that was wasting money on foreign projects rather than domestic development.

Here’s are some pictures from the event last night:

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.)

As the provisions of the Affordable Care Act — referred to as Obamacare for short — begin to come online, congressional Republicans haveAi??continuedAi??to obsess over repealing the law altogether.

The New York Times looked into the numbers this morning and concluded that House Republicans have spent a whopping 15 percent of their time trying to repeal all or parts of the new health care law.

Republicans don’t seem to have any regret over the fact that repealing Obamacare has taken precedence over other issues, like jobs.

ai???Itai??i??s something that we wanted to move up on the list of priorities,ai??? said Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) to the New York Times. ai???And Iai??i??m glad they listened to us.ai???

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Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) thinks its wrong that Big Banks get interest rates on their loans that are seven times lower than America’s students. That’s why she introduced a bill to make the rates exactly the same for one year.

Today, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced that he will be co-sponsoring Warren’s legislation, called the Bank On Student Loan Fairness Act:

Proud to cosponsor @senwarren‘s bill to give our students the same loan rates our biggest financial institutions get from the Fed

ai??i?? Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) May 14, 2013

Help us keep up the momentum.Ai??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.

This past January, we reported on two Seattle high schools that were boycotting a particular standardized test — the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) — saying that the focus on testing was crowding out time for teaching. “Weai??i??re not opposing any of the high-stakes testing that are kids are required to take. Weai??i??re only opposing this test, the MAP,” the testing coordinator for one of the schools told us.

The Seattle school district has just announcedAi??that it will not be administering the MAP next year thanks to the protests by teachers.

“Finally, educatorsai??i?? voices have been acknowledged,ai???Ai??saidAi??teacher Jesse Hagopian, who teaches at Garfield High, the site of the beginning of the test boycott. ai???This is a great moment in the movement for quality assessment.ai???

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On Saturday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) gave the commencement speech at Kentucky’s Murray State University. A group of students is opposed to McConnell’s address, pointing to his record voting against support for higher education. Recall that McConnell, for example, opposed a student loan overhaul that removed big banks as a middleman in federal student lending.

TheyAi??started a petition that has 913 signatures and held demonstrations on campus against the pick. I talked to Murray State senior andAi??politicalAi??science major Devin Griggs, one of the organizers against McConnell who is starting a new progressive student group called CORE — Campus Organization for Racer Empowerment (the Racer is the mascot of the school).

“McConnell’sAi??voting record is completely anti higher education, anti education in general,” explained Griggs in his opposition to McConnell’s commencement address. CORE not only campaigned against McConnell’s address, but will also work to change the Board of Regents policy in the future regarding speakers.

CORE will be asking every Board of Regents member to in the future make sure that no public official Democrat or Republican can be featured as a commencement speaker to ensure that the event is not politicized.

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Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced a bill that would guarantee that, for one year, the federal government would charge the same near-zero interest rates for student loans that it does now for Big Banks.

Warren’s bill has received praise from activists, and for good reason — student debt has become a crisis in the U.S. Here are five facts about that crisis:

Student Loan Debt Is Over $1 Trillion: As of last year, student loan debt exceeded a whopping $1 trillion. “Young consumers are shouldering much of the punishment in the form of substantial student-loan bills for doing exactly what they were told would be the key to a better life,” said Rohit Chopra of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at the time.
Student Debt Has Surpassed Most Other Types Of Consumer Debt: As of 2010, student loan debt outstanding surpassed auto loans, credit cards, and revolving home-equity loans, as this graphic from the Wall Street Journal shows:Ai??
The Average Debt Burden Is Double What It Was In 2003: In 2003, the average student loan debt burden wasAi??$10,649. Now it’sAi??$20,326.
It’s Very Difficult To Discharge Student Debt Thanks To A 1976 Law:Ai??You can discharge various forms of debt by declaring bankruptcy such as credit card and auto loans. But in 1976,Ai??Congress passed a lawAi??to make it very difficult to discharge student loan debt under a similar process. Reps. Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Danny Davis (D-IL) have repeatedly introduced legislation to reverse the 1976 law.
It Wasn’t Always This Way: For many in today’s generation, student debt is a fact of life — a necessary burden to getting a college degree. But the situation wasn’t always so dire. In California, universities up until …

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) won’t commit to voting against benefit cuts.

40 Members of the House of Representatives have signed onto the Grayson-Takano letter promising to vote against any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits.

But one congressman who has not is Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). Local Los Angeles resident Kim Kaufman attended a recent town hall event with him and asked him to sign the letter. This was his response, where he compared the Grayson-Takano letter to Washington lobbyist Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge:

I would not sign onto any letter that says under no circumstances would I vote for a bill that had that in it. It’s like the Republicans pledge they’ll never vote for tax increases. I don’t want to sign onto a pledge that under no circumstances will I ever do something. Ai??I’ll express my feelings not to do certainAi??things but I don’t want to make that kind of a pledge. I can see possibilities that some things thatAi??we don’t like may be in a final budget and that will get us a lot of things we do want. So I’m not going to sign an unequivocal pledge — for a bill maybe, but not against it.

Kaufman uploaded this video where she read off Waxman’s statement and offered her own response. “Taking a pledge not to cut Social Security is not like taking a pledge not to raise taxes on already rich people. One is a moral response in how to govern and one is not,” she says. Watch it:

Last month, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) held a briefing call with PCCC members where he explained his own take on how the Grayson-Takano letter is very much not like the Norquist pledge:

“I had a reporter ask me recently ‘Is this just …

The U.S. government offers very low-interest — in some cases, near-zero interest rate — loans — that is, if you are a Big Bank on Wall Street. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) doesn’t think it’s right for the government to give a better deal to the banks than to the American people.

So she has introduced a bill that would require federal student loan interest rates to match the rates given to banks. She spoke about this bill today on the Senate floor:

WARREN: Right now as I speak the federal government offers far lower interest rates for loans every single day. They just don’t do it for everyone. Right now the Big Bank can get a loan through the Federal Reserve discount window at a rate of about three quarters of one percent. but this summer a student who’s trying to get a loan to go to college will pay almost seven percent. In other words, the fed gov is going to charge interest rates nine times higher than the rate they charge the biggest banks. The same banks that destroyed millions of jobs and nearly broke the economy. That isn’t right. And that’s why I’m introducing legislation today to give students the same deal that we give the banks.

Watch Warren’s speech:

Warren’s legislation, called the Bank On Student Loan Fairness Act, will mandate that the Federal Reserve work to provide funds for the Department of Education to provide the same rates that it provides to Big Banks for a period of one year while Congress works on a long-term solution.

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National Review Online writer Kevin Williamson was on MSNBC today and claimed that Medicare and Social Security benefits are not important for seniors and that it would be best if they went “broke”:

WILLIAMSON: These programs we’re working so hard to defend like Medicare and Social Security don’t actually do a tremendous amount of good for people […] So the sooner those go broke, the sooner those disappear, and we replace them with, better more productive alternatives, the better off the country is.

Watch it:

Far from accomplishing nothing, these programs are important in a myriad of ways. Social Security has an economic output of $1.2 trillion, creating 8.4 million jobs. It also is estimated to keep 20 million Americans out of poverty. And it’s no coincidence that life expectancy has shot up since we enacted Medicare.

Recall that Williamson once justified a Tennessee county refusing to put out a fire that burned down a family’s home because they did not pay for a subscription-only fire service. It now appears that he’s ready to burn down the country’s most treasured social insurance programs.

Call your Member of Congress and ask them to sign onto the Grayson-Takano letter vowing to vote against any cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits.

House Republicans are pushing a bill this week dubiously titled the “Working Families Flexibility Act.” The bill, if enacted, would allow employers to deny employeesAi??overtime pay and instead replace it with paid time off that would be given at the employer’s choosing. In the words of Rep. George Miller (D-CA), this would mean “unused time would be paid back at the end of the year, amounting to a no-interest loan to employers from workers.”

While House Republicans are working towards their long-term goal of killing overtime pay, progressive Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) has other plans. He has offered an amendment to the Republican legislation mandating a week’s paid vacation to any employee at a company with 100 or more employees:

The GOP has a bill on overtime. I offered an amendment that guarantees one week of paid vacation to American workers. rules.house.gov/amendments/GRAai??i??

ai??i?? Rep. Alan Grayson (@AlanGrayson) May 7, 2013

The bill is expected to be voted on this week, it remains to be seen whether the House Republicans will allow a vote on Grayson’s amendment.

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Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) was one of only four Democratic Senators to vote to kill expanded background checks for gun purchases, even though 79 percent of the people in his state support this measure.

On Friday, late night talk show host David Letterman named Baucus “Stooge Of The Night” for this vote against background checks. Watch it:

videoWant to help us fight for gun reforms?Ai??Click here to pitch in a few dollars to run a Montana TV ad holding Max Baucus accountable for voting against background checks.

Today,Ai??Kentucky moms and gun owners from Moms Demand Action and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee held a press conference in support of gun reforms outside of the office of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

The groups presented 1,200 local petition signatures in favor of expanded background checks, a reform that 82 percent of Kentuckians support.

Kentucky gun owner, mom, and Progressive Change Campaign Committee member Pam Gersh was one of those who spoke at the press conference.

“I was born here and have lived here all my life. When I was 18 years old, Mitch McConnell, running his first campaign for the Senate shook my hand outside of my place of work. Today, 30 years later, Mitch McConnell will not shake my hand (or the hands of any of the other people here today),” explained Gersh. “He wonai??i??t let us enter his office as a group, only three at a time. He wonai??i??t meet with us. Mitch McConnell is out of touch, literally andAi??figuratively, with the people of Kentucky on many issues.”

“I want Mitch McConnell to represent the people who voted him into office. Mitch McConnell, vote on behalf of everyday Kentuckians – gun owners and mothers like myself – and vote for background checks,” she concluded. “If he doesnai??i??t want to look us in the eye and shake our hands and listen to us, then he doesnai??i??t deserve our vote.”

UPDATE: More photos from the event (thanks to Nancy Jakubiak)

UPDATE II: A local news station covered the event. “It doesn’t have anything to do with politics, it has everything to do with saving lives,” Pam Gersh said to the local reporter. Watch it:

Want to help us fight for …

Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman was one of the 46 senators who defied the will of over 84 percent of the people of his state by voting to kill expanded background checks for gun purchases.

Jerri Jackson, a mother from Springfield, Ohio whose son was killed in the Aurora massacre, has tried to set up a meeting with Portman since his vote against background checks. She notes that the killer in that shooting, James Holmes, had mental health issues that were flagged by university staff which may have blocked him from gun purchases under a background check system.

But Portman’s office has failed to set up a meeting with Jackson since then, saying that the senator did not have time. “I would like for him to at least sit down and talk to me,” she told the Associated Press. “To hear my story and hear the heartbreak of a mother who lost her son in the prime of his life. How guns have played a part in our lives, but it is what ended his life. We need to do something about it.”

Recall that since Portman’s vote against background checks, his approval rating has fallen by eighteen percent — as have the approval ratings of several other senators:

UPDATE: Recall that the NRA has spent $1.35 million keeping Portman in office since 2000.

Weai??i??re running newspaper ads in the states of the four Senate Democrats who helped kill expanded background checks. Click here to pitch in $3 to run them.

At a recent town hall, an Alabama small business owner explained to his Republican Congressman Mike Rogers how the sequester is harming his business by hurting the pocketbooks of his customers, and explained how cutting government spending across the board isn’t what we need right now.

SMALL BUSINESS OWNER: My business is off twenty percent because the sequester. I’ve gone from making good money to losing money in one month because of the sequester. The House of Representatives has done more to hurt my business than anything by government by anybody, state, local, federal has ever done in 15 years. Every time ya’ll do something to cut funding, it hurts my customers. They have less money to spend. When they have less money to spend, they spend less with me, which means I have less money.

Watch MSNBC’s Al Sharpton’s coverage of the question:

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Following his vote to kill expanded background checks for gun purchases, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee started running ads against Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) featuring local gun owners blasting him for the move.

These included full-page ads in twenty local newspapers, followed by a TV ad launched yesterday.

In response to the PCCC’s ads, Baucus’s office issued this response yesterday:

“Montanans told Max loudAi??and clear they didn’t supportAi??newAi??gun controls in the previousAi??bill.Ai??If a new bill is presented, MaxAi??will evaluate it based on theAi??feedback he gathers from theAi??people of Montana“

This is the first statement from any senator who voted “no” saying they might vote “yes” if they hear enough from their constituents. (For the record, polling showsAi??79 percent of Montanans support universal background checks.)

Click here to see MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow report on the PCCC’s new ad, followed by Baucus’s statement read aloud by Helena, Montana’s CBS affiliate (KXLH) last night:

The ad was also reported on by the New York Times, Washington Post, International Business Times, CNN, PBS, Buzzfeed, Talking Points Memo, and others. Locally, at least four local television news broadcasts covered the ad.

Click here to pitch in a few dollars to keep this ad running in Montana, featuring a powerful local voice.

And if you’re from Montana,Ai??click here to call Senator Baucus today.