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Progressives have begun raising money for the legal defense of Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who has admitted to leaking several secret national security documents to the British newspaper The Guardian and the Washington Post.
In an email to supporters today, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said that because “whistleblower” cases are extremely expensive to litigate, they would raise money to pay Snowden’s legal fees.

Friday, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a left-leaning advocacy group, announced a series of internet ads they would run across the country targeting Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. ai??i?? a fierce defender of the Obama administration’s counter-terror tactics ai??i?? and against Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who told reporters Thursday he was “glad” NSA was keeping tabs on phone records.

“In 36 hours, nearly 20,000 people have signed the Progressive Change Campaign Committee’s petition calling on both houses of Congress to hold investigations and reveal their findings to the public,” committee spokesman Matt Wall said.

The New York Times also ran a scathing editorial against President Obama Thursday night that accused his administration of losing “all credibility” on the issue of national security.

Just hours after the Guardian newspaper reported on a secret court order that allows the government access to Verizon company phone records, progressive groups are marshaling an organized response. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) posted an online petition demanding a congressional investigation of the domestic surveillance program operated by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Vinson’s order relies on Section 215 of the Patriot Act, 50 USC 1861, better known as the “business records” portion. It allows FBI agents to obtain any “tangible thing,” including “books, records, papers, documents, and other items,” a broad term that includes dumps from private-sector computer databases with limited judicial oversight.

The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the order as “beyond Orwellian,” and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched a petition to Congress.

Prior to Christieai??i??s announcement, the liberal group New Jersey Working Families alliance joined forces with a national group, The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), to petition Christie to hold the election in November.

The Draft Brian Schweitzer for Senate campaign has set its first Missoula organizing meet-up for 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Montgomery Distillery in downtown Missoula. Members of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee in Montana and nationally launched the effort after Baucus announced last month that he would retire from the Senate. The committee said more than 18,000 people nationally have urged Schweitzer to run at DraftSchweitzer.com.

PCCC’s Adam Green was a featured guest on MSNBC’s Ed Show on Sunday, May 19th. He discussed the Draft Brian Schweitzer campaign in Montana, and the efforts of progressives across the nation to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits.

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 ai???an authentic guy who says whatai??i??s on his mind and generally stands up for the little guy.ai??? 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. Theyai??i??re already primed to hand him $24,000 in contributions the moment he declares.

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 right now, and could have huge ripple effects across the nation if he has a bully pulpit in Washington, D.C.ai???

About 30 people attended a rally held by Moms Demand Action and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has aired ads attacking McConnell prior to the 2014 elections, when he will run for a sixth term. They stood in a light rain outside the Gene Snyder U.S. Courthouse and Customhouse, where McConnell’s office is located, carrying signs that said things like “Background Checks Save Lives” and “82% of Kentuckians Demand Common Sense Gun Laws.”

Protesters in Louisville are criticizing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for voting against a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun sales. A group of about 30 people, mostly women, held signs in front of McConnell’s Louisville offices on Monday afternoon. They dropped off a petition with 1,200 signatures that demanded the senator support “sensible gun reform.” McConnell voted against the bill last month, and it eventually failed to get a 60-vote majority needed to advance. The group included members from Moms Demand Action and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

In Montana, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal policy group, has sponsored a series of TV commercials attacking Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D) for his “no” vote on Manchin-Toomey. And the Brady group has launched a texting campaign that puts voters directly in touch with their elected officials on Capitol Hill.

Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a political group that typically supports Democrats, spent $50,000 to air a TV ad in Montana and Washington asking Baucus to reconsider his position on background checks. “Now that you’re retiring, please put Montana first,” a woman says at the close of the spot. That group touted Baucus’ statement Thursday as “huge,” though the senator makes clear that he would reconsider his position “based on the feedback he gathers from the people of Montana.” Progressive Change has also spent $100,000 on full-page ads in the hometown newspapers of Democrats Baucus, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, Alaska Sen. Mark Begich and North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. Begich and Pryor are running in 2014.

Prominent liberal activists – among them groups, such as MoveOn.org and Democracy for America, that helped Obama gain re-election in November – view his willingness to reduce future Social Security payments as a betrayal of core Democratic commitments to help the needy and ease the burdens of old age. The groups are vowing to run primary challengers against Democratic members of Congress who back the president’s controversial quest. “Social Security is a key part of the Democratic legacy and a vital lifeline to millions of Americans,” Stephanie Taylor, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, told McClatchy on Thursday. “Any Democrat who votes for such a plan should be ready for a primary challenge.”

Max Baucus returned to Montana to find a full ad attack waged against him by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC). The group is running a new TV ad, shown below, and bought full-page ads in 20 Montana newspapers grilling him on his gun vote.

Gun control advocates plan to make the “no” votes on background checks cast by Heitkamp, Begich and Pryor politically costly. They want to change the mental calculations of politicians so that voting against gun control will amount to political suicide. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, for example, has announced plans to run newspaper ads in each of their states, including Figure 2, in North Dakota.

With members of Congress back in their home states for recess this week, activists pushing for tougher gun laws are hitting two senators with new appeals on television, asking them to change their votes.

A liberal group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said Wednesday that it was spending $50,000 on a television ad in Montana to pressure Max Baucus, the stateai??i??s retiring Democratic senator, to support an enhanced background check system for gun buyers.

The latest ad, from the national liberal group Progressive Change Campaign Committee, hit the airwaves Wednesday morning on broadcast and cable channels in major Montana media markets — Helena, Missoula, and Billings — and on cable in Washington, D.C. The $50,000 ad buy will run for one week.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, or PCCC, a political action committee, will launch a new television ad on Wednesday to up the pressure on Baucus to support gun control legislation that would expand background checks to include gun shows and online sales.

This morning the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) has launched a new TV ad pressuring Max Baucus to support background checks for gun sales, something over 79% of Montanans support according to the post recent Montana-specific poll.

Rachel Maddow previewed the PCCC’s latest ad featuring a Montana gun owner taking on Max Baucus and asking him to support background checks.

After last week’s failed gun-control vote in the Senate, in which a handful of moderate Democrats defected from their party, a coalition of progressive groups is warning those at-risk incumbents to start avoiding votes that make them look too conservative. If not, these liberal activists say their support, enthusiasm, and contributions will dwindle—or, in a worst case for Democrats, they’ll mount a potentially damaging primary challenge… “No matter what, people want to feel good about a person they’re volunteering for or donating to,” said Adam Green, cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “So even Democratic voters who hold their nose to vote for an out-of-touch Democratic incumbent might be less likely to volunteer or donate, which could make a huge difference in a close election.”

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal political action committee, is asking its supporters to call U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) and urge her to sign the so-called Grayson-Takano letter.

“Representative Gwen Moore has not yet signed the letter, and she is hurting the ability of progressive leaders to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits,” the email to supporters says.

The letter, to be sent to President Barack Obama, is signed by 39 Democratic House members, including Alan Grayson of Florida and Mark Takano of California.

Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched a six-figure ad buy against each of the four Democrats who voted against background checks — Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mark Begich of Alaska, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, and Max Baucus of Montana.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched a “Draft Brian Schweitzer for Senate” campaign just hours after Baucus announced he would step down at the end of his sixth term in early 2015. The group has already raised more than $18,700, spokesman Matt Wall told BuzzFeed, with a pitch that asks progressives to replace the “Senator from K Street” with Schweitzer, whom they call a “bold progressive populist.”

Within hours of an announcement that Montana Senior Senator Max Baucus would be retiring in 2014, political action committees have already been raising money to welcome Brian Schweitzer into the race. The Political Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) has a website devoted to Schweitzer, in which it describes the former Montana Governor as “a bold progressive populist who supports single-payer health care and lists Paul Wellstone as one of his icons.”