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WASHINGTON The leaders of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee issued a bipartisan statement on Thursday rejecting President Donald Trump's assertion that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The top Republican in Congress, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, added his voice to a growing chorus of lawmakers saying there was no sign of a wiretap.

In a testy briefing with reporters, White House spokesman Sean Spicer forcefully defended the president, citing news reports of intelligence collection on possible contacts between Trump associates and Russia in the presidential campaign.

"There is no question that there were surveillance techniques used throughout this," Spicer said.

The Republican president, without providing evidence, has accused his predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, of wiretapping him near the end of the campaign. An Obama spokesman said that was "simply false."

"Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016," Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Mark Warner, the committee's Democratic vice chairman, said in a statement.

Ryan also said there was no evidence of surveillance.

"The point is, the intelligence committees in their continuing, widening, ongoing investigation of all things Russia, got to the bottom - at least so far - with respect to our intelligence community that - that no such wiretap existed," the House speaker told reporters.

'HE STANDS BY IT'

Pressed at the White House briefing on whether Trump would back down from his wiretap accusations, Spicer said: "He stands by it."

Spicer also chastised the media for focusing so much attention on comments disparaging Trump's claim about surveillance. He said reporters had not focused enough on comments from officials denying evidence of any collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

The Russian government has rejected an accusation by U.S. intelligence agencies that it worked to influence the election in Trump's favor by hacking computer systems, among other methods.

Trump has been dogged by allegations that his associates had ties to Russian officials. Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael Flynn, last month after he failed to disclose contacts with Russia's ambassador before Trump took office on Jan. 20.

An official familiar with the investigations by Congress and intelligence and law enforcement agencies said investigators had looked as aggressively and thoroughly as they could for evidence of any spying on Trump or his associates but had found none.

On March 4, six weeks after he took over from Obama, Trump made the wiretap accusations in a Twitter post.

"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!," Trump wrote.

At least four congressional committees included the startling accusation in their investigations of possible Russian meddling in the election campaign and Russian ties to Trump and his associates.

On Wednesday, House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, a Republican, and top Democrat Adam Schiff told reporters they had seen no evidence that Trump Tower was tapped and said they would ask Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey about the issue during a public hearing on Monday.

On March 9, Comey briefed Nunes, Schiff, Ryan, Burr, Warner and three other top congressional officials on the same intelligence.

Trump appeared to back away from his accusation of wiretapping in a Fox News interview on Wednesday night.

"But wiretap covers a lot of different things. I think youre going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks," Trump said.

(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Grant McCool and Peter Cooney)

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny pressed U.S. President Donald Trump about undocumented immigrants in the United States at their first meeting on Thursday, a day before St Patrick's Day.

LONDON Britain's GCHQ intelligence agency dismissed claims made on a U.S. television station that it helped former President Barack Obama eavesdrop on Donald Trump after last year's U.S. presidential election.

WASHINGTON U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis met with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday and they discussed U.S.-Saudi military cooperation in the fight against Islamic State, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Read more:
Leading Republicans, Democrats reject Trump's Obama wiretap assertion - Reuters

Sorry, poor people of America. Republicans are quietly sealing all the exits on the poverty trap.

Its a four-part process, in which officials at all levels of government are taking part:

First, reduce poor womens access to the reproductive services they need to prevent unintended pregnancies, so they have less control over when, and with whom, they have children.

Second, make it harder for any unexpectedly expecting women to have abortions.

Third, make the adoption process more expensive, reducing incentives for other families to adopt the babies resulting from these unplanned pregnancies. (Yes, amazingly, Republicans plan to do this.)

Finally, cut the services these involuntarily growing low-income families rely on to help support and care for their children, and to move up in the world.

Lets take a walk through the policies that constitute this poverty-prolonging policy four-step, shall we?

It begins with House Republicans American Health Care Act, which would eliminate all federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

Federal dollars are already barred from being used for abortions; the AHCA would prevent federal funds from being used for any other Planned Parenthood service, too. This is unfortunate, given that Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of contraceptive care for poor women in the country. Some of its patients would be able to find other providers of reliable, effective contraception, but many wouldnt. In more than 100 counties, Planned Parenthood is the only clinic providing publicly supported contraceptive services to poor women, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

In its analysis of the health-care bill, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that about 15 percent of people who live in areas without other clinics or medical practitioners serving low-income populations would lose access to care leading to more unintended pregnancies.

Now consider that at the state level, Republican officials have been aggressively curbing access to abortion, by banning the procedure after 20 weeks, imposing impossible-to-meet regulatory and licensing requirements on providers, and implementing waiting periods. As a result and by design, of course the women who do get pregnant without planning to will be less likely to terminate their pregnancies, even if they are not interested in having a baby. (Incidentally, Medicaid would pay for many of these births; the CBOs Trumpcare analysis estimated that eliminating Planned Parenthood funding for just a year would leave Medicaid on the hook for several thousand additional births.)

What options do these women have, then?

Pro-life conservatives often urge women seeking abortions to consider adoption instead. But under the House Republicans tax plan, adoptions would get more expensive.

You read that right.

The House leaderships A Better Way blueprint calls for dramatically cutting tax rates, especially for the rich. It partly pays for these rate cuts by eliminating some credits and deductions. Among those set to go? The adoption tax credit.

Adopting a child can be enormously expensive, running into tens of thousands of dollars. This tax credit was designed to offset some of those costs, up to $13,460 per child, though the credit phases out for higher earners. In 2014, about 74,000 families claimed the credit, costing the government about $355 million, according to Internal Revenue Service data.

For context, the mortgage-interest deduction, which the Republican tax-reform plan would preserve, will cost the federal government about $69 billion this year about 200 times as much.

I doubt Republicans have anything against adoptive parents; in fact, one of the architects of the House tax plan, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), is himself an adoptive parent (though at a recent speech, he noted that he did not qualify for the adoption tax credit because his family was in the wrong tax bracket). Promoting adoption is just not their priority, pro-life rhetoric to the contrary.

In any case, whatever Republicans intentions, the elimination of this tax credit would mean that at least on the margin, women who became pregnant accidentally would have fewer options.

Which leads us, finally, to President Trumps newly released budget.

Trumps budget would dramatically slash the social safety net, especially services for the poor, and especially services for poor families. It would cut housing and energy subsidies for low-income households, as well as after-school, before-school and summer programs that millions of parents depend on. Moreover, it would decimate many of the programs that low-income parents and children rely on to climb out of poverty, including job training, college assistance and community banking.

Thus the cumulative effect of Republicans family policies: force poor people to have more children than they want or believe they can afford, then tell them and their children that theyre on their own.

So much for family values.

Visit link:
How Republicans plan to hurt American families - Washington Post

Budget lands with thud

President Donald Trumps budget plan is hitting lots of congressional Republicans where they and their voters live, reports Newsdays Emily Ngo.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), for one, doesnt like what he sees so far in the Homeland Security budget, which eliminates or reduces state and local grant funding by $667 million.

Any reduction to NY & LI is dead on arrival, he tweeted.

While many Republicans favor the sharp boost in military spending, some of the deep cuts to domestic programs --including widely popular items like medical research --are a harder sell to them and face strong Democratic opposition.

Big reductions for diplomacy and foreign aid also strike members of both parties as self-defeating for national security.

Budget chief Mick Mulvaney said, Folks who voted for the president are getting exactly what they voted for. He called Meals on Wheels the kind of social program that is just not showing any results --serving up a tasty sound bite to foes of the cuts.

The current U.S. defense budget, nearly $600 billion, is already almost as much as the next 14 nations combined. Yet experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies see Russia and China closing the technology gap.

Trump now wants to commmit $54 billion more for the military, but how it is spent --and not wasted --holds the key to whether it would strengthen U.S. security, Newsdays Dan Janison writes.

For its plan to secure the Mexican border, the Trump administration has already called for more guns --thousands of additional law enforcement officers --and more money, including billions to start building the wall.

Now they want lawyers, too. Trumps budget calls for hiring 20 of them for legal efforts to acquire private land--seizing properties by eminent domain, if necessary --so there are places to build the barrier. Another 20 lawyers would be added for immigration litigation assistance.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday that military action against North Korea is "on the table" if the country continued to develop its weapons program.

Regardless of what table he may have been referring to, Tillerson issued the warning while visiting South Korea.

"If they elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe requires action then that option is on the table," he told reporters.

"Certainly we do not want for things to get to a military conflict," he added. "But obviously if North Korea takes actions that threaten the South Korean forces or our own forces then that would be met with an appropriate response."

The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said they see no indications Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016.

The statement by Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) echoed those from House counterparts a day earlier.

But Trump isnt giving up on his accusation against former President Barack Obama. He stands by it, said Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who angrily read off a list of clippings --none of them with actual evidence for Trumps claim --as well as speculation by a Fox News commentator that Obama outsourced the surveillance job to Britains spy agency.

See Newsdays story by Tom Brune and Emily Ngo.

A key congressional committee narrowly approved a Republican health care bill Thursday, but three GOP no votes exposed GOP divisions over the plan to replace Obamacare, Newsdays Yancey Roy reports.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has conceded the bill would have to be altered before winning congressional approval. Trump tweeted Thursday afternoon: Great progress on healthcare. Improvements being made --Republicans coming together!

There are many great Irish proverbs. After his White House meeting with Irish Prime Minister Endy Kenny, Trump celebrated the U.S.-Ireland friendship with one of the more obscure ones, with allusions to grudges and betrayal.

Always remember to forget the friends that proved untrue, but never forget to remember those that have stuck by you, Trump said.

Perhaps he forgot what he told Michigans Republican governor, Rick Snyder, a day earlier as the president coaxed him into a photo op, even though you didnt endorse me. As the cameras clicked, Trump added, I never forget.

Originally posted here:
Trump's budget gets the side-eye from plenty of Republicans - Newsday

New York Times

Why Republicans Keep Talking About Health Care 'Prongs' New York Times Here's why the prongs are crucial to the effort to roll back Obamacare: Republicans have chosen to pass their health reform bill using a special budget procedure that limits the policy changes they can make. That means that many of their key policy ... Republican policy takes aim at the middle class | Letters to the editor ...STLtoday.com Republicans' Obamacare repeal fight turning into battle over Senate ...Washington Examiner The Republicans' 3 prongs have 3 big problemsVox all 14 news articles »

Read this article:
Why Republicans Keep Talking About Health Care 'Prongs' - New York Times

The PCCC, MoveOn, Democracy for America, 350.Org, and Presente are making the closing argument supporting Keith Ellison for DNC Chair in an open letter to DNC voting members before tomorrows vote.

As CNN just reported, it highlights the fact that Ellison is the best candidate in the Chair race to connect the DNC to the vibrant resistance energy having earned the trust of grassroots groups representing millions of people:

In a letter to DNC members obtained by CNN, the leaders of five groups at the heart of the political left MoveOn, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, 350 Action and Presente Action argued that only Ellison can bridge the divide between the Democratic establishment and the partys grassroots.

The groups also said theyd be eager to engage directly with the partys infrastructure under Ellisons leadership. It was an implicit rebuke of former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who is in a tight race with Ellison for DNC chair. They continued: If Keith Ellison is DNC chair, we can hit the ground running and because of the pre-existing trust that exists between Keith and the grassroots, every state party would have a head start harnessing the power of the resistance.

The PCCC has been a top Ellison organizing force recently announcing four new voting members for Ellison earlier this week: NH Sen. Martha Fuller-Clark (D-Portsmouth), Sheila Selkregg from Anchorage, AK, Edward Wesley from Anchorage, AK, and Curtis Wylde Wells, a Missouri Democratic Party State Committee member.

We are leaders of organizations representing over 10 million people who are vital to building power at the state level and opposing the Trump agenda nationally.

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Progressive Change Campaign Committee

Posted on January 26, 2017 by Marissa Barrow

Starting today, Trumps corrupt catering to billionaires and Wall Street at the expense of working families will be more visible than ever. It wont be pretty.

Progressives are prepared to foster a historic resistance that merges the power of millions of people taking action with the leadership of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Keith Ellison, and others in Congress.

Elizabeth Warren says, Our agenda is still Americas agenda, fighting for that agenda is more important than ever, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is one of my main partners in the fight. Could you chip in $3 or more so the PCCC is ready for our next big fights with President Trump and the Republican leadership in 2017? Click here.

Weve already seen evidence our resistance works.

The resistance is strong. And growing.

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Progressive Change Campaign Committee

PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor went on C-SPANs Washington Journal on Tuesday to talk aboutthe role of progressives as the general election phase of the presidential campaign begins. During the 45-minute interview, she discussed the relationship between progressives and the Clinton-Kaine ticket: Theres trust there, but its a fragile one.

Take a look:

It was very exciting to see in [Clintons] acceptance speech a litany of issues that progressives have worked very hard on, like expanding Social Security, like debt-free and tuition-free college, opposing unfair trade deals. She really needs to keep the volume high and keep talking about these issues throughout the campaign.

Stephanie also gave this analysis a few hours before Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic nomination on Thursday, July 28, during a POLITICO Hub panelin Philadelphia, including AFSCME president Lee Saunders, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver, and pollster Mark Penn with POLITICOs Susan Glasser and Glenn Thrush moderating.Click here to watch.

Click here to share on Twitter.

Click here to share on Facebook.

Posted on August 4, 2016 by Marissa Barrow

On Wednesday, President Obama made huge news by saying for the first time that we must expand Social Security benefits not cut them. This represents a sea change from 2012 when the White House was pushing to cut benefits as part of a grand bargain with Republicans.

THIS IS A GIANT WIN FOR PROGRESSIVES.

And it didnt happen in a vacuum. Three years of activism by PCCC members and progressive allies led to 7 senators, then nearly all Democratic senators, then the majority of House Democrats, and then both Democratic candidates for president supporting expanding not cutting Social Security. And now, a sitting president. Activism matters. Together, we made history.

In 2 weeks, we have an opportunity to etch this victory in stone.Thats when a small committee of 15 Democrats will start writing the 2016 Democratic Platform.

Sign the petition to the platform drafting committee.Tell them to make sure it reflects big progressive ideas that have risen to the forefront in recent years starting with expanding Social Security, and also including debt-free college, breaking up too-big-to-fail banks and monopolies, paid family leave, a $15 min wage, banning for-profit prisons, ending fracking, a carbon tax to fight climate change, restoring voting rights, grand jury reform, public financing of congressional elections, overturning Citizens United, massive infrastructure investment, and ending the revolving door between Wall Street and government.

In 2013, PCCC co-founders Stephanie Taylor and Adam Green met with Elizabeth Warren shortly after her victory. In the course of a wide-ranging conversation, they brought up how hard PCCC members and progressive allies had been fighting against proposed Social Security cuts.

Elizabeth Warren informed the PCCC for the first time that two of her colleagues had bills to expand Social Security benefits. Stephanie and Adam stared at each other in disbelief.

This idea had been written about by progressive thinkers, ranging from Duncan Black to Heather Parton. But now, with legislation from a red-state senator and a senator from the first presidential state of Iowa, there was an opportunity to fundamentally shift the debate.

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Adam Green

HUGECNN HEADLINE:Donald Trump in 2006: I sort of hope real estate market tanks

In 2006, Trump cheered on a housing market crash saying, I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy. If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know you can make a lot of money.

Last night, Elizabeth Warren gave a speech that is going viral slamming Trump for being a small, insecure money grubber who is in the pocket of Wall Street and looking to con the American people.

(Also share this amazing video on social media! Click here to share it on Facebook and click here to share it on Twitter.)

Posted on May 26, 2016 by Marissa Barrow

The Warren Wing won tonights debate, hands down. For the 4th Democratic debate in a row, key Warren wing priorities of debt-free college, Wall Street accountability, and expanding Social Security benefits were discussed. We are seeing a race to the top on economic populism issues a stark contrast to the extremism, intolerance, and race to the bottom in the Republican primary.

Adam Green, co-founder, Progressive Change Campaign Committee

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Marissa Barrow

Tuesday night is President Obamas final State of the Union. We asked allies across the progressive movement what executive actions they would like to see in the presidents final year in addition to any bigger fights he picks with Congress. From disclosing corporate political spending to increasing wages for federal workers, here are 10 concrete progressive actions President Obama could take on his own with a single signature.

We know these can work because the presidents own former communications director said so:

Like and share your favorite!

Debt-Free College:

On Facebook | On Twitter

Wall Street reform:

On Facebook | On Twitter

Posted on January 12, 2016 by Marissa Barrow

Legislators in 10 states nationwide will be introducing debt-free college legislation, making debt-free college a central 2016 campaign issue from the top to bottom of the ticket.

This state-level action will give voters a unified Democratic message going into the 2016 election. All three Democratic presidential candidates have embraced debt-free college, and so have 100 members of Congress.

Progressive organizing has led to all three Democratic presidential candidates embracing debt-free college and 100 members of Congress have endorsing it.

Progressives are unifying the Democratic Party around a bold Elizabeth Warren-style agenda that motivates people to get to the polls and that would be a game changer in millions of lives, said PCCC debt-free college campaign director Kayla Wingbermuehle. The progressive strategy now is to go deep, unifying the Democratic Party around debt-free college and ensuring that theres an undeniable mandate in November of 2016.

Lawmakers include those fromthe First in the Nation states with Rep. Marjorie Porter of New Hampshire, Rep. Chris Hall of Iowa, and Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of South Carolina, from key battleground states with Rep. Stephanie Howse of Ohio and Rep. Katrina Shankland of Wisconsin, plus Rep. Paul Mark of Massachusetts, Rep. Will Guzzardi of Illinois, Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal of Missouri, Rep. Paula Hawks of South Dakota, and Rep. Kaniela Ing of Hawaii.

Join the call for debt-free college in your state sign the petition at DebtFreeCollegeNOW.com and contact your state legislator to ask them to sign on!

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Marissa Barrow

The PCCC, Democracy for America, and MoveOn.org are asking the Democratic candidates to be bold during the debate in addressing economic populism issues such as debt-free college, expanding Social Security benefits, and Wall Street reform and accountability.

These issues motivate the base in primaries, and candidates need to go bold with an Elizabeth Warren-style agenda to inspire voters. Watch the video and read the letter sent to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin OMalley below.

Take a look below to see how much progressives have shifted the debate on issues like debt-free college, expand Social Security, and Wall Street accountability. Then share with your friends and family on Facebook and Twitter!

Share on Twitter | Share on Facebook

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Marissa Barrow

Originally posted here:
Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC)