Posted on September 1, 2016
Vote for three great progressive groups in September
One of the things that makes a grant from CREDO so special is that it comes with no strings attached. Most foundations and donors put caveats on their funding, restricting what organizations can and can’t do with it.
CREDO, on the other hand, chooses three progressive groups each month who are already doing incredible work and then lets you decide how to divide our monthly donation among them. The groups can use those funds to keep doing what they’re doing or to expand their efforts.
For September we’ve selected OUR Walmart, Public Citizen – Stop the TPP and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Each of these groups is a critical part of the progressive infrastructure. Take a minute to learn about their exciting work and then vote for one, two or all three.
Posted on August 30, 2016
A good summer for voting rights, but there’s more work to do
Fighting for voting rights is a fundamental progressive value and central to CREDO’s advocacy. That’s why we’ve included organizations such as Project Vote, the Voter Participation Center, and the Brennan Center for Justice in our monthly donations elections this year, with CREDO activists voting to contribute a total of $244,000 so far.
Voting rights news this summer has been mostly positive. Thanks to aggressive action in courtrooms around the country, a variety of voting restrictions have been struck down. But we still have a lot of work to do, because in far too many states restrictions on people’s right to vote still exist.
We can start by ending the Republican Senate’s unprecedented obstruction of Merrick Garland’s nomination. This new wave of voting restrictions began when the Supreme Court rolled back the protections of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, in the disastrous Shelby County v. Holder decision. Following that decision, conservatives sought a variety of ways to undermine our democracy. In North Carolina the state legislature went right to work, quickly passing one of the most draconian disenfranchisement bills in the country.
Posted on August 22, 2016
Celebrating Women’s Equality Day and the right to vote
August 26 is the 96th anniversary of women being granted the right to vote. The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 is now celebrated as Women’s Equality Day in the United States, after groundbreaking Congresswoman Bella Abzug passed legislation to mark the day in 1971.
While women’s right to vote is now protected by the Constitution, for some women it’s still very much at risk. Right-wing legislators in states across the country have followed up the Supreme Court’s gutting of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act by passing discriminatory photo ID laws, cutting back early voting, and eliminating polling locations — all voter suppression tactics designed to keep people of color, students and low-income people from voting. These laws endanger women of color’s ability to exercise their constitutional right and impact white women as well. For example, Salon.com reported:
It’s well-documented that [voter ID] laws disproportionately disenfranchise low-income voters, people of color, students and the elderly, but married women and transgender people (some of whom are married women) are also among those likely to be impacted by [the laws].
According to recent data, 34 percent of voting-age women do not have a document that reflects their current legal name. Among transgender women and men, the number is 41 percent. Voter ID laws make it hard, if not impossible, for people without matching identification to meet documentation requirements and cast their ballots.
Posted on August 15, 2016
Five Republican Senators Won’t Vote For Trump, But They’ll Let Him Select The Next Supreme Court Justice
If Donald Trump is too dangerous to be president, he is too dangerous to put a judge on the Supreme Court.
This week Maine Sen. Susan Collins became the latest Republican to publicly state she will not vote for Donald Trump. Collins now joins Illinois’ Mark Kirk, Nebraska’s Ben Sasse, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, and Nevada’s Dean Heller, who have all previously stated they would not support Trump’s candidacy.
While Sen. Collins talks about Trump’s “unsuitability for office,” she and her four Republican colleagues continue to enable extreme right-wing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s unprecedented obstruction of Merrick Garland’s nomination. Sen. Collins and her Republican colleagues cannot have it both ways. They cannot disavow Trump on the one hand while continuing to help ensure that if a racist, fascist like Trump does win the presidency, he will get to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court.
Posted on August 11, 2016
CREDO activists standing for transgender equality
Nearly 150,000 CREDO members so far this year have stood up for transgender equality by taking action to fight back against hateful, bigoted anti-transgender laws in states across the country. Fighting back against discriminatory laws at the local, state and national level is essential to ensuring full equality, but we also have to proactively work to make American culture more inclusive of transgender people.
We believe a crucial way for our communities to be more inclusive is to acknowledge and affirm that every person has the right to define their own gender and to be referred to using their correct gender pronouns. Referring to someone using incorrect gender pronouns — misgendering them — contributes to the violence and oppression that people in the transgender community face every day
Our friend Evan Greer, a queer musician who is also the Campaign Director at Fight for the Future, is misgendered in the media on a regular basis. When she launched a campaign calling on traditional corporate media to confirm gender pronouns with every source, we asked her how we could help.
Posted on August 4, 2016
New video: A message to CREDO members from Amnesty International USA
Margaret Huang, Amnesty International USA’s executive director, and Bruce Temkin, the organization’s national director of major gifts, visited the CREDO office in San Francisco on July 26th, 2016. They came to thank CREDO members for their support in May’s donations voting, which resulted in a contribution of $61,854 to Amnesty International USA.
While in the office, Huang discussed Amnesty’s plans for the next four years and took questions from CREDO staff. We created a brief and inspiring video sharing some highlights of the visit.
Posted on August 4, 2016
Where to find outstanding 2016 election coverage
Where are we getting our election news in 2016? With thousands of media outlets covering the election, CREDO thought we would share with you some of our favorite places to get news about the election. These aren’t mainstream media sites, but ones that will give you in-depth progressive analysis.
DailyKos Elections
The biggest progressive blog in the country also provides some of the best election coverage. Not only covering the presidential election, but also critical Senate and even local races, the DailyKos Elections team brings you information you won’t get anywhere else.
With a morning digest and a live news feed throughout the day, you can keep up to date with all the latest election news, polling and inside scoops from around the country.
Mother Jones – The Trump Files
In 2012 Mother Jones uncovered Mitt Romney’s 47 percent video. Now, in 2016, their election team is back with coverage that would make any opposition researcher jealous. The magazine’s Trump Files project digs deep into the GOP nominee’s background, providing you with the resources and facts that will help you win the water cooler.
Posted on August 4, 2016
7 Twitter accounts every progressive should follow
Who do you follow on Twitter? What progressives have the most interesting feeds and share the best information? Here is our list of some thoughts that people in the CREDO Mobile HQ office had about who you should follow on Twitter.
@ElizabethForMA
Of course we have to start with Senator Elizabeth Warren. If you are not following @ElizabethForMA you are missing out. No account on Twitter has gotten more under Donald Trump’s skin or made him more irritated.
Explain why you want to let Wall Street off the hook, @realDonaldTrump. https://t.co/5tpKNIjVdt
— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) May 25, 2016
@chasestrangio
Cha Lorena is a staff attorney with the ACLU’s LGBT & AIDS Project. He also founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund, which provides direct bail/bond assistance to LGBTQ immigrants in criminal and immigration cases. His legal expertise in these areas is unmatched, as is the insight he shares on Twitter.
Just landed in Charlotte (four hours delayed) for tomorrow’s HB2 hearing. We are going to Court against McCrory et al. for trans folks.
— Chase Strangio (@chasestrangio) July 31, 2016
@AngryBlackLady
Imani Gandy wears many hats. She is the Senior Legal Analyst at Rewire News, the co-host of This Week in Blackness, and a prolific tweeter on issues of race and gender equality. Her writing is punchy and powerful, just as Twitter should be.
Saw this on Facebook. 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/tFxuTZZQ4E
— Imani Gandy (@AngryBlackLady) July 17, 2016
Posted on August 3, 2016
Who’s on the CREDO Donations ballot in August
What makes CREDO a different type of mobile company?
Every month we donate to three amazing progressive nonprofits and we let you decide how we divide this pool of money.
For August we’ve selected 350.org, Color Of Change and Rewire. Each of these groups is a critical part of the progressive infrastructure. Take a minute to learn about their exciting work and then vote for one, two or all three.
Posted on August 2, 2016
CREDO Activists and the movement for Black lives
At the beginning of July, we saw, in horrific detail, the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile at the hands of police. At the end of the month, Baltimore prosecutors’ attempt to hold Baltimore police officers accountable for Freddie Gray’s homicide ended without a single conviction.
These heart-wrenching bookends to a tragic month serve as a stark reminder of the ways white supremacy and systemic racism stack the deck of the criminal justice system against African-Americans. Police officers take Black lives. Mainstream media smears the victim. Prosecutors tip the scales in favor of police offenders. Police who kill and the departments face no consequences.
Eliminating the daily threat to Black lives posed by law enforcement will require systemic change, and demands action from all of us. That’s why the CREDO Action team is grateful to be able to partner with our friends at Color Of Change, one of this month’s donations recipients, on campaigns that pull systemic levers and seek to make change on a national scale.
