Posted on June 30, 2016
Three progressive podcasts you’ll love listening to
Last month I recommended three great progressive apps for your smartphone: Progressive Voices, Earth-Now and the ACLU’s Mobile Justice App. Listening to podcasts is another way you can use your smartphone to participate in progressive causes. To find and listen to podcasts on your phone, you can download a podcast app, like Podcast Addict for Android or Overcast for iOS, then search for the podcasts mentioned below.
These are three of my favorite progressive podcasts:
Democracy Now!
Hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now! brings you perspectives you often don’t hear in the mainstream media. It offers true debate and progressive values without the filter of giant media corporations. Its reports give listeners a truly global perspective from “journalists, ordinary people from around the world who are directly affected by U.S. foreign policy, grassroots leaders and peace activists.” The show airs five days a week and typically includes daily headlines, followed by in-depth segments on the pressing issues of the moment. CREDO is a longstanding and proud supporter of Democracy Now!, contributing $674,248 to support the program.
Posted on June 27, 2016
Women win when Supreme Court decides biggest abortion rights case in decades
The Supreme Court just issued an historic decision upholding a woman’s right to abortion and striking down Texas’ HB 2, a law designed to use medically unnecessary restrictions to close abortion clinics and deny women access to reproductive health care.
The Court’s ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt is an incredible victory. It’s a win for women in Texas, especially women living in rural areas, who, as clinics have been forced to shut down, have been unable to access care, or have had to travel hundreds of miles, including across state lines, to do so.
The decision is also a victory for women in states across the country that have passed or are attempting to pass laws like the one in Texas. These laws are known as TRAP laws — Targeted Restrictions of Abortion Providers — because they use regulations and restrictions to make it impossible for abortion providers to provide care. They are being pushed across the country by right-wing anti-woman legislators who want to legislate abortion out of existence. In just the last few months, CREDO members in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Florida, Indiana, and Alabama, took action to try to block TRAP laws being promoted by right-wing anti-woman legislators in their states.
Posted on June 27, 2016
Get Wi-Fi in your pocket with mobile hotspot
With mobile hotspot, your smartphone can serve as a mini Wi-Fi hub so you can connect laptops, tablets or other phones to the Internet while you’re on the go. When you turn on your mobile hotspot, your device uses your 3G or 4G/LTE data connection to create instant Internet access.
With summer travel plans on the horizon, now is a fantastic time to learn how to turn your CREDO smartphone into a Wi-Fi hotspot. Here’s everything you need to know about mobile hotspot:
What are the advantages of mobile hotspot?
Mobile hotspot is an easy way to turn your smartphone into a Wi-Fi hotspot anytime you want to access the Internet, as long as you’re in a location where you can access cellular data. This smartphone feature is particularly handy if you travel a lot for business and need quick access to Internet connectivity. It’s also a good option if you’re concerned about the security of public Wi-Fi. Open, unprotected Wi-Fi networks in places like airports or cafes are prone to malicious security attacks that can compromise your personal information. Mobile hotspots are a safer alternative to public Wi-Fi.
Does hotspot come with my CREDO Mobile plan?
If you’re on a Shared Data plan, mobile hotspot is automatically included as part of your smartphone plan. If you’re are on older CREDO Mobile plan that hasn’t changed since August 26, 2014, you might have a mobile hotspot plan–just check Member Services to find out which services are enabled on your smartphone.
Posted on June 26, 2016
Taking your CREDO Mobile phone on vacation?
You may be planning to travel outside the U.S. this summer. If you’re taking your CREDO Mobile phone with you, there are a few things you should know before you go.
Your phone must be enabled for international use. Please call customer service at 800-411-0848 at least 10 business days before your trip so we can enable your phone for international voice and text use. It’s quick and easy to enable international services when you call us, and you only need to do it once.
International service is not included in your regular monthly fees. Be sure to review service availability and rates by phone and country. You can often save money by purchasing a local SIM card in the countries you visit—call customer service to learn more.
Posted on June 23, 2016
Important update on the fight to save Net Neutrality
For all of us who are members of CREDO, this was a special fight. As a telecom that fights for social justice – and as a progressive advocacy group that organizes on the internet – the battle for Net Neutrality was a personal one.
More than a million dollars in donations, and fierce grassroots advocacy by CREDO members, played a major role in pushing the FCC to ban content discrimination on the internet and pass the strongest possible Net Neutrality rules in early 2015. These rules were immediately challenged in court. CREDO, and some of our allies – including Free Press, Demand Progress, ColorOfChange and Fight for the Future – defended the Net Neutrality rules from this assault in federal court by filing as intervenors in the case on behalf of the FCC. Now the Federal Appeals Court – which had ruled against an earlier set of weaker Net Neutrality rules – upheld the FCC’s decision.
Posted on June 22, 2016
CREDO teams up with Fight for the Future and Tom Morello to launch “Rock Against the TPP” concert tour
One of the biggest challenges we face in the fight to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement is that too many people still don’t know what it is.
That’s a real problem. And that is why, as corporate lobbyists try to quietly rush this “NAFTA on steroids” through Congress, we are ramping up our efforts, joining forces with celebrities and a coalition of progressive groups to mobilize a massive, nationwide concert tour to build opposition to the TPP.
We’re teaming up with our friends at Fight for the Future and legendary guitarist Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Prophets of Rage, and Audioslave) to organize Rock Against the TPP – a nationwide roadshow featuring high profile speakers and performers coming together to educate the public about the grave threat the TPP poses to workers’ rights, the environment, public health, and more.
Posted on June 21, 2016
Remembering Orlando on the one-year anniversary of marriage equality
Nearly one year ago, on June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges and made marriage equality the law of the land, with the majority affirming that the Constitution grants LGBT people equal dignity in the eyes of the law.
As we neared this historic one-year anniversary we were struck by tragedy. While we celebrate a year of marriage equality, we also mourn the victims of the horrific LGBT hate crime in Orlando that took the lives of 49 people, and are reminded of how far we have to go before LGBT people can be fully, and safely, free in America, and before we can truly be an equal society free from hate.
The threats to LGBT people’s lives and freedoms have not just come from home-grown terrorists with guns. They have come from right-wing, anti-gay legislators at the local, state and federal level who, since the marriage equality decision, have become even more forceful in their fight to take away rights from and marginalize the LGBT community. In the first two months of 2016, twice as many bills aimed at discriminating against transgendered individuals were introduced in state legislatures as were introduced in all of 2015. Sickeningly, 23 of these 44 bills target children. And in March, North Carolina passed HB2, a measure specifically designed to discriminate against the transgender community attempting to shame them in public facilities, forcing them to use misgendered bathrooms.
Posted on June 13, 2016
Gun control now: Congress must ban assault weapons
Another horrific mass shooting happened on Saturday, leaving at least 50 dead and 50 more wounded at an LGBT club in Orlando.
As the death toll from the tragedy in Orlando continued to mount, Republican politicians were quick to offer their prayers and condolences to the families and friends of the victims.
Coming from politicians who not only refuse to act to reduce gun violence, but who also foster and promote anti-LGBT bigotry and hate through their words, their party platform and their legislative actions, those “thoughts and prayers” don’t mean much.
Breaking the NRA’s chokehold on Congress will require massive grassroots pressure on our elected officials, demanding they deliver more than thoughts and prayers in the face of our epidemic of gun violence.
Republican members of Congress respond to gun tragedies while they’re in the news. But, they don’t take responsibility for how their actions, and inaction, lay the groundwork for hate crimes and gun violence, nor do they take action to prevent these tragedies from happening again. Instead, they offer up either fleeting sentiments or xenophobic and racist policies.
They need to pass real gun control now, including:
- Closing the terror gap by allowing the Department of Justice to block guns sales to anyone on the terror watch list. Between 2004 and 2014, more than 2,000 people on the list purchased guns in the U.S.
- Closing the loophole that allows people to buy guns without undergoing background checks through private sales, at gun shows and online. An estimated 40 percent of all firearms transferred in the U.S. are transferred by unlicensed individuals not required to conduct background checks on buyers.
- Banning convicted domestic abusers and stalkers from buying guns. Abused women are five times more likely to be killed by their abuser if that individual has access to a firearm.
- Prohibiting the manufacture and sale of assault weapons and “large capacity” magazines for civilian use.
In 2014 alone, the gun lobby spent over $30 million on political advertising and lobbying to influence legislators in Congress and state capitals across the country. If Republicans really want to protect Americans, they need to break their blind allegiance to the NRA and pass gun control legislation. But they’ll never act unless we force them. Can you add your voice today?
When Republicans disagree with advances in women’s rights, LGBT rights, or civil rights, they don’t just offer their thoughts and prayers, they push legislation. In just the last year, Republicans in Congress and in state legislatures across the country have worked to make abortion impossible to access, to discriminate against LGBT people, and to take away voting rights. At the same time, they have aggressively pushed the NRA’s agenda to weaken gun laws, from campus carry to permitless carry to stand your ground.
If all Republicans can offer after this weekend’s massacre are their thoughts and prayers, or misguided scapegoating of Muslim communities that plays into their base’s racism and xenophobia, that speaks volumes. It shows that current Republican leaders in Congress lack the care, or courage, to act.
Tell Republicans in Congress: “Thoughts and prayers” are not enough. We need real gun control.
Thank you for your activism.
Posted on June 10, 2016
San Francisco men support abortion rights
Issues of reproductive freedom impact women, their children, their families and their communities, so protecting abortion rights should be important to all of us. Too often the media classifies abortion and the fight for abortion access as just a women’s issue. But we know that’s not true. Men need to stand up and loudly champion the rights of women.
That’s why NARAL Pro-Choice America launched Men for Choice—to create a platform for pro-choice men to aggregate and amplify their voices with like-minded men and women to fight for the pro-choice movement. Over the past three years they’ve hosted events around the country, encouraging men to speak up as allies in the fight for reproductive rights. The fight cannot be won without men involved in the conversation, because they constitute most of our elected leaders.
So far, the Men for Choice movement has reached 14 states and it continues to grow. On June 1, NARAL Pro-Choice America hosted their first Men for Choice event in San Francisco, and CREDO was there.
Posted on June 9, 2016
CREDO boosts Walmart workers’ activism at company’s shareholder meeting
Last week, as company executives and the Walton family convened for Walmart’s annual shareholders meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas, workers with OUR Walmart gathered to take actions and deliver more than 200,000 petition signatures to these decision-makers, calling on them to pay workers $15 an hour and offer full-time, consistent scheduling.
They aimed to highlight the Walmart’s poverty wages, understaffed stores, and inconsistent schedules to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, the Walton heirs and other Walmart executives and shareholders.
CREDO teamed up with OUR Walmart to co-sponsor a mobile billboard truck that carried the workers’ message throughout Bentonville during the shareholder meeting. The workers also executed a banner drop inside the shareholder meeting to deliver the call for change directly to investors.
The billboard, which read “Walmart’s CEO earned $9,323/hr last year. Walmart can afford $15/hour and full time,” went to Walmart’s home office, the town square offices of the Walton family heirs, and Bud Walton Arena, among other places.
