Posted on March 31, 2016
Why it is critical that we defeat Republicans’ unprecedented Supreme Court obstruction
Our allies at the Alliance for Justice recently explained what a single seat on the Supreme Court could mean for all of the issues we as progressives care deeply about. In just this term:
The court is considering whether states can enact restrictions on abortion providers that may render Roe v. Wade a functional nullity; whether the government can effectively regulate the emissions of coal-burning power plants and meaningfully address climate change; whether public-sector workers can organize in effective unions; whether affirmative action is dead or alive; and whether the president’s policies on immigration are valid.
For years conservatives have counted on the Court as a key arm in their effort to repeal every progressive reform we have made as a country during the last 100 years. Putting it simply – they want to repeal the 20th century.
Posted on March 29, 2016
Fighting back against discrimination in North Carolina
CREDO fights for equality and opposes discrimination in any form. We celebrated the city of Charlotte’s efforts to stand with transgender people and make their city more inclusive of all its residents. And in that same vein, we strongly condemn the actions of Governor Pat McCrory and the North Carolina legislators who used Charlotte’s bold action for equality as an opportunity to stoke anti-transgender fears, threaten the safety of transgender North Carolinians, and legislate hate and discrimination. This is unacceptable. Our country has no place for hateful, discriminatory laws.
CREDO is proud to be part of the nationwide opposition to this new discriminatory law in North Carolina. In recent weeks CREDO activists have been fighting back against legislative attempts all over the country to discriminate against transgender children. We are not going to give in to extremists’ fear mongering about transgender students and legitimize their segregation, humiliation, and isolation. We will continue to apply political pressure wherever it is needed to stand with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people, their families and their communities.
Posted on March 23, 2016
A Special Delivery for Pfizer
Pfizer — one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies that makes billions off of U.S. government contracts, develops and sells its drugs in the U.S., and relies on our roads and workforce — is planning to desert Americans to the tune of billions of dollars.
That’s because, through a terrible but legal practice called “corporate inversion,” Pfizer plans to merge with a tiny European rival company so that it can avoid paying the taxes it owes to the U.S. by moving its tax address offshore. That’s vital money — nearly $35 billion — that could be used to support infrastructure, education, and health care for Americans.
That’s why we decided to team up with our friends at Americans for Tax Fairness and Democracy for America to make a big push to stand with Elizabeth Warren in support of the “Stop Corporate Inversions Act,” so that Pfizer’s cynical plan will no longer be legal.
Our petitions were delivered last week to Congress:
The names of 272,000 people – including more than 140,000 CREDO activists – were delivered to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and to Sen. Richard Durbin, Sen. Jack Reed, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the leading sponsors and supporters of the bill.
Pfizer is just the latest example in a disturbing pattern of corporate tax dodgers. With passage of the Stop Corporate Inversions Act, we can put an end to it once and for all. You can join the effort to end corporate inversions by adding your name to the petition.
Posted on March 22, 2016
3 More Battery-Saving Tips for Your Smartphone
Earlier in March, I wrote about three tricks to extend battery life on any smartphone, like turning off WiFi when you’re not using it, shortening your screen lock time and minimizing the activity of apps you don’t use. Unfortunately, there have not been great advances in battery technology since my previous post, so I’m back with three more tips to save battery life:
1. Turn down screen brightness.
This is a tried-and-true battery tip: if you cut down the amount of light you ask your smartphone to put out every time you check email, send a text, etc., you’ll save battery juice. Most smartphones make it easy to adjust brightness with shortcuts to your brightness setting. On many devices, you can do it by simply sliding your finger up or down on your homescreen. Sidenote: turning down brightness may also help you sleep better. It turns out that using a bright phone before bedtime can interfere with your body’s natural sleep hormones.
Posted on March 18, 2016
Garland must get timely, fair hearings and an up-or-down vote
Garland’s nomination continues the president’s pattern of nominating experienced and distinguished individuals to the highest court in the land. Garland has served with distinction on the D.C. Court of Appeals and nobody can question his qualifications to serve on the high court, or his intelligence.
Since Justice Scalia’s death, Republican senators have been relentless in their threats to undermine the president’s constitutional authority and obstruct his nominee. We need to counter this obstruction as strongly as possible and make the political cost of the Republicans’ Supreme Court blockade too high for them to bear.
Posted on March 9, 2016
A note of thanks from CREDO’s donation recipients
Each month, CREDO takes a portion of its revenue, which adds up to about $200,000, and donates it to three progressive nonprofits. In February, we funded Rainforest Action Network, Voter Participation Center and Wellstone Action. Over 52,000 CREDO members voted on how to distribute our donations. Here are the voting results:
The nonprofits we fund are grateful for CREDO’s support and putting our donations to work!
Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Action Network is playing a central part in the key climate battles of our time. RAN’s action savvy and campaign expertise is a major part of the people-powered Keep It in the Ground movement, pushing to end dirty energy extraction on America’s public lands. This year, the movement has already helped create the political space for a historic nationwide moratorium on coal leasing — and we’re just getting going! RAN is also pressuring banks to stop funding climate chaos. In 2015 we won new policies from four of the six biggest U.S. banks to get out of coal mining, through negotiation in the boardroom and action in the streets. And we’re doing our part to grow and train the grassroots climate movement — our only hope for stopping runaway global warming. CREDO’s generosity will help RAN continue its cutting-edge contributions to the urgent fight against climate change. Thank you for your support!
Voter Participation Center
The Voter Participation Center is grateful for the support of CREDO in our efforts to register by November one million members of the Rising American Electorate (RAE)—unmarried women, millennials and people of color. Currently, 56.7% of the voting-eligible population is RAE — but not the majority of voters and not the majority of voices shaping our nation’s policies. Their 48% share in 2012 was the highest RAE participation rate ever in a presidential election. This year, VPC’s goal is to make the RAE the majority of voters (more than 50% of the electorate) and to increase their share in every election thereafter.
Wellstone Action
Wellstone Action is so grateful for the generous support of CREDO and its members. In 2016, we are expanding our political and public leadership pipelines and training progressive champions who can move a bold governing agenda in the states. We’re also supporting state-based movements fighting to expand the right to vote, implement fair redistricting and ensure fair courts. We are honored to have your support and will work tirelessly for the world where — in the words of the late Paul Wellstone — “we all do better when we all do better.”
CREDO is excited to have funded these three progressive organizations and couldn’t have done it without our members who make these donations possible by using our products, like CREDO Mobile.
In March, we’re funding three more groups: Brennan Center for Justice, Demand Progress and the National LGBTQ Task Force. Vote today to help us distribute nearly $200,000 to these worthy nonprofits.
Posted on March 4, 2016
3 Battery-Saving Tips for Your Smartphone
From self-driving cars to smartwatches, technology is advancing at an incredible pace. Batteries, unfortunately, have not seen much improvement in at least a decade.
If you’re like me and you find your smartphone running out of juice often, here are a few tricks to slow down smartphone battery drain.
1. Not using Bluetooth or WiFi? Turn them off.
If I’m going out for a jog, I like to listen to music on my wireless Bluetooth headphones. But after my run, if I forget to disable Bluetooth on my phone, it sucks the life out of my battery. Turn off Bluetooth when you’re not using it and you’ll charge your battery less often.
WiFi is, of course, a smart alternative to using mobile data. But you’ll save your battery by turning WiFi off when you’re not using it. Whenever WiFi is turned on, it takes a toll on your battery because your device constantly searches for wireless networks in the background.
Posted on March 4, 2016
VIDEO: Nobel Prize winner fact checks the president on TPP
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will hurt millions of Americans by eviscerating broad swaths of regulations that protect consumers, workers, the environment and our financial system. Yet due to a nearly-complete blackout of coverage of this trade deal in the traditional corporate media, you wouldn’t know it.
The lack of proper media scrutiny has enabled TPP’s supporters in the Obama administration and their corporate allies to spread lies and misinformation about this giant trade deal without any pushback. Even worse, the President himself has told some of these falsehoods about this corporate power grab.
If the media won’t do its job, we need to do it for them. That’s why CREDO turned to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and the head of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, Lori Wallach, to fact check President Obama’s statements on the TPP in this short video.
Click here to share the video on Facebook.
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With the text of the deal now public, some key Republicans who supported Fast Track authority for approving the TPP are now saying they cannot support the trade deal as it stands. That means the president currently does not have the votes to pass the TPP. We need to keep it that way and thwart any momentum toward passage of the TPP in this Congress.
Posted on March 3, 2016
Your voice in action
The voices of CREDO members have played a huge part from the beginning of the campaign against Republican obstruction. Numerous media outlets have followed your efforts.
In late February CREDO joined with progressive organizations including MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, People For the American Way, Color of Change, Every Voice, Daily Kos, Demand Progress, Common Cause, PCCC, UltraViolet and NextGen Climate to deliver more than 1.3 million petitions to Capitol Hill demanding that Senate Republicans “do their jobs” and stop obstructing President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee.
Posted on March 3, 2016
5 Things Worth Celebrating This International Women’s Day
When we celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, we’ll be reminded that the fight for women’s equality is far from over. American women still earn only 78 cents for every dollar that men earn. And worldwide, the picture is far more bleak. The World Economic Forum reports that it will take 81 years to close this gender gap at the current rate of change.
Clearly, there is more work to be done. And at CREDO, we’re doing it. We promote women’s equality by directing much-needed donations to progressive nonprofit groups working hard every day for women’s rights. In 2015 alone, we gave over $350,000 to five amazing women’s rights groups.
These donations are generated by CREDO members when they use our services like CREDO Mobile. They cost our members nothing extra, but they mean everything to the groups that receive them—groups like Planned Parenthood, fighting on the frontlines to defend women’s reproductive rights. Since 1985, we’ve donated over $3 million to Planned Parenthood and we’re proud to be the organization’s largest corporate sponsor.
We’ll never stop pushing for equality in the years ahead. But, on this International Women’s Day, we’ll also celebrate the amazing progress we’ve made for women’s rights.
Five things to celebrate this International Women’s Day
1. More women are getting an education. Worldwide, girls now enroll in primary school at almost the same rate as boys. And national constitutions adopted since 1995 are more likely to ensure equality in education for girls than those adopted before. Further, two-thirds of constitutions adopted after 1995 guarantee free primary education, compared with just half before 1995.
