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.
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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.
Posted on February 27, 2016
Watch Sen. Al Franken dismantle the “absurdity” of Republican Supreme Court obstruction
At a March hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Minnesota Senator and comedian Al Franken perfectly deconstructed and exposed the twisted, backward, and contradictory logic used by Senate Republicans in refusing to do their jobs and give President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee a vote.
Watch Sen. Franken shred the “absurdity” of Republican obstruction:
Posted on February 26, 2016
Celebrating One Year Since the Historic Net Neutrality Victory
Most politicians thought we couldn’t win this fight. Some Democrats joined Republicans on the wrong side. Others expressed support but were simply too timid to speak out on behalf of the strongest rules.
But thanks to fierce activism, millions spoke out for the only solution that would make strong rules on Net Neutrality possible: the awkwardly named “Title II reclassification.” The president joined you in this call and on February 26, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to adopt historic Net Neutrality rules under the legal framework we had demanded for years.
Posted on February 22, 2016
Get Ready for the New Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge
Samsung just announced the long-awaited details of their new twin 2016 flagship devices, the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. If you loved your previous Galaxy, you’ll quickly fall for these new devices as they build upon what’s already great about the line.
The S7 and S7 edge are physically very similar to their S6 versions. The S7 is 5.1” and the edge, 5.5”. Both have Quad HD Super AMOLED displays, which means they have broad color gamuts with great contrast. Every type of content will shine on these displays. Each features a faster processor as well as improved cameras with faster focusing and better low-light performance.
