December, 01 2021, 01:42pm EDT

New Poll: Gen Z & Millennials Want Accountability From Companies for Donations to Anti-Abortion Political Candidates
New poll from UltraViolet and GQR shows millennials across the political spectrum agree that if a company that does not share their values on abortion they will not share values on other issues.
WASHINGTON
With oral arguments at the Supreme Court on Mississippi's contenious 15 week abortion underway (HB 1510), a new poll released today shows statistical data that members of Generation Z (ages 18-21), Millennials (ages 22-40), and Generation X (ages 40-44) want to hold corporations accountable for political donations to political candidates who oppose reproductive rights.
Commissioned by the gender justice advocacy group UltraViolet and GQR, some of the poll's top finds are:
-Over 50% of young consumers are concerned by anti-choice donations
-Nearly three-quarters (74%) agree companies should help push for social change, including LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights, and racial equity.
-50% of young consumers are both pro-choice and willing to boycott companies whose donations do not support their abortion views.
-65% of young consumers across the political spectrum (conservative, moderate, and liberal) agree that companies who do not share their values on abortion likely do not share their values on other issues.
VIEW POLLING RESULTS HERE: https://weareultraviolet.org/young-consumers-want-accountability-for-corporate-anti-choice-donations/
For months, UltraViolet has campaigned amplifying how corporate political giving from companies like AT&T have facilitated right-wing leadership in states with draconian anti-abortion laws, including Mississippi and Texas. As a result, the passage laws such as Mississippi's 15 week abortion ban, which will be argued before SCOTUS tomorrow, and SB8 in Texas, have made the threat of legal abortion ending for millions ever more real.
Additional new data from UltraViolet highlights that corporate donations of $544,800.00 through 2021 to Mississippi politicians who voted in favor of HB1510, the anti-abortion law at issue in the Supreme Court today. These officials include Republican Governor Tate Reeves, who signed HB1510 into law. Of those companies, AT&T was the largest single corporate donor in the state at $117,100.
VIEW DATA ON CORPORATE GIVING TO ANTI-ABORTION POLITICIANS HERE: https://weareultraviolet.org/corporate-anti-abortion-political-giving-data-for-the-5th-circuit/
"Corporations like AT&T helped fuel and legitimize politicians who run on platforms and pass policies once in power to harm workers and consumers alike. said Sonja Spoo, director of reproductive rights campaigns at UltraViolet. "Today's oral arguments at the Supreme Court are the consequences of corporate dollars that ignore the dangerous and even deadly impact of their political giving byd funding politicians who want to gut Roe v. Wade and rollback decades of progress on our civil rights.. At this moment, we need companies to wake up from their business as usual approach to political giving and reckon with the increasingly extreme politicians they are supporting."
Last night, activists also staged an "Abortion is Freedom" light brigade to urging the Supreme Court to protect abortion access and strike down the Mississippi law at issue in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which bans abortion after 15 weeks. The event was organized by UltraViolet and several advocacy groups outside of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, DC.
VIEW THE PHOTOS HERE: https://dam.gettyimages.com/paid-assignments-full-takes/full-take-activists-hold-light-brigade-urging-abor
UltraViolet is a powerful and rapidly growing community of people mobilized to fight sexism and create a more inclusive world that accurately represents all women, from politics and government to media and pop culture.
LATEST NEWS
100 Palestinians Killed in Weekend of Israeli Airstrikes on Gaza
Victims include 22 members of one family massacred in their Gaza City home.
Apr 27, 2025
Israel Defense Forces bombing killed at least 100 Palestinians including numerous women and children in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, while the IDF also renewed airstrikes on Lebanon as cease-fire talks between senior Hamas and Egyptian officials wrapped up in Cairo without any breakthrough.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday that Israeli strikes killed at least 51 Palestinians over the previous 24 hours. Among the victims were eight people, including three women and two children, killed in an IDF bombing of a tent in Khan Younis; a man and four children slain in another strike on a tent in Deir al-Balah; and at least six people who died when a coffee shop near the Bureij refugee camp was hit.
The ministry said Saturday that at least 49 Palestinians were killed during the preceding 24 hours, including 22 members of the al-Khour family who were sheltering in their Gaza City home when it was bombed.
The IDF said the strike targeted a Hamas militant. Israel's military relaxed rules of engagement after the October 7, 2023 attack to allow an unlimited number of civilians to be killed when targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.
Saed al-Khour, who is grieving the loss of his family, refuted Israel's claim, tellingThe Associated Press that "there is no one from the resistance" among the victims.
"We have been pulling out the remains of children, women, and elderly people," al-Khour added.
Israel's U.S.-backed 569-day assault on Gaza has left at least 183,800 Palestinians dead, injured, or missing. Nearly all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened amid a "complete siege" that is cited in an International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which issued arrest warrants for the pair last year.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces unleashed a wave of bombing attacks in Lebanon in what critics called a blatant violation of a November cease-fire agreement with the resistance group Hezbollah. The IDF bombed targets in southern Lebanon and in suburbs of the capital city of Beirut.
The IDF, which said it warned residents ahead of the Beirut airstrike, claimed it attacked "an infrastructure where precision missiles" were being stored by Hezbollah, without providing any supporting evidence.
Israel says it will continue its assault and siege on Gaza until Hamas releases the two dozen Israeli and other hostages it has imprisoned since October 2023. Hamas counters that it will only free the hostages in an exchange for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, a complete withdrawal of IDF troops from Gaza, and a new cease-fire agreement. Israel unilaterally broke a January cease-fire last month.
A senior Hamas delegation left Cairo late Saturday following days of talks regarding a possible deal for a multi-year truce and the release of all remaining hostages. The head of Israel's Mossad spy agency was also in Qatar earlier this week for separate cease-fire talks. Qatari mediators said they believed there has been "some progress" in both sides' willingness to reach an agreement.
United Nations agencies and international humanitarian groups—many of which have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war—have warned in recent days of the imminent risk of renewed famine in Gaza as food stocks run out.
"Children in Gaza are starving," the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
said on social media Sunday. "The government of Israel continues to block the entry of food and other basics. [This is a] man-made and politically motivated starvation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sanders: 'Oligarchy on Steroids' Poses Existential Threat to Democracy
"If we don't address that issue, the American people will continue to turn their backs on democracy."
Apr 27, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday that Democrats lack a "vision for the future," warning that Americans will "turn their backs on democracy" if elected officials fail to tackle an "oligarchy on steroids."
Appearing on NBC News' "Meet the Press," Sanders (I-Vt.) was asked about Sen. Elissa Slotkin's (D-Mich.) recent assertion that Democrats should stop saying "oligarchy" because it only resonates with coastal institutions, and whether he's "missing a chance to speak to a wider audience."
"Well... we had 36,000 people out in Los Angeles, 34,000 people in Colorado, we had 30,000 people in Folsom, California," Sanders replied, referring to the wildly popular Fighting Oligarchy Tour he's currently on with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
"I think the American people are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin thinks they are. I think they understand very well," the senator continued. "When the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%, when big money interests are able to control both political parties, they are living in an oligarchy."
"And these are precisely the issues that have got to be talked about," Sanders said. "Are you living in a democracy when [Elon] Musk can spend $270 million to elect [President Donald] Trump, and then becomes the most important person in government?"
Sanders called out the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other super PACs "that have enormous power over Democratic candidates."
"Those are issues that we have got to talk about. That is the reality of American society today. The very rich getting richer, working-class people are struggling, 800,000 people [are] sleeping out on the streets," the democratic socialist contended.
"If we don't address that issue, the American people will continue to turn their backs on democracy, because they're looking around them and they're saying, 'Does anybody understand what I am going through?'" he added. "And unfortunately right now, to a large degree, neither party does."
Sanders urged Democrats to embrace policies like fixing the nation's "broken healthcare system" and raising the minimum wage, pointing to issues on which he is working with colleagues.
"You have Democrats... talking about Trump's movement toward authoritarianism; vigorously opposing the so-called reconciliation bill to give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks for the 1% and make massive cuts to Medicaid, nutrition, and housing; opposing what Musk is doing to dismember the Social Security Administration and the Veterans Administration, making it hard for our veterans to get decent health care or benefits on time," he said.
Sanders argued that the country needs more working-class people to run for office—and not necessarily as Democrats.
"You want to run as a Democrat? Great," he said. "You want to run as an Independent? That's great, but you've got to get involved in the political process, because right now the two-party system is failing the working class of this country."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Hundreds Rally in Milwaukee Against Trump Admin's 'Unprecedented' Arrest of Judge
"We reject this lawless escalation against an immigration judge who appears to be showing a commonsense and humane approach to immigrants, and stands for due process for all," said one campaigner.
Apr 26, 2025
Hundreds of people rallied in Wisconsin's largest city on Saturday to protest the Trump administration's arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan on what critics called "baseless" charges of felony obstruction after she allegedly helped an undocumented immigrant evade arrest during an appearance in her courtroom.
FBI agents arrested Dugan, 65, on Friday following an investigation, accusing her of escorting an undocumented man and his attorney through her courtroom's jury door after learning that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up to arrest him.
Protesters chanted slogans including, "No ICE, No KKK, No Fascist USA!" and "No Hate, No Fear, Immigrants Are Welcome Here!" They held signs with messages like "Liberty and Justice for All" and "Resist Fascism!"
HAPPENING NOW: A HUGE crowd of protesters march through the streets outside an FBI office in Milwaukee in support of Judge Hannah Dugan (Video: @unraveledpress.com)
[image or embed]
— Marco Foster ( @marcofoster.bsky.social) April 26, 2025 at 3:05 PM
"I have never heard of a state court judge being arrested by the federal government because she chose to control her own courtroom. This is unprecedented," Sara Dady, an immigration attorney who traveled more than 90 miles from Rockford, Illinois to attend the demonstration outside the FBI field office in Milwaukee, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Wisconsin state Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-19) told the crowd: "The judiciary acts as a check to unchecked executive power. And functioning democracies do not lock up judges."
"I hope that we can all be as brave as Judge Dugan was," Clancy added.
Janan Najeeb, one of the leaders of the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine, told rallygoers: "The courtroom is not a hunting ground for ICE. It is a sanctuary. When our government turns our courtrooms into traps, they are betraying the very laws that they claim to defend."
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights director Angelica Salas said in a statement that "in an unprecedented move against members of the judicial branch, the Trump administration is exercising authoritarianism to degrees that should alarm us all."
"We reject this lawless escalation against an immigration judge who appears to be showing a commonsense and humane approach to immigrants, and stands for due process for all, and against wanton disregard for our Constitution," Salas added.
Critics have called Dugan's arrest part and parcel of President Donald Trump's attacks on immigrants, the nation's system of checks and balances, and the rule of law.
"The Trump administration deserves zero benefit of the doubt here. It has evinced utter contempt for due process and the rule of law since inauguration day," Ryan Cooper, managing editor of The American Prospect, wrote on Friday. "It has deported numerous legal residents, most notably Kilmar Abrego García, to an El Salvador torture dungeon, and is openly disobeying a 9-0 Supreme Court decision to bring García back."
"The ongoing mass layoffs of federal workers and outright dismantling of legislatively mandated agencies being carried out by Elon Musk and DOGE is blatantly unconstitutional," Cooper added, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency.
Among those pushing back against Dugan's arrest are Wisconsin Circuit Judge Monica Isham, who wrote in an email to other judges: "Enough is enough. I no longer feel protected or respected as a judge in this administration. If there is no guidance for us and no support for us, I will refuse to hold court."
"I have no intention of allowing anyone to be taken out of my courtroom by ICE and sent to a concentration camp, especially without due process as BOTH of the constitutions we swore to support require," Isham added. "If this costs me my job or gets me arrested, then at least I know I did the right thing."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular