Posted on April 5, 2012 at 8:39 PM EST
By Aaron Klein
A “progressive” cell phone company with ties to billionaire activist George Soros has set its sights on Tea Party-affiliated lawmakers, opening offices on their districts with the specific goal of booting the Congressmen from office.
The political action committee of Credo Mobile announced yesterday it will set up offices in the districts of Reps. Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.) to oppose the lawmakers.
Already, Credo opened headquarters targeting Teap Party favorites including Reps. Chip Cravaack (Minn.), Sean Duffy (Wis.), Frank Guinta (N.H.), Steve King (Iowa), Joe Walsh (Ill.) and Allen West (Fla.).
Becky Bond, the PAC’s president, told Roll Call that by the end of the week, the group will have offices in all eight of the lawmakers’ districts staffed by a total of 22 full-time organizers. “Not interns. These are hard-core field people,” Bond said.
Credo Mobile is a privately held for-profit company with a reported 110,000 mobile customers. It resells cell-phone airtime on the Sprint Network.
Credo Mobile is tied to a who’s who of radical leftist organizations, many of which are funded by billionaire George Soros.
The company also has ties to White House officials.
Credo Mobile and its parent, Working Assets, have raised more than $65 million for scores of nonprofit organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, Doctors Without Borders, the socialist-leaning Democracy Now and even Color of Change, an advocacy group founded by President Obama’s disgraced former “green jobs” czar Van Jones.
John Votava, a spokesman for Sprint, clarified his company’s relationship with Credo Mobile.
“Credo is a long-time Sprint wholesale customer. Opinions expressed by Credo are entirely their own and do not reflect Sprint’s views,” Votava told KleinOnline.
‘Dedicated to defeating right-wing radicalism’
Credo Mobile has repeatedly attacked competitors AT&T and Verizon, complaining the companies support tea party-linked organizations.
One page at Credo’s website says AT&T gave $386,000 to the Tea Party Caucus and to politicians such as Rep. Michele Bachman, R-Minn., who tops polls in Iowa for the Republican presidential nomination.
“CREDO would never give a dime to the Tea Party,” continues the site. “When you join CREDO, you’ll join a movement dedicated to defeating right-wing radicalism.”
A recent Credo email advertisement claimed, “Both AT&T and Verizon Wireless have also donated to … Bachmann, who wants her constituents ‘armed and dangerous’ against climate change legislation and accused President Obama of ‘anti-American’ views.”
The email stated Verizon Wireless “fought net neutrality regulations” and recently sponsored two weeks of free access to The Daily, the new iPad-only “newspaper” from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. – “the company that brought us Fox News.”
“During the 2010 election cycle,” added the Credo email, “AT&T was among the top 10 PAC donors to Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, now infamous for his deceptive anti-union tactics.”
“So maybe it’s time to sign up with the one phone company that shares your progressive values,” Credo said.
Similar statements were made on fliers distributed by Credo Mobile at the liberal Netroots Nation conference in June.
Soros, White House ties
Credo Mobile was founded by longtime Democratic activist Michael Kieschnick.
Kieschnick is one of three co-founders of the Soros-funded Secretary of State Project, which seeks to get Democrats elected to office, and has worked alongside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.
Kieschnick was recently invited to visit the White House, where he says he briefed President Obama on Credo Mobile’s activism.
“I told him what we had done to fight George Bush – he was impressed – but that we were ready to fight even harder to make positive change in the days and months to come,” wrote Kieschnick of his meeting with Obama.
Kieschnick occasionally writes for the Huffington Post and The Beatitudes Society. The Beatitudes Society is a project of the Soros-funded Tides Center.
Tides is one of the largest funders of U.S. “progressive” groups, including a large number of Soros’ funded projects, such as MoveOn. Tides is also closely linked to the Occupy movement.
Tides founder Drummond Pike also co-founded Credo Action, the activist wing of Credo Mobile.
Soros funds scores of other groups that are backed by Credo Mobile, including Human Rights Watch, which, in 2010 received the largest single gift ever donated by Soros, a $100-million-dollar donation.
Kieschnick is a member of the board of directors of Sojourners Magazine, whose founder and CEO, Jim Wallis, is one of Obama’s faith-advisors. Sojourners is a left-leaning evangelical group that presses for so-called social and racial justice.
Other Sojourners writers and directors sit on Obama’s faith council, including Chicago Muslim Eboo Patel and Lynne Hybels, a leader of the innovative megachurch Willow Creek in suburban Chicago, which is pastored by her husband, Bill Hybels.
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