Supreme stats: 106 white males among 110 justices

Today, more than 200 women hold federal judgeships, along with 88 African-Americans, 60 Hispanics and eight Asian-Americans.

All but four of the 110 Supreme Court justices in the nation's history have been white men. Two are African-American men, Clarence Thomas and the late Thurgood Marshall, and two are white women, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor.

There has never been a Hispanic, Asian-American or Native American justice.

Ginsburg is the only female justice at the moment and most of the candidates whom Obama is considering are women.

The president also has a much wider range of experienced lawyers to draw from than Reagan did when he reached down to a midlevel appeals court in Arizona to nominate O'Connor.  Read more....

California faces its day of fiscal reckoning

By JULIET WILLIAMS

The governor's cutbacks could include ending the state's main welfare program for the poor, eliminating health coverage for about 1.5 million poor children, halting cash grants for about 77,000 college students, shortening the school year by seven days, laying off thousands of state workers and teachers, slashing money for state parks and releasing thousands of prisoners before their sentences are finished.

"I understand that these cuts are very painful and they affect real lives," Schwarzenegger said. "This is the harsh reality and the reality that we face. Sacramento is not Washington — we cannot print our own money. We can only spend what we have."

He also has advocated selling state assets to raise cash, including the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and San Quentin State Prison.  Read more...

Jay Mohr on Michelle Obama: Dude Looks Like A Lady

Womanist Musings

Once again Michelle's femininity is challenged in the name of comedy. What can be more hilarious than over privileged white men displaying their racism, sexism and transphobia for the world to see.

The black woman has historically been constructed as the ultimate “unwoman” to justify the exploitation that we have been subjected. These same white men who find it acceptable to label us as overly masculine, have no problem repeatedly violating our bodies sexually. I wonder if Mohr was channelling a slave owning ancestor when he made his remarks. Read more...

Jay Mohr on Michelle Obama: Dude Looks Like A Lady

Comment | Copy This

Colin Powell to Republicans: Listen to moderates, too

The conservative vs. moderate split threatening to rupture the Republican Party played out across the airwaves Sunday, with ColinPowell and Tom Ridge denouncing shrill and judgmental voices they say are steering the GOP too far right. Karl Rove challenged Powell to lay out his vision and "back it up" by helping elect Republicans.

At stake is the GOP’s status as a major party, Powell and Ridge suggested. Read more...

Colin Powell On Face The Nation Calls Republican Plays While Wearing An Obama Jersey

Domestic torture and America's racial hatred

Sharply drawn racial lines in America have clearly marked the different worlds and shaped the experiences and
expectations of Blacks and Whites in the United States. 

The suffering inflicted on Blacks started with our capture in Africa and continued through the horror of the Middle Passage and our arrival on land soaked with the blood of the Indigenous people. The oppression, mistreatment and murder of Blacks was codified under law—the Constitution, the founding document of the country, injected the subhuman status of Blacks in the political lifeblood of the nation. Black people were declared three-fifths of a human being and that was only in relation to the political power and advantages to be given to their slave masters.

With the Dred Scott decision of 1857, it was emphatically declared a Black man had no rights a White man was bound to respect. Once again the courts and the legal system upheld and ensured the second-class status of Black people with Jim Crow laws, housing contracts, country club rules and local ordinances.  Read more...

Conyers Defends Radio Bill Amid Protests

Amid protests by black radio stations back home in Detroit and growing opposition on Capitol Hill, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers is stressing important carve-outs in a bill he introduced that would end a long-standing royalty exemption for AM and FM broadcasters. Conyers, whose committee approved his bill last week, released a statement Tuesday touting modifications he made to the bill with the help of Congressional Black Caucus members. The amended measure creates a sliding scale where small stations would pay as little as $500 a year. Three-quarters of America's radio stations will be eligible for the scale and 90 percent of black-owned stations would be protected, he said. Additionally, all music stations that gross less than $1.25 million annually will be eligible for a flat fee.  Read more...

Obama's anti-terrorism policies hit walls

By Richard Wolf and Mimi Hall

• The Senate voted 90-6 Wednesday to block the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to the United States and deny Obama the $80 million he sought to shut down the facility. The move came as FBI Director Robert Mueller said any possible transfers could lead to terrorist attacks here.

• Antipathy toward Obama's decision to release Bush-era interrogation memos hasn't let up. Cheney, a leading critic of Obama's policies, is set to speak elsewhere in Washington this morning at about the time the president wraps up his remarks.

• Since making the decision on the memos, Obama has tilted the other way on several other issues. He did not urge prosecuting Bush administration officials who authorized harsh interrogations. He recommended against creating a "truth commission" to investigate their actions. He refused to release additional photographs showing the treatments. And he agreed to keep using military commissions to try some enemy combatants. Read more...

Pres. Obama dicusses terrorism Policy

UN Moves on Gaza Probe Despite Israeli Objections

A U.N. human rights expert says he will proceed with a mission to the Gaza Strip to investigate possible war crimes during the recent Israel-Hamas conflict despite Israeli objections.

The U.N.'s Richard Goldstone says Israel has not responded to his request to enter the country and cross into Gaza for his investigation of
Israel's offensive against Hamas rulers.

Speaking in Geneva Wednesday, he said his four-member team hopes to visit the southern Israeli town of Sderot, before crossing into Gaza. But, he says the team will enter Gaza through Egypt if necessary.  Read more...

Related articles

• Israel 'disappoints' UN war crimes judge PRESS TV

• Prosecutor: Gaza probe goes on without Israeli OK The Associated Press

US Keeps Nuclear 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': Israel Aide

The U.S. administration of President Barack Obama will not force Israel to state publicly whether it has nuclear weapons, an Israeli official said on Thursday. He said Washington would stick to a decades-old U.S. policy of "don't ask, don't tell."

Obama's bid to curb Iran's nuclear program through diplomacy has stirred speculation that, as part of a regional disarmament regimen, Israel could be asked to come clean on its own secret capabilities. Read more...

BBC - Evidence Israel's nuclear weapons(Banned Censored)1of5

The Bad Guys of Subprime Lending Are Raking in Bailout Billions

By John Dunbar and David Donald

Investment banks Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan & Co., and Citigroup Inc. both owned and financed subprime lenders. Others, like RBS Greenwich Capital Investments Corp. (part of the Royal Bank of Scotland), Swiss bank Credit Suisse First Boston, and Goldman Sachs & Co., were major financial backers of subprime lenders.

According to the Center's analysis:

• At least 21 of the top 25 subprime lenders were financed by banks that received bailout money -- through direct ownership, credit agreements, or huge purchases of loans for securitization.
• Twenty of the top 25 subprime lenders have closed, stopped lending, or been sold to avoid bankruptcy. Most were not banks and were not permitted to collect deposits.
• Eleven of the lenders on the list have made payments to settle claims of widespread lending abuses. Four of those have received bank bailout funds, including American International Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc.

Read more...

How The Poor Pay More For Everything

By DeNeen L. Brown

Having Little Money Often Means No Car, No Washing Machine, No Checking Account And No Break From Fees and High Prices

"The poor pay more for a gallon of milk; they pay more on a capital basis for inferior housing," says Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). "The poor and 100 million who are struggling for the middle class actually end up paying more for transportation, for housing, for health care, for mortgages. They get steered to subprime lending. . . . The poor pay more for things middle-class America takes for granted." Read more...

Related article

• America's Poor Are Its Most Generous Givers

The generosity of poor people isn't so much rare as rarely noticed, however. In fact, America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What's more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does.

Secret Service Blasted in Race Bias Case

By PIERRE THOMAS, JACK DATE and THERESA COOK

Judge Says 'Recalcitrant' Secret Service Defied Court Rules, Withheld Documents from Plaintiffs in Case Claiming a Pattern of Racial Discrimination at the Agency

The lawsuit, filed nearly a decade ago against the service on behalf of more than 100 current and former black agents, alleges that managers discriminated against them when they considered promotions.

The suit has revealed that senior managers at the service circulated e-mails with apparently racist imagery and messages, which the plaintiffs claimed were a manifestation of the discriminatory culture of the agency. Read more...

Soy Protein Used in "Natural" Foods Bathed in Toxic Solvent Hexane

Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

Virtually all "protein bars" on the market today are made with soy protein. Many infant formula products are also made with soy protein, and thousands of vegetarian products (veggie burgers, veggie cheese, "natural" food bars, etc.) are made with soy protein. That soy protein is almost always described as safe and "natural" by the companies using it. But there's a dirty little secret the soy product industry doesn't want you to know: Much of the "natural" soy protein used in foods today is bathed in a toxic, explosive chemical solvent known as hexane. Read more...

MLK to Get the Spielberg Treatment

It’s the first time that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s estate has officially approved a movie project about the late civil rights leader, and the MLK biopic will be helmed by none other than mega-director Steven Spielberg, who has acquired the “life rights” to Dr. King’s story, according to Variety. Read more...

'US, Israel waging new satanic war in region'

Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has warned against a plot hatched by the West to create a new conflict in the Middle East.

During a televised speech broadcast on Al-Manar TV on Wednesday, Nasrallah said that the US and Israel are seeking to create a conflict between Iran and the Arab countries.

"The final battle that the US and Israel are waging in the region is a fight between Iran and Arab nations and Shia and Sunni Muslims," the Hezbollah leader said.

"If we foil such a plot to create the conflict, the US and Israel can no longer use its wicked weapon," he added. Read more...

Somali Teenager Is Indicted for Piracy in Cargo-Ship Seizure

By CHAD BRAY

A Somali teenager has been indicted on piracy and other charges in the hostage taking of the captain of an American-flagged cargo ship in April.

Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse faces 10 counts, including piracy, seizing a ship by force and hostage taking. The piracy charge carries a sentence of up to life in prison. Read more...

Related articles

• Somali Accused in Pirate Attack Indicted by US Jury Bloomberg

• Teen Somali piracy suspect indicted in NYC court The Associated Press

Watch Video

• http://www.truveo.com/somali-pirate-appears-in-us-court/id/1935812839

Global Day of Action Held to Demand New Trial for Death Row Prisoner Troy Davis

Events are being held across the country today to demand a new trial for the Georgia death row prisoner Troy Anthony Davis. Davis, an African American, was convicted for the 1989 killing of a white police officer. Since the trial, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony. There is also no direct physical evidence tying Davis to the crime scene. A thirty-day stay of execution expired on Saturday, following last month’s decision by a federal appeals court to reject a new trial for Davis.

Read more...

• Real Audio Stream

How human genes become patented

By Elizabeth Landau

A striking 20 percent of all human genes have been patented. However, now that all 20,000 to 25,000 human genes have been mapped and sequenced through the Human Genome Project, they are in the public domain, meaning they would no longer be considered "new" for the purposes of patents, said Lee Silver, professor of molecular biology and public policy at Princeton University. Now, patents on human genes must specify a new use, such as a diagnostic test.

If a company wants to patent the purified form of an antibiotic that exists in nature in a fungus, no one challenges that, Silver said. Plant DNA, as well as human DNA, can be synthesized in a laboratory. Distinguishing this case from a patented human gene that is useful in diagnostics would require the ethical argument that the human genome is sacred -- and even then, things get murky, considering that about 25 percent of human genes are shared by chimpanzees, he said.

"The patent law says nothing about ethics," he said. Read more...

Watch Dr. Gupta explain the lawsuit »

The 13 people who made torture possible

By Marcy Wheeler

13 key people in the Bush administration cannot claim they relied on the memos from the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel. Some of the 13 manipulated the federal bureaucracy and the legal process to "preauthorize" torture in the days after 9/11. Others helped implement torture, and still others helped write the memos that provided the Bush administration with a legal fig leaf after torture had already begun.

The Torture 13 exploited the federal bureaucracy to establish a torture regime in two ways. First, they based the enhanced interrogation techniques on techniques used in the U.S. military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) program. The program -- which subjects volunteers from the armed services to simulated hostile capture situations -- trains servicemen and -women to withstand coercion well enough to avoid making false confessions if captured. Two retired SERE
psychologists contracted with the government to "reverse-engineer" these techniques to use in detainee interrogations.

The Torture 13 also abused the legal review process in the Department of Justice in order to provide permission for torture. Read more and find out who the 13 are...

Chrysler Closures Hit 32 Minority-Owned Companies

Rob Kuznia

As for Chrysler, 32 of the 789 doomed dealerships are minority-owned companies. Earlier this week, the president of the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers told the Wall Street Journal he feared the number would be as high as 140. In all, 161 of Chrysler's 3,200 dealerships are minority-owned; that number will soon decrease to 129. Read more...

Watch Video

• http://www.truveo.com/explaining-the-chrysler-closures/id/2158629066

Supreme Court to weigh Voting Rights Act challenge

By James Wright

Three high-profile cases challenging the nation's civil rights laws and efforts to remedy age-old discrimination against Blacks and minorities in voting, employment and lending practices were on the docket for argument before the U.S. Supreme Court in late April.

The case that has drawn the most national attention from many Black groups and civil rights advocates challenges the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No.1 vs. Holder, was presented before the court on April 29. Read more...

Grim Sleeper victim lives to tell story

The Grim Sleeper has killed 12 women. He killed nine from 1985 to 1988, stopped for 13 years, then killed again in 2002 and 2003. He stopped again, until the most recent murder on New Year's Day of 2007.

Detectives have DNA, ballistics, a description of an Orange Ford Pinto with a white interior, and a blue and white church van that may have been used to dump one of the bodies.

"I think he's right here in Los Angeles, and I think he's got some affiliation with the Cosmopolitan Church." Read more...

There is a $500,000 reward for information that leads the Grim Sleeper's arrest and conviction. The reward is a record for the city of Los Angeles.

Anyone with information is urged to call the LAPD at (877) LAPD-24-7.

Detectives Hit Wall in Hunt for LA Serial Killer

THE GRIM SLEEPER...THE THINKING PERSON'S CHANNEL

(America's) Violence Against Women, As Natural As Apple Pie.

By Katha Pollitt

We are so used to violence against women we don't even notice how used to it we are. When we're not persuading ourselves that women are just as violent toward men as vice versa if you forget about who ends up seriously injured or dead, or pointing out that most murders are of men by men, we persuade ourselves that violence against women just comes up out of nowhere. Murder is serious, especially if the victim is young, white, middle-class, pretty; harassment, abuse, domestic violence, even rape, not so much. After all, as I'm writing, I read that Houston, taking a leaf from Sarah Palin's Wasilla, is requiring rape victims to pay for the processing of their rape kits. Los Angeles has a backlog of 12,669 unprocessed rape kits, some so old the crimes have exceeded the statute of limitations. It's controversial to even use terms like "misogyny" and "male privilege" to explain the prevalence of these crimes and the shameful inadequacy of our social and legal response to them. And if you really want to be branded a square and a prude, try talking about the hatred and contempt for, and objectification of, women that permeates pop culture. Read more...

Like Bush, Obama White House Chooses Secrecy for Key Office

By JUSTIN ROOD

A sweeping new Obama administration openness policy doesn't apply to a key White House office that supports most of Obama's key staff and advisers, administration officials confirm. Rather, the Obama White House has opted to retain a Bush-era policy that blocks information about those operations from public release. Read more...

U.S. has a 45-year history of torture

A.J. Langguth

Brazil's political prisoners never doubted that Americans were involved in the torture that proliferated in their country. On their release, they reported that they frequently had heard English-speaking men around them, foreigners who left the room while the actual torture took place. As the years passed, those torture victims say, the men with American accents became less careful and sometimes stayed on during interrogations. One student dissident, Angela Camargo Seixas, described to me how she was beaten and had electric wires inserted into her vagina after her arrest. During her interrogations, she found that her hatred was directed less toward her countrymen than toward the North Americans. She vowed never to forgive the United States for training and equipping the Brazilian police. Flavio Tavares Freitas, a journalist and Christian nationalist, shared that sense of outrage. When he had wires jammed in his ears, between his teeth and into his anus, he saw that the small gray generator producing the shocks had on its side the red, white and blue shield of the USAID. Still another student leader, Jean Marc Von der Weid, told of having his penis wrapped in wires and connected to a battery-operated field telephone. Von der Weid, who had been in Brazil's marine reserve, said he recognized the telephone as one supplied by the United States through its military assistance program. Read more...

NYPD Breaks Record for Stop and Frisk Interrogations

By John Del Signore

Because of the NYPD's abiding commitment to self-transcendence in the fields of racial profiling and constitutional violation, the department has beat its own lofty record for the number of reported stop and frisk interrogations in three months. According to a data revealed today [pdf] at the NYCLU's insistence, the NYPD stopped and searched more innocent people during the first three months of 2009 than during any three-month period since police began collecting data on the program. Read more...

Secret US policy is the real story behind the Somali pirates

Daan de Wit

The Somali pirates are in the news almost every day. But what is the news behind the news? Thomas C. Mountain experiences first hand what is going on in the part of Africa everyone is now talking about, because he lives there, in Eritrea. He writes about the Horn of Africa and the pirates for alternati Online Journal.

In my interview with Mountain he tells about the illegal fishing and the dumping of toxic waste in Somali waters. And he explains the reason why the West only treats the symptoms but does not dare to touch the cause: the Somali pirates are protected by the US policeman on the beat: the Ethiopian army. Read more...

Blacks and Latinos in the U.S.: Still an Evolving Relationship

by Robert Suro

Although a fair number of Americans are aware that the United States will become a “majority minority” nation sometime around the year 2050, few contemplate how the “distinct experiences” of the two largest non-white groups – Blacks and Hispanics – will affect their interactions in this changed environment. “We are in the process,” writes the author, “of revising our notions of both what constitutes the norm and what constitutes ‘the other.’” The old Black-white paradigm is being eclipsed. “Twenty-five years from now the Hispanic population will be twice as large as the African-American population.” Read more...

White African-American Sues School

Question: If a White man was born in Africa and later becomes an American citizen, is he officially an African American? In fact, is he more of an African American than a Black person born in the United States?

Well, this is the mindset that prompted Paulo Serodio, a former student at a New Jersey medical school to file a lawsuit, ABCNews.com reports. The 45-year-old native of Mozambique claims he was harassed and then suspended for identifying himself as a “White African American” during a cultural exercise at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

“I’m not exaggerating,” he said recently. “This has destroyed my life.” Read more...

Former NBA great and jazz musician Wayman Tisdale Dies at 44

Former NBA great and jazz musician Wayman Tisdale has lost his battle with cancer. The 44-year-old Oklahoma native died Friday morning after a two-year struggle to control the disease.

Last summer he had his right leg amputated, and at the time, he thought he had put the deadly disease behind him. He was ready to go ahead and start a new life. Read more...

In The Zone - Wayman Tisdale

They're Baaaack! Neo-cons re-organize

By Robert Muhammad

Just when we thought it was safe to project a sane and rational American foreign policy to the world; that old shape-shifting political chameleon, known as the modern neo-conservative movement has again reared its multi-faceted head.

The neo-cons seem to have re-organized themselves under the banners of various new think tanks and foreign policy configurations, after dumping the old PNAC (Project for a New American Century) letterhead.

Some examples of these newly organized neo-con think-tanks would include the Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan-headed, Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), the Clifford May-headed Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, the John Nagi-led Center for a New American Security, and the “liberal” John Podesta-led Center for American Progress (CAP). Read more...

Marijuana potency surpasses 10 percent, U.S. says

By Jeanne Meserve and Mike M. Ahlers

The stronger marijuana is of particular concern because high concentrations of THC have the opposite effect of low concentrations, officials say.

In addition, while experienced marijuana users may limit their intake of potent marijuana, young and inexperienced users may not moderate their intake and possibly suffer from dysphoria, paranoia, irritability and other negative effects.

Watch more on the increase in marijuana potency »

Pfizer offers free prescription drugs for the jobless

Pfizer is offering free drugs, including Viagra and Lipitor, for those who have recently lost their jobs.

Pfizer is offering as much as a year of free medicine, such as the Lipitor cholesterol pill and Viagra for sexual dysfunction, to Americans who lost jobs and health insurance.

The program covers more than 70 medicines for people who can demonstrate unemployment since Jan. 1, have no drug insurance and were taking a Pfizer product for at least three months before the job loss, the New York-based drug maker said Thursday in a statement. Read more...

Chrysler, GM to cut 2,000 dealerships

By Jerry Kronenberg

Chrysler is expected today to identify some 800 U.S. dealerships that it wants to shutter, with General Motors following suit tomorrow with as many as 1,200 closure notices of its own.

The struggling carmakers are slashing dealerships as part of government-orchestrated attempts to save the U.S. auto industry.

Both firms have received huge government bailouts that require radical restructurings. Read more...

Also read

• U.S. Jobless Claims Rise on Auto Layoffs

Dems: CIA briefers may have broken law

By MANU RAJU

Democrats on the House intelligence committee said Thursday that CIA officers broke the law in 2002 if they told Nancy Pelosi then that they had not yet engaged in waterboarding.

"If they make a false report, absolutely it's illegal," said Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "If they fail to make a report when they're obligated to that is also illegal— a violation of the National Security Act."

Said CIA Spokesman George Little: “It is not the policy of the CIA to mislead the United States Congress.” Read more...

See Also

• Pelosi: Bush briefers lied to me
• Democrats push back on GOP allegations
• Pelosi defense: couldn't object in '03

CIA Contractors Played Big Role In Interrogations

by Ari Shapiro

Congressional testimony this week showed that private CIA contractors were a driving force behind harsh interrogations. Although there are lawsuits against military contractors involved in detainee abuse, there has been far less legal action against contractors who worked for the CIA. Read more...

Social Security and Medicare are fading

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER

Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday. Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.

Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year, just as it did for the first time in 2008. The trustees project that the Medicare fund will be depleted by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year's report. Read more...

Skin color clue to nicotine dependence

Higher concentrations of melanin -- the color pigment in skin and hair -- may be placing darker pigmented smokers at increased susceptibility to nicotine dependence and tobacco-related carcinogens than lighter skinned smokers, according to scientists.

"We have found that the concentration of melanin is directly related to the number of cigarettes smoked daily, levels of nicotine dependence, and nicotine exposure among African Americans," said Gary King, professor of biobehavioral health, Penn State. Read more...

CALL TO ACTION: Help Save Black Radio!

TO MY RADIO ONE FAMILY:

The Honorable John Conyers, our 80 year old African-American Congressman is the sponsor of a new bill that could put many black owned radio stations out of business. And force others to abandon their commitment to provide free music, entertainment, news, information, and money losing formats like gospel and black talk.

This is Cathy Hughes, founder and chairperson of Radio One with an urgent call to our Radio Family.

The John Conyers Performance Tax Bill is the brain child of the foreign owned record industry who would receive at least 50% of the revenue that would be charged to radio stations in order for them to play music. The music that you now receive free from us - we would have to pay millions of dollars for.

And in the midst of this economic depression, black radio stations simply do not have that financial ability.

There has been only one hearing on the bill and that hearing did not have any black ownership representation. Black radio owners and community leaders including Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Dick Gregory, Tom Joyner, and myself have all begged Conyers to at least allow us the opportunity for a hearing. He has flatly refused.

We now ask you, our radio family, to assist us in saving the future of black radio. Please call or email or visit the offices of John Conyers today.

His phone numbers are 202-225-5126 and 313-961-5670 and his email address is john.conyers@mail.house.gov

TELL HIM that you oppose this bill that would murder Black owned radio and the free music that you now hear on all free radio stations. In the midst of an American economic recession, it is not the right time to send millions of dollars to foreign owned record companies that don’t even pay taxes like you and me in
this country. This bill is not in the interest of Black people! Please help us save Black radio!

WANT TO LEARN MORE? See below why it is IMPERATIVE that we act to save Black radio:

1. The promotional value of free local radio airplay translates into significant revenues for artists and record labels:

• According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), record sales in the United States in 2007 were approximately $10.4 billion;
• Touring revenue in 2007 in the U.S. was approximately $5 billion;
• The above figures exclude the several billion dollars derived annually from merchandise, songwriting royalties and licensing deals for commercials, films, etc.; and
• Also excluded is the boost that U.S. popularity provides for foreign sales and concerts.

2. Local radio also actively promotes artists by:

• Devoting considerable and valuable airtime to promoting artists’ concerts;
• Featuring artist weekends
• Providing opportunities for live in-studio performances; and
• Creating buzz through on-air ticket and album giveaways, helping to drive concert and merchandising revenue.

Without doubt, the engine driving these billions of dollars into the pockets of the record labels and artists is free, local radio promotion. Read more & act NOW!!!...

Related articles

• NoPerformance Tax
• Radio One Rally to Fight Performance Rights Act

Cheney Continues Insulting Powell

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who’s been making news lately by blasting the Black leadership of the Republican Party, kept the heated barbs flying Sunday, implying to a national TV audience that the former Secretary of State Colin Powell is a traitor to the GOP.

Referring to a recent verbal battle between Powell and radio air-raider Rush Limbaugh, Cheney told CBS’s "Face the Nation" that, "If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh. My take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican." Read more...