Senate Passes Health Care Bill Backed By Obama

U.S. President Barack Obama
Posted Thursday, December 31, 2009
(National News)

By Kathy Wray Coleman
Editor of The Determiner Weekly.com and The
Kathy Wray Coleman On line News Blog and Media Network

The Senate on Christmas Eve morning passed a health care reform bill backed by the Obama administration 60 to 39. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was supported by a majority of Senate Democrats, follows a similar health care reform bill dubbed America's Health Care Reform Act that passed the House Nov. 7. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Oh) was among the Democrats that backed the initiative in the House.

In response to the Senate's unprecendented passage of the bill President Barack Obama said in a press release to the Determiner Weekly.com the following:

“Good morning, everybody.  In a historic vote that took place this morning members of the Senate joined their colleagues in the House of Representatives to pass a landmark health insurance reform package -- legislation that brings us toward the end of a nearly century-long struggle to reform America’s health care system.

  Ever since Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform in 1912, seven Presidents -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- have taken up the cause of reform.  Time and time again, such efforts have been blocked by special interest lobbyists who’ve perpetuated a status quo that works better for the insurance industry than it does for the American people.  But with passage of reform bills in both the House and the Senate, we are now finally poised to deliver on the promise of real, meaningful health insurance reform that will bring additional security and stability to the American people.

The reform bill that passed the Senate this morning, like the House bill, includes the toughest measures ever taken to hold the insurance industry accountable.  Insurance companies will no longer be able to deny you coverage on the basis of a preexisting condition.  They will no longer be able to drop your coverage when you get sick.  No longer will you have to pay unlimited amounts out of your own pocket for the treatments you need.  And you’ll be able to appeal unfair decisions by insurance companies to an independent party.

  If this legislation becomes law, workers won’t have to worry about losing coverage if they lose or change jobs.  Families will save on their premiums.  Businesses that would see their costs rise if we do not act will save money now, and they will save money in the future.  This bill will strengthen Medicare, and extend the life of the program.  It will make coverage affordable for over 30 million Americans who do not have it -- 30 million Americans.  And because it is paid for and curbs the waste and inefficiency in our health care system, this bill will help reduce our deficit by as much as $1.3 trillion in the coming decades, making it the largest deficit reduction plan in over a decade. 

  As I’ve said before, these are not small reforms; these are big reforms.  If passed, this will be the most important piece of social policy since the Social Security Act in the 1930s, and the most important reform of our health care system since Medicare passed in the 1960s.  And what makes it so important is not just its cost savings or its deficit reductions.  It’s the impact reform will have on Americans who no longer have to go without a checkup or prescriptions that they need because they can’t afford them; on families who no longer have to worry that a single illness will send them into financial ruin; and on businesses that will no longer face exorbitant insurance rates that hamper their competitiveness. It’s the difference reform will make in the lives of the American people. 

  I want to commend Senator Harry Reid, extraordinary work that he did; Speaker Pelosi for her extraordinary leadership and dedication.  Having passed reform bills in both the House and the Senate, we now have to take up the last and most important step and reach an agreement on a final reform bill that I can sign into law.  And I look forward to working with members of Congress in both chambers over the coming weeks to do exactly that.

  With today’s vote, we are now incredibly close to making health insurance reform a reality in this country.  Our challenge, then, is to finish the job.  We can't doom another generation of Americans to soaring costs and eroding coverage and exploding deficits.  Instead we need to do what we were sent here to do and improve the lives of the people we serve.  For the sake of our citizens, our economy, and our future, let’s make 2010 the year we finally reform health care in the United States of America.”

Group Protests' Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson Around Imperial Ave. Murders While Plain Dealer Newspaper Falsifies Article And Will Not Quote Blacks

Cleveland, Ohio Mayor Frank G. Jackson
Posted Saturday, December 19, 2009
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)

From the Metro Desk of The Determiner Weekly and
The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network


Some 43 protesters rallied at the home of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson on Saturday, in spite of snow and inclement weather.

With four to five police cars in view the protesters demanded that Jackson speak up relative to numerous instances of mistreatment of Black women by city officials, including the murders of 11 Black women on Imperial Ave. They also demanded the firings of Cleveland Chief of Police Michael McGrath, Law Director Robert Triozzi, Safety Director Martin Flask, Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez and Public Health Director Matthew Carroll, none of whom are Black and all of whom are accused of alleged malfeasance or negligence around the Imperial Ave. tragedies.

“There are no Blacks or women in top leadership roles in law enforcement in spite of a Black mayor and six of the women died on Imperial Ave after the chief prosecutor, police and others deemed the complaint of attempted rape by a Black woman not credible in 2008,” said Kathy Wray Coleman, a local journalist and founding member of the Imperial Women. “ We also take issue with 23-year-old Black female college student Rebecca Whitby having allegedly been beat up and called a nigger by two White male policemen, according to a White elderly neighbor and witness with cancer, and we take issue with a malicious verdict of resiting arrest against me, even though sole White male arresting deputy sheriff Gerald Pace did not even accuse me of it or make a complaint.”

Coleman called Cleveland Community Relations Director Blaine Griffin to task for allegedly harassing Black female community activist Marcia McCoy, who is also Black, in retaliation for her opposition to Jackson's efforts to solicit weekly fees for city trash pick up due to a financial crisis that he said did not exist when he was campaigning for a second-term as mayor.

The rally was led by the Imperial Women, which was formed after the remains of 11Black women were announced as having been found in and around home of Anthony Sowell about a week before the Nov. 3 election for mayor of the major metropolitan predominantly Black city, which Jackson won by a land slide. Now in custody without bond, Sowell, 50, has been charged with numerous counts of aggravated murder, assault, rape, and kidnapping, among other charges. The case is before Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold and Sowell, a convicted sex offender who served 15 years in prison, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He also faces the death penalty.

In addition to the Imperial Women, others attending the rally include members from the organizations of the Cleveland Chapter of The New Black Panther Party, Stop Targeting Ohio's Poor, The Lucasville Freedom Uprising Network, The Immigrant Support Network and The People's Forum.

“This is a police state and the police are criminals,” said Abdul Qahhar, president of the Black Panthers. “I am afraid for my wife to leave the house and Black women are being mistreated,” he said.

“No justice, no peace,” chanted Sharon Danann, a leader of the Imperial Women, as protesters echoed the same in return while circling across from Jackson's home on East 38th Street in Cleveland.

Additional speakers were Judy Martin, Caleb Maupin, Valerie Robinson, Marva Patterson, Bill Swain and Susan Schnur.

Plain Dealer Newspaper Reporter Mark Puente was on hand to falsify the status of the rally where he lied saying only 20 attended and refused to quote any Blacks in his article published in the Plain Dealer's online forum shortly after the rally. He also refused to mention that the rally pertained to numerous instances of the mistreatment of Black women and a request by the Imperial Women for Blacks and women in the roles of law director, chief of police, chief prosecutor, safety director, ems commissioner, deputy ems commissioner, public health director and chief of staff.

“Mark Puente has written scathing articles against leaders of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party and Blacks like Cleveland Clerk of Courts Earl B. Turner and it is obvious as to how he lied around our rally that he cannot be trusted to write fair and impartial articles,” said Coleman. “ He was unfair to me because he is friends with Perez where by email earlier this year he told me not to contact him after I accused Perez of maliciously prosecuting me as a journalist. He was sent to cover the event for a reason and we do not believe that that reason was above board. His role is obviously to divide our group with race baiting tactics.”

Coleman said that in spite of several requests for Puente and Plain Dealer Reporter John Coneglia to include Blacks from the Imperial Women and others at the rally in their two recent stories around the issue, the duo and a team of some four Plain Dealer decision makers, all non-Black men, agreed to leave out Blacks and to continue the lie about the number in attendance at the rally. Puente, she says, actually went to Danann at the close of the rally to question her about the comment she, not Danann, had made at the rally as to the need for a grassroots activist to be appointed to Jackson's recently developed commission around the Imperial Ave murders, which some say he hand picked without community input to get the results he deems best for his own agenda.

“There were 41 people who protested at the rally and I was uncomfortable with Mark Puente ignoring the Blacks at the rally and only consulting me after it was over,” Danann told the editor on rotation prior to an article slated to run today in the Plain Dealer Newspaper that lies about the number in attendance via a headline of half the people that protested across from Jackson's house and purposely does not quote one Black, even though the rally was held in the heart of the Black community and Black women are founding members of the Imperial Women.

Another rally is scheduled for next year where women from other states are to join the Imperial Women in highlighting the blatant injustice around the Imperial Ave. murders.

Cleveland Metro-Health Hospital Pulls Ads Over Aunt Jemima Cartoon While Journalist Says She Was Held At Hospital And Illegally Jailed Over Articles

Accused Rapist And Murderer Of 11 Black Cleveland, Ohio Women Anthony Sowell
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell
Cuyahoga County Court Of Common Pleas Judge Timothy McGinty
U.S Rep. Marcia Fudge Of Ohio's 11th Congressional District
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor And Issue 6 Crafter Bill Mason
Cleveland, Ohio Mayor Frank G. Jackson
Cleveland NAACP President And Call And Post General Counsel George Forbes
Ohio State Senator Nina Turner (D-25)
Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper Editor Susan Goldberg
Cleveland Call And Post Newspaper Executive Vice President, Associate Publisher and Editor Connie Harper, Center, With Current And Former Call And Post Staff
Journalist And Editor Kathy Wray Coleman
Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)

From the Metro Desk of The Determiner Weekly and The
Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog And Media Network


According to a Plain Dealer Newspaper article published Dec 16., the Cuyahoga County owned Metro-Health Hospital has pulled its ads from the Call and Post Newspaper for publishing a cartoon three-weeks ago that has Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner (D-25) dressed in Aunt Jemima attire. But local journalist Kathy Wray Coleman, who wrote 38 articles published last year by the Call and Post, says that Metro-Health Hospital officials are criminal bound hypocrites that held her at the hospital against her will on Aug 7 of last year so that she could be dragged the following day to the county jail, and threatened over her articles on county reform and otherwise.

“They are scum to the hilt and have a lot of nerve criticizing the Call and Post while harassing Blacks that come to that slop of a hospital,” she said. “If I am not mistaken, top officials there are under investigation as to the pending FBI county corruption probe and I hope they are prosecuted and rot in jail. They do what certain currently in office politicians in Cuyahoga County tell them to do because the hospital is owned by the county.”

In severing ties with Cleveland's Black newspaper Metro-Health CEO Mark Morgan wrote a letter to Call and Post officials, which was followed by contact by hospital big wigs with Plain Dealer officials in preparation of a follow-up news article.

"We must now inform you that we will no longer advertise in the Call & Post given your recent editorial posturing, which we find to be both offensive and incompatible with our own values and mission," Metro-Health's letter read, in part.

The dispute with Turner and Call and Post officials, that Coleman says she does not endorse, followed the state senator's support of the county reform measure dubbed Issue 6, which voters approved last month. It substitutes the now elected three-member Board of Commissioners and six other non-judicial elected positions with a soon-to-be elected executive and elected 11-member county council. Turner was the only prominent Black politician to back the initiative, one that has become the baby of both the Plain Dealer and county prosecutor Bill Mason. He says that Call and Post officials and the Black leadership that opposed Issue 6, including Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-11), have overlooked its advantage in ridding the county of corruption through a systemic rearrangement of its political infrastructure.

Like other affiliates of Cleveland's Black community Call and Post Associate Publisher and Editor Connie Harper, and its general counsel George Forbes, also president of the Cleveland Chapter NAACP, obviously balked at Mason' s posture, putting Turner in an Aunt Jemima suit for public view. The decision brought a firestorm of controversy and a discussion around race relations too.

“After being diagnosed with high blood pressure I was dragged last year form Metro-Health Hospital to the county jail, threatened over articles, and given a knock-out drug,'” said Coleman, a freelance journalist of 15 years who is now editor of the online Black magazines, The Determiner Weekly. Com and The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network. “Thereafter, I was held naked, supervised by a disgruntled male, and released four days later. I was never charged or shall I say maliciously prosecuted by county prosecutor Bill Mason, whom I appreciate for not participating in the potential rape on my person and this unprecedented harassment of a Black woman and journalist.”

Coleman said she was stunned as to how she was treated at Metro-Health where she appeared for chest pains on August 7 of last year, after being illegally arrested upon leaving a Cuyahoga County Justice Center courtroom. She was in the building that day on an unrelated civil hearing before Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell. Erin O' Malley, then the judge's staff attorney, accused O'Donnell earlier this year of setting up the illegal arrest along with Cuyahoga Judge Timothy McGinty. O'Donnell was presiding over a civil case involving a claim and counterclaim with Coleman and Chase Manhattan Mortgage Company, and McGinty was presiding over a civil lawsuit case that Coleman filed following malicious prosecution in Shaker Heights over articles in the Call and Post on alleged housing discrimination against Blacks.

“Judges McGinty and O'Donnell were lobbying for Chase and Shaker Heights without any regard for the law or my rights as a litigant, and getting me arrested criminally when they only had jurisdiction over the civil cases before them gave them brownie points,” said Coleman. “But that is just how corrupt many of the 34 judges in the general division of the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court are. We encourage the FBI to continue its investigation around judicial corruption in Cuyahoga County.”

To get back at her for Mason's failure to maliciously prosecute her Coleman says that Cleveland Law Director Robert Triozzi stepped in. A former Cleveland Municipal Court judge and now an appointee of Jackson, who by city charter provisions would assume the office of mayor if the 62-year old Jackson, for one reason or another, is unable to serve, Triozzi, she says, had her maliciously prosecuted in May of this year as to the Justice Center arrest itself.

“He usurped the role of Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez to get to me anyway he could because he wanted to get to the Call and Post for Jackson and others,” said Coleman, who was charged with aggravated disorderly conduct, obstruction of official business, making a false a alarm by getting sick that day, and resisting the arrest of White male arresting sheriff deputy Gerald Pace, who did not accuse her of it or even attend the two-day trial.

Coleman was exonerated in May by a jury of all but resisting arrest where she says that Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Keough, through corrupt and illegal actions, directed the jury to issue an illegal jury verdict on the resisting arrest charge. This was in spite of the absence of Pace from the trial proceedings and his support of Coleman having not resisted his illegal arrest. According to Coleman and her attorney in the case, the verdict violates her right to confront her non-existent accuser as required via the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Keough, Coleman says, is still harassing her with an illegal warrant, though her attorney has finally decided to move to have it lifted, and said it would be.

“She has no choice but to lift the warrant,” said Wayne Kerek, Coleman's paid attorney in the matter.“I have never seen anything like this.”

In addition to Metro-Health Hospital, the Cleveland area E.F. Boyd Funeral Home, which is Black owned and operated, also has severed ties with the Call and Post for now, an indication that the mainstream establishment is having difficulty pulling support in an effort to destroy Cleveland's most notable Black newspaper, and a historical one at that.

Meanwhile, McGinty made headlines after he recused himself from the Anthony Sowell murder case last week where Sowell is in custody and accused of raping, kidnapping, assaulting and murdering 11 Black women on the now infamous Imperial Ave. in Cleveland. Their remains were allegedly found just days before the Nov. 3 election for mayor of the predominantly Black major metropolitan city.

“Judge McGinty says his work with reform is why he ran from the case, but nothing about this unfair judge, whose dismissal of my lawsuit involving malicious prosecution in Shaker Heights was reinstated last month by the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals, suggest genuine reform efforts,” said Coleman. “ He is a pint- sized phony judge who harasses Blacks and women, violates the law, and routinely criticizes his own colleagues under the guise of reform.”

Cuyahoga Judge Shirley Strickland Saffold, who is Black, was assigned by Cuyahoga Administrative Judge Eileen A. Gallagher to replace McGinty. She had a pre-trial on the Sowell murder case on Wed. where his lawyers caught attention in asking the judge to hold Sowell's insanity pleas in abeyance until further investigation.

U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio's 11th Congressional District, Which Includes Cleveland, Fights For Universal Health Care For Women

Obama's Christmas Interview With Oprah And His Fallout With Congressional Black Caucus Leader Barbara Lee, And Where Does Rep. Fudge Of Ohio Stand?

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama
U. S. President Barack Obama
Media Personality Oprah Winfrey

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee of California's Ninth Congressional District (D-Cali.)
U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio's 11th Congressional District (D-Oh.)
Posted Sunday, December 13, 2009
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)

By Kathy Wray Coleman
Editor of the Determiner Weekly.Com and
The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network

President Barack Obama told Oprah Winfrey in a before Christmas interview that aired Sunday evening on ABC that his Christmas gift to his fellow Americans is his message that America is not cheap and its got to be earned, and that it “must return to its seriousness of purpose.”

The president also took the opportunity to promote his universal health care initiative, which passed the House of Representatives last month. The controversial health care bill is now before the Senate and Obama has announced publicly that it should pass the Senate floor by Christmas, a prediction that remains to be seen.

“We are in a better position today than we were nine months ago and we are about to pass the most significant legislation since social security when health care passes," Obama said.

Oprah's 20- minute interview with the first Black President of the United States of America and First Lady Michelle Obama caught America's most powerful couple relaxed and poised, but it was not a cakewalk as some may have expected from Winfrey, an Obama supporter and the first Black woman billionaire in the world.

After giving himself a B-plus for his presidency, Obama blamed his declining ratings on the economy, after Oprah asked if his national decline in popularity bothered him at all.

“No,” Obama said. “It was inevitable because we've got 10 percent unemployment.”

The 44th U.S. president, a recession greeted Obama when he took office in January, one that followed back-to-back quarters of negative growth under the Bush administration. Various polls have the Nobel Prize winner's overall approval rating anywhere from 48 to 50 percent with a Quinnipiac University poll noting it at 48 percent nationally, and revealing that for the first time since he took office more Ohioans disapprove of the charismatic president than approve. Ohio is a pivotal state where few Democrats, and with certainty, no Republicans, have won the White House without winning Ohio.

Michelle Obama, at ease during the interview as was the president, told Oprah that she and her husband pay little attention to media polls, focusing more on positive responses from the American people. She added that the Obama family is in the Christmas spirit.

“I've never visited the White House during [the] Christmas [season] and it is absolutely magical,” the First Lady said.

Asked what he misses most about life before the presidency Obama replied that he misses taking his two daughters, Malia and Sasha, for ice cream without such hoopla, and “the goofy stuff.”

Conspicuously absent from the interview was any mentioning by Winfrey of the growing impatience against Obama by segments of the national NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus Chairperson Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and a group of Black caucus members, nine seemingly vocal, in addition to Lee herself. They have accused the Obama administration of failing to embrace legislative initiatives pushed by some Black congressional legislators, and not moving fast enough in helping Black Americans in the midst of an unprecedented recession, one that has in many instances hit Black America hardest as Americans in general deal with increasing home foreclosures, declining home values, unemployment, and economic fallout as a by product of the ups and downs on Wall Street.

Comments on Obama's relationship with some disgruntled members of the Congressional Black Caucus and their discontent with his jobs agenda came hurling last week from the outspoken Lee, an affiliate of the Black Panther Party in college who worked on the 1973 Oakland mayoral campaign of Panther co-founder Bobbie Seal.

"While we agree with the president that support for small businesses, infrastructure investment and green jobs is essential, we also believe that much more needs to be done, particularly for those Americans who are hurting most," she said in a statement.

Like it or not Lee has made it clear to Obama that Blacks must be counted and remembered from his groundbreaking campaign speeches where he mesmerized America, and promised to be all things to all people, seemingly in a genuine gesture, if not a naive one.

The leader since Jan. of the 42-member caucus of Black members of the U.S. House of Representatives the veteran Lee, 63, a Democratic member of Congress since 1998, was voted the sixth most liberal House member on roll-call votes on economics and social and foreign policy by the National Journal in 2006. She endorsed Obama early on during the Democratic primary for president, and when polls had now Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a former Sen. from New York and First Lady to former president Bill Clinton, leading among Democratic voters 43 percent to his 23 percent. Clinton, however, ultimately lost the party's nomination to Obama, then a junior senator from Illinois, who went on to beat Republican nominee Arizona Sen. John McCain to take the presidency.

Congresswoman Marcia Fudge (D-Oh.), who represents the 11th Congressional District, inclusive of parts of Cleveland and its eastern suburbs, is not among the vocal members of the Congressional Black Caucus taking on Obama. A proponent of the president's universal health care initiative Fudge said in a statement that it will help women, poor women included, who need health care for necessary hysterectomies and other crucial medical conditions.

Data are explicit in showing that Blacks, women included, are disproportionately affected by ailments such as heart disease and diabetes.

The Black Community Fools The Mainstream Establishment, Coming Together To Resolve The Controversy Around The Call And Post Aunt Jemima Cartoon

Posted Thursday, December 10, 2009
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)

By Kathy Wray Coleman
Editor of The Determiner Weekly. Com and
The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network

The United Pastors in Mission on Tuesday buried the hatchet with the Cleveland Call and Post, a historical Black newspaper that targets the Black community, seemingly putting to rest a controversy that the mainstream media sought to dub as dividing the Black community.

At issue was a stinging cartoon of Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner (D-25) published by the paper two weeks ago with an accompanying editorial linking the former Cleveland Ward 1 councilwoman as a token for the White establishment.

The cartoon was not just a cartoon but one that had Turner dressed in aunt jemima attire, a reference that the United Pastors in Mission, a group of Black Cleveland area preachers, said was stereotypical and anti Black. But the paper's associate publisher and editor, Connie Harper, and its legal counsel George Forbes, also president of the Cleveland Chapter NAACP, said Turner had it coming because she was the only prominent Black politician in Cuyahoga County to support Issue 6, a county reform measure pushed by the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper and county prosecutor Bill Mason. Cuyahoga County voters overwhelmingly adopted the charter reform measure last month, substituting the county's three-member board of commissioners and six other elected positions for a subsequently elected 11 member county council and elected county executive.

“We must put this to rest and move on,” said the Rev. Dr. C J. Matthews, president of the United Pastors in Mission and pastor of Mt. Sinai Baptist Church in Cleveland.

Backing off a prior demand for an apology that Forbes and Harper vehemently refused to give Matthews said that there were more pressing issues to deal with like unemployment and the education of Cleveland's predominantly Black school children. He also emphasized that his organization was proud to continue its long tradition of supporting the Call and Post and that the Call and Post had supported the religious community relentlessly throughout the years. The position was almost a let down for the mainstream establishment where it was gearing up for a fight within the Black community, a fight that in technical terms is known as intra-group hostility, where Blacks are pitted against each other as a byproduct of racism.

“Black folks fooled them this time,” said a Cleveland councilperson speaking on condition of anonymity. “I am proud of them.”

Imperial Women And Other Grassroots Organizations To Protest Across From Home Of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson

Cleveland, Ohio Mayor Frank G. Jackson

Posted Sunday, December 6, 2009
(National and Cleveland, Ohio Area News)

From the Metro Desk of The Determiner Weekly and The
Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog and Media Network

At its meeting on Dec. 6, 2009 the Imperial Women voted to protest across from the home of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson (2327 E. 38th St. in Cleveland) with other grassroots organizations on Saturday, Dec. 19, 2009 at 2 pm. The reasons are as follows: 1) The mayor's refusal to get back with the Imperial Women as to the demands presented around the Imperial Ave. Murders as to a meeting of the women on Nov. 16, 2009 where Cleveland Director of Community Relations Blaine Griffin promised a response; 2) The mayor's refusal to initiate the firings and an investigation of Cleveland Chief of Police Michael McGrath, Law Director Robert Triozzi, Safety Director Martin Flask, Chief Prosecutor Victor Perez (all non-Black and non-female), the health department and police as to the refusal to prosecute Anthony Sowell in 2008 where a Black woman who alleged attempted rape by Sowell was deemed not credible, and six of the 11 women murdered on Imperial Ave. went missing thereafter; 3) The mayor's refusal to initiate an investigation of police around allegations of police brutality and a statement by a White female neighbor that 23-year-old Black female Rebecca Whitby was allegedly called a “nigger” and beat up by police, where she is being accused of assault on police and allegedly stealing their guns though her fingerprints are allegedly not on the guns; 4) The mayor's refusal to tame Director of Community Relations Blaine Griffin who allegedly harassed and sought to intimidate community activist Marcia McCoy at a recent rally around the city- trash-pick-up for money controversy; and, 5) The mayor's refusal to direct city Law Director Robert Triozzi to move for dismissal of an illegal resisting arrest verdict railroaded by Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Kathleen Ann Keough against journalist Kathy Wray Coleman even though sole arresting White male sheriff deputy Gerald Pace did not accuse her of it or testify at trial or otherwise. (Black women are being mistreated and the mayor refuses to speak up. He also refuses to put Blacks and women in key leadership roles in the law enforcement arena where the chief prosecutor, chief of police, law director, safety director, ems commissioner, deputy ems commissioner, chief of staff and health director are all non-Black and non-female in a city that is majority Black and predominantly female. The indictment against Black women must stop).

The Imperial Women also take issue with the United Pastors in Mission and the Cleveland Plain Dealer pitting Black women against each other (Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner and Call and Post Associate Publisher and Editor Connie Harper) claiming an alleged mistreatment of a Black woman while refusing to join the Imperial Women in our request to Mayor Jackson for an investigation of authorities as to the refusal to prosecute Sowell in 2008 where the Black woman that alleged rape was deemed “not credible. For updates go to The Determiner Weekly .com at www,determinerweekly.com.

Contact persons are Sharon Danann at 216-571-2518 and Journalist Kathy Wray Coleman at 216-932-3114.