James Rucker

Great news -- yet another major company has acted in response to our campaign calling on Glenn Beck's advertisers to stop support his show. GEICO told us that they will no longer run ads during Beck's show.

This comes on the heels of news last week that four other advertisers -- Lawyers.com, Progressive Insurance, Procter & Gamble, and SC Johnson -- also distanced themselves from Beck. None of this would have been possible without the thousands of people -- more than 75,000, now -- who have taken action and signed our petition to Glenn Beck's advertisers.

Last week, after Glenn Beck called President Obama a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred for white people," we asked ColorOfChange members to call on Beck's advertisers to pull their funding from his show. More than 50,000 people have already joined the call, and today we have great news to report -- advertisers are starting to listen:

Three companies who run ads during Glenn Beck -- NexisLexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance -- today distanced themselves from Beck. LexisNexis has pulled its advertising from Beck and says it has no plans to advertise on the program in the future. Both Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance called the Beck advertising placements an error that they would correct.

This is great progress, and it shows how effective it can be when thousands of people tell advertisers not to support this kind of hateful rhetoric. Now we need to step up the pressure on Beck's other advertisers.

ColorOfChange.org members gathered at the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland Tuesday to confront District Attorney Tom Orloff over his handling of the Oscar Grant case, and to demand that he explain his decision not to charge a second BART police officer for his actions in the moments leading up to Oscar Grant's murder. The event was a huge success and garnered lots of good local news coverage, including reports from most of the local TV news media. Our members delivered more than 20,000 petitions -- collected in less than two weeks -- to Orloff's office. We sent Orloff a strong message that the public is continuing to watch his handling of this case.

The Alameda County District Attorney's handling of the Oscar Grant murder continues to disappoint anyone hoping that justice will prevail. It took two weeks and thousands of people speaking out before the DA charged Johannes Mehserle, Grant's killer, with murder. Clearly, it will take continued public pressure to see that justice is served throughout this case. On Tuesday, those of us in the Bay Area will publicly confront District Attorney Tom Orloff with over 20,000 petitions demanding that Orloff explain his refusal to charge Pirone.

On New Year's Eve, Oscar Grant was murdered, shot in the back by a transit police officer while lying face-down on a subway platform. He was unarmed and posed no threat. Nearly two weeks later, after several pieces of damning video evidence have surfaced, the officer who shot him remains free while the local DA drags his feet. Will California Attorney General Jerry Brown step up and enforce the law?