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It looks like the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is heading for a strike. Talks have broken down, attempts at mediation are being rejected, and the mogul's group, the AMPTP has been crowing about how their last offer was their last, best offer, and that nothing will get SAG a better deal. SAG doesn't think it has much choice, even if they wanted to accept the AMPTP's last offer, they just have to look at the Writers Guild of America and how the AMPTP has failed to live up to the contract that ended the Writer's Strike. Now this can end...

Screen Actors Guild to seek to authorize strike By MarketWatch Last update: 5:53 a.m. EST Nov. 23, 2008 TEL AVIV (MarketWatch) - The Screen Actors Guild, representing some 120,000 actors in movies, TV, the Internet, commercials, new media and more, said on Saturday that it would ask its members to authorize a strike after a federal mediator failed to bring the union and management to terms. The guild said that it had been optimistic that a mediator's intervention would move the talks along but that after two days of mediated talks, management "continues to insist on terms we cannot responsibly...

Lynwood, Illinois - Be careful if you have saggy pants in the south Chicago suburb of Lynwood. Village leaders have passed an ordinance that would levy $25 fines against anyone showing three inches (7.62cm) or more of their underwear in public. The mayor of Lynwood, Eugene Williams, says young men walk around town half-dressed, keeping major retailers and economic development away. The American Civil Liberties Union says the ordinance targets young, black men. Young adults in the village, like 21-year-old Joe Klomes, say the new law infringes on their personal style. He said leaders should instead spend money on making...

LOS ANGELES, July 10 (UPI) -- A group of Hollywood TV and film producers said the Screen Actors Guild declined to accept its final offer for a new contract Thursday. "Today's meeting demonstrated that SAG's Membership First contingent unreasonably expects to obtain more in these negotiations than directors, writers and other actors obtained during their negotiations," the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said in a statement Thursday.AMPTP said its final offer included more than $250 million in additional compensation, important new media rights and protection for pension and health benefits."The refusal of SAG's Hollywood leadership to accept this...

Still reeling from a long strike by screenwriters this past winter, Hollywood is bracing for the possibility that the entertainment industry will grind to a halt again -- this time because of a dispute with actors. The studios' contract with the Screen Actors Guild expires June 30, and talks are getting contentious. Already, film and television producers are holding back on new projects, fearing the talks will fail, even as they rush to complete existing projects before the end of the month. The two sides have made little progress on key issues including compensation for actors when their work is...

LOS ANGELES — Leaders of the Screen Actors Guild publicly declared war on a fellow actors’ union at a Monday rally here, increasing the likelihood of new labor strife in an entertainment industry still recovering from a writers’ strike that ended just four months ago. Standing outside the union’s Wilshire Boulevard headquarters, Alan Rosenberg, president of the 120,000-member guild, urged supporters to reject a tentative deal reached last month between the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and Hollywood’s production companies. “We are engaged in the battle of our lives,” Mr. Rosenberg told a group that appeared to number...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The final epilogue to the tumultuous writers strike has been written, but Hollywood is bracing for a possible a sequel to the costly walkout -- this one starring film and television actors. While the TV industry has rushed to bring derailed shows back on the air since screenwriters returned to work three weeks ago, the threat of renewed labor unrest by actors in the months ahead has put movie studios in a tenuous situation. Filmmakers are reluctant to launch any production that cannot be completed before the expiration of the Screen Actors Guild's major film and...

With the Golden Globes’ collapse, writers have struck a $75-million blow in their labour dispute, and the Oscars might well be the next casualty. The scribes aren’t celebrating, though, because no one expects this to end soon HOLLYWOOD – As symbols go, there probably isn't a more accurate one for the current crisis in show biz. It's a picture of Oscars host Jon Stewart with his fingers crossed, sheepishly hoping all is well, that adorns the new visitor's brochure of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The brochure was likely printed before the Writers' Guild of America (WGA),...

Clinton campaign insulted by cleavage article Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:25PM EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Insulted by a fashion article about Hillary Clinton's cleavage, her presidential campaign is trying to use the incident to raise money. A fund-raising e-mail letter signed by Ann Lewis, a senior Clinton adviser, urges potential donors to "take a stand against this kind of coarseness and pettiness in American culture." The Washington Post on July 20 published an article by its fashion writer, Robin Givhan, that noted Clinton wore a black top with a low neckline during an appearance on the Senate floor to talk...

“Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem. Ronald Reagan, 1985 ~*~ Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. Saturday Evening Post, 1965 ~*~ “Trust, but verify“ ~*~ Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born. ~*~ Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men...

Link is on Drudge's homepage. I wonder if the actors union has decided they may had gone too far and went back to the "bottom line?"

The Aviator on National Review Online E-mail Author Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version February 25, 2005, 3:14 p.m. Howard Hughes's Last HurrahWhat The Aviator misses. by John Meroney Fifty-three years ago this week, Howard Hughes found himself locked in a battle against powerful political forces he believed were bent on undermining the free-market system. The billionaire industrialist, airplane manufacturer, and filmmaker became so passionate about the fight that he summoned all his emotional and physical strength to overcome a crippling fear of the public so he could make his case for what he saw as...

Information you should know...... Just now on MSNBC, Lawrence O'Donnell was relating the following anecdote: A few months ago, he had to visit the offices of the Screen Actors Guild in order to fill out some paperwork. The place is covered in photos of past presidents of the union, and some even had statues of themselves. Except for Ronald Reagan. O'Donnell said he went all over the building and could find no sign that Ronald Reagan ever even existed. He was disgusted and amazed by it, especially since Reagan is the only president of a union to become President of...

Releases 1/15/2004NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED FOR THE 10TH ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS® 2004 Actor® Awards Ceremonies Air Sunday, February 22 on TNTat 8 PM ET/PT, 7 PM Central, 6 PM MTSee Nominations and PhotosDownload this press release (MS Word doc) Los Angeles, California - Nominations for the 10th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® for outstanding performances in 2003 in five film and eight primetime television categories were announced in Los Angeles at the Pacific Design Center’s SilverScreen Theater.Screen Actors Guild President Melissa Gilbert introduced Andie MacDowell (The Last Sign) and Mark Harmon (Navy NCIS) who announced the nominees for this year’s...

Rewriting Cold War history Posted: December 3, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. Were neoconservatives the heroes of the Cold War? Or were many of them latecomers to the cause of anti-communism, too long enamored of its ugly little sister, socialism? Consider. Last week, the Washington Times reported on a party at the Slovak Embassy given to honor America's Cold War heroes. In the photos were such stalwarts as Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, the Reagan speech-writer, Gen. "Jack" Singlaub, a legendary warrior, Al Regnery, whose father was the bravest anti-communist publisher of the Cold War, and Jon Utley,...

Watch My Movie, or You're a Fascist by Esther Hartstein 17 May 2003 McCarthyists of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but some Susan Sarandon movies. Did you know that if you passed on the opportunity to watch Susan Sarandon 's latest movie for ideological reasons, you are a fascist? That's what the Screen Actor's Guild, the most powerful screen actor's union in America, apparently thinks. In a statement issued on March 3, 2003, the Guild writes: "We deplore the idea that those in the public eye should suffer professionally for having the courage to give voice to...

<p>NEW YORK Ñ Striking members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) have brought out star power to aid their fight against the ad industry.</p> <p>The latest union-industry talks, in their 11th day Monday, are just the third round of bargaining in five months. The core battle is over an industry-proposed flat fee system for network TV ads vs. the current system of payment each time the ad runs. It is widely seen as a prelude to coming battles in the entertainment industry over contracts for actors, writers and directors.</p>

Hollywood actors, facing a vitriolic backlash for their opposition to a war against Iraq", has been under fire since emerging as a chief spokesman in the anti-war coalition. Sheen said in a Los Angeles Times interview this week that his hate-mail critics have demanded that NBC fire him from the Emmy-award winning series, adding that NBC executives had privately expressed fears that ratings would suffer because of the furor. Sheen said the show's staff has been "100 percent supportive" but that top network executives have "let it be known that they're very uncomfortable with where I'm at." NBC said on...

Actors union censures Dell dude Monday July 15 2:37 AM ET Dude, you're a strikebreaker. Ben Curtis, best known as the 20ish "Steven" pitchman in more than a dozen Dell Computer ads, has received an undisclosed punishment from the Screen Actors Guild ( news - web sites) (SAG) for booking non-union spots during the guild's six-month strike against advertisers two years ago. The first Dell spot with Curtis aired in November 2000. Several of the ads included his signature line "Dude, you're getting a Dell." SAG officers said that several of Curtis' initial spots for Dell were shot during the...

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - The number of movie and television roles for Screen Actors Guild members dropped 9.3 percent last year, with supporting actors among the hardest hit, the guild said.</p> <p>So-called runaway production, in which projects are filmed outside the United States, was one reason for the decline, SAG said.</p>