Blogged by Brad from on the road…
Melinda Henneberg at HuffPo reports Air America Radio, currently under bankruptcy protection, will be bailed out by a new investor. As well, she reports that Al Franken is officially leaving to explore a bid for the U.S. Senate up in Minnesota. (But who is funnier? Franken or his expected Republican opponent, Sen. Norm Coleman? Tough call.0 UPDATE: Since asking the aforementioned question, as if the gods wished to underscore it, see this just-in hilarious Coleman-related story.)
Perhaps without the need to cover Franken’s large salary — his noon-3pm ET show slot is expected to be filled by our friend, the good Thom Hartmann — AAR’s top-down business model, which has crippled them from the beginning, may be eased a bit and bring a chance for profitability to the only large non-Rightwing media outlet of note.
Of course, with media monster Clear Channel putting AAR onto stations with some of the weakest signals in many of the major markets — in our estimation, in order to limit their feasibility in such markets and keep other stations with stronger signals from carrying AAR programming — it could still be an uphill climb.
On a related note: We’re currently in Phoenix where we’ll be Guest Hosting The Peter B. Collins Show later this week. The indie-owned Air America affiliate station out here, 1480 KPHX (flagship station for the new Nova M Radio network), is very difficult to pick up cleanly after sundown, even just on the outskirts of the city.
If the Fairness Doctrine ever returns — as may be introduced soon in the Congress — perhaps such stations and non-Rightwing programming will be given a legitimate shot to compete on a level playing field with their Republican-owned counterparts. They’ve not been allowed such a fair and balanced shot since Reagan dissolved the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 in order to make way for the Republican-owned media take-over of our public airwaves.
The disastrous decision — along with subsequent vetoes by both Reagan and Bush I of Congressionally-passed legislation to restore fairness and balance to the publicly-owned airwaves — has had an inestimably negative impact on America and our once-respected position of leadership in the world.
Very good news for us liberal news junkies.
HOORAAY FOR THOM & LOUISE!! They are stars of democracy! We have been spoiled here in Portland since we get 3 hours of Thom first thing every day. What a coup that someone so thoroughly knowledgeable about our country, our democracy and the real meaning and history of the Constitution will now have such a fanstastic and much deserved spot on the dial. Way to go Thom! I stopped listening to Franken so long ago I can’t even remember. He simply would not face reality starting with the Kerry Victory/Capitulation and going downhill from there.
W00t! Yay, Thom! Thanks for the news, Brad. You’re up next — hope you can be on every week with the election morass update, wouldn’t that be cool?
Bestest,
Ginny Ross
Portland
Thats great news, long live AAR! Tom Hartman is one sharp cookie too, the humor may go down but the education will go way up.
Long live AAR!!!
The Lionel Show which is hosted by some Air America Radio stations is
entertaining & discussing the anomalies in the “official” 9/11 story.
Lionel is one of the most progressive & interesting (not just politics) guy on the radio.
http://www.lionelonline.com/
I never thought Al Franken was ever funny accept for the fact that he sounds like an ape farting into a tuba. . .
What ever Thom Hartmann discusses he always peaks my interest. It sure is nice to know thet are telling the truth some where on the dial. Unfortunately the station (clear channel) that carried AAR changed format to salsa music shortly after the midterm election. So . . .
http://www.nonstopradio.com/
Hooray for the Fairness Doctrine! What we liberals, progressives, socialists, and communists can’t do in the market, we’ll do by government decree! Just because no one wants to hear our message does not mean that it shouldn’t be required listening, and I for one can hardly wait for the ultra-reich wing message of the NYT, WaPo, LAT, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, and all the rest to be replaced with our fine progressive message.
Hey, Bore! If you were any kind of liberal, you wouldn’t be talking about fascism here, or defending it everywhere else. “Bore” doesn’t begin to cover it.
Lookie what I found . . .
http://boreamerica.com/
“Monitoring Air America Radio [TM] so you don’t have to.”
Don’t forget to support AAR,s sponsers . . .
Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy, and Tom Hartman. Keep them three no matter what…STAY ON TARGET!
Would be interesting to ask each executive of the Big Five corporate media if they support a Fairness Doctrine. And get, then publish the “official quote” from each.
Market? What market?
The trolls are boring here. Where is Ricky?
I don’t know, Dredd. Boring has a point. Seems like half the time you turned on the radio or television from 1949-1987, you’d hear some Communist or Nudist or some other weirdo raving. Boy, those were the nadir years of broadcasting. Since 1987, we’ve had real quality broadcasting reflecting the real America. Workers, farmers…real people. Hard hitting, in-depth journalism. Don’t tell me monopoly capitalism isn’t great! Ayn Rand and Mussolini would be proud. Those wimps that burdened us with the Fairness Doctrine. What were they thinking?
Hey whack- job #5
can you spell O-L-I-G-A-R-C-H-Y? Probably not, due to loss of brain function through nonuse by just spitting out what others tell you.
Careful, Ancient. Though “BoreAmerica” is without merit or thought to his point, and apparently capable only of forwarding the wingnut knee-jerk response (of fear) to the issue, we still have rules around here for personal attacks on other commenters.
So consider this one a warning. Destroy him/her with facts (there are plenty of them), but please mind the personal insults.
I know that was close, but it is a fact that any geriatric nurse or doctor can verify. Its called use it or lose it, brain function that is. I don’t think enough people are aware of that fact, maybe if they were they might start thinking for themselves. But your right personal attacks aren’t necessary.
Hooray, Brad! I’ll go sit in my car to listen to you — when exactly is “later this week”?
I can’t get AAR in my house and can only get it at night as my car gets out from under electric lines and rounds the bends near hills. Many times while I have been on the freeway at night listening to Malloy, my erratic driving has caused other drivers to avoid me — I slow down while I am getting the signal and then speed up when going under the overpasses — trying not to miss those delicious words. Then, alas, I lose the signal completely as I approach East Mesa.
Ran, Here is a manufacturer of radios and accessories for receiving weak radio signals.
http://www.ccrane.com/
RAM – Guest Hosting Thursday and Friday of this week (see the top “Media Appearances” box on every page for details). Friday’s show, as we scramble to secure the venue at the last minute, will hopefully be a LIVE TOWNHALL FORUM (or “Bradcast”) open to everyone in Phoenix who’d like to come down and take part! We’ll be focusing on Election Integrity issues with the good advocates of AuditAZ! So we’d love to see ya! Stand by for promos on PBC’s show and KPHX if we can nail things shortly!
Oh, and you can always listen LIVE via the Internets at http://www.PeterBCollins.com no matter where you may be!
Gotta luv the FBI for spying on US here at the internet. Boring and drilling dot com.
#5: The “Fairness Doctrine” was put into law to prevent Fascism.
JOJ: This link to a specific product on that site you posted…I thought I saw this thing hooked up to some guys nuts on one of those “rendition flights”…
http://www.ccrane.com/more-categories/alternative-power/freeplay-freecharge-weza-portable-energy-source.aspx
I think BoreAmericaDotCom is a “Shill Trainee”. Too easy to detect. Can’t they throw anything better at us? What happened to the good old days?
B.D. – Ouch . . . . .These new shills have so LITTLE creativity or finesse they b
0re me . . .Brad: Thanks for the info — I might just show up!
JOJ: Thanks for the link.
Ram:
You need a podcaster. I have an iRiver and can’t live without it. You’ll have to pay $10 dollars a month to get the Malloy show now, but that’s a lot cheaper then a Psychiatrist. The Peter B. Collins show is still free at Whiterosesociety.org and you can get Randi Rhodes and “Ring of Fire” free too. Download ROF with iTunes and find out where it downloads to on your computer and just move the MP3 into your player. The players cost about $125.00 but also can be set to record FM shows off the local radio stations. iPod can’t do that.
Although Hartmann is kind of popular with the typical loopy NW progressive here in PDX, he wears thin pretty quickly. It’s hard to tell if his radio persona is an accurate reflection of his actual intellect. At first I liked listening to him. After a while though, it dawned on me that while he certainly is glib, like one of those kids in school who was good a memorizing facts and quotable quotes, but who actually is not the most agile thinker or even very progressive at times.
He likes to bring on right-wingers who are charicartures of the right-wing, and then does a surprisingly poor job of debating them. On a recent local show Frank Luntz ran rings around him. This one show strongly demonstrated how he is in the vein of modern talk hosts whose tack is to appeal to a self-centered audience that demands to be affirmed in their views, rather than speak authentically to progressive values. (He’s no Bob Lassiter to be sure, for those who really know progressive talk radio history.)
I lost quite a bit respect for him, and realized he was somewhat of a fraud as a progressive, when he came out with a surprisingly aggressive nativist position on immigrations issues initially.
Not a very good spokesperson at all for our progressive cause, but he’ll certainly appeal to that core demographic of our side who are as easily distracted by shiny objects as the folks we like to criticize on the other side, and who haven’t really been successful at gaining and using political power well. AAR really needs to find someone better to broaden the base.
This is why conservatives and libertarians have been hoping that Air America doesn’t actually collapse like everyone knew it was bound to eventually. Libertarian Neil Boortz actually donated money to Air America, and hit it right on the head when he said that liberal talk radio will never succeed because whenever listeners can call in they shoot liberalism out of the air, every time…. and he proves it, by refusing to allow discussion wherever the subject comes to his anti-Christian bigotry.
Once it was proven that liberal talk radio can’t succeed because liberalism simply doesn’t have enough substance to it, liberals immediatly started pushing for government ingervention–what they can’t succeed at, the government will take from someone else and give to them.
Of course, you can feel free to prove me wrong by pointing out how well Air America’s doing, and how much its 600 viewers love listening to how much the hosts hate America.
Oh, and Brad–nice of you to tell the guy not to use insulting messages, but perhaps you could do something about the folks calling their political opponent’s fascists, or the ever-famous “I think Ann Coulter is a Jewess” post that gave me a “holy-crap-he-SAID-that!?” laugh.
The Redneck (oviously a sunshine patriot)
–Thomas Paine, 23 December 1776
The “redneck” ain’t even a redneck. Since when are rednecks sensitive to political incorrectness?
I mean, come on, Bubba.
Hey Redneck:
We don’t have a “Bill Of Rights” any more now that Bush gets to decide what rights we have, (you included).
Would you consider that to be “government ingervention?”
If we’re going to be talking about what put Air America in trouble, lets be honest Mr. Neck. When this many huge corporations decide to go after you, Neil Boortz’s contributions to Air America in an attempt to play mind fuck with his listeners, (you), doesn’t carry much weight, does it!
Agent 99–is that why Air America’s listeners are abandoning it?
Larry–The eeeeeevil corporations shut Air America down, huh? Damn, I shoulda known those capitalist pig-dogs were responsible!!
Yes. They’re all a bunch of servile flag-wavers who hate their country and dis people with terminal illnesses; dis people with dead children, husbands, wives, families; dis people with hurricane-decimated homes; dis singers who sing the truth; howl about the unworthiness of the poor and downtrodden; harbor pervs in their party and their churches; avidly defend the criminals in office; yelp doubletalk over anything that shows the treasonous behavior of their leaders; warmonger from the safety of their couches — and make up stories to post on blogs. Those skulking liberals who just sit back and let some malevolent pigs run down their network. Sheesh. You got it man. Boy. You are one smaaaaart redneck.
Redneck: You obviously are NOT a conservative, nor are you a libertarian. I’ll bet you think Limbaugh and Hannity are “conservatives”. Let’s hear it, Redneck…let’s hear if you think Limbaugh and Hannity are “conservatives”, so we know where you’re coming from.
Radio Listener: I am interested in hearing some of your suggestions on who AAR should get, instead of Hartman. I’m listening……….
Hey Redneck
are you the type of redneck that thinks cattle theives should be strung up? If so, then you should take 1 hour and 26 minutes to watch this.
Personally, just following the Constitution is enough for me.
Know what would be interesting, Brad? Do a post on LINK-TV and Free Speech TV, and sit back and see if we get any shills. That will tell us if LINK & FSTV is getting popular or not.
Or a post on Democracy NOW! Then we can sit back with the “shillometer”, to see how successful these things are becoming……..
I want to see what the propoganda is, against LINK, FSTV, and DN!…but you can’t get a good whiff of it, without posting something about them, and studying the shills’ comments. I’m being totally serious, btw…
The way to find out the things corporatives are most afraid of? Just listen to who Limbaugh and Hannity are bashing the most, what they lead off with, etc…especially on a Monday. It’s the best source.
BD, I think you would appreciate my above link too! It is long, but worth viewing uninterrupted.
Ever since the corporations and the mostly Bush friendly FCC lost the right to control the internet, BradBlog has been getting a plethora of trolls. You fake America lovers wouldn’t be getting paid by someone would you? You’re not getting paid by a China-loving, big corporation are you?
What about that Bill Of Rights, Neckhead!
Afraid to use your real name Cowboy!
Jim-bob has no clue as to what he is talking about. . .
Redneck are you in the klan ?
Hey EVERYONE
If you really want to understand what the core problem is, take the time to watch the link I posted above. Let me make it a smidge easier right here!
Go Brad! Rip that guy a new Asshole, he is full of Shit!
I never heard anyone call the troops baby killers!
Seems y’all been busy.
Agent99: Yup, them’s the ones. The servile flag-wavers who wouldn’t allow their employees to wear any US flag pins. The folks who hate their country, and refuse to take the side of the US in a war. (How ’bout them “We’ll support our troops when they shoot their officers” signs out in Seattle, huh?) The ones who dis people with terminal illnesses by making sure they get killed whether they’re terminal or not–and by making sure more than a million babies die each year for the terminal condition of being an inconvenience. The ones who dis people with dead families by alternately aiding the people who killed them (both domestic and foreign–the name Arthur Shawcross ring a bell?) and using them as a shield from which to spew their own hatreds behind. The ones who dis people with hurricane-decimated homes by forcing price-controls to make sure they don’t get fixed. The ones who dis singers who sing the truth by worshipping the ones who refuse to–even then their fan base is tired of getting spit on. We could go on–I got a real giggle out of the folks that defended Biilzebubba talking about “criminals in office”–but I actually have a life, and this job is done, so that’ll do for now.
Big Dan–and you know what my political opinions are–and knowing only that I dislike anti-Christian bigotry and other aspects of liberalism, you can tell that I’m neither conservative nor liberal? Can I borrow your crystal ball? No? How ’bout your tinfoil hat?
Larry Bergen–That depends on which Bill of Rights. If you mean the Bill of Rights written by the ‘founding fathers,’ I’ve got to say I like it. If you’re referring to the “living, interpretable document” that provides for government enforcement of approval of homosexuality and heretofore-unknown rights like the right to kill your children, the right to never, ever, ever hear the word “God” in public, and the right to hold cell-phone conversations with Al-Quaeda leadership without anybody listening–the constitution that Bush is “shredding” by his rather lukewarm committment to defend our nation and that Clinton “saved” by spooging all over a chubby halfwit intern, I’d have to say it sucks.
Judge-of-Judges–I’ve heard it. So has my little brother, who volunteered for a second tour in Iraq. So have many other people who fought for our nation and then ran across people who hated them for it.
And no, I’m not in the klan. The only KKK member in America I know of (Besides Duke, who I think is in Russia) is Robert Byrd, D-WV-KKK–who has the support of the Democratic party, while Reagan and both Bushes personally campaigned against Duke to make sure he didn’t win his senate race. Moreover, my argument isn’t about race relations, but about the theory that liberal talk radio cannot succeed–and this is due to the absurdity of the liberal position, rather than some huge eeeeeevil-capitalist conspiracy. If I was a member of the KKK, would it make a difference at all in whether or not that theory is true–or did you already know that I’m right and try to pull the race-card?
The Redneck:
It seems from your last post that you really do believe in your positions and have thought them over. I can respect that! We get a lot of posts here from people pretending to be someone they’re not just to confuse us from being able to make a good case for voting machine reform. That’s the main reason for this blog.
We are losing our democracy and the right wing neo-cons are trying to take it from us so they can control everything. I wish you could see that’s what they really want. We are being conned.
I’m afraid I disagree.
In fact, the reason the democratic leadership is so eager for paper-ballots can be seen littered all over the floor of ‘counting rooms’ during the Gore-Tantrum 2000; those votes weren’t being counted, they were being cast. It’s the same reason that the Democratic party bitterly fights even the most common-sense election-fraud bills, the same reason Mayor Daley stayed in power so long, the same reason folks in Milwaukee were caught giving buying homeless people’s votes with cigarettes, etc., etc., etc.
Moreover, the Democrats haven’t been able to honestly admit to losing an election since ’84; and I don’t doubt that someday some wierd accusation’s going to sprout up about Mondale. After that, starting in ’88 with the race-card over Willie Horton, there’s always been some kind of excuse–racism, “white anger”, the Supreme Court, Diebold, space aliens, Big Tobacco and Big Oil using mind-control, and so on. I am absolutely certain that if Diebold and any other voting machine were outlawed tomorrow, Democrat confidence in the election system would last right up to the next Democrat loss.
The Democrats won the last election and we still want to get rid of the machines. Why are Republicans always bringing up 40 year old elections to pin fraud on the Democrats.
I give up!
I said “Since ’84”–which itself was less than 40 years ago.
And of course the Democrats still want to get rid of the machines. They can’t count on the Republicans being absolutely gutless every election, so they may well need another “Count-’em-’til-you-win” recount.
There’s always an excuse. At least with Diebold, I don’t have to hear constantly about how I must be a racist, a bigot, or some other variety of asshole for not wanting to send my country down the tubes.
Larry
Stop feeding the trolls!
Agent 99:
Yeah, I know!
But they’re so sad!
Starving for knowledge.
I guess it’s best just to let natural selection do it’s job.
Starving for knowledge–like that little tidbit about the ’84 elections being 40 years ago?
You want proof that liberalism can’t handle debate, that liberal ‘discussion can only survive in a climate where differing opinions can be silenced?
This here, ladies and gentlemen (and Bradblog regulars) is a theory vindicated.
I don’t know what yer gripin’ about. You’d be plenty audible on the South Pole.