Now Is the Time At SDA When We Juxtapose!

I read thru the first 30 or so comments and there wasn't a single one lamenting its demise.

In the immortal words of Mr. Jerry Seinfeld: That's a shame.

Yeah, Air America was never the same since Stewart Smalley took his act to the senate.

/sarc off

An "orderly winding down of the business" ROFLMAO. I think we can all picture that.

I should have added in my comment, what a week! Brown vs. Coakley KO, ObamaCare kaput, Copenhagen climate abomination TKO, Air America off the air. What a week.

The only reason Air America got any audience ratings at all is because of the auto-scan function on modern car stereos momentarily pausing on their station.

The people of America are waking up and learning to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. Rush is one of the good guys, he is a true patriot.
He has earned the audience that he has attracted - as has Glen Beck and Kate here at sda.

Succeeding where msm and teachers have failed.

Air America can hold their head high, their alumni are spawning even greater failures.

We're witnessing the "orderly winding down" of Obama and the Demon Rat congress.

Next on the chopping block...CBC... oh wait, no, never mind.

Actually, it's cause the nature of right wingers is to be angry and all up in a kerfuffle about god knows what. Moderates and those to the left are much more tame, and it doesn't play well on radio. Look at Kate's slogan. It's something like "dang I was listenin' to the radio and I waddint gonna take it no more!" That's the audience for right wing radio. People that are all "rarrrr! me's mad. let me hear some of my views played back to me, makes me feel nice." Everyone likes an echo chamber. Nobody likes hearing their opinions challenged. Well, few anyway. Which is why this blog is successful. Same formula day in and day out. Kate makes a post, 95% of people agree, repeat. It's like she's tossing a slice of meat to a pack of dogs.

To be fair, Jon Stewart is the same, throwing up fodder for lefty college stoners. The world is so simplistic to some, whether it be left or right. It's nice to make generalizations and feel as though we're on the podium of righteousness, but the world would be a better place if we could all be a little more humble from time to time. Myself included.

Its a happy day in the neighborhood.

...and before all the Kate lovers try to make a case about how Rush is speaking to the true values of the people...blah blah blah... Seriously think about it, does it make for good entertainment when a bunch of lefties are sitting around talking about progressive ways in which we can all get along via some kind of Kumbaya song circle, or does, perhaps, it work a little bit better, when the host is provocative and getting people fired up and mad about something? It's about emotion more than it is about politics...and frankly, "let's all get along and be friends" just isn't as exciting to tune into as "these guys are *sses because..."

Americans don't go to hockey games to watch dudes stick handle, they wanna see some *ss kicking.

Belmont Club with:

"Am I getting through to you, Mr Beale?"

"The old media has been under unrelentling assault from a series of technological, economic and environmental changes. Neither legislation nor subsidies are likely to save it. A much more promising strategy would be to throw the unpreservable legacy to the winds and build a wholly new system and industry consistent with the new technological and economic paradigms. Not all the King’s Men could piece Humpty Dumpty together after his fall. Maybe the best bet is encourage the geese to lay a new golden egg.

The financial crisis and international terrorism are two reminders that many late 20th century institutions are facing a fundamental challenge. We live in truly revolutionary times and perhaps none of us has any alternative except to join in the tide and see where it goes. Once upon a time screenwriters could write conviction about a settled world. Even their criticism of America was based upon the sense of immutable, chiefly Western evils. As a fictional old media executive once said in the movie Network:

Am I getting through to you, Mr Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

Today General Motors is bankrupt, Exxon is less than a quarter of the size of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, and CNN and MSNBC together have less than half the audience of Fox News.

Am I getting through to you Mr. Beale?"
...-

"The First Amendment

The ground on which the 2010 electoral campaign will be fought just got a little clearer or murkier, as you prefer. The world turned just a little more upside down. Real Clear Politics reports that Fox News audience numbers continue to climb while Air America has declared bankruptcy. “According to Neilsen, Fox News drew an astonishing 6.2 million total viewers during primetime Tuesday night, compared to only 1.5 million for CNN and 1.1 million for MSNBC.” But it is not just the shifts within the industry that are tectonic. The whole scene has been disturbed by a Supreme Court decision."

http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/01/21/the-first-amendment/#comments

Gee, Steve, You have a lot to be humble about.

If the left agree on an issue, they are smugly perfect in their lockstep. If the right agree on an issue, the left calls them drooling idiots without an original thought it their heads, they just agree with Rush or Kate.
How arrogant and ignorant they are.

Maybe it was just wishful day dreaming on my part, but I could have sworn that they went under last year sometime........

They should be good at filing of Bankruptcy documents I believe that they have prepared Chapter 11 papers previously; 2006 I think.

Proving a bad idea can fail more than once, are you listening Liberals? Oops apparently not!

Chuckle, Chuckle

O's demagoguery is the bony-finger scapegoating of "the "Wall Street banks".

O is using the "Wall Street banks" as a proxy for "the Jews".

Scratch O and find an anti-semite of the National Socialist/fascist religion.

O has thrown Hope over; Hope's ugly, scabrous little sister, Fear, is O's Chicago moll.

"Yesterday, President Obama slammed the ruling, saying that it was a "major victory" for "powerful interests" like the "Wall Street banks."
...-

"Free speech triumphs

The US Supreme Court yesterday found that an activist group had every right to distribute a documentary critical of Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primaries -- turning the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law on its head in the process.

The 5-4 ruling also rolled back other campaign-finance statutes that predated McCain-Feingold -- meaning the government can no longer ban corporations and labor unions from spending money on activities and communications that support or oppose a candidate.

Such laws, the court found, impose a "chilling effect" on political speech.

Indeed, Justice Anthony Kennedy pointed out that the rules were so strict that the government could conceivably ban a re-release of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" during the campaign season.

The court also noted, quite correctly, that free expression -- not only by private citizens, but also by the press, corporations, filmmakers and other artists -- is key in the realm of politics.

Incumbent politicians sometimes show hostility to free speech; they don't like attention paid to their shenanigans.

But does protecting their selfish goals justify gutting the First Amendment?

Of course not.

Besides, squelching speech supported by corporations doesn't work anyway.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2000, before McCain-Feingold went into effect, the financial industry poured more than $309 million into campaign coffers. During the next presidential election, in 2004, the amount went up -- to $340 million.

Yesterday, President Obama slammed the ruling, saying that it was a "major victory" for "powerful interests" like the "Wall Street banks."

But in 2008, the financial industry gave a whopping $476 million -- more than half to Democrats, and several million to Obama himself.

The money always finds a way. Indeed, total spending in the 2008 presidential election was a record $1.7 billion.

The better answer to political corruption: transparency, disclosure, sunlight."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/free_speech_triumphs_qluv6nZW9A2vZKlRsdOw8J

Steve,

There is lots of left wing foaming, Olbermann and Matthews. The left wing agit prop groups like Move On and Code ink play in the angry realm. So left does emotions like right does emotion....neither have a monopoly on either using or avoiding emotional manipulation.

The issue is one of medium. I do not believe that radio is one that, for whatever reason, the lefter side of the spectrum consumes in great numbers. In Canada the CBC is home for "left wing" radio thought. But the private broadcasters, the ones who live and die by their audience tend to be of the right wing variety. I knwo there have been some studies on this, but essentially there arent enough of them consuming that type of medium to pay the bills. clearly there are enough to support certain newspapers and maybe some television, witness MSNBC in the US. But talk radio on an am dial no less is an interesting example....it is the worst reception, the crappiest sound quality and yes probably the least expensive to run...but yet it thrives in this format.
But it travels a long way

Its about who the audience that has access to it is, not about some moral superiority or moral inferiority. It is a product that matches its audience, and that audience is large enough, loyal enough and desirable enough to support it. Clearly not the case for Air America.

O's demagoguery is the bony-finger scapegoating of "the "Wall Street banks".

O is using the "Wall Street banks" as a proxy for "the Jews".

Scratch O and find an anti-semite of the National Socialist/fascist religion.

O has thrown Hope over; Hope's ugly, scabrous little sister, Fear, is O's Chicago moll.

"Yesterday, President Obama slammed the ruling, saying that it was a "major victory" for "powerful interests" like the "Wall Street banks."
...-

"Free speech triumphs

The US Supreme Court yesterday found that an activist group had every right to distribute a documentary critical of Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential primaries -- turning the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law on its head in the process.

The 5-4 ruling also rolled back other campaign-finance statutes that predated McCain-Feingold -- meaning the government can no longer ban corporations and labor unions from spending money on activities and communications that support or oppose a candidate.

Such laws, the court found, impose a "chilling effect" on political speech.

Indeed, Justice Anthony Kennedy pointed out that the rules were so strict that the government could conceivably ban a re-release of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" during the campaign season.

The court also noted, quite correctly, that free expression -- not only by private citizens, but also by the press, corporations, filmmakers and other artists -- is key in the realm of politics.

Incumbent politicians sometimes show hostility to free speech; they don't like attention paid to their shenanigans.

But does protecting their selfish goals justify gutting the First Amendment?

Of course not.

Besides, squelching speech supported by corporations doesn't work anyway.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2000, before McCain-Feingold went into effect, the financial industry poured more than $309 million into campaign coffers. During the next presidential election, in 2004, the amount went up -- to $340 million.

Yesterday, President Obama slammed the ruling, saying that it was a "major victory" for "powerful interests" like the "Wall Street banks."

But in 2008, the financial industry gave a whopping $476 million -- more than half to Democrats, and several million to Obama himself.

The money always finds a way. Indeed, total spending in the 2008 presidential election was a record $1.7 billion.

The better answer to political corruption: transparency, disclosure, sunlight."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/free_speech_triumphs_qluv6nZW9A2vZKlRsdOw8J

Sorta amusing how the lefties always try to style themselves as "get along--kumbaya" when cornered.

In the US, as well as Canada, the so-called "liberals" don't finance their "liberal" parties---BIG BUSINESS does, and 'liberals" expect the public purse to support their charities---which they run and exploit.
The Republicans/Conservatives are the financial supporters of the parties and charities.

Funny how "W" tried to rein in Fanny and Freddie but the Dems in Congress attacked that as racist etc. "W" gave the financial arena TARP and OBOZO gave them trillions in Stimulus, which was promptly spent on exective bonuses.

Lefty radio failed because like the LPC---they are broke.

Lefies were in the red coats at Concorde....

steve, lefties "tame"? 'Only in your mind.

Lefties are the most rabid reality deniers there are. If you're on the wrong side of them -- which would be the right side in any sane world -- look out! They'll savage you, wreck your reputation, deny your existence, and throw you under the bus in a minute. They'll murder you if you happen to live in one of those communist countries.

What are you talking about?

?

Air America?

the CIA air cargo line is bankrupt?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099005/

LOL !!!

The left has had trouble understanding that people have choices. Government money pays for what they want to hear. On the other hand it isn't what people want to listen to. The fact that we are daily bombarded with their 'reality' and we don't want it. Radio has no pictures, it has to have something to say.

I just listwen to micheal savage on am1280thepatriot i liek him he is way better than limbaugh but i like limbaugh to !!

Paul in calgary

Breaking: Air
Says it all.

How long can you sustain programs based solely on "i feel so strongly about this i must be right"?

I love it when a plan comes together.

S0 when are they going to auction off their airplanes... oh, that Air America. (old enough to remember)

The demise of Air America = the return of the "fairness doctrine."

Even more infuriating for the left must surely be the reality that Rush Limbaugh actually generates millions in tax revenues for the US Treasury.

He is therefore one of the more generous personal contributors to the present US administration simply by default.

Ha ha!

"Talkers" magazine has an impressive list of criteria for making their choice. Perhaps you could read the list. It's in alphabetical order. Courage and ratings are on the list.
How courageous was 'Air America'?

Air America: an idea whose time has come... and gone. Like in the mid-Seventies.

Steve, its 2010. Vietnam's over. You lost.

Look for the "Fairness in Broadcasting" act to be brought up to full speed, now that the Left has absolutely *no* media channels left to them. They are ALL dominated by the Right.

The folks on the right started in local radio, honing their craft and their show, earning an audience and perfecting a brand that garnered broader appeal eventually moving to multiple markets and national syndication.

The fundimental problem with the Left is they believe they're entitled to an audience and should be able to force people to listen.

Air America decided that the best business model was to pay for air time and then try to sell ads ontop of that. Rather than earn a market and hone their craft, they put out a message and a product that oddly, no one listened to.

The failure of Air America just means the Left will redouble their efforts to discredit and get rid of Fox news, as the Right must fail in their attempt to enter the Left's monopoly market, TV and Movies. But looking at Fox's numbers this week Covering Scott Brown, Hannity got as many viewers as Couric.

Sry...my 10:09 comment was directed to steve.

Why cant we be liberated from the agitprop cbc ( Completely Biased Coverage)

Sell it to Al Jazeera, no one would notice any diference.

Spike the crtc!

difference

I wonder "if they would notice" if the government of Canada listed it 'CBC' on 'eBay' for sale including building, products and any affiliations that 'CBC' owns.

This is great news that has taken years in coming, these malcontents and miscreants have been propped up for years along with all the other leftie ideas by OPM, other peoples money. Like our pathetic CCCBC. At least in America it was the ilk like George Soros and a few other rich lefties that wasted their millions on this crap not like here where we have no say in our communist mouthpieces. Look at the numbers, Fox is ahead 6 or 7 to 1 most of the time, we want the truth, not lies, and for idiots that never have never known the difference, well extinction is fun to watch, thanks for the front seat Kate.

I'm going to miss Rhandi Rhodes(sp) ranting on about how she knows for a FACT that in her gut she knows that George Bush did blah blah blah.
I used to listen to it as a comedy channel,it was hilarious.

Hopefully there will be some insurmountable surprises coming for the CBC in the March budget.

You know, cut backs and all.

I can hardly wait!

Steve says, "does it make for good entertainment when a bunch of lefties are sitting around talking about progressive ways in which we can all get along via some kind of Kumbaya song circle, or does, perhaps, it work a little bit better, when the host is provocative and getting people fired up and mad about something?

It's apparent that Steve likes to drop an opinion on conservative oriented blogs. It's also apparent that Steve shares at least two common socialist character traits.

The first is that he knows nothing about that which he is rendering an opinion. His message tells me that he has never been at least a sometime listener of Air America.

A difference between my side and that of Steve is that I DO listen to what the other side has to say. I don't make suppositions or emotion based assumptions about their motive or behavior. They tell me and I listen. And I've listened to Air American since before the first time they failed.

By way of illustration, I was listening to one of my favorite American commentator/radio hosts, Hugh Hewitt, as he interviewed the noted and formerly much respected political commentator, Lawrence O'Donnell.

O'Donnell was pontificating about Obama's new relationship with the middle east, while at the same time still whipping G. Bush and Co. for their mishandling of Iraq.

Hugh interjects, asking O'Donnell, - Hugh calls him 'Larry', which is great - to "name a couple of books you've read on the middle east."

Silence.

"Ok, Larry. One book then, please tell me about one book."

Silence.

"How about "The Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright. Have you even read The Looming Tower, Larry?"

Silence.

Now Hugh's on a roll. He continued to press Larry, in front of a national audience of millions of conservative listeners, until 'Larry' admitted he hadn't read a darn thing other than other people's opinion pieces regarding the middle east.

And that's why Larry works for MSNBC.

Advantage: conservative.

Secondly, he likes to mock. We of the "echo chamber", the non-independent thinking, Piper-lead imbeciles of the right.

We are the pragmatists, the squinty-eyed examiners of human nature who base our values on imperical observation and measurement. Example: schools in which life skills can be quantified compared and measured against other schools.

Steve is Kumbaya. "If we just screw up our eyes real, real tight and perhaps a chant. Yes. Yes. A Chant."

They look at the world as THEY wish it might be - at least those who are simply useful idiots do.

The rest are just evil and want to turn it into their version of perfect.

BTW, how did Air America or it's friends, manage to wash the internet? I've searched all over from PBS to YouTube looking for a lengthy documentary on the FIRST bankruptcy of Air America - probably about five years ago. It was great seeing inside the 'machine of incompetence' from the time they were up and running through to when they were facing insolvency.

And the two periods were'nt that far apart. The egos, the in-fighting, the graft, incompetence and sheer amateurish show was a joy to behold.

I smell a bailout.

Among the reasons for the failure of liberal talk radio like Air America is that it is redundant. Liberals have no need of networks like Air America when they have NPR, CBC, CNN, MSNBC, etc.

Hey no guff

So reading a book about terrorism (preferably one you and Hugh Hewitt would approve of) is now the only criteria one needs to speak of the subject.

Of course it isn't. But Hewitt played his infantile game of 'gotcha' thinking he actually 'proved something' - and you, like the trained dittohead you are, reacted as programmed. "Well there's a decisive blow against the liberals - O'Donnell ain't read a book!"

For more of Hewitt's dishonesty which highlights the same dishonesty of all of you who defend torture, check this out:

HH: Why do people who waterboard SEALs and pilots in our training not get prosecuted for torture?

LO’D: It’s the same reason boxers don’t get prosecuted for assault and battery.

HH: Which is?

LO’D: That’s there’s an agreement among the parties to do this, and so that obviates what would be normally assault and battery charges on the boxing match, for example.

Yep, folks, you heard right. Hewitt used the same 'clever' line of questioning as did author Thiessen in his interview with Christine Amanpour of this week. "If torture's bad how come we don't prosecute or own troops for training our soldiers to withstand torture?" The Right-Wing Weasels' fax machine must've been working overtime to pump that one out to all the dittoheads.

Utterly absurd, as they well know - its purpose is simply to muddy the waters and run out the clock on talk shows. But however much you can rationalize away your support for torture in this life, in the next one you will be allowed no excuses.

Merle Underwood @ 2:27pm - I know one thing for sure - there would be alot more people watching the bidding on e-bay than watch CBC overall.

One of the reasons right wing radio is so popular is the fans can now listen to it over the internet at WORK. Lefty protesters, i.e. people who have never had to worry about putting food on their table, would have to GO to work.

Marquic wrote: "O'Donnell ain't read a book!"

One would think that one accepts money for, and expresses opinions for a living, that they would have a foundation on which to base those opinions.

Imagine a psychologist, a physicist or even an economist who doesn't bother to read the current research of acknowledged field experts. How much weight or value would you place on their 'opinon'?

Regarding the waterboarding question, if one were to parse Hewitt's point, it should be clear that while effective, if it can be incorporated as part of a military training regimin, it hardly constitutes torture.

Servicemen wouldn't put up with having their fingers squeezed in a vice, electrical shocks to their ahem, privates or burning and whipping. But they willingly undergo waterboarding because they recognize it as a psychological technique and not one of pain and permanent injury - physical or psychological.

O'Donnell and Thiessen, with greater empathy for American's enemies than their fellow citizen, prefer to focus on the 'willing partner' meme, rather than what actually constitutes 'torture'.

O'Donnell is nothing more than another moonbat who's ego exceeds his cranial capacity.

Pick up a book and read, Larry. Try either The Loomin Tower or Dreams and Shadows for starters.