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2006-10-14 Home Front: Politix

Air America Files for Bankruptcy Protection

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Posted by Fred 2006-10-14 00:00|| || Front Page|| [8 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 They're were getting too much competition from the government sponsored NPR stations. Liberals should demand that the Bush administration sponsored NPR be shut down so that radio networks like Air America can have a chance.

Posted by DMFD 2006-10-14 00:32|| 2006-10-14 00:32|| Front Page Top

#2 The Smoking Gun has the bankruptcy petition and creditor schedulkes available online. The Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club is not listed as a creditor, which is . . . interesting.

Posted by Mike 2006-10-14 09:01|| 2006-10-14 09:01|| Front Page Top

#3 Who needs Air America when you have the standard radio networks? The sad truth is that Air America failed because it was surplus to requirements - the vast majority of radio stations already put out the same left-wing material, but with more subtlety. And it is because of this liberal dominance of the airwaves that it looks like Democrats are going to win in a landslide.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2006-10-14 09:30|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2006-10-14 09:30|| Front Page Top

#4 As I understand it, money for the Gloria Boys and Girls Club was previously put into a segregated account (still controlled by AA but with oversight), so perhaps that's why it isn't listed as a creditor.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2006-10-14 11:59|| 2006-10-14 11:59|| Front Page Top

#5 yada, yada. Look at it this way. Franken was a comic who probably was living on top ramen with an occassional dinner at Spagos. For the last several years he's made buku bucks on his steady gig. So he doesn't get his last couple of paychecks? Big deal. Nothing from nothing equals nothing. This whole deal was sweet for him.

It works like this: You get a bunch of foolish investors, open a business, run up a bunch of credit and use all of that money to pay your really big salary first. Then when the capital runs out, you rinse and repeat. The are calling themselves investors, but they are just con artists who rip people off.

Posted by anon 2006-10-14 12:07|| 2006-10-14 12:07|| Front Page Top

#6 And it is because of this liberal dominance of the airwaves that it looks like Democrats are going to win in a landslide.

landslide? You tip your hand.

Posted by anon 2006-10-14 12:09|| 2006-10-14 12:09|| Front Page Top

#7 anon: landslide? You tip your hand.

The only polls that actually count are the ones on Election Day. Having said that, the polls are looking grim for the Republican party. John at Powerline on the numbers:

Last night, I wrote a relatively optimistic post about the fundamental strength of the Republicans' position going into the election. Take a look, though, at the poll results from yesterday and the day before, compiled at Real Clear Politics. It's a sea of blue, with the Democratic candidate leading in just about every race for every office, nationwide. The polls can't all be screwy, and if this batch are anywhere near right, they foretell a rout of astonishing proportions. Maybe that's what the voters want; the Republicans have three weeks remaining to focus Americans on the serious issues at stake in the election.

Hard to say if it's the price of gasoline, collapsing home values, the war in Iraq, skyrocketing property taxes, stagnant real wages, leftist anti-Bush media coverage or all of the above, but it sounds like large segments of the people polled want to replace Republican politicians with Democratic ones. If a lot of Republicans in the House of Representatives are replaced, it will be in spite of their support for an enforcement-only illegal immigration bill, in start contrast to the Senate Republicans who have largely been in favor of amnesty. In which case the Senate (and GWB) will have made the right calculation about the political implications of this bill.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2006-10-14 12:32|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2006-10-14 12:32|| Front Page Top

#8 Schadenfreude alert: the movie "Al Franken: God Spoke" starring you know who, has been in theaters since the Sept 13th release date. As of thursday, it had made.......$69,178

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-10-14 12:37|| 2006-10-14 12:37|| Front Page Top

#9 Zhang Fei, you don't live in America, do you ?
Our economy is booming, house ownership has never been so high, unemployment is at all time lows, the prioce of gasoline is falling, and the biggest clue, we lie to pollsters, because we don't like being manipulated.
Wait till November for a reality check.

Posted by wxjames 2006-10-14 13:02|| 2006-10-14 13:02|| Front Page Top

#10 I call BS on all the polls. We'll see in November.

Posted by Dreamsmith">Dreamsmith 2006-10-14 13:09|| 2006-10-14 13:09|| Front Page Top

#11 wxjames, I think you called it.

Zhang - there is no doubt that there are several races that are very close and if they all go (or enough of them) go the Dems way, they will a slim, one or two person lead in the senate and or house.

No one is predicting a Dem landslide - but rather the situation is such that the Dems might be able to slug it out in key races with the right combination of enough October sleeze and dead votes to barely scrape a majority in the senate or house.

Like I said, you tipped your hand with "landslide" and further tipped it with your follow on post. U ain't from around here, r u?

Posted by anon 2006-10-14 13:51|| 2006-10-14 13:51|| Front Page Top

#12 The are calling themselves investors, but they are just con artists who rip people off.

Sounds like a lot of the startups during the 'Internet Bubble' anon....

Posted by CrazyFool 2006-10-14 14:20|| 2006-10-14 14:20|| Front Page Top

#13 Zheng isn't all wrong. The Senate is prone to moving one way or the other quickly. It went +5 for the Dhimmis in 2000 and +4 for the Repubs in 2002. Almost all were close, 51-49 races that all broke one way. That could happen again this time, and unfortunately (for me at least) the Dhimmis are poised to go anywhere from +3 to +7.

I can't tell about the House, the polling isn't so good and the MSM certainly isn't giving us the full story. The GOTV (get out the vote) effort the Repubs have learned to do will be sorely tested this time.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2006-10-14 14:59|| 2006-10-14 14:59|| Front Page Top

#14 Here is my prediction on how you can tell if these polls are just election BS or if they are legit. If right before the election the pollsters start to close the gap - then you know they are BS.

That's what has happened in many of the races where we saw the fudging in the last election cycles.

Same MO every time:

MSM repeats the talking points and uses the same macros in every paper across the nation - you can see them on ZF's post above. But when you scratch the surface you see that the talking points and polls don't really pan out. For example, if so many Americans want us out of Iraq, then why did both the Senate and House vote overwhelmingly to NOT cut and run?

They tell us that the Dems are going to win. They run polls and articles that stress every example of how the Dems are doing well and Repubs are doing poorly.

They come up with an issue or issues and tell us that Foley or some other bad thing has everyone so upset that they plan to change their vote to vote Democrat.

Then as we get really close to the election, the pollsters start closing these gaps.

Why do they do this? Because it gets them far more votes than if they say that the people don't trust the Democrats on National Security and plan to vote against them. If the Dems know it's going to be a blow out - why bother to wait in lines at the polls? And lots of sheeple who really don't pay attention think that "everyone else" is voting for the democrats, so that must be who is the best.

So mark my words - if the pollsters start closing the gaps in the short weeks and days before the election - then its all a bunch of BS.

Posted by anon 2006-10-14 15:21|| 2006-10-14 15:21|| Front Page Top

#15 When it comes right down to it, I expect most conservatives will look at the situation in Iran, look at the situation in North Korea. Look at the appeasing idiots in the Democratic party. And then hold their nose and vote for the local GOP (or RINO) candidate. That's what I (reluctantly) plan to do.

Posted by DMFD 2006-10-14 22:20|| 2006-10-14 22:20|| Front Page Top

#16 anon: But when you scratch the surface you see that the talking points and polls don't really pan out.

These aren't talking points. They are the reality. High gasoline prices. Check. Collapsing home values. Check. War in Iraq. Check. Skyrocketing property taxes. Check. Stagnant real wages. Check. Leftist anti-Bush coverage. Check.

Sure, there are some good things in our current situation, like a healthy stock market (the result of a collapsing property market)* and good employment numbers. But the public tends to blame the Federal government for the bad things, and not give credit for the good things. This means that the GOP may be in big trouble. I've followed the polls closely since GWB was elected. They've been never been this bad.

* Just as the spike in home values was the result of a collapsing stock market.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2006-10-14 23:10|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2006-10-14 23:10|| Front Page Top

#17 wxjames: Zhang Fei, you don't live in America, do you ?
Our economy is booming, house ownership has never been so high, unemployment is at all time lows, the prioce of gasoline is falling, and the biggest clue, we lie to pollsters, because we don't like being manipulated.

I'm from New York. Let me address your individual points:

- The economy may be booming, but real wages are not only stagnant, they aren't keeping up with consumption, which is through the roof on an avalanche of easy credit via Home Equity Lines of Credit (some have called it the HELOC ATM card) and ordinary credit card debt. When the bills come due and it can't pay, the part of Middle America that has overextended itself doesn't look in the mirror - it blames the Federal government for allowing "predatory lending", etc.

- Homeownership is at an all time high primarily because of easy credit. What homeowners don't realize is that until they pay off the loan, they don't actually own the home - the bank can take it away from them. A few points - (1) mortgage payments are at an all time high relative to median income - families are really stretching to cover their mortgage payments, (2) a big percentage of loans in the past several years are of the variable rate kind where families stretched themselves financially to take on a payment predicated on a 3% rate - a rate that is about increase several percentage points, (3) many of the "homeowners" making up this record home ownership number have Option ARMS - which are loans where they have the option of not paying off the entire interest amount due, and simply adding it to their principal balance.

There are a multitude of reasons why home values are collapsing in addition to the ones I mentioned above, but the average voter doesn't really think too hard about reasons - he just votes for the party not in power. Note that the average American uses play money to invest in stocks, but a significant percentage of his net worth to invest in his home. When home values dive, he is apt to be more disgruntled than when stock prices crash.

- Unemployment may be low, but real wages aren't increasing - something that Irwin Stelzer, who covers the economy at the Weekly Standard, has pointed out. When real wages don't increase, but real consumption does, you get increasing indebtedness - as I pointed out previously - which leads to stress. A stressed out wage earner is not good for the party in power.

- Gasoline prices may be falling, but they are high relative to what Americans are used to. They are certainly way higher than they were during the 2004 elections. They are high enough to hurt the many Americans who have commutes over an hour long just so they could have their patch of suburbia away from the teeming hordes.

- As to lying to pollsters, I would say Republicans are less likely to lie than Democrats. I don't want to insult liberals, but it's only an insult if it ain't true.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2006-10-14 23:37|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2006-10-14 23:37|| Front Page Top

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