Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks offers a little advice on the campaign.  

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Above audio clip and more from Media Matters:

While discussing the controversy surrounding Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, on the April 30 edition of his nationally syndicated Fox News radio show, host John Gibson aired an audio clip of MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow in which she asked, “What else has to happen in the news to push Jeremiah Wright out of the headlines?” Following her comments, Gibson aired an unidentified audio clip of a man saying, ” Ooh, lesbians. Yummy.” Later in the segment, Gibson’s producer, known on-air as “Angry Rich” said, “That Maddow’s become bathtub boy’s pit bull, hasn’t she?” — an apparent reference to MSNBC’s Countdown host, Keith Olbermann. Gibson replied, “Ooohhh. … Well, I don’t know, you know? She may have one of those — I shouldn’t say anything more, should I?” “Angry Rich” said, “No,” and Gibson said, apparently referring to his associate producer, “Christine’s shaking her head back and forth,” and went on to air an audio clip in which an unidentified woman said, “I would like to thank my wife.” Gibson later said, “Did I tell you about the people … on the island of Lesbos?” Read on…

Poor Gibby. His tee vee show got yanked from the polluted FOXNews network and is stuck in the vast wasteland of right wing talk radio. Poor bigot.

Don Siegelman sat down with Air America’s Thom Hartmann yesterday and made very specific allegations of election fraud against Karl Rove and the Bush administration not covered in his interview on 60 Minutes. (h/t S for audio)

[Thom Hartmann]: Right. Now, in our conversation you have suggested that the original election that you lost to Bob Riley by a few thousand votes in the middle of the night may have been stolen. That is a part of the story that has been treated as if it was radioactive by the corporate press. It has, to the best of my knowledge, I have never heard that in any of the official corporate news reports. Have you asserted that before, have you been saying this all along, or is this…

[Don Siegelman]: Well yes, we have been saying it, we have been saying it since the night of the election. I mean, we won the election, the votes were counted and were declared and then in one county which is controlled by Republicans the, after midnight when everybody went home, when the poll workers were sent home, when the media was gone, they decided to electronically recount these votes and shifted the votes and certified the vote illegally the next day. The, interestingly, Karl Rove’s client sepped in, the attorney general stepped in and said, ‘if anybody tries to hand count these votes we’re going to put them in jail’. We initially had a green light from the local Republicans in this one area that we could come in and hand count these ballots where the electronic shift occurred.[..]

(Read the rest of this story…)

Howard Dean appeared on Air America’s Rachel Maddow Show (with guest host David Bender) to assure listeners that he hopes to have all the loose ends — unpledged delegates and the issue of whether or how to seat Florida and Michigan delegates — dragging down the primary process tied up by June.

DAVID BENDER: Senator Clinton said, I think just yesterday to Keith Olbermann, that she was committed in staying in this race until Florida and Michigan are resolved…ahhh…

HOWARD DEAN: I think that’s going to happen in June.

BENDER: You do? You think that will happen in June through the- through the bylaws and through the…

DEAN: Yeah. I’m hoping- I mean, I believe that there will be a rules committee meeting and we’ll take up the question of Florida and Michigan. Michigan has just sent in a challenge and we hope to do that- hope to take up them both in the same meeting. So, you know I think that will happen, I think that all the pieces will be in place by the end of June…

 Times UK:

Mr Obama’s campaign emphasises repeatedly the remorseless mathematical logic that, barring “tragedy or travesty”, points to him being the nominee. He has five times more cash on hand to spend on the coming contests than Mrs Clinton and there is a growing sense of exhaustion among Democrats who just want this once-exciting but now damaging race to be over.

But the reluctance of hundreds of other super-delegates to declare for him just yet reflects nagging doubts about whether he can win in November against John McCain, as well as residual loyalty to the Clinton brand.

Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, wants super-delegates to make up their minds by July 1, leaving the party with almost two months to heal its wounds before the convention in August. This still gives Mrs Clinton time to find a good argument for why super-delegates should risk accusations of overturning the will of voters in primaries and caucuses.

I was a big Deaniac back in 2004, and I really think this is the time for Dean to step up to the plate and bring his fractious party back together.  There’s just too much as stake in this election.  (thanks to S for the audio)

Today on “Race to the White House” Rachel Maddow and Joe Scarborough got into a little argument after Rachel called him out for being rude and interrupting her when she criticized John McCain. At the end of the show, when guests are supposed to make a final prediction about the presidential race, Scarborough instead opted to take a shot at Rachel. After Rachel gives her response, Scarborough is nowhere to be found.

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Scarborough: I think I may blow all my time to respond to Rachel. I don’t get engage in “Crossfire”-type debates. […] Again, I don’t do Crossfire, so if we want to yell back and forth, then Rachel will have to find somebody else to do that.

Rachel: Joe, I wasn’t trying to yell back and forth with you. I was starting to make my point and you cut me off before I started my first sentence.

(a few moments later, sans Scarborough)

Rachel: Me and Joe are gonna get a beer and hash this all out.

UPDATE: Jeremy Gaines tells the Huffington Post:

“Joe didn’t walk off. He chose not to participate in the final couple of minutes of the discussion because he felt the conversation didn’t fit his role as a political analyst.”

What a weak excuse. Joe’s job as a “political analyst” is to analyze the political race. That’s what the entire show is about. Rachel got under his skin, plain and simple. It was probably when she made that face after he said he didn’t want to be condescending, which he was clearly being.

Brave New Films has a petition to ask Air America to give Sam Seder the chance to take over Randi Rhodes time slot.

Air America’s Sam Seder has a chance to take over the time slot created by Randi Rhodes’s departure.  It was just about a year ago that Air America made the foolish decision to move Seder from a daily show to Sundays; he a vital progressive voice on the radio, one that should be heard daily.

Right now, the plan is to rotate weekly a roster of celebrities to fill Rhodes’ time slot.  Ironic for a company who said that the mistake their predecessors made was filling the schedule with comedians instead of solid radio professionals.   BNF says they have about 4,000 signatures already and hope to get 6,000 more this week to deliver to the Air America offices.   Let’s help get Sammy the permanent position. 

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Former Air America Radio talk show host, Randi Rhodes, appeared on Larry King Live to talk about the controversy surrounding statements she made about Geraldine Ferraro and Senator Hillary Clinton, and her subsequent departure from Air America.

Rhodes was unapologetic as she took a few swipes at AAR management and claims they wanted her to amend her contract and that’s why she left.

<Correction>

The final lines of Logan’s piece were originally edited, but the changes didn’t take in Word Press after it was uploaded and then published. CNN’s behavior was fine. Thanks for the emails. JA

C&L received confirmation from Air America:

STATEMENT OF CHARLIE KIREKER, CHAIR & MARK GREEN, PRESIDENT, FOR AIR AMERICA MEDIA

Last week Air America suspended Randi Rhodes for abusive, obscene language at a recent public appearance in San Francisco which was sponsored by an Air America affiliate station.

Air America Media was informed last night by Ms. Rhodes that she has chosen to terminate her employment with the company. We wish her well and thank her for past services to Air America.

We will soon announce exciting new talent and programming that will accelerate Air America’s growth in the future.

Apparently, Randi will be heading back to Green 960 AM.

UPDATE: John Scott, Program Director of Green960, speaks out:

“We have been very frustrated the past few days in our efforts to rectify the Randi Rhodes Situation (her suspension by her network, Air America Radio). It is our understanding that today (April 9th) she is no longer an employee of Air America. So we are bringing her back.”

Monday, April 14th at 4pm… it will be our pleasure to announce the return of Randi Rhodes to the Green 960 family.

I, like many, think that Sam Seder deserves his own show again. Write to pcollin@airamerica.com and let them know you want Sam back full time. We wish Randi all the best in the future.

UPDATE: Looks like Richard Belzer will be filling in at least temporarily.

At a recent appearance in San Francisco, Air America host Randi Rhodes went after Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton, calling them “whores” to a generally mixed reception by the audience.

“Hillary is a big f**king whore, too. You know why she’s a big f**king whore? Because her deal is always, ‘Read the fine print, a**hole!’”

Huffington Post:  

Rhodes has been now been suspended from the network. Air America released the following statement:

Air America has suspended on-air host Randi Rhodes for making inappropriate statements about prominent figures, including Senator Hillary Clinton, at a recent public appearance on behalf of Air America in San Francisco which was sponsored by an Air America affiliate station.

“Air America encourages strong opinions about public affairs but does not condone such abusive, ad hominem language by our Hosts,” said chair Charlie Kireker.

I’m a fan of Randi, but this is completely unacceptable.  Unfortunately, this is the kind of thing that happens in the heat of a long, drawn out primary season.

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks spoke to Newsweek Senior Editor Michael Hirsh about what it says about Newsweek when in light of revelations of Karl Rove’s misdeeds, he continues to be employed by Newsweek.

Cenk Uygur: Michael, let me ask one follow-up question to that, which is, you know, if we don’t have an indictment on Rove on this, but there’s clear evidence outside the court of law…you know this Republican operative says, “look he asked me to take these pictures, and I was basically a spy there. And then I grew a guilty conscience when they actually…I was on a conference call where they said ‘lets go get em for political reasons,” and then they did and this guy is spending seven years in jail. Would Newsweek evaluate that outside of a situation where he gets indicted and go, ‘maybe we don’t want to do business with this guy?”

Michael Hirsh: You know, I would hope so Cenk, but that’s kind of above my pay grade. I think there are a lot of people, journalists in Washington, who question the hiring of Rove. We’re not happy about it. I mean, some people say he’s actually turned out to be a half decent columnist for the Right. But, yeah…I mean I certainly would hope that we would re-evaluate that on the basis of this. But, you know, I think everyone would have to independently, we would have to independently look into these charges that 60 Minutes raised.

The question must be asked: what is Newsweek waiting for?

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C&L has covered the media’s shameless smears of Senator Barack Obama’s patriotism and Monday on Countdown, Keith Olbermann talks with Air America Radio’s Rachel Maddow about how quickly the MSM has picked up on “the dirtiest stuff of the far reaches of right wing media” and shamelessly ran with it, treating it as legitimate news.

Maddow gets it right, just because someone makes a nasty claim about a candidate doesn’t make it newsworthy, but apparently the media doesn’t get that. We’ll continue to call them out on it all the way through November.

On a related note, check out this image search of John McCain — how many lapel flag pins do you see? (h/t Jamie) TRex has a perfect example of one GOP Senator who never leaves home without his pin…

will.i.am has released a video of a new campaign song…

ABC News: Celebrity-filled music videos have been used to support many social movements, from famine relief for Africa, to support for American farmers, to opposition to apartheid in South Africa.

But rarely have celebrities and musicians banded together to create new music in the heat of a presidential campaign.

The Black Eyed Peas’ frontman, songwriter and producer known as will.i.am, along with director and filmmaker Jesse Dylan, son of another socially active musician, Bob Dylan, released a new song Friday that attempts to do just that.

The music video “Yes We Can” premiered on ABCNewsNow’s “What’s the Buzz” on Friday. It was inspired, will.i.am told ABC’s Alisha Davis, by Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and in particular by the speech he has gave after the New Hampshire primary.

“It made me reflect on the freedoms I have, going to school where I went to school, and the people that came before Obama like Martin Luther King, presidents like Abraham Lincoln that paved the way for me to be sitting here on ABCNews and making a song from Obama’s speech,” will.i.am said.

“The speech was inspiring about making change in America and I believe what it says and I hope everybody votes,” Dylan said.

Also available as a ringtone.  

O/T: Thom Hartmann is over at FDL discussing his latest book, Cracking the Code.

Courtesy of The Democratic Party.

And Rachel Maddow has an SOTU game, and you’d best arrange a cab ahead of time…

UPDATE: John Amato: Bush said that we’ve empowered him to make wise decisions…Did you hear the laugh track?<snark>

Looks like the same people standing and cheering. Are they seat savers? Let’s see him say Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ten times in a row quickly…

I thought Dingell was Cheney sleeping…Bush said we must trust our scientists. Except when it comes to evolution I guess…When he talks about the destruction of human life, I wonder where the Iraqi people fit in?

And all the Telecom executives cheer! 

 Download | Play  Download | Play (h/t Heather)

On Tuesday’s Countdown, Keith looks at the market meltdown and how the failed policies of President Bush and the Republicans made it possible by deregulating the institutions that led us to where the economy is today, and by borrowing money from other countries to pay for massive tax cuts here at home.

Rachel Maddow joined Keith and talked about John Edwards, who was the first presidential candidate who talked about the impending crisis and suggested an economic stimulus package to head it off — and as long as the topic is the economy, he has the upper hand.

Maddow:”…Not only was he the first on talking about the stimulus package, as you mentioned, but he’s also been the populist guy on economics. He’s the guy whose been most willing from the very beginning to actually identify bad guys in the economy. To say, let’s be patriotic about something other than war, let’s be moralistic about something other than sex, let’s talk about corporate irresponsibility and corporations that don’t serve the people who work for them, or the consumers. Let’s actually identify un-American bad behavior in the economy and that kind of, I think, real forceful approach to the issue, is going to place him in good stead right now.”

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