Wow! Money for kids and seniors embezzled into Air America!

Great Debates
81

Just some info on ratings here:

I listen to our AAR/Jones Radio affiliate here in Columbus and my favorite show in the morning has said (I’ll see if I can find anything on this) that her ratings are up 4000% this quarter and liberal talk is doing better since their launch than what conservative talk did during their launch at the same time period.

Here’s some other tidbits I found:

From here:

From here:

As to the OP, it seems there is definitely some legalities that need to be worked out as far as who technically is responsible. I’m sure their legal teams are working this out and if AAR has any connection or responsibility, I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t gladly pay that back. Other than that, there’s really no debate here.

82

Mr. Moto, would you happen to have a cite for that statement from Piquant? I tried to search it, and could only find a snippet of it on a right-wing blog, which also did not cite the origin.

Here is the statement that appears on the Air America website:

http://www.airamericaradio.com/press/gloriawise

83

Wow! indeed. I’d say, Mr. Moto, that this limp rant is now unalterably flaccid. Got any viagra-like outrage to pump it up further? Care to take note of the fact that this situation appears to have been handled throughout in an entirely appropriate fashion (i.e. the guilty person was fired and restitution was/is being made)?

Where, by chance, did you happen to come by your outrage over an already-resolved year-old story?

84

I’m pleased that restitution is being made, but let’s make some things clear here. Mere restitution isn’t enough, if laws were broken.

At issue here isn’t only funds that were mismanaged, as the OP shows. The city has cut funding to the center, and transfered its programs to other agencies. Some loyal employees of the center were fired today as a result of the funding loss, and because other agencies were taking over the programs.

I guess fiscal mismanagement only matters on this board when Enron is involved, huh?

All this because Evan Cohen used his position with the center to persuade its leadership to improperly transfer the funds, apparantly earmarked for children and seniors, to Progress Media, a company set up to get Air America going.

85

I see that no one on the board is defending Cohen, and yet in the end you are still resorting to the fallacy of guilt by association. IIRC LLC’s exist precisely to limit liability. IOW they have the right to actually say to lenders of former companies to take a hike. Already, other posters have shown that even with that, Air America is not sweeping this obligation under the rug, even though they could do so. Repeating your sorry guilt by association mantra is not getting cute, is just getting sad.

86

Exactly so. Punishment for any laws that were broken should be meted out upon the guilty party. Apparently that party is Cohen. If he broke a law, he should be punished.

Pathetic. Highly unimpressive and entirely wrong. Would you like some cheese with that whine?

87

Yep, lame, limp and pathetic. Moto, save your outrage for the things that really matter. How many other things are in the news, or are being discussed right now that are way more important?

Note I didn’t say anything like “let’s wait until all the facts are in”, like people constantly do when there really is something bad (but done by the “other” side). It’s simple. Right wing (not Republican, but right wing) hacks will defend or blather whenever it’s one of their own doing far worse things. Enron was worse. Torture policies are way worse. The contant erosion of fights, privileges and freedoms is worse. But, let one schmuck at a liberal radio station get fired or “asked to quit” for being a crook, and the outrage meter pegs itself. Hypocrisy at it’s finest.

88

I would like to respond at length, but I am serverely hampered, Moto’s astonishing revelations have rent me asunder. Woe! Woe! Me golden idols, Franken and Garafolo, the shining beacons of my political philosophy, are revealed to know somebody who isn’t very nice. I am crushed, bereft! (Note to self: find out if Birkenstock supplies sackcloth and ashes…)

Blinded by tears, I only hope to see clearly enough to fill out this Republican Party registration form.

89

Damnit! I just read through this thread and I am pissed off. I am a liberal. I disagree with Mr. Moto on just about everything he has ever uttered on this board, and he often drives me nuts with some odd methods of “debate”, but he has a point here! I was lulled into believing that liberals practically had the market cornered on forthrightness and responsibility after seeing all the pathetic excuses from the right that have come with each scandal after scandal from the current administration, but it takes something like this to set me straight.

The one truly liberal non-print media outlet has a scandal. Predictably it is a conservative who presents this. So, what happens? Do we debate the problem, demand accountability, and seek the truth? No, aside from a few people we resort to partisan bickering and “this is nothing compared to what the conservatives did.” If you are going to spew stuff like this please change political affiliation.

Now, as it happens, the cites provided show that Air America is doing their best to repay the loan (that they are not legally responsible for), as well as individuals who feel they may have been cheated. I cannot think of a better way for them to handle it. They have basically said, “Look, the law says we are in the clear, but we are going to cover this one anyway.” These are the points we should be bringing up, and not comparison with other scandals.

We know of at least one person with Air America who was responsible and he has been terminated (though we aren’t completely certain of the cause). The only question left is, “Did anyone else know?” This is what we should be asking about. If they did not, then the penalties that Mr. Moto quite correctly calls for should be applied to him only. If it can be shown that greater involvement from the company itself was involved than the courts should justifiably punish them. I just don’t see why there is any question to this. Yes it is less important than Coingate (God I hate it when they just stick the word gate at the end of something) but that does not mean it is unimportant.

How can we hope for reasoned debate rather political defesiveness on an issue like Carl Rove when we do no better.

90

Self-correction: I forgot the internet, but perhaps the word major would have fixed that.

91

I just don’t follow you. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by the folks currently at Air America. No evidence whatsoever. There IS evidence that the folks currently at Air America are taking steps to rectify the situation.

There is no evidence whatsoever that anyone EVER at Air America embezzled funds. None whatsoever.

Once more, Moto has overstepped. Had the OP been titled, “Ex-member of Air America engineered illegal loan!” then he would’ve been on solid ground. But then, that wouldn’t have been so flamboyant; it wouldn’t have looked like that big a deal. Instead, he came up with a misleading, hyperbolic title in order to make it appear that Air America is corrupt.

IT’S NOT. They had a bad apple, so they fired him; and they’re taking steps to rectify that apparently unethical deals that he made.

The liberals here aren’t twisting to try to avoid blame. Blame falls appropriately on Cohen and Rosen (I believe); and liberals here are happily giving them blame. What liberals aren’t willing to do is to go along with a smear attempt at a blameless party–the folks currently at Air America.

Daniel

92

I don’t know that current leadership is so blameless. I have a bunch of questions.

The current owners of Air America would presumably have known of the troubling financial arrangements between the Gloria Wise Center and Progress Media last year, when they assumed ownership of Air America. Yet they chose to maintain a business arrangement themselves with the center until only a few months ago.

Again, this is a fact not in dispute.

Now, why would Air America and Piquant LLC maintain this arrangement if they knew that the finances of the Gloria Wise Center were corrupted, and corrupted in a way that could prove embarassing to the existing company?

93

Dude, you’re a totally dishonest debater. You only asked one question. :stuck_out_tongue:

Now I have a question (no dishonesty there). By maintaining a business arrangement, are you referring to the fund raisers or is there something else?

I’m going to say initially that they maintained the arrangement because they were stuck with it. The loan had already happened, and I’m not sure if the station could hand it back in a lump sum. And as bad as this looks, it would look much worse if they told the center to puck off as soon as they took over the station.

94

http://www.airamericaradio.com/press/gloriawise

Mr. Moto, get a clue already that Cohen and the Boy’s club are the parties investigated, whatever deal AA then struck with the Gloria Wise club after that is their business, my gut feeling is that that compensation included shilling for the center in the way of payments.

95

Just as a reminder of where we started with this thing.

It seems to me Air America has…
[ul]
[li]Come clean with its listening public[/li][li]Been open with the press[/li][li]Paid back the money or come to some other sort of agreement[/li][li]Gotten rid of the accused party[/li][/ul]
So, Moto, to turn this back around, what else do you think Air America, wich was not itself involved in this deal to start with, needs to do? What else are you accusing the network and its hosts of doing wrong?

96

It’s not? :confused: :confused: :confused:

97

You Republicans ought to be familiar with a certain question:

What did they know, and when did they know it?

For your “presumably” allegations to stick, you need to demonstrate that the folks currently at Air America knew about the illegal loan for a significant period of time before they started doing anything about it. You’ve come nowhere close to demonstrating that.

Your desire to spatter mud on Air America is looking increasingly hysterical.

Daniel

98

Anatomy of a Smear Campaign

After falling into this thread, I became curious about the details and origins of this “scandal”. I was working on a blog entry of my own about it, but someone else at Daily Kos beat me to it. Here’s the link to that diary, if anyone is interested:

Turns out the origin was an article in the “Bronx News” by Michael Horowitz.

If you go back to the original OP links cited in this thread, you’ll see that the Gotham Gazette linked article has been “disappeared” (although it is still cached). The Gotham Gazette link Mr. Moto cited used the “Bronx news” article as its source. And the “Bronx News” used anonymous “informed sources” for its information.

The Bronx News appears to be one of those community newspapers that is basically an advertising circular. They don’t have a website. I’m local (NYC) but I’ve never seen nor heard of them (anyone here in the Bronx?).

Other than the NY Daily News blurbs (which did not mention Air America Radio), that’s all there is.

Most of the “cites” on the right-wing blogs pushing this story are to each other. And all they’ve got are guilt by association, speculation and disinformation, and leading questions.

NYC DOI hasn’t even categorized this as a “criminal” investigation. The only on record statement from them so far is “No Comment”.

And that’s about it.

But consider what has transpired from this:

The Washington Times published an editorial, and it was featured on a segment of CNN’s Inside Politics (all the details are in the diary I cited, if you’re not nodding off already).

The other thing is: They elicited a response from Air America Radio. Which of course they then “analyzed” for incriminating evidence, leading to even more speculative “questions”.

And of course, it has spread to message boards like this one, and people are engaging in “debates” about it.

Pretty ingenious, isn’t it?

99

Very nicely done. This is a technique that the right has used to smear mud for a long time. This is what I was getting at referring to others at other websites bringing this up as a counter to the Rove thing. Nobody in their right (meaning sane) mind would really see it that way, but locksteppers acting on their talking point orders have no problem trying to link them up.

This is also why I asked Mr. Moto where he came by this old and already-resolved story with such fresh outrage.

One clear sign that a person is a member of the zombie army of the right is the use of “Hey, I’m just asking questions. Innocently looking for answers, I am. Not a partisan smear campaign, no sirree!” (See many posts by Sam Stone, including a recent one on Karl Rove in which he simply and kindly offered to summarize the story going around on rightward leaning blogs for us.)

I think it is disgraceful that someone with any integrity would allow themselves to be used as a tool of the right. Apparently Mr. Moto feels no shame about pushing such a story on us here. Clearly he kept on it like a pit bull on a T-bone. At least many others on the right have correctly identified this as a lame effort, if they have not come out to condemn it outright.

100

To be fair, Hentor, I don’t blame Mr. Moto directly. I don’t know him.

But I do know that it is very easy to read things on blogs that match your ideology and get pumped up.

I think the important thing we can learn from this is how to influence public opinion.

“Inappropriate use of funds” by a NYC granted program is not a “Wow”. It is endemic here, and more importantly, it is a bi-partisan problem. If it wasn’t, you would have seen the pols on one side or another latch on to this story like flies on shit. The silence is telling. But not surprising for anyone familiar with local politics here.

The “beef” I would have with people like Mr. Moto is that he falls into the trap. Rather than combat this corruption as a bi-partisan effort, he will most likely (yes, I am assuming) lose interest once the goal of smearing an ideological opponent is achieved.

So who wins, in the end? Hint: It’s neither “the left” nor “the right”.