TV GM to run, eventually buy WCHL

The owner of WCHL (1360AM) has sold a minority stake in the station to Barry Leffler, who is stepping down as president of TV station WNCN-TV (NBC17) and will run day-to-day operations at the community-oriented mostly liberal talk station, according to the Raleigh News & Observer.

Current owner Jim Heavner eventually plans to sell the station outright to Leffler.

"The opportunity to become a media owner doesn't come along very often," said Leffler, who has worked in television for nearly 25 years. "To be able to do it in a community I love makes it even better."

At WCHL, Leffler plans to continue WCHL's "hyper-local" news and information approach and expand it's online presence. The locally-focused approach, along with local sports and syndicated programming such as Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller and Air America, has been doing well in advertising sales, particularly in the sagging media market.

"Local advertisers find that their ads on WCHL continue to work."

No other programming changes have been announced, or are forthcoming.

Teabag terrorism: Why do conservatives hate America?

How's this for phony patriotism?

Radical right-wingers across the land have been blasting President Obama for personally lobbying the International Olympic Committee on behalf of his country and his hometown of Chicago, as he and many others hoped to land the 2016 Olympic Games.

The spin leading up to the moment has been quite ridiculous. They claimed that Obama was taking his eyes off problems at home, though they didn't complain when the last president read childrens' books in a photo op as terrorists flew planes into New York skyscrapers. Or when he ate birthday cake and strummed the guitar while New Orleans drowned. It's quite baffling that the rabid right would rally against something that would bring increased international prestige, jobs and pride to our shores. But their seething hatred for the current president trumps all, and if they could spite Obama at the cost of the U.S. crumbling, so be it.

But events yesterday could quite possibly be the conservative movement's proverbial 'shark jumping' moment. When the IOC, a day after Obama appeared before them to stump for our country, passed over Chicago and gave the games to Rio de Janeiro, wingnuts everywhere cheered and danced. See, this isn't about the U.S. losing the games, it's about feeble attempts to chip away at Obama's perceived ego, America be damned!

Never mind the "Miracle on Ice" at the 1980 Lake Placid, NY games. Never mind Olympic heroes like Carl Lewis and Michael Phelps. Obama got stiffed! Ha ha! Seriously, these people have lots of ego and no pride.

What these feeble-minded fools don't realize is that it's not all about Obama. It was about our country -- their country. Yes, it was a U.S. defeat, not an Obama defeat. But don't let a stupid little thing like facts get in the way of good spin, right?

Here's a sampling of some of the sickening right-wing reaction to yesterday's news:

Upon being informed of the news, a gathering of conservatives at the Americans For Prosperity -- one of the main organizing groups behind the tea party protests -- erupted in applause. They cheered once more after they were told that Chicago had been eliminated during the first round of voting.

RedState's Erick Erickson took glee in Chicago - and, by extension, Obama's - rejection. "Hahahahaha," he wrote. "I thought the world would love us more now that Bush was gone. I thought if we whored ourselves out to our enemies, great things would happen. Apparently not. So Obama's pimped us to every two bit thug and dictator in the world, made promises to half the Olympic committee, and they did not even kiss him."

Michelle Malkin, meanwhile, wrote that the news effectively ended the Obama campaign motto of "Yes We Can" by dawning in a new slogan: "No, You Can't."

Rush Limbaugh spent Friday's show gloating about the loss, calling the snub a "bitch slap," a "metaphor for weakness" and the "worst day in his presidency." "Obama demeaned the office of the presidency, going on this sales pitch," said the glorified disc jockey.

Glenn Beck, mere days after being called out on one of his usual lies by the White House, practically did his usual insane happy dance when he announced the news on his radio show. "Please, please let me break this news to you. It's so sweet," he gloated.

Weekly Standard blogger John McCormack published a celebratory post on the magazine’s blog, titled "Chicago Loses! Chicago Loses!." The blog entry was soon edited to a more sedate "Chicago loses," lest anyone think they were rooting against their country.

The Drudge Report giddly exlaimed in a big red headline, "The Ego Has Landed." Matt Drudge is evidently dancing more over this than he does in the Miami discos.

The likes of Malkin, Beck, Drudge and Sean Hannity have resorted to blasting the city of Chicago, working overtime to comb the Chicago crime blotter in feeble attempts to tarnish the city.

I should say that at least a few conservatives, particularly MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, thanked the president for helping to land the games, and chastised partisan critics hoping for his loss. And to Mitt Romney, who helmed the Salt Lake City games of 2002 and also supported Obama's efforts.

Now, what these naive souls don't realize is that Obama was not the one who initiated the Chicago bid in the first place. The effort goes back years, long before Obama was even considering a run for the White House. In April 2007, Chicago was selected as the United States' bid city for the 2016 games. That Obama is from Chicago is mere coincidence, but who could blame him for trying to bring the event to his own city, let alone his own country? Hey, if former British Prime Minister Tony Blair could personally lobby (successfully at that) to bring the 2012 games to London, why shouldn't Obama do likewise? Our last president, George W. Bush, made a feeble attempt to bring the 2012 Olympics to New York City, by way of a videotaped plea, yet we heard no squawking from the right-wing peanut gallery when his efforts fizzled.

But it all seems so clear now. After witnessing their ongoing battle to torpedo health care reform, the war in Afghanistan, economic stimulus and other priorities of the current president, I think we've learned quite a bit about the right-wing. Suffice it to say, conservatives don't give a shit about you. They don't need to. They've got good jobs (well, most of them do anyway). They've got health care. They've got their punditry gigs on high-profile media outlets. They've got their dinner party invites. And they've got their own massive egos. They don't care about supporting our president, as they demanded the same of us for our last president. They don't care about the middle class. They don't care about America. And they certainly don't give a shit about anyone except themselves. As stated earlier, if America becomes a big, stinking hole in the ground, they don't care. If it brings down their adversaries and further feeds their own oversized egos, so be it. It's all about them, and fuck everyone else. And it's narcissistic thinking like this that will eventually kill the rabid right once and for all. Then perhaps we can get some level-headed civility back into ideological discourse.

CNN's Roland Martin nails it:

So, to all the critics happy about us losing the 2016 games, turn in your flag lapel pins and stop boasting of being so patriotic. When an American city loses, like New York did in the the last go-round, we all lose. And all you critics are on the same level as the America haters all across the world.

You should be shouted down for not backing your own country. The next time any of you bang out a press release about "Buy American" or "Support our troops," remember this moment when your cynical, callous and small-minded brains happily rejoiced when America lost the 2016 Olympic Games.

Seriously, why do conservatives hate America?

Mark Riley returns to WWRL

Former Air America talker Mark Riley has returned to radio with a new Saturday afternoon show on WWRL (1600AM), New York titled "Working New York", a show focusing on people "who are working, looking for work, and people who have worked all their lives and are now retired."

WWRL is also undergoing further weekend changes, days after renewing their deal with Air America. The station is harking back to its earlier roots by adding some Caribbean-oriented talk programming to weekends, both local and syndicated.

Weekend tweeting

Gee, has it been a week already since I did one of these things?

Well, here's the latest from the LTR Twitter page, now with 100 followers and growing:

We all know that right-wing pundits, particularly the high-profile ones on radio and television, have major insecurity complexes. Here, Huffington Post wonders if Sean Hannity is starting to feel intimidated by partner-in-grime Glenn Beck. So much that Scrappy Doo's trying to amp up the rhetoric. Okay, lies. As they say, what comes up, must come down.

The big talk this week has been a Florida congressman named Alan Grayson. On the House floor Tuesday night, Grayson claimed that the Republicans' proposed health care reform amounts to "don't get sick" or, failing that, "die quickly." The thin-skinned Republicans immediately demanded an apology, and threatened a resolution condemning him. Grayson didn't back down , as he further called Republicans "knuckle-dragging Neanderthals," and stuck it to the morality crusades with "let's remember we should care about people even after they're born." The only apology he gave was to the American people for not getting health care reform done. The sudden spine growth among the Democratic rank-and-file must have been contagious, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave her support the freshman congressman.

Funny, the Repulicans have expressed no outrage over one of their own congressmen, Trent Franks, who called President Obama "an enemy of humanity."

Only a week or so following Sarah Palin's own 'Dixie Chicks moment', where she blasted the president at a Chinese economic summit, ancient crooner Andy Williams said in an interview that "Obama wants the country to fail," and called him a socialist Marxist, or something like that. The interviewee? The London Telegraph, a foreign newspaper. So, using right-wing logic, does this make Williams a traitor? Will he get death threats from wingnuts? Like it matters, the guy's almost dead anyway. Well, at least his career is.

Speaking of Palin, hear about that new book she's' writing'? I thought "Going Rogue" was slang for not wearing underwear. Hear about the book's ghost writer? One of her projects was a little piece by a notorious white supremacist. Not much of a departure.

If you're FOX Noise, you know you're full of shit when right-wing media shit-stirrer Bernie Goldberg says you're full of shit.

Speaking of shit, wingnuts are known to sling a lot of it, but now they're literally doing it.

As FOX's alleged 'news' channel delights in their constant airing of a bunch of right-wing pussies, they're also showing the real thing on the entertainment division's 'reality' shows (NSFW video and pic).

Remember all the fuss about that video of schoolchildren singing songs about President Obama? Here's that video. Oh wait! Those schoolchildren are singing songs to President Nixon, a Republican!

Are some right-wingers escaping from the nut house? Some seem to be coming to their senses, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, David Brooks and this guy, who's blog, ironically, is called Right Wing Nut House. All of them are chastising the actions of the fringe elements of their party. Naturally, they're being tossed under the bus by said nuts.

One of the people Lindsey Graham ripped was Glenn Beck, for being just plain crazy. The definition of crazy? Constantly crying on-air. Even crazier? When the tears are fake.

The best take of the week comes, not surprisingly, from the oft-brilliant Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times. "The anger of the festering fringe" is a must-read.

Join the fun on Twitter, as I update quite often.

Start the revolution without me

A hypothetical question for all of you: Is it possible to gain respect from the public at large by acting like unhinged crybabies? Or by expressing oneself in the nastiest, most immature ways possible?

The past week has been quite an embarrassing one for the conservative movement. Sure, the single-payer approach to health care is stuck in development hell as we speak, which must bring shrieks of delight to the lunatic fringe of American politics. But let's face facts, these people are really acting like a bunch of whiny assholes.

All summer long, the fringe element of the ideological spectrum has been creeping further into the mainstream, in effect plastering the conservative movement with their own brand of extremist, racist, nonsensical and ill-informed rhetoric. We've seen it in the various "tea parties" that have taken place, along with their ridiculous protest signs. We've seen town hall gatherings, where the unhinged fringe assumed that yelling louder makes their points more truthful. We've seen the ridiculous source where they get their 'news' - FOX. And we've seen it in their choices of false idols, guys like Glenn Beck.

Then things started getting ugly. Really ugly. A Baptist minister in Arizona called for his parishioners to pray for Obama's death. An accountant in North Carolina just lost his CPA license for telling diners in a Waffle House restaurant that he planned to make that prayer a reality. Then, add in all those ridiculous things right-wingers are accusing our president of, and no wonder why people are starting to lose their shit.

This past weekend, a speaker at the How To Take Back America conference, conservative speaker Kitty Werthmann shouted from the stage, accusing Obama of being both a Marxist and a Nazi, all in plain view of attendees like GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who also went off on his own insane tirade.

And this crude behavior has even creeped into the halls of Congress. Rep. Joe Wilson rudely called Obama a 'liar' during a speech before a joint session. Rep. Trent Franks referred to our president as "an enemy of humanity" at a rally, mere days after demanding to see his birth certificate. And of course there's everybody's favorite right-wing lunatic, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who has been trying to make things like the census seem like Obama's latest attempt to mind-meld with us (wonder what she thought of the Patriot Act?).

Last week, the social networking site Facebook was stung by a third-party application poll asking whether President Obama should be assassinated. Yeah, real classy.

And it gets uglier. A columnist with widely-read conservative opinion site Newsmax has gone so far as to call for an armed military insurrection to help take care of what he calls the "Obama Problem". John L. Perry, in the downright creepy article published yesterday, even spelled out how and why a military coup should take place. Here's an excerpt:

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Military intervention is what Obama's exponentially accelerating agenda for "fundamental change" toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama's radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.

"Military intervention"? Have these people lost what's left of their minds? Not surprisingly, the article, linked all across the liberal blogosphere, has since been 'disappeared' by Newsmax. But nothing ever disappears from the internet.

It's quite ironic that, after all the unethical stuff done by the Bush Administration, Perry and his ilk nonchalantly shook their pom-poms and put him upon a pedestal. But it's quite sad that these crybaby conservatives can't hold down their hostility and hatred for an elected president (who is neither socialist, Marxist or Nazi), and one who won by a bigger vote total than any other candidate in U.S. history. And it really must piss them off that Barack Obama is not only a Democrat, not only a liberal, but is also part African-American.

The fact that the lunatic fringe has become the mainstream of the conservative movement in this country is both sad and humorous. By catering to a bunch of unhinged goofballs, they are destined to become a minor obnoxious fringe movement, as the more rational folks of their movement become either assimilated by the morons or go elsewhere.

P.S. Obama won. Get over it.

UPDATE: And wouldn't you know it? There is a connection between Newsmax and the Republican National Committee. It appears that the RNC is a sponsor of Newsmax, and even uses Newsmax's email list to solicit donations, as recently as last month. Think the RNC also supports armed insurrection against our elected officials, as John L. Perry apparently does? And following all that time the GOP has been wasting trying to tar-and-feather ACORN (and now even the SEIU), what does this say about them?