Here are some numbers. From this poll it appears more people get or tune into radio for their political information than TV. About 4 in 10. Whereas those that get it from TV are about 3 in ten.

I did a further calculation by taking their numbers on how many times a person watches either source a month and doing an extrapolation of assigning number for a person who says they watch less than one time a month a .5 average shows per month and a 2 for someone who says less than once a week but more than once a month, a 6 for once or twice a week, and a 15 for 3 times a week or more. The higher one could potentially be much higher because if it includes people like me who listen to political on the radio while working that number is way more skewed. But for my argument it would only make it stronger. So with weighting these and multiplying through the percentages it comes out that radio has about 25%-30% more sessions from my weighting.

Thus it is my contention that the real media is the radio since it is used about 24% to 30% more for information/political listening.

Thus I contend the media is then with out a doubt conservative in light of this polling. I do not know of a single liberal that has had their own show on radio more than 1 hour on a nationwide basis that has been on the radio more than 3 years. Even now we can not say without a debate there is one liberal on the radio on a nationwide basis. With the RR right shows, the ultra right wing shows the moderate right shows that dominate the radio waves across the nation from Paul Harvey(bad example because not on hourly), Dr. Laura, Rush, G. Gordon Liddy, Mike Reagan, Ollie North, Allen Keys, religious right radio and on and on. I think I have a list of 40 or more to the right.

My questions to debate is does this polling show that radio is actually the main media source of the USA where people get their political/news information? And second is the political radio predominately or overwhelmingly to the right from your perspective? back up your position with data if possible.

Harris poll

I'm having trouble with your link, inventor. I did look up a few polls on this myself and could not find the numbers you have. I found a study from March that indicates young people get their news primarily from the internet. I also found a very recent study from CBS News that indicates people primarily get their news from television, not radio. This additional, more in-depth study from the Pew Research also shows that television is the primary news source for Americans.

does this polling show that radio is actually the main media source of the USA where people get their political/news information?
Not that I could see My brief research indicates television is (alas) the main source of news.

And second is the political radio predominately or overwhelmingly to the right from your perspective?

I have the idea you are blurring the line between pundit and reporter. The talking heads you mentioned (Rush, Dr. Laura, Hannity, etc.) are not news reporters. None of them ever claimed to be, as far as I know (and I listen to a ridiculous amount of talk radio). During these hosts' shows, on the hour and the half hour, they all break for what they actually call news. On most stations, this news is provided by a centralized source, oftentimes FoxNews, ABC News, or CBS News. During those short news breaks, there is usually very little time for bias to be inserted. If anything, the not-so-subtle plugs for related products (American Idol promos masked as news, etc.) indicates the only real bias - to make money off the news.

I wouldn't argue that the talking head/pundit shows are dominated by GOP-sympathetic people. This is why I recommend a weekly dose of America's Debate Radio.

And second is the political radio predominately or overwhelmingly to the right from your perspective?
Jaime already addressed the fact that no talk show pundit that I am aware of, left or right, proclaims themselves to be reporters or correspondents. They provide entertainment and perspective, and are quite open about their role in the media. If some choose to get their hard news from those sources, then shame on them.....

As to the political leanings of radio talk show hosts, most people could name Air America on the left, and Rush, Hannity and O'Rielly on the right. So to the casual unresearching observer, or those with a political axe to grind, the answer would of course be that it is predominately conservative. The nationally syndicated shows garner more attention, so the easy answer is easy to come by.
But just as there are many more conservative hosts that aren't as well known, the same is true of liberal hosts. Courtesy of liberalprogressivetalk, here is a listing of most talk show hosts who are considered liberal, by liberals:

Ray Taliaferro, "Air America Mornings: The Mark Riley Show", Tom Joyner, "The WWRL Morning Show" with Sam Greenfield and Armstrong Williams, "The Bill Press Show" with Bill Press and Christy Harvey, "Madison the Black Eagle" with Joe Madison, "Air America Mornings: The Rachel Maddow Show", "The Pro-Show" with Lee Rayburn, "American AM", Lizz Brown, "Democracy Now!" with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Jay Marvin, Dr. Mike Newcomb, Lynn Cullen, "Springer On the Radio" with Jerry Springer, Stephanie Miller, Stacy Taylor, Thom Hartmann on KPOJ 620 AM, Alex Bennett, "Keeping It Real" with Will Durst and Willie Brown, Neil Rogers, Al Franken, Thom Hartmann on Air America Syndication, Madison's Mid-Day Maverick, "Sly", Meria Heller, "Your Call" hosted by Mary Ambrose, Lynn Samuels, "Keeping It Real" with Rev. Al Sharpton, "Radio Inside Scoop" with Mark Levine, Michelangelo Signorile, Ron Reagan, Guy James, Ed Schultz, Randi Rhodes, "The Bruce Burch Radio Program", Duke Skorich, Christine Craft, Peter B. Collins, "The Young Turks" with Cenk Uygur, Ben Mankiewicz and Jill Pike, "Radio Inside Scoop" with Mark Levine, "ENID LIVE" with Enid Goldstein, "The Majority Report" with Sam Seder, "Head On Radio" with Bob Kincaid, "Counterpoint" with Scott Harris, "The Other Side" with Glenn Urbach and Staci "The Doctor" Davis, Mike Malloy, "The Lionel Show", Doug Basham, Alan Colmes, Mike Webb, Bernie Ward

The great thing about our media is that you can find the niche that you crave. Those who seek liberal political talk can and will easily find it, and the same goes for conservatives. I believe the radio talk medium leans to the right, but from because of national syndication than from lack of choice.

whilst I look for that link I hit another one. Harris poll #20 Feb 24 2006

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_po...dex.asp?PID=644

wow this one shows if you take talk radio and news radio together you beat the pants off network TV. 91 percent to 71 percent. In fact if you look at any category when they are put together they beat every category for several times a year to daily, with one tie..

Here is the one I used http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_po...dex.asp?PID=679 poll #52 june 39, 2006

It was talk shows on the radio vs political or public affairs shows on television.

Jamie read your links and what jumped out to me was in the people press in reality they show in one chard radio news a day 42 minutes and tv news 71. But they also show the majority of people in another section who watch TV news watch local to a higher degree. Which would support the findings of the Harris as I suggested it.

I also read your USAtoday and it also backs it up closely. From your link



Properly injected lead in to the AD radio show.

Dontreadonme sorry the link did not work, but as you can see hard news is in a respect considered to be given on these shows, I know because I listen to them and I think AAR does a great job of digging, for instance today they dug up that the British did not want to arrest these plotters that they wanted to continue their 1 year surveillance of them to see if it would lead to more intelligence. I did not see that in other media that I read or listen to, found it in a web search, not easy. BTW I listened to conservative radio talk for 20 years, was a big listener of Rush in his early years (never liked him but do like to hear the other side) but he became to full of himself and went to other rightys till AAR came on.

Your list of liberals on the radio. Yes I listen to the majority of them in a week. Again you failed my test, seems you did not name one that is on more than one hour nationally for 3 years did ya. AAR has not been on that long. So my challenge is for over three years more than one hour a day NATIONALLY. In fact many would argue there is NOT one liberal on Nationally wouldn't they. What rush 500+ stations, that is certainly nationally. I would accept half to a third of that to be nationally rated. Can you tell me how many radio stations are owned by religious entities?

not in the main media
U.S., U.K. At Odds Over Timing Of Arrests


I listened to two networks tonight to see if this was on, and no it was not I did listen to Fox news.

Well I guess I just reject the grounds of your test and what you are trying to prove. I don't share your view that your challenge results, as you see them, means that the predominance of radio media is right wing. To me, it doesn't matter if formats are nationally syndicated or aired in local, but major metropolitan areas. One simply doesn't have to look far or hard to find the political niche that they are looking to hear.

I don't have a single host or show that caters to every one of my issues or beliefs, but I can certainly find a mix of shows that will eventually encompass them. I have stated again and again in the threads that you keep starting on this subject, that most mainstream media is corporate owned, and as such is led by the almighty dollar as opposed to a political bent, though all seem to lean a bit one way or another. This corporate owned system is not the desired endstate, but neither do I think the alternative that you suggest are any better.

The state of the media has to pass a couple of tests for me to believe that it is essentially healthy.
1. Can essentially everyone find the political niche in the media that caters to them? Yes.
2. Can ordinary people express their views in the media via print, radio, TV and internet, without repercussion? Yes.
3. Can ordinary people use various mediums to create from scratch, movements that make a difference in politics? Yes.

I am left wondering what exactly is the point of your crusade on the media. You have started a fair number of threads concerning essentially the same question, are you somehow not able to find a media source to your liking?

Dontreadonme, My point about the crusade of the media is to dispel the the corporate propaganda method dispelled on Americans so they can wise up. It is my contention that the Nazi perfected corporate used method works; and that is why in general Americans are so clueless to what is going on because they believe the corporatist who lie that the media is somehow liberal. This must be dispelled. The lying of the right that it is a liberal media must be stopped. Is it a co-incidence that close to 50% of Americans think that saddam was involved in the 9-11 plot. If the media was liberal they certainly would not believe that. And we know this is uniquely an American opinion because there is no country on the face of the planet that their people believe that. The only responsible conclusion is our media is brainwashing its people to this conclusion. Same with WMD. From what I have seen ONLY Americans have a high percentage of people believe this lie also. How can this be? Again the corporate controlled media is the only plausible explanation of that large of a gap.

Now again as far as what makes money in the media do we want all enquirer types of media, again they make the most money. Ask the founder of the overtly righty media Australian Ruppert Murdoch, that is what has made him so much money and that is what he has brought to his TV news, not news but enquirer/ star reporting and TV. Ruppy started the Star when he came to the USA after making his money changing his fathers newspaper to an enquirer style and spreading his trash around the world and the USA. so trash makes money, here is another example of right wing trash that makes money on the radio. And this trash had big time sponsors. A bit dated but the point is still there.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2265



This kind of trash talk radio hate by the right was a influence with a hero of some of the right, Tim McVeigh. He was an avid talk show listener. Remember he would only allow FOX to interview him before he was put to death. He only trusted them. gee why? birds of a feather flock together possibly?

It wouldn't make money if it wasn't in demand.
You may not like it, but really that is not of any importance.
Start your own.
Fairness Doctrine--forcing people to broadcast your views? Sounds more in line with your earlier nazi comment.
Too many people mistake the right to free speech with forcing others to listen to them.

Dont like what you hear, start your own, or start financially supporting hosts you agree with.
Do you actively spend your money in the businesses that support AAR for example?
If the need or desire for more liberal radio was there those voices would easily get the financial support they need to continue.

If a message has enough truth to it people will listen--otherwise the only way a message gets out is by forcing others to listen to it.

Why does media for the left fail? Probably because no one is interested.
Do we really need a leftist version of what's on the radio now? The Liberal version of hate radio?

'christopher' Let me try to get this straight. Are you saying/inferring no matter what, no matter how bad it is, no matter if it is lies, if it makes money that is the deciding factor in this world to determine its worthiness and value to society?

here is another paragraph from the article I sited before.

So this sells and is somehow what our society is about? and this is good because it makes money....

Start my own that is a ridiculous proposition for the party of not the big money or the multi-billion dollar contracts that the money did not have to be accounted for, where billions have disappeared and that is Ok with the rightys. Just one republican lobbyist received about 100 million dollars. We can be assured there are many more that are under the radar receiving more. Look at Cheney with no corporate or oil experience he made 80 million for himself in a corporation 8 years ago. Seems we can not find a liberal lobbyist in the tens of millions but that will not even start a nationwide network. 100 million possibly. how much did trash journalist Ruppy spend to start his own? and that was a long time ago. Right now the consolidation was allowed, has made that even more impossible.

But the fact is that people from the right obvious are disingenuous in the fact that they say the media is liberal but then in the breath say well the market gets to determine it. Or start your own.

Now if you understand the law of money. the top percentile control the 90% of disposable/investment money. A great example is a family that made their money during the civil war just spent all their money on right wing propaganda means. That was the war profiteers the olin company, that war was a long time ago. We have a bunch more war profiteers in the rich now. That is why it is also redicilous for you to say just start a company. And as we know it is the ultra wealthy that their kids control or are on the majority of corporate boards by inheritance only. Do you think any of these companies are going to advertise on AAR? Have you ever heard the saying "you don't bite the hand that feeds ya"? do you understand how that works in advertising?. Here I will give you a great example, one of the oil companies told it's advertising firm that they were to make sure all media from print to broadcast knew that if that media ran a negative airing article on them that all advertising is to be removed. But they went farther, they said if any media ran a negative segment on the entire oil industry all advertising was to be removed and they would be blacklisted. That poor oil company someone published that letter. Do you understand that the corporations are at least 90% and my guess of the top 100 are 97% not liberals. So exactly where does that advertising come from. and they have their media bans in place. Do you understand this blacklisting?

And a good for instance there is no way in the world I would ever advertise on a rush type hate righty radio no matter what. Whereas in some slight cases a person on the right is like you seem to be eluding to they would sell their mother if the price is right. But I think the majority of them would be like me and no matter what they would not stoop to that level, but as we can see in the reference I made in the previous post they do advertise with racist hate radio and TV. Even look at what happened with Bill Maher a libertarian, his show was doing great in viewership and they would have kept watching him. But the network pulled him, claiming inferring there are only right wing advertisers. Whereas ABC kept this hate radio and has hate radio day in and day out.

See the other thing is you say support the backers that do advertise. Why would I support something I do not agree with advertising. For instance you will hear on AAR some commercials that are counter propaganda not advertising of their product.

The nazi way too back then was the corporate way of only allowing one way to think and blame the problems on certain groups for your problems, boy does that sound like our righty hate radio or what. Was that good for Germany?

Inventor, it is quite obvious that your overt bias prevents you from looking at this issue rationally. You're frequent references to 'hate radio' only proves that you buy into the liberal talking points; you have an obvious axe to grind, and as you are self professed as very liberal, it only makes sense that you would view most MSM as conservative, just as you rail against those that call it liberal. Does this not seem hypocritical to you, even when moderates and libertarians disagree with your assertions?
You're infatuation with 'rightys' and the media is odd to me, since as has been proven by many, you can find any media to your taste, and you can turn off what you despise. Pulling out the proverbial hate card only weakens your case in my opinion.

Inventor you don't like what you hear?
you are not confident you could start your own
Why should anyone
anyone at all be forced to carry your message?
IS that the hallmark of a free society?
Just because you have the right to free speech doesn't give you the right to force it on others.
Don't like the radio--turn it off or start your own.

If America is just dying to hear the Liberal side then they would be demanding outlets for it.


Yes.
Why?
Because people are paying for it--quite handily.
You have No right to interfere with their right to choose.
Again what justifies your right to force yourself on others?

bob grant--I've heard of him but never had to listen to him--and if he was on my radio i would change the channel.
As is my right to do--I am not forced to hear him or any of the other right wing hatemongers. Just like i no longer listen to AAR's leftwing hatemongers.

but then i dont need other people to tell me what or how to think about anything, and feel little sympathy for those that need to -- too many weak-minded people in the world as it is.

I'm not sure what is a big deal about "3 years" of a show being "national" but people don't listen to the radio nationally - they listen in their cars. Which are usually local, if you know what I mean. There has been liberal talk radio in every market in the country for years. It was usually just called "talk radio" though.

Anyway, responding to the 'inventor challenge,' here are a couple of the liberal shows that have been on nationally for more than 3 years:

Alan Colmes has been syndicated since 1990, and national for several years.
Tom Joyner was on in Chicago and Dallas in the 80's and has been national for at least 15 years. (It's not talk radio, so I never called this 'liberal' but it was on the list above, and it sure does have a liberal bent if you listen)
Also, there is a national public radio network that has been around for a while, whose hosts like Nina Totenberg are a teeny-weeny bit liberal in their views and reporting.

Here is an "almost 3 years" list:
Ed Schultz has had multi-market syndication regionally since 1992, and national for 2 1/2 years (ok, not 3 "the magic number" years, but whatever)
Stephanie Miller now has 2 full years of syndication under her belt. On the air since September 2004, and who can forget her on CNBC's Equal Time or even way back when on General Hospital?
Bill Press is now syndicated by the same people that do Ed Schultz, Jones Radio Networks. They are a much better radio company than Air America, and these shows may actually last.

Plus, Air America itself is now coming up on 3 years old, and they are in 80 or so markets, meaning they are pretty much national as far as population coverage. Their ratings stink, their business model is flawed, and they are basically going to operate as one big Democratic campaign ad for the rest of 2006, thanks to infusions of cash from liberal billionaires. With all that, they will still fail. You can't make people listen, you know. Losing WLIB in New York has got to be absolutely embarassing for them.

If you pay attention to talk radio, you remember names like Alan Dershowitz, Mario Cuomo, Bernie Ward, Jerry Brown and now Whoopi Goldberg. They failed and she will fail. Just being on the air isn't enough, you see? You have to have ratings. But don't worry, there will be more and more liberal shows in the future. If you ever worked in radio, you would know that ownership and upper-management are mostly liberal, and have no idea that the ideas matter. They will keep packaging slick liberal shows, spending 4 to 5 times as much money on writers and production, and the shows will mostly fail - again and again.

This, my friend, is an absolute classic:

The very story you linked as "not in the main media" was an NBC News report! Click here and you can see the video!
NBC News Investigative Report

So, 11 million NBC News viewers saw the initial report on their TV news. Then, since this was an original investigation, it went out on the news wires and hit the internet. Say what you like about the story, but you can't say that it was buried by the media, when NBC themselves wrote the story and reported it on national network television news!

Well, not in "every" market, Carlitos.

There are two so-called "local" talk stations where I live. One is mostly ESPN sports radio, when they aren't broadcasting the local community college and high school sports play by plays.

The other local talk is definitely conservative. Rush from 11-3. Hannity in the evenings. And the local hosts get to flog the conservative message during the AM and afternoon drive times.

The only other two talk stations I can get around here are WLS and WGN out of Chicago. Our local conservative talk station is basically a clone of WLS, same national programming at the same times. The only difference is the local drive time hosts.

And WGN? Not political at all, except for a 10 or 15 minute segment on the morning drive show, once a week. The rest of their programming is mostly for the old fogey's puttering around their gardens or garages in retirement. General talk about the odd news of the day, car repair, home improvement, gardening, "the Girlfriends lunch hour". Evenings and nights are mostly entertainment interviews with celebrities in town doing theater or concerts, or movie reviews, or whatever. All of this sandwiched around the Cubs, or the Bears, or Northwestern basketball and football, depending on the time of year.

The only way to listen to any of the "liberal" hosts mentioned by you or DTOM, is to find them on the internet.

So, no offense, but not every market carries liberal as well as conservative talk, local or otherwise.

I see not one fact was added in this post in my opinion since we are opinionating here. I think you do not understand the thread, This thread is not about the ability to turn a power switch on or off or about me and what you think of me or any liberal. This my friend is about the issue of are people getting more political information from radio than other sources for one, and isn't well known that the radio is overwhelmingly the right conservative and or religious on it.

Thus connecting/leading to the media lie by the conservatives who all lie and say the media is liberal, when they even basically own it lock stock and barrel the media. That the Hitler way of say a lie enough and people believe it is well and alive in the right owned media.. And my challenges have not been met to show the enormity of the disparity of the lack of liberals in this media, from ownership to basically a overwhelmingly dominant culture. We have a poster that gives us except with an "almost 3 years and almost now 80 stations" vs the 500 or so of Rush for 20 years. and the numerous others on the radio from the right and the religious right.

that alone is very telling if one is willing to be intellectually honest or has the willingness to try understand it.

carlitoswhey

I even love the reference that confirms my point, your cited reference that says:

needless to say this does not have the factual basis to say he has been on national for over 3 years. He could be, but again it does not factually state that. So lets say he is the only liberal that has been on the radio nationally lets say 3 years now. Geeeeeeeeeeee that ain't diddly.

Now since this was cited do we understand what this is saying. I say it supports exactly what I stated. In a country where the focus of most headline-responsive, caller-intensive, issues-driven talk radio is on the RIGHT side of the political spectrum does this imply or in anyway give you a sense that the radio talk is somehow liberal? yet we have some posting around here that seem to think that my liberal bias is clouding my perspective, I am laughing..................................... this is just too funny... this cited reference is showing it is not I that needs to reflect.

Are you saying Tom Joyner is a liberal political program? I was not clear. I have never heard him or heard of him. So are you saying he is a political show? Is this the best you can do, some almosts and one you are not sure of. And one that specifically states what I am saying?

Now for my citing of the NBC one needless to say that should have been played the day the entire game was outed. Playing it several days later and only by one network on something as important of an issue is what I am talking about. Yes I picked it up on the radio and it was in the UK print days before that. Seems the other story was told 100 times and more before this one came out. My example is liberal radio is now forcing the right owned media to sometimes tell the truth and at least give the other side now. This is why we need at least one opposing side to the right wing owned propaganda machine that is as powerful as anything the Socialist, Communists, and Nazis had to their benefit. Or we are we happy to be no better than their machine is/was.

You said

Can you support your claim of ownership being liberal specially the political talk radio formats. And can you also support upper-management of political talk format being liberal of talk radio formats.


'christopher'


First it is ridiculous or absurd that you ask me or the liberals who are the poor not in control of corporations like Exxon to be able to BUY media. That is the entire control method, once you have it you make sure others can not get what you have and you use all means possible to make sure you get your way. This is most true with the following generations, not the first king but the ones that are given the kingdoms, the ones who just want huge handouts.

Now as far as no matter how bad they lie, wow, I thought all the rightys wanted Dan Rather fired or libertarian Bill Maher because they alleged he lied or said something politically incorrect? Oh I see it depends who is doing the lying, if Rush , Hanity, Ollie, Paul Harvey, Liddy, Mike Wieiner Savage, Glen Beck, McLaufkin, Dr.Laura, Jc Watts, Mike Reagan, Jack Kafferty, Paula Zahn, Lou Dobbs, Larry King, Rev Gram, Rev Bobertson, Rev Baker, Bob Jones, Bill Krystal, Letterman, Dennis Miller, Bill Bennent, Glen Beck, Laura Ingram, Michael Medved, John Batchelor, Mark Livene, Brian Williams, John Mathews, Amstrong Williams, Neil Boortz, Lou Rukeyser, Mike Galiger, Bret Hume, Alan Keys, Joe scarboro, Bob Dornon, Bob Novak, Tucker Carlson,Ann Coulter, Marilin Madilan, Greg Jarett, George Will, Bay or Pat Buchanaon, Bill Schnieder, Stecve Forbes, William Buckley, or more from the very partisan right ever gave out partisan information that was incorrect they would be asked to leave?

Speaking of intellectual honesty......one of the reasons why people are not exactly jumping on your bandwagon is that your 'challenges' are just that....yours. Not a challenge by a non-partisan group, not a challenge by a respected group of academics or public figures, but a challenge from Inventor. A challenge with parameters designed and constructed to support a pre-conceived notion. The majority of your postings and the very nature of your 'challenge' are opinion.
Your assertion in the opening post is that radio constitutes the major source of media, and that since there are more conservative talk radio shows than liberal, the media is conservative. Some of us respectfully disagree with that assertion, and since you attempted to prove that with your own calculations, we haven't witnessed the evidence that would prove your case. That assertion disregards print, television and internet news sources. Surely you would scoff at an assertion by a conservative that the media was liberal based solely on prime time evening news?
Interjecting attacks such as calling Rush a jerk and conservative radio=hate radio....not to mention the tiresome Hitler references, only spotlight the emotional investment you have in this debate. Bravo for being passionate about what you believe in, but you can't expect everyone to take your side at your insistence. Judging by the responses in the media threads that you start, it doesn't appear that an overwhelming number that agree with you.

Yes, indeed, lets try to be intellectually honest here. For the simple fact is that in our economy it is simply not possible for the situation you posit to exist. There would be too much unmet demand for other outlets for it to be missing for long. What do you think created the very programs you cite? Unmet demand for conservative viewpoints. Rush would never have gained the popularity he did were the existing media at the time not meeting the viewpoint of a very large market. I will grant that radio is often full of right-leaning political programs. Yet the country is split fairly equally between conservatives and liberals. So, unless you're willing to state that liberals are somehow incapable of creating, promoting, or demanding media outlets that fit their market, the only other conclusion is that this market must currently be met. Where? If radio is right-biased, then it must be through the other media. It is widely known that most print media is left leaning, and the creation and popularity of Fox News is pretty conclusive proof that the rest of the TV media was left leaning. Also, this is fairly conclusive proof that people don't get their news primarily from radio, otherwise there would be far more demand for liberal radio shows.

The evidence is all right there, if you have the willingness to try to understand it.

Again if you dont have the confidence to start your own find someone who does. as for its too expensive--garbage.
with today's technology there are new ways to get out there.
Try and be creative/original.



Liberals seem to own all the other media--movies,tv.

Isn't that what your "right" counterparts complaint about when they say the media is leftist and why they went radio?
The whole "Hollyweird Cultural Conspiracy" the ying to your yang
the only right news channel I see is FOX.
CNN ABC NBC CBS PBS are all to the left (MSNBC just sucks)--and i am a centrist.

Hobbes is right in that this country is almost an even split between left/right
if you use the 2 party terminology. My personal experience is people on the Left rarely get their Intel/Info from radio at all.

probably why the market is so horrible for it.No corpratists conspiracy--just no liberals are listening to the radio for that style of media.

do you know what you are talking about? I have started business and sold technologies for over a million dollars I have been in the trenches doing those things and you just do not know how difficult start ups are. That is why Microsoft generally buys companies with technologies vs starts them up. They did that once and know how hard it is. In general it is cheaper and wiser to buy an existing entity that to go start it up on your own. Take a few business courses and you will learn that one. I have the business cources plus the school of hard knocks doing it.


what are you talking about? prove they own movies and TV. If you are saying actors are liberals yes, they do as they are told they act out a part. they are employees and pick what parts they will do and refuse to take parts they do not want to do and do not get hired for parts they may want to do. Even the movie theatres are owned by rightys Baker, (Carlyle group)didn't that Saudi one/bush family/ by was it Lowe's right when the 9-11 movie came out they purchased it.

I have seen nothing centrist from you in regard to media. and as far as you seem to be missing my point and Einsteins point completely, the righty's say that all the time does not make it true does it. They say the liberal media and they are just making propaganda that can not be supported. NBC is owned by a defense contractor for a reason, CBS was owned by A defense contractor who changed their name from westinghouse to CBS same people corporatists. PBS has one show that is liberal political and buried at night. Yep to a far right person Nova about string theory is liberal because people on the right do not belive in science, I will give you that. Barney is not a political show, and is now run by a political partisan from the right.. CNN is a corporate show and has a buch of overtly partisan rightys on it from Kafferty to use to have Paula Zahn, darin Kagan, Lou dobbs, larry king (not as overt), and ABC as I have shown on the other thread not only blasts righty wing talk radio all over which no liberal would ever do if they controlled it, but just this giving the advance to all partisan rightys and not the former president himself is despicable.

the voting people may be almost evenly split I would agree with. Corporate conspiracy, ohhhh sneaking in some low blows here. This is just human nature that Einstein is talking about, the human need to keep what they have and make more. IE corporate handouts for the future generations of kids who want even more government handouts because mommys and daddys money is not enough of a handout.


Again try to understand this point. If the media was owned by a liberal I guarantee you we would have heard about monica one week and case closed. Liberals have principles and will not sell their mother out like a murdoch who got his start converting daddys quality newspaper business into a national enquirer rag. Murdoch brought and made a star type of paper first thing he did in the USA. Whereas you say the money is the most important, a liberal has a complete and fundamental disagreement with you and would not have done the monica thing 8 years. That is an easy concept to understand. I even remember in a finance class picking up a test I got an A in and one that was marked wrong by a grader showing to my professor. The question was what is the financial managers responsibility. I wrote down to look at society and see that the endeavor is good not only long term but short time for society. The grader marked me wrong for that, but in small paranthesis I had wrote "to optimise shareholder wealth" which I said is the wrong way. My Prof did give me the credit and it ensued a debate between me and him and a few other professors heard it and came to join the debate. Still got an A in that easy course of finance, as my prof said I was doing way above graduate level work in his class that his grad students could not do. I was solving business model matrix's with linear equations. But of course I can do math I am an Engineer. Again the corporatist textbook answer is what is taught as Einstein also said about education.

HOBBES since you also wanted to be intellectually honest here, I found you were about conceding to the radio is overwhelming conservative, which you have to admit some here can not even see that. And yet you did not try to correct them is telling, or what I would consider the anti-intellectually honest.

Now you again make a statement not backed up in fact that print is somehow liberal. Please elaborate I do not accept you propaganda as fact. Either did Einstein. Lets see the two largest print medias in the USA are what oh conservative. Wall street Journal and USA today. USA today is owned by what a defense contractor related company(gannett) What a co-incidence. And we have what the next larges somewhere in that mix being readers digest. And what USAtoday is about the largest the largest owner of print in the USA and Ruppy's right wing fox is right up there. Where do you get your info from??????? OK there are 3-5 large papers in the USA that liberals seem to own, but even they have to suck up to right wing corporations for advertising. As Einstein said corporatist control. Look In is it pittsburg you have Richard Mellon Scaife who inherited his money who funded all the Paula Jones stuff and paid several million dollars for writers to talk trash on Clinton, he owns a pittsburg paper, in Vegas you have the stevens group a righty interest owning that paper and more, (he was one of the finders of the lobby to decrease the inheritance tax), you have Conrad Black a ultra righty who till Murdoch owned more media in the world than anyone, he literally bought papers and fired the liberal writers even for the opinion pages right away, You have Rev Mooney a righty with the paper in Washington.


Here is the board of directors of two iof the so called liberal press. looks like corporatists and defense contractor to me.
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissecto...falert400.shtml
• New York Times: Carlyle Group, Eli Lilly, Ford, Johnson and Johnson, Hallmark, Lehman Brothers, Staples, Pepsi
• Washington Post: Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, Dun & Bradstreet, Gillette, G.E. Investments, J.P. Morgan, Moody's


You have a ton of media that will not allow MoveOn who has the money to have their ad put on in many forms of media.

Before you started making calculations based on the Harris poll, you might have read it more closely.


The poll you cited only relates to political or 'public affairs' programming. Not news.

You started here:
From this poll it appears more people get or tune into radio for their political information than TV

By the time you wrote the debate question, you were here:
radio is actually the main media source of the USA where people get their political/news information

Then you mis-read another Harris poll and (mistakenly) added people who said that they "Listen to radio news broadcasts" in with talk radio listeners. I'm sure that you realize even country music or oldies stations have "news broadcasts" and that no one would consider news radio right-wing or conservative. Anyway, you said:
wow this one shows if you take talk radio and news radio together you beat the pants off network TV. 91 percent to 71 percent.

Your premise is entirely flawed. Your calculations are moot.

If you would care to look at the radio ratings by format, you would see that News/Talk/Information radio only has a 17% share of listeners. Of that 17%, 3% is sports talk and 3% is "all news," which is NOT conservative talk radio. ("All News" has things like "traffic on the 8's, weather every 15 minutes," that sort of thing) So, even if the rightys have a big monopoly on talk radio, to the point where 37% of people looking for political info listen to a talk show at least once a week (as your poll states), there are still 89% of radios tuned into music or some other format. You also list "the religious right radio" which is a new one on me. Anyway, a whopping 3% of people are listening to religious radio, most of which is music. I trust that listening to gospel or Christian pop music does not brainwash anyone into to voting Republican?


Translation - Blah blah blah blah hitler righty blah blah corporatist blah blah Rush Hannity blah blah (insert David Brock talking point here) blah blah blah.

To be intellectually honest, you could start by admitting that you have no idea where most people get their news, because you haven't researched it properly. You could also point to evidence that the "culture" in radio is "overwhelmingly conservative" -- a risible concept for anyone that knows the radio business.
Speaking of which:



Well, as I intimated, I was speaking from personal experience. I could link you to the radio equalizer blog. Brian Maloney writes for Inside Radio magazine, has worked in radio for years, and he has frequent anecdotes about the liberal 'suits' working in radio.

opensecrets.org doesn't break out radio from TV, so I can't get aggregate contributions. Individual donations don't really tell a tale, as they aren't comprehensive enough to draw a picture. The big-time suits at Clear Channel are all Republicans, but the ones at Shamrock radio, for example, are all Democrats. Disney, who own things like Hannity, are more liberal.


You are the one saying that people get their political info from radio. I'm just letting you know that 8 million people a week listen to Tom Joyner (more than most conservative talk shows), and that he talks liberal politics daily. He also plays music. From this article,




You titled a link to an NBC News article "not in the main media" and you lecture us about being "intellectually honest." And now we are no better than Communists and Nazis. Wait, look - the FBI is at my door to execute me and drag my wife off to 'righty re-education camp!' Please don't insult our intelligence with these fantasies.

Not to mention, do you plan to source the following assertions?












Well good for you for taking 'business cources' and starting a business. How very condescending of you to tell us that it's "difficult." Most things in life are difficult. As you noted, Microsoft was a start up. AOL was a start up and they ended up owning Time-Warner. Spare us the rhetoric that you can't start a media company in the electronic age. I'll be thinking of how hard and impossible media startups are the next time I get my news and entertainment from youtube, the drudge report, napster, C-SPAN, gawker.com, the Huffington Post, Salon magazine, XM radio, Yahoo, myspace, dailyKos.com, moveon.org, powerlineblog.com, freerepublic, Google...

NiteGuy - good points on "not every market." My bad. Of course, this isn't only true of talk radio; we could have the same discussion about jazz or blues or sports talk, etc. Can you believe that there is no full-time FM jazz radio station in Chicago! The good news is that we do have the internet, HD Radio is coming, and satellite is pretty sweet if you get it.

First of all, what company in its right mind would give up the opportunity to advertise to the market that the New York Times offers, just because it doesn't like the NYT's slant on the news? Secondly, you're assuming that corporatist and conservative are synonyms. But "despite" all this corporate control, government has been getting bigger and more intrusive by the decade. Has it occured to you that big corporations might prefer it that way? After all, it can certainly make life more difficult for their smaller competitors, as well as giving themselves greater opportunity to feed at the government trough.

I will adress many of the above later.

I do not want to be putting words in your mouth but again we have a second one that agrees no question the radio is heavily slanted overwhelmingly that is is conservative right and or religious when it comes to talk. Isn't amazing how there are so many on the right that disagree with this very obvious truism. Yet I see you are intellectually honest about it and so was another but it took such discussions to get just to this point. Seems like I am pulling teeth just to get to this point. And if I just have you two agreeing to that in my book this was worth it.

I can take it the same way... It was actually very condescending of the poster to say it is so easy... in your eyes everyone can start a microsoft, youtube. But a good stats person will know what the odds/stats are. And a great example of how hard it is is AAR is trying. Seems some guys seem to argue right into your own arguments. Even your billionaire Ruppy was 3 years in the red but he made enough money from the star/enquirer type trash to float him. Though rev Moon (you remember him right, he had his band of moonies at airports pan handling to get his money/moonie start, well it is believed he has never turned a profit. Yep that is innovative both of them trash and more trash. As I said a righty would sell his mother as the ends justifies the means, and I believe both of these did just that. Whereas I said I was willing to take a hit on a finance test because I believe the corporatist way of maximize shareholder wealth means looking at long term like making sure there are people who can buy your product 20 years from now, 50 years from now. Not the Enron theory of how we can rip off your grandmother today and tomorrow. I know things are difficult I remember out president saying it is a hard job, yet he inherited virtually all his jobs because of daddy. Including president. it is a hard job. In fact he even told his college professor he gets special favors because of daddy. Obviously he overstated the fact how else could he get into a college when a Texas University even turned him down.

So what was your position in radio since you are an insider and you brought it up. Seems they had one from your side, shame on that liberal media. As far a baloney Mahony, gee another conservative, when are we going to find a liberal in the media. he is not a person I consider anything listening to, after all you may have more insider experience than him, his continual basing AAR. It is too funny here he is calling himself the equalizer like he is some kind of VICTEM in the sea of right wing radio bashing AAR the real one legged equalizer.

And again a little common sense would tell us if the radio was owned by liberals AAR would be in every market. Just as I claim if the other media was owned by liberals or controlled by liberals it would have been one week of Monica just like it was one week for Bush1 when the media found information that Bush1 had been having an affair while he was in the White House. and the fact that the rightys in the media all over make such a big deal about this one group of liberals is unjustified and if you become intellectually honest again and really think about it shows what happens to liberals if they do get their point of view out. This is the only overtly partisan liberal group that I know of in the media getting a liberal slant out. You do not hear their types of positions like mine in the media but you certainly hear the Rush crap all over the media. And the right is out to kill them(AAR) at any cost. seems they like the 20 years of monopoly. and can dish it but can not take it.

And again I phrased it corrected, news/information. you just do not like my wording fine. I caught the blurred issue so phrased it correctly whether you like it or not.

Now I went to your Arbitron cited source. I changed the parameters it a bit, I looked at instead of your 13 year old up age group(kids in diapers do not vote), to adults 18 year old and up. Then I went from 6 am to midnight covering the entire day. I was impressed to see that Newstalk is the number one rated format ON ALL RADIO NATIONWIDE. Once again thank you for a great source to prove my point....................... I could hug ya for that resource... for your argument what percent of TV is news vs entertainment. Your bigy score you were hopping up and down about was 89% of the time were listening to other. If we remove weather and sports what percent of the TV time is entertainment my estimate is 2 hours total a day for news out of 24 so that is about 92 percent of TV which is higher than your 89% for radio. Or from your number 11% vs TV 8% there is close to 27% more news/political talk time available on the radio. again I just used your radio number, I would have added in some of the religious stations and the news only to the number I found. But for simplicity 27% since I was just estimating 2 hours of news on TV which I believe could be off either way.

you asked... quickfind ID AAQ60G
http://davidlibby1.typepad.com/liblog/2005/05/index.html

now that is hardball

100 million righty lobbyist.
http://www.alternet.org/story/32750/



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff

Abramoff and his law firm were paid at least $6.7 million by the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands from 1995 to 2001,
...
With the move to Greenberg Traurig Abramoff took as much as $6 million dollars worth of client "work" from his old firm, including the Marianas Islands account.
....

Executives of Naftasib, a Russian energy company, funneled almost $3.4 million to Abramoff and DeLay advisor Ed Buckham between 1997 and 2005. About $60,000 was spent on a trip to Russia in 1997 for Tom DeLay, Buckham, and Abramoff. $1 million in 1998 was sent to Buckham via his organization U.S. Family Network to "influence DeLay's vote in 1998 on legislation that helped make it possible for the IMF to bail out the faltering Russian economy." DeLay voted for the legislation.
....

According to an article published in the New York Times on November 10, 2005, Abramoff asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of the African nation of Gabon, Omar Bongo to arrange a meeting with President Bush and directed his fees to an Abramoff-controlled lobbying firm, GrassRoots Interactive.[32] Bongo did meet with President Bush in the Oval Office on May 26, 2004.[32] There has been no evidence in the public record that Abramoff had any role in organizing the meeting or that he received any money or had a signed contract with Gabon.[32]
,,,
According to former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Abramoff was paid $1.2 million to arrange a meeting between Mahathir and president George W. Bush, allegedly at the direction of the Heritage Foundation. Mahathir insisted that someone unknown to him had paid for the meeting.[34]
...

there is also eLottery, Tyco (we know where that company ended up)Tyco Inc. claimed in August 2005 that Abramoff had been paid $1.7 million for an 'astroturf campaign' to create a 'grassroots' campaign to oppose proposals to penalize US corporations registered abroad for tax reasons. The work allegedly was never performed, and most of the fee Tyco paid Abramoff to lobby against the legislation was "diverted to entities controlled by Mr. Abramoff", government of Malaysia, Gov of Sudan, Channel one news,

So, conservative talk radio is popular and available nationwide. As someone noted earlier, it filled an unmet need, or it wouldn't exist. People felt that they weren't seeing that information anywhere else. So what?


You do realize that introducing this type of rambling off-topic rant into a factual debate hurts your argument, right?

By the way, another liberal radio startup is coming from a bunch of feminists like Billie Jean King, Gloria Steinem, Rosie o'Donnel, etc. link. I'm sure it will be hard work bashing men 24/7, but I doubt that they will get any ratings either. At least these gals can blame both "men" and the "righty conspiracy" when they fail. Nice. As they say in radio, a two-fer.
Respectfully, ad hominem attacks on my source aren't really helpful. There are dozens of radio publications that would give you information on the business, but it appears that anything which challenges your preconceived view, you will dismiss or call names. So what would be the point? As for my experience, I will not share that on this board, but I have worked closely with programming, sales and marketing of radio stations in major metro markets. The one thing you are right about is that they are in business to make money. Currently, many are making money off the popularity of right-wing talk. In 15 years, they might be making money off left wing talk. The suits really don't care.

As for the political leanings, just think about this - middle-to-upper management in radio makes the sales and programming decisions. You seem to imagine a bunch of right-wing owners and managers, but you are just wrong. Radio is about as bohemian or different as a rock band (remember WKRP in Cincinnati?). It's not made up of traditional, corporate-america people, although this is changing. So, people with college degrees and who are a little more anti-establishment went into radio for the chicks and the music and the perqs and many of them are now in management. In big radio markets like NYC, Chicago, LA, DC, Detroit, what do you think the politics of an anti-establishment college grad are? Hint, they did not vote for Bush. Heck, almost no one in these cities in total voted for him. These are very liberal places.

Clear Channel Communications, one of the most conservatively-run companies in America, single-handedly saved Air America this year by giving them signals in major metros. The politics of who owns the stations makes no difference at all.
link



Just asking - if the right was "out to kill" AAR, you could perhaps offer some evidence? Especially since companies like Clear Channel are actually saving the network?


I posted radio ratings, and you are saying how many hours of news are on TV. Those are two different things. Ratings = people listening. Why don't you just look up the TV ratings and compare those?


Hardball? The article says that they will pull ads from any edition. This doesn't even affect their ad spend in most cases.

Let me explain. BP does an ad buy for a year with Time Magazine. Let's say that they buy 20 insertions to run a full-page ad throughout the year. Time has 52 editions, one per week. If a BP ad is slated to run in the June 3 issue, and Time runs "Oil Companies are killing your children" on the cover for June 3, BP wants its ad pulled. It makes total sense. They can then run their ad on June 10 instead. Or (God forbid) not at all, and get a whopping 5% refund for the year. But given that advertising buyers have budgets that they plan for a full year, they don't want the money back, they want to run the ad. That's why they bought it in the first place!

Almost all companies do this. I've done this myself in the past. When I did it, we just ran the ad in the next publication. It didn't cost the magazine anything, and my ad spending was the same. Again, you are writing about businesses that you do not understand here. There is not always a sinister motive for everything. More examples - a beer company doesn't want their ad on a page opposite a story about drunk driving. Viagra doesn't want their ad by a rape story. So, they move it to another part of the magazine, or cancel / postpone the ad. It's pretty standard stuff.

Whatever this has to do with right-wing radio, I'm not sure.

PS - you don't like my sources, but you link to "alternet.org" - nice.

filled an unmet need well heroine does that to, so did KKK lynchings. And the reason I went to the extrema A person who is still supported to today by some in the right was a huge right wing hate radio fan, his name is militia member Tim McVeigh. and we know raido/Tv gues Ann coulter has supported tim McVeigh in the past. You do remember G. Gordon Liddy telling his listeners to aim in the faces of ATF agents if they are coming your way.

You were the one that opened the door to what you consider off-topic, you were the one that said I was condescending and I properly pointed out he was condescending by your definition which one could then conclude makes your present post off-topic then.

How many stations are these girls going to be on? I am all for them getting their views out.

As far as your position on the radio you were the one who brought it into the debate as a authoritative source. Thus it is open game for me to see if it is actually relevant to the discussion as you were implying it was. Which you did not show it was relative. For all I know you could have been the engineer there or salesperson. But one thing is clear you did not satisfy anything to show you are somehow in the know of NewsTalk or news stations. For all I know you were in Rock stations which is NOT the experience OR relevant to didly. Just as your next argument of the radio stations having liberals as middle managers. I could care less if a country radio station or AC/DC station has a liberal at the helm. For those of you who say they are in the industry that does not have didly to do with NEWS talk or News. In general placing so and sos song above so and sos if not political control.......... well the exception is dropping the dixie chicks and promoting Toby. But these are not the topic of the debate.

As far as Clear Channel goes you have not grasped my axiom of a righty will sell their mother to make money. Again that is how right rev Moonie did it and so did Ruppy with his trash enquirer types of papers. Again the righty creed is the ends justify the means. Face it liberals have different morals and standards and this is one of them, we will not do a Enron and laugh as like the rightys did that their grandmothers rates are so high. even on this board the rightys are only for what ever the market says makes money and I am arguing their is a balance and trade off. After all americans as far as the world goes are not known by others as being very knowledgeable of the world and they are not.

As far as AAR and how the rightys are trying to kill it start a threat I will be there. One method is not telling people the guy who apparently was responsible for stealing the money is a republican. If your rightys would ever tell the entire story or truth...

I also posted radio rating having to do with this subject of this thread and showed your 89 percent was actual higher than the other subject of this thread showing radio has a higher percentage of news/talk than TV media. If you find my 2 hours of news estimate that far off give me the details. You were the one who made a big thing of the majority of radio was entertainment and I pointed out to you same with TV. That is what we are talking about radio vs TV.

Your BP analysis is off, if you are a business person and want the big bucks then you do not criticize them.

And the last one is again you asked me to back up a righty lobbyist and 100 million dollars. If you do not want me to back it up do not ask.

No actually, I don't remember any of those things. And you rarely post sources, so it is difficult to keep up. Please cite a couple of news articles that Ann Coulter "supported" Timothy McVeigh, other than making an obviously satirical comment about the New York Times. Wait, don't bother, you see Ann Coulter is not a national radio personality on for one hour per day for at least three years. Hey, neither are G Gordon Liddy or Timothy McVeigh!

Your attempt to tie Timothy McVeigh to 'right wing radio' is ridiculous. "right wing radio" filled an unmet need, just like lynchings and heroin! Very nice. You know, Hitler was a vegetarian and he killed millions of Jews. Vegetarians hate Jews! Hitler listened to Wagner and killed homosexuals. Wagner fans are homophobic! No one here takes this type of argument seriously.


You have created a world where "news/talk" stations have a completely different culture, personnel, management and ownership from music stations. That world is not reality. Take a look at Disney/ABC, CBS/Viacom or Clear Channel and you will see that all of their radio station formats are under one corporate umbrella, and many news/talk stations share general management with a music station. Their sales staff sell ads for 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 formats, as a package deal. You buy your Rush Limbaugh commercials for "news/talk" WLS AM from the same guy who sells you "oldies radio" ads for FM 94.7. Newsradio 780 has the same General Manager as B-96 'hot hits.' But hey, what do I know - I'm probably just some studio engineer making this up. Of course, even a lowly unpaid intern at a radio station would know this, because that's how radio works!

Not telling people something will kill a radio network? Those shrewd rightys should be able to do better than that, if indeed they want to "kill" AAR.


It is not my job to give you the details. You don't understand the difference between ratings and how many hours there are in a day. Why not just count the number of stations, or add up the letters in their names, or some other irrelevant math.

And you know this how exactly? Because alternet told you so, or do you really understand how pulling one ad from one edition of a magazine works? Try re-reading my post. The worst retaliation I have ever seen in advertising was canceling one year of ads in a magazine, and that was due to competitive action, not to 'content' of the magazine.


You conflate so many things without sources, it's hard to see what they have to do with people getting news from talk radio - Timothy McVeigh, Ann Coulter, Larry King, BP / Amoco, Jack Abramoff, Reverend Moon, the Carlysle group...they just don't back up your thesis, other than serving as liberal bogeymen.

I've noticed you've not addressed my inquiry regarding your differentiation between pundits and reporters. Your first question to this debate was about news and the second about political information. Those two matters are quite separate and distinct and I still can't get past the idea that you are muddling the two together. Or perhaps, more specifically, you feel most people are unable to make this distinction for themselves and that somehow leads to right leaning radio. This seems like a non sequitor, but I may have understood you.

As I said before, when it comes to radio pundit shows, my experience tells me there are more right-leaning ones, at least on AM radio. But this doesn't seem to bother me as much as it does you. I realize this is their 'turf.' Just as the internet is far, far more liberal - in essense, more of a leftist turf. I know that's sort of simplistic, but I guess I'm trying to figure out why this has you so worked up.



As one debater to another, ad hominem attacks are impossible to debate in a civil, constructive way. It's unfair to make others feel as if they have to speak for an entire group of people in order to oppose your views, when truly, we all can only speak for ourselves.

Here ya go lots for you to read, here is Ann C. follow-up statement that you probably never heard, here are lots of conservatives who Support/idolize McVeigh. and the connections to right wing hate radio. President Clinton even discussed this. also a few statements like Liddys backed up and a few more by hating rightys.

Now to support these I will give you a personal experience of mine directly with a righty hate radio supporter. Actual two, I have had a righty bring out a handgun in an attempt to intimidate me over my statements of the righty KKK and the media being owned by rightys. I was talking about politics with my roommate and he heard and entered the discussion without being invited. . and a second I opened a new warehouse for my company and my neighbor invited me to a BBQ and I went. He had a ton of democrat congressional signs up all over it, so I just thought he supported a dem in this very conservative district. I went to get a bite to eat and the guy cooking began with talk about Rush and I do not get into political converstaions with people I do not know. (Learned my lesson with the guy who brought out his gun and stated "accidents happen when people clean their guns") but there is a limit, the cook began bragging about stealing all those signs and how Rush would be proud of him. That he did get caught but because he was caught in the conservative part of the district they let him off. I told him he has no right to do what he did. and we began arguing and as usual small minds need weapons to win. He grabbed the knife from the table and began swinging it around. I basically told him to put it down. I am not a weak person, captain of a undefeated football team, captain of a undefeated conference wrestling team, basically straight A student, as well as president and first board of a team that I was on that was in the top ten state midwest regional chess team. By the way Speaker of the house only two years of losses were when I was a junior and senior. We demolished him also, but even though we demolished him in conference that was the year he won state. Yes I placed and tied and beat people that won at state levels during my career. So not weak here mentally or physically. So righty need weapons for their ineptness. The prob