More AAR Paranoia
fred flintstone said:
An Op-Ed piece originally published in the Washington Times and now being re-posted on various Internet sites and blogs says "yes."
Sh*t Ethel, pick me up off the floor... I can't hardly believe it!
You mean the right wing press is going to attack Air America? Wow.
When is a campaign donation not a campaign donation? Apparently if you spend the money to run a radio program instead of paying for campaign ads that run on that same program. Just look at Air America. With $41 million in losses since 2004, and $9.8 million owed just to Robert Glaser, RealNetworks chairman, Democrats who bankrolled this "company" weren't so much investors as campaign contributors. The losses are seen as simple business ineptitude,but Air America effectively, and perhaps intentionally, cleverly avoided the campaign finance limits which Democrats had worked so hard to pass.
An Unequalizer-like House of Logic Cards waiting to fall. Let's just look at the premise list:
1) An investment in AAR is a campaign donation.
2) Radio programs are just hidden extended length political commercials.
3) Only Democrats bankrolled this "company" when they were really secret campaign contributors.
4) AAR management cleverly designed the company (which went into Chapter 11) as a way to wash campaign money.
Oooh... I can't wait to quote the evidence back up these assertions. And here it is:
Uh oh. No evidence? When has that ever stopped these people before?
Air America merely follows a grand tradition of circumvention by the very people who have supported campaign-finance regulation. ...
The big innovation for Air America was using the bankruptcy laws to turn non-Democrats into involuntary campaign donors. Not only are Democratic "investors" out in the cold, but landlords, limo services, law firms, stations that sold Air America air time and state governments are owed money....
The first part assumes that the Times actually proved their case, which they most certainly have not. I could call the Washington Times a secret front for the Nazi movement in America, slowly infiltrating its way into America to pave the way for the return of the teeny tiny moustache, concentration camps, and a desire to re-liberate Poland. Do I need any evidence? Not using the standards at the Washington Times. Just believe and trust us! We're the same ones that said there were definitely WMD in Iraq.
The second part conveniently confuses a chapter 7 liquidation with a chapter 11 reorganization. While creditors cannot pursue their money in court or collections at this time, no court has liquidated the debt at this time. It's still owing and payable at a time when a repayment plan is approved by the court.
Of course, our neighbor's cat knew that, but it escapes the Times. I wonder why.
Oh please... the handwringing. The faux concern. The bad acting.
Both AAR and Nova M have stated that their primary corporate purposes are to influence the electoral process.
Show us. Where in their corporate papers does it say this?
Of course, on the right wing side of talk radio, it's an even better deal. Corporations can make "campaign contributions" to underwrite Rush, Hannity and the rest to deliver the Republican message, and they get to run ads to promote their business while they promote the GOP party line. And it's all deductible.
This halfhearted "bipartisan" comment tossed in like croutons on this Salad of Shame does nothing. This was an utterly pointless Unequalizer-like commentary on the part of the Washington Times, no friend of anything to the left of Arlen Specter, with absolutely no evidence. Instead this half-baked commentary was nothing more than layer upon layer of thin phyllo dough which, upon even the slightest reflection, crumbles in one's hands.
The Washington Times can next write how I am secretly being financed by the TV Food Network because I alluded to food items at least twice in one post.
