Air America Hosts: Farrakhan Not Wrong on Levees

NewsMax.com ^ | Sept. 16, 2005 | Carl Limbacher

[Carl/NewsMax]

Two hosts at the liberal radio network Air America are defending Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan - saying he's not wrong to suspect that white people deliberately blew up the levees in New Orleans.

"You cannot blame people for coming up with conspiracy theories," Air America host Chuck D. said, after he was asked Thursday about the paranoid pronouncement by MSNBC's Tucker Carlson.

"They look on television and see that the government is four days late in saving people [who are] supposed to be their citizens," Chuck D. explained.

Carlson gave him a second chance to denounce Farrakhan's lunatic declaration, saying, "You're a smart guy. You know that white people didn't blow up the levees to kill black people. You've gotta know that didn't happen."

But the Air America host refused to budge, insisting instead that there was a chance Farrakhan could be right.

"I can't say unless I know for sure what's the actual facts and what's actually false," the rapper-turned-talk host said.

Carlson tried a third time, telling Chuck D.: "Look, I can say for certain that it was not a white conspiracy. White people did not blow up the levee to kill black people."

Still, the radio lefty wouldn't denounce Farrakhan's poisonous rant, saying only, "I don't think it's a person at fault but I think the system needs revamping."

After failing to persuade Chuck D., the MSNBC host turned to panelist Rachel Maddow, who also hosts a show on Air America.

Asked if she believed that white people deliberately destroyed the levees, Maddow declined to render a personal judgment - and instead defended the sentiment behind the toxic hypothesis.

"Conspiracy theories don't necessarily help but you have to understand where they come from," she told Carlson. "They come from people feeling like this disaster had a real racial component. I mean, it was a majority-black city that was absolutely abandoned by the country."

On Monday, Farrakhan uncorked his ugly theory, telling a North Carolina audience: "I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25 foot deep crater under the levee breach. It may have been blown up to destroy the black part of town and keep the white part dry."

[cyborg]

LOL!!!!

[SergeantsLady]

Excellent point...also, it seems rather silly for the "Government" to have blown up a levee to flood those poor sections of New Orleans (...amazing that houses with 4 floors and huge sky windows are considered poor...but I digress). Anyway, the "Government" floods these houses so that for the next few days the Coast Guard & Army,Navy,Marine,Air Force helicopters (and bass boats of private citizens via Fish & Wildlife) can be used as mass transit instead of buses. Very cost efficient of Mayor Nagin & Blanco to defer the expense of diesel & aviation fuel to the Federal Government & private taxpayers.

[hollybeth]

silly putty for some. have you ever heard of the bucket of slime kids would play with ? I believe some of them have that served up with an IQ of 25 and a dose of sheer idiocy!

[hollybeth]

silly putty for some. have you ever heard of the bucket of slime kids would play with ? I believe some of them have that served up with an IQ of 25 and a dose of sheer idiocy!

[hollybeth]

silly putty for some. have you ever heard of the bucket of slime kids would play with ? I believe some of them have that served up with an IQ of 25 and a dose of sheer idiocy!

[hollybeth]

silly putty for some. have you ever heard of the bucket of slime kids would play with ? I believe some of them have that served up with an IQ of 25 and a dose of sheer idiocy!

[martywake]

"Farakhan has peopl who can look through 20 feet of dirty muddy water rusing through a levee and see a crater on the bottom - right through the debris."

Well, Farakhan is a muslim, and who knows better about blowing up key infrastructure, killing many innocent civilains and blaiming it on "Whitey the Man"

[kcvl]

Chuck D has always believed in the political power of hip-hop.
... Chuck D: “Make love, **** war!”

Chuck D, is a rapper, composer, actor, author, radio personality and producer. Chuck was born in Long Island, New York, USA. Chuck D. furthered 1980s political rap music as the controversial and influential lead rapper of Public Enemy.

After graduating from Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School, Chuck went to Adelphi University in Long Island, New York. During his rap career, Chuck D gave voice to the black consciousness.

Ridenhour also contributed (as Chuck D) to several episodes of the PBS documentary series The Blues.

Since 2000, he has been one of the most vocal supporters of Internet music file sharing in the music industry.

Chuck has been increasingly involved politically. He co-hosted Unfiltered on Air America Radio, he has testified before Congress about P2P, and was involved in a 2004 rap political convention.

Chuck D continues to be an activist, publisher, lecturer, and producer. He is the co-writer of the essay book Fight the Power: Rap, Race, and Reality, along with Yusuf Jah (ISBN 0385318685) and film director Spike Lee.

He loaned his voice to Grand Theft Auto San Andreas as DJ Forth Right MC for the radio-station Playback FM

On June 5, 2005, Chuck D returned to Air America Radio with a new show, On The Real.

[kcvl]

Rachel Maddow

She is Tucker Carlson's Lesbian sidekick.

******

Rachel Maddow, 21, believes she is the first out lesbian to be named a Rhodes Scholar. The Stanford University graduate will leave in October to study at Oxford University, where she expects to earn a master's degree in politics. She was one of thirty-two Americans -- seventeen of them women -- to be awarded the prestigious scholarship.

Although other Rhodes Scholars have come out as queer once they reached Oxford, Maddow says she had no choice but to go through the arduous selection process as an out lesbian: "I couldn't have made a case for myself if I had been closeted. So much of my political involvement is tied up in me being a big dyke," she says. "I was expecting to have to be very defensive, but the committees seemed to be very cool." She believes that her achievement as an out lesbian will encourage other applicants for the scholarship to come out. Scholars are selected based on academic, athletic and leadership achievements and community involvement. During and since college, Maddow has worked with organizations addressing homelessness and gay and lesbian issues. Upon graduating from Stanford she won a fellowship at the AIDS Legal Referral Panel in San Francisco, where she now works. After her two years at Oxford, Maddow expects to continue working on AIDS issues. "Hopefully, in the long term there won't be a need for AIDS work, but if there is I would keep doing AIDS public policy and social justice policy issues."

[kcvl]

The Rachel Maddow Show

Will New Orleans be rebuilt according to a fanatical Right-Wing plan? Peek under the fat, white, Right-Wing underbelly and find out.

Rachel Maddow reveals the latest tactic Neocons are using to keep control of the United States of America.

Guest host Bill Crowley brings you the latest underhanded tactic from the Right: Republicans investigating Republicans.


Every weekday morning 5AM-6AM (Eastern), tune in to The Rachel Maddow Show for a fast-paced, well-informed, provocative take on the headlines, what ought to be in the headlines, the right-wing agenda, sports (or at least Rachel's latest evidence for why the Yankees are the real evil empire), plus a look ahead at the day's developing stories.

The Rachel Maddow Show is the smartest newshour in radio.

[kcvl]

Meet the Air America Radio personality that has Rush Limbaugh asking, 'Has anyone heard of Rachel Maddow?


"We poke a sharp stick at the soft, white underbelly of the right-wing scheme machine, giving you a little peek at the right-wing playbook for privatizing, polarizing and paving the United States of America. Today's underbelly story is kind of a big-picture look at the overall right-wing approach to the social safety net. Right? The idea that the government can help where free market forces fail. Where there's some social contract to turn to if you're sick, or if you are unlucky or if you are fortunate enough to live beyond your working years and actually retire."


Maddow turns to her analysis:

"It's one thing to think about how the employees of United and US Air are being screwed by the companies that made these promises to them, but it's another thing to think about the right-wing playbook here -- alright? -- the way that this thing fits into the overall right-wing plans for the social safety net."

"So if the companies aren't doing it any more and the government isn't doing it any more -- at least if the Republicans get their way -- then who's taking care of your health insurance and your health care needs and your retirement? Well, you are, alone. On your own. The Republicans want an individualistic, every man for himself, eat the poor, capitalist, for-profit system, because that's best for business, that's best for people with money. They want to shift the risk -- right, because risk is what the social safety net is really all about -- they want to shift the risk from the government to you."

"Now, the Democrats, I think, need to start articulating this basic fact, start talking about their different approach to this issue, because I think people accept that the role of government generally -- it's not controversial to say -- is to take on some of the risk where some of the individuals can't manage it, right? To take on some of the risk where you are disadvantaged because of your age, because of ill health, because of being unlucky."


Rachel Maddow, who vaulted to Air America Radio from her position as morning show host for WRSI in Northampton.



In order to transition into her new duties, Maddow has had to become what she calls "a news vampire." Her day begins at midnight, when a car arrives at her Manhattan apartment to take her to the studio. There, she gathers with her three-woman team. Although Maddow writes her own material and captains the ship, producer Vanessa Peel is her right-hand. The team is rounded out by a researcher/news writer. Maddow's riff on United's pension default and the social safety is the product of work that began hours earlier in the small office downstairs from the studio. The room used to be the office for the Unfiltered program, as evidenced by a sign on the wall that reads: "Unfiltered commandment: Thou shalt not steal ... except from Franken." On the morning of Wednesday, May 11, after their initial research, Maddow and her two compatriots gathered in the office for their 2 a.m. meeting. Each of the three of them are responsible for different sources among the primary ones covered by the program. Among them: New York Times, Guardian (UK), CNN, Salon, AlterNet, Washington Post, Common Dreams, Daily Kos and Drudge Report.

Maddow stood at the marker board while her two compatriots sat at their computers, stacks of news printouts in hand. On the board were written column headers for each of the program's five regular features: "headlines," "top stories," "underbelly," "front page" and "pet stories."


"The first time I ever went on CNN, which was like the second time I was ever on TV, it was me and G. Gordon Liddy and I'm thinking, 'Hey! You were in prison when I was born.'" Maddow said while she doesn't watch television at home and initially hated the idea of appearing on TV, she has come to enjoy the practice it gives her on interacting with other commentators and sharpening her delivery. "There are not very many liberals who are appearing as talking heads," Maddow said. "And so what's kind of nice is that because there is a shortage of liberal talking head commentators, and the reasons for that are myriad, but whatever, that's the case, I end up being put up opposite kind of A-list conservative commentators."

[kcvl]

Rachel Maddow is a liberal political activist and the host of The Rachel Maddow Show on Air America Radio, which airs live weekdays from 5am to 6am Eastern Time.

From March, 2004 through March, 2005, she hosted the Air America show Unfiltered along with Chuck D and Lizz Winstead. Prior to that, she had her own radio show on WRSI in Northampton, Massachusetts. She is also a panelist on The Situation with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC.

In 2005, Maddow signed a two-year contract extension with Air America Radio parent company Piquant LLC. It provides for a year one base salary of $165,000, increasing to $200,000 in the second. This figure excludes additional compensation for promotional and endorsement activities.

Her political activism has focused on AIDS and prisoner's rights, especially the prevention of the spread of HIV and AIDS in prisons. She is also an outspoken advocate for gay and lesbian issues, including gay marriage.

A 1989 graduate of Castro Valley High School in Castro Valley, California, Maddow later obtained a Stanford University degree in Public Policy and a doctorate in politics from Oxford University. She was the first openly gay American to be awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.

[BigSkyFreeper]

This article just goes to show that the left is guided by paranoia and outlandish and racist conspiracy theories. Truth be damned. Chuck D. was a nitwit to begin with, long before he even took up the radio gig.

[Michael2001]

Yet these people will get to keep their jobs even though they refuse to condemn blatantly racist comments. If the races were reversed on this they would be fired in an instant.

[martywake]

Terrific, Wonderful, Super
I received my PhD in the effects of Islamic Fanaticism from the University of Mosul with some extra work study in Fallujah and Baghdad. But I digress.
Does anyone really care what Ms. Maddow's or Chuck D's opinions really are. I mean, Ms. Maddow works for a radio station that is listened to by literally tens of people worldwide. In fact the only mainstream media outlet of any kind that has a smaller audience than Air America is, well, MSNBC.
Lets face it, MSNBC is the lowest rated cable news network, Air America has no affiliates in any of the big three markets and is only kept afloat by government funds and Northampton Massachusetts isn't exactly a mecca for broadcast journalism.
I mean my point is really "WHO GIVES A DAMN!"

[martywake]

Fellow Freepers, I believe we have a troll in ourmidst. Let me introduce you to kcvl.
Lets all give a big Freeper welcome to kcvl.

[kcvl]

Fellow Freepers, I believe we have a troll in our midst. Let me introduce you to kcvl.

Lets all give a big Freeper welcome to kcvl.

kcvl
Since Aug 16, 1998

That was posted as INFORMATION. It has nothing to do with YOU. I have been here a "little while", I'm no "troll".

I really don't need a welcome from you or anyone else. Some people make fools of themselves before they realize it. I don't expect an apology because I don't think you are that smart.

[kcvl]

martywake
Since Jul 31, 2004



Welcome, martywake, to FreeRepublic.

[HundredDollars]

Don't be surprised if there is a crater at the point of the levee break. All that water rushing through the gap is going to do some serious erosion.

We saw it here in Missouri in '93. Huge holes, 100 yds long, where the levees breached. I saw home video of 80 ft. tall Sycamore trees being sucked under, not pushed over.

I am sure Calypso Louie will claim this erosion crater as proof of his crazy dynamite theory.

[jackieaxe]

I have a better idea: Let the market destroy the POS station and it's commercial supporters. Boycott ALL products/services advertised on the station.

The market is destroying AA. That's why they have resorted to stealing money from the Boy/Girls Club Charity.