Rhodes Out At Air America - The News Junkie
The News Junkie: Rhodes Out At Air America

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Rhodes Out At Air America

Randi Rhodes Has Announced Her Split With Air America Radio:

randi rhodes

According to John Scott, PD of Clear Channel talk KKGN/San Francisco, suspended talker Randi Rhodes (pictured) and Air America network have parted company as of Wednesday (April 9). In a posting on the station Web site Scott says that on Monday (April 14), "it will be our pleasure to announce the return of Randi Rhodes to the Green 960 family."

Rhodes was suspended indefinitely last week by Air America following remarks she made at an appearance for KKGN where she called both Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro "f---cking bitches."

An official announcement is expected from Air America about Rhodes' departure on Thursday (April 10).


I'll be honest with you, I've known this was coming for a while now. You'll have to tune in Monday afternoon at 3PM to see what happens next. Or I could just tell you now... should I tell you now? Hmm...

Update: Check out this tidbit from The Huffington Post.

A source at Air America, who asked to remain anonymous, said, "Many people screw up and then apologize and move on. Like Imus. Like David Shuster. Like Jay Rockefeller on McCain. Like Obama on Rezko. Like Hillary on Bosnia. Randi Rhodes refused to apologize for her obscene comments and has chosen instead to terminate her relationship with Air America."

The source also said that there is no love lost between Rhodes and her colleagues at the network. "No one is upset. She made the move but there's relief and joy."


Update: Is Randi Rhodes Coming Home?

Update: Somebody just made the front page of FoxNews.com.

randi rhodes

Update: Randi Rhodes Will Appear On Larry King Live Tonight!

***News Radio 1290 WJNO's Program Director Brian Mudd Speaks***

Randi will be back in West Palm Beach broadcasting from WJNO on Monday. She will be syndicated through Nova M. We will be streaming Randi live at www.wjno.com. Listen Monday @ 3!


Nova M has made it official. They will be syndicating the show.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

AAR, Has shut down her hate america website. LMAO.. I bet they'll said Bush did it..

Anonymous said...

Kudos to Randi for standing up to AAR! I wish you continued success and look forward to hearing you on the air within a few days.

Love ya Randi!

Anonymous said...

She is just low-class," says Linda Marx, widow of the late WJNO talk-show host Jack Cole.

Marx recalls an incident at a Christmas bash the couple threw in 1999, when an inebriated Rhodes squatted over the Christmas tree as a party antic. Rhodes admits she had a few martinis, but insists she didn't urinate.

"I pretended," she says.

Marx indicates otherwise. "I'm just happy the tree was on tile and not carpet," she says...

[...non-pee-related sections follow...]

"She's very self-destructive," says Bill Newgent, Rhodes' first producer at WJNO, who adds that, after a few months of working with her, "I went to management and said, 'She's nuts. I can't do this.' "

Anonymous said...

Baghdad Betty can be distinguished from Tokyo Rose for one very salient reason. Baghdad Betty does not broadcast from Iraq –she broadcasts from New York City.


World War II gave us Tokyo Rose, the Japanese radio broadcaster whose job it was to demoralize American troops. Seoul City Sue did the same thing for the North Korean communists during the Korean War. Hanoi Hanna was the Vietnamese communist version.

Today we have Baghdad Betty. However, Baghdad Betty can be distinguished from the aforementioned for one very salient reason. Baghdad Betty does not broadcast from Iraq — she broadcasts from New York.

Baghdad Betty aka Randi Rhodes is one of Air America’s premier talk show hosts. Actually, Randi Rhodes is a nome de microphone. According to a recent Ann Coulter column, her real name is a secret.

I first heard Rhodes about a year ago during a trip to Fort Lauderdale. After about twenty minutes of her repeating Bush and Nazi I realized she was incapable of an original thought so I changed the station.

I have not listened to Air America since I wrote about the network when it first began broadcasting. I felt it might be interesting to get their current perspective. So I tuned in recently to listen.

I began with the 10 AM show of Lizz Winsted and Rachel Maddow. I skipped the noontime Al Franken show and returned for Baghdad Betty/Randi Rhodes. What I heard was a rebroadcast of her show of several weeks earlier. Listening to Baghdad Betty’s dialogue with a caller named Dave and her subsequent monologue I learned:

“We (the United States) invaded an unarmed country (Iraq).”

“We (US) bombed the hell out of “unarmed country ( Iraq).”

“They (Iraq) had no air force”

“We (US military) are torturing the people we went to liberate (Iraqis).”

“They (the Iraqi people) waited a year for us to take care of them. We didn’t. Then they found out about us torturing people that is what created the insurgency.”

“Every single solitary military guy,” said there were not sufficient troops in Iraq.

Just imagine: all this disinformation was from just one show. One can only imagine what Baghdad Betty says on a regular basis. Her rant was pure propaganda. One only wonders if she is a dupe of the antiwar crowd or intentionally deceiving people.

Whichever it is none of what she said was true. For example:

If Iraq were an “unarmed country” as she said, then maybe she could explain how Lance Corporal Andrew Julian Aviles was killed when an Iraqi artillery round struck his amphibious assault vehicle on April 7, 2003.

If we did “bomb the hell out of an unarmed country” then she should explain the December 1998 CNN report stating, “Iraqi forces would shoot at warplanes patrolling the no-fly zones.”

If Iraq did not have an air force as Baghdad Betty says, then why did the December 2002 Daily Telegraph say, “An Iraqi warplane shot down an unmanned US surveillance drone yesterday, threatening to escalate the tension in the region as America builds up its forces for a possible war early next year. Why did a 2001 UPI story claim, “Since December 1998… [there are] more than 160 incidents of Iraqi aircraft violating the zones.”

Baghdad Betty claimed the Iraqi people waited for a year for us to do something to help them then, when we did not help them, and seeing the photographs from Abu Ghraib, the insurgency began. If this were true why is it that the November 13, 2004 New York Times reported, “nearly 18 months after the Iraq insurgency began in May 2003.” (italics mine) Why is it that the nonprofit think tank Jamestown Foundation wrote on June 17, 2004, “insurgency began in May 2003 with the outbreak of violence by the Sunni Arab population.”

According to Baghdad Betty, we are torturing the people we were liberating.

Does she think SSGT Joseph Darby was torturing prisoners? He was the person who told officials about the illegal conduct by guards at Abu Ghraib. What about all the other troops who investigated and prosecuted these abuses? Are they all guilty of torturing innocent Iraqis or Iraqi prisoners.

She also said that “every single solitary military person, “said more troops were needed. Yet, General Tommy Franks was quoted as saying July 7, 2003, “more troops not needed for Iraq.”

Baghdad Betty said we do not have any trouble murdering people in this country, while drawing the parallel to capital punishment here and the snuff films broadcast by the terrorists.

There is a report that she once advocated the assassination of President Bush during her broadcast.

Her biography says she was in the Air Force. If this is to be believed her insulting of the military is outrageous. Her biography also says she is a “smoky-voiced Brooklyn native” (This explains why I thought she was merely doing a bad imitation of Barbra Streisand).

She is completely without credibility. Randi “Baghdad Betty” Rhodes is to talk radio what “Tikrit” Teddy Rall, who said Pat Tillman was an idiot, is to newspaper cartoons.

They are fools.

Shawn Wasson said...

The question is... do you think she'll be on WJNO Monday afternoon?

Anonymous said...

Yes, Everyone knows WNJO is the station she first started her distasteful spew against America.

Shawn Wasson said...

I can tell you this, plenty of calls, for and against are coming into the main business desk. Last minute deals are in the works and I've just been fully briefed...

Wegotrobbed04 said...

The management of Air America has done it again! First Unfiltered, then Morning Sedition, The Majority Report, Sam Seder's daily show, and now this. THEY ARE IDIOTS FOR LETTING HER GO!!!! I'm thrilld she'll be on JNO, and I really hope I'll be able to listen to her online. I'll do what ever it takes!

Anonymous said...

Good for Randi Rhodes. Now how about kicking the Neo-Nazi republicans asses in this country again.

Anonymous said...

randi is a hot cougar!

she should team up with mike malloy now.

Anonymous said...

I just hope when I dial in on Monday that I hear that raspy, smokey voice of Randi's back in true form.

Anonymous said...

WJNO has got to be the weirdest radio station on the planet.

9:00-12:00pm Glenn Beck
Noon-3:00pm Rush Limbaugh
3:00-6:00pm Randi Rhodes
6:00-9:00pm Sean Hannity

Talk about diverse programming!

Anonymous said...

So, on her show she endorses the assassination of President Bush, and that’s all hunky-dory, that’s sound judgement. But calling Hillary a whore?1?! ARRGH! *boot*

Anonymous said...

HAHAHA! Randi Rhodes…what a classless vacuus sack of crap.

The intellectual hight of Liberal talk radio - calling someone you don’t like: an Effing whore.

I am sure her 3 AAR listeners are going to really miss her.

Anonymous said...

Why can’t she relocate to Gaza, Khartoum, Mogadishu, Havana, Islamabad, Pyongyang or some other place worthy of her fine cultural sensitivities?

Anonymous said...

They are just putting her on the air so that she can make outrageous and slanderous charges against McCain later in the campaign.. :{

Anonymous said...

Clear Channel stock just took a nose dive, kinda like Randi on the sidewalk.

Unknown said...

Randi is a National Treasure! Al Franken brought me to AAR and Randi made me stay and now I will know longer listen to AAR, but I will find Randi Rhodes where ever she goes.

Anonymous said...

Look for Randi Monday on WJNO...

Anonymous said...

Good grief! I can't believe the disinformation being written as fact on this blog. Randi Rhodes didn't pee on the Christmas tree. That bogus rumor has been dispelled ad nauseum. Also, what Randi said about Iraq - unarmed nation, no air force, etc. - is verifiably true and anyone who says differently is either drunk on the Republican Kool-Aid or just another rightie who hopes his lies will be believed by uninformed people. Try reading some of the books about our occupation of Iraq and you'll quickly discovered that Randi tells the truth about the hubris and incompetency of the Bush administration. Wake up and smell the coffee, Dude!

Anonymous said...

George said...
Randi is a National Treasure!

Randi is the National Treasure of anti america. Pure trash...

Anonymous said...

Those of us who like her will tune to her stations and continue listening. If she is not your cup of tea, then listen to something else.

As much as I hate the shows of Rush and Hannity I respect their right to be on the air. I will never wish them harm or make crude remarks about them because this is AMERICA and they deserve to be heard.

I don't know Randi personally, so I cannot say anything more than "I like her show".

Just remember, those who like her will seek her out and listen. Clear Channel and Air America will do fine because Americans have a very short memory.

Let us not turn this country in Cuba, China or Venezuela where they silence the people that say things that some people dont agree with.

In case you nay-sayers did not notice... IT IS A FREAKING RADIO SHOW!!! Quit taking it personally.

Anonymous said...

I REALLY can't stand that...woman??? I usually play a little game when her show comes on the radio. I tell myself I'll listen as long as she doesn't bash anyone. It usually lasts about 4.6 seconds.

Anonymous said...

Is she sober during her radio program? To the listener, it doesn't always sound that way.

Anonymous said...

I, for one, am glad she is landing on her feet this time. If she’d landed on her face again, the left would have just blamed Bush again

Anonymous said...

"AAR, Has shut down her hate america website. LMAO.. I bet they'll said Bush did it.."

Oh, shut up, you brainless twit!

The only people who hate America are right-wing retards like YOU who want to destroy the damn country by bankrupting us with endless wars!

Brian Mudd said...

Randi will be back in West Palm Beach broadcasting from WJNO on Monday. She will be syndicated through Nova M. We will be streaming Randi live at www.wjno.com. Listen Monday @ 3!

gloria said...

Randi - so much for your face lift/plastic surgery. As they say - you can put a dress on a pig, but it's still a pig.

Anonymous said...

I prefer the dead lead guitar player for Ozzie Osbourne instead. Everything out of her mouth is pure hatred towards our country...

Anonymous said...

No big surprise here, as she has said that if the AAR deal went west, then she'd be back at the CC outfit in WPB as if nothing had happened.

And, truth be told, nothing did happen. She spoke the truth, and a radio network claiming to speak the truth censored her as a result.

She did the right thing by sticking to her principles and not apologizing about her comments.

Jessica, change the sheets, she's coming home!

Good to have you back at Smith Farm again, Rivka!

Shawn Wasson said...

FYI: I'll post video of the Randi Rhodes/Larry King Live appearance as soon as it airs.

Anonymous said...

I did not like Randi bashing Hillary. I'm not crazy about the way Hillary has run her campaign, but felt that Randi's became obsessed and overboard in her comments, and began to take on the characteristics we all dislike the most about right wing radio.

I do not always like the way Randi treats callers either. Sometimes she is rude and intolerant.

That being said, for the most part, she has stood up for America by speaking the truth when others were afraid to. I have listened to her on and off for many years, when she was based in Florida and then when she went to AAR.

And, on WJNO, her show is sandwiched in between some of the most hateful, divisive, destructive, false and self-serving talk shows that exist. I can't believe such vitriol pollutes America's airwaves for so many hours each day, and I would like to know who these people are actually serving.

Anonymous said...

I’m stunned someone would hire this fruitcake again. Nut's like her give democrats a bad image.

Anonymous said...

You’d have to be drunker than Randi Rhodes on a Sunday afternoon to actually take her seriously.

It’s hilarious. The moron got stone drunk, and did a face plant. To cover up her alcoholic black out, she lied and said she was mugged.

There were eyewitnesses saying she had 14 Bloody Mary’s.

She must have them for breakfast and lunch on a daily basis. That has to be the explanation for the idiotic crap she spews on her hate america show. That….and stupidity.

Anonymous said...

Does this qualify as "hate radio"?

Randi Rhodes, comparing George W. Bush to Fredo Corleone. She's openly lamenting that Poppy or Jeb hasn't taken the president on a "fishing" trip, and blown his brains out. Give it a listen. Does this qualify as "hate radio"? click here to listen
http://www.cynicalnation.com/randi1.mp3

Randi needs to be in a rubber room with medication 24/7 She's a sick woman.

Anonymous said...

What a laugh reading all you brainwashed neocons comments..can you ppl tell us what we got for 5 yrs of an illegally waged war..wasn't that Iraqi oil supposed to pay for it??Iraq has a surplus budget now!!to the troops I support you brave men and women it's the nonsensical reason we are there that isn't right, for us dwindilling middle class Americans,but I guess it makes sense to all the corporate thieves involded looting our treasury...wake up Afganistan is where the attack came from and now the Taliban and clans have had many yrs to plan maybe??GO RANDI welcome home....

Anonymous said...

I'm sure Schnitt will be glad that Randi is back, driving Rush's audience away from WJNO at 3:00

Anonymous said...

Alert all the bars in Northern Palm Beach County Randi is back in town. I hope one of the Right-wing bartenders doesn't contribute to her getting mugged again...oh wait she just was severly drunk, blacked out, fell down, and knocked out her chicklets. Stay classy Randi!