Air America Radio Inc.

A day after they ditched a planned FOX debate, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards will participate in a "virtual town hall" discussion this evening in the (presumably) more ideologically friendly confines of Air America radio.

The Big Three, along with Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich, will engage in a conversation entirely dedicated to the subject of Iraq and co-hosted by MoveOn.Org. Air America will be streaming it live 7:00 p.m to 8:30 p.m. tonight.

Said newly minted radio mogul Mark Green in an email: "We expect an historic night in what promises to be a defining election."

--Jason Horowitz

Ever since rumors began to swirl that Air America Radio might declare bankruptcy—a rumor that  read more »

For anyone (else) who missed the announement today, Stephen and Mark Green are now running Air America Radio.

The release is after the jump.  read more »

Tomorrow morning, Superintendent of Insurance Howard Mills will chair a public hearing on the continued affordability and availability of terrorism coverage after the expiration of federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Act.

In the evening, the New York Young Republican Club hosts a panel discussion on the future of the state GOP.

And Democracy for NYC and Air America Radio host the 2nd Annual Spring Gala to benefit DFNYC.

—Nicole Brydson

It's a pretty sleepy Tuesday out there, so I've taken it on myself to stroll the blogosphere in search of sparks for The Politicker's second-ever Blog Stroll. As always, please email me if I seem to have any hotttt blogs in my blind spot. Here we go.... GOP and the City gleefully derides Freddy's suspicious attitude toward Mike's charitable giving, which totalled $139 million last year. Freddy recently referred to the gifts as "strategic charitable contributions" during an interview on Air America...a forum which, the blog notes, may have been an ironic choice to for airing that kind of criticism, considering the radio station's own charity-money scandal.

At the DMI Blog, Andrew Friedman lambasts Madeline Pronvezano for dragging her feet on scheduling a hearing for the Healthy Homes Act. The act would authorize the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development to fix "immediately hazardous" outstanding housing code violations, bypassing negligent landlords and billing them three times the value of the repairs as a penalty. The blog suggests that addressing complex issues like lead paint (is it good? it it evil? is it tasty? such nuance...) is too much of a political hot button to hit before the election.

The Neighborhood Retail Alliance follows the ongoing food fight over Intro 699, a bill to tighten regulation of city fruit stands that makes vendors want to thow rotten tomatoes at City Hall. They also take a look at the mayor's track record on solid waste management, and suggest that it shows how "being 'above politics'...doesn't automatically translate into astute policy making."

Over at Daily Gotham, Liza high-fives Chuck for tangling with Roche over its Tamiflu patent.  read more »

Joel Rivera wants you to take him seriously as a candidate for Speaker, notes Power Plays. Apparently, last week's display of door-measuring prowess didn't do the trick. Soon, I hope, we'll get reports of the council member sawing down his desk to fit through that hallowed door (saws are louder than tape measures, and therefore more likely to get attention, right?).

And who knew that there was a BlogOn social media summit in New York yesterday? Not us! But Dominic Basulto at Corante's New York blog did. And apparently the McDonald's corporation did, too; nothing says "social media" quite like a Big Mac and fries nestled up against your keyboard.

In today's New York Post, Brian Maloney and Michelle Malkin take a hatchet to the straw man that is Air America Radio. The right wing dynamic duo look at the liberal radio station's dealings with the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club of the Bronx (See: Investigators probe community center loan to Air America Radio, AP, Newsday, Aug. 12, 2005) and its checkered financial past.

But what's really got Maloney and Malkin worked up is a gushy quote from The New York Times—cough, cough, The Liberal New York Times—that seems to gloss over the station's financial problems:

Air America, the much-hyped liberal media venture that was supposed to revolutionize talk radio, is "solvent and apparently stable": So claim the gullible cheerleaders at The New York Times, who made that unsubstantiated assertion in a recent glowing profile of Air America host Janeane Garofalo.

Seems like an egregious oversight, no? How could The Times see fit to print such a phrase in a recent profile if the station is being probed by Eliot Spitzer?

Well, it all depends on what your definition of 'recent' is. The above quotation comes from a Times 'Arts & Leisure' profile of Garofalo, by Paula Span, And Don't Even Get Her Started on the War, from March 27—nearly four months before the whole Air America/Gloria Wise story broke in late July.

Related: From the online edition of Maloney and Malkin's piece, as of 10:30 AM, EST:

 read more »

The dispute made national headlines in April 2004, when Multicultural Radio booted Air America off its stations in Chicago and Los Angeles over bounced checks. [cun: may lose this stuff: ] A New York judge ruled against Air America and castigated it for its "meritless" legal actions against Multicultural Radio in June 2004 — yet the network has since remained mum about its failure to pay up.

Or, hey, you could keep it in there. (Emphasis added)

—Matt Haber