election. I think that's been a big problem throughout progressive media. Some of us only pay attention at election time. I also heard her mention this earlier in the week, but I just thought she was retiring. Didn't know about her contract renewal..

I love Randi, but quite frankly, I got tired of tuning in, only to find out that other lady was filling in for her. I forget her name, but I can't stand her.

who I think is quite brilliant. Sorry you don't like her.

The fewer progressive voices we have around, the worse we are getting the message out.

I'm not a huge fan of Ed Schultz, but he does tell it like it is, especially to the Joe Six-Packs out there.

I quite like her.

and to you too!

I love Ed. No one is more of a friend to the working man than Ed.

and I'm not even sure why.

She has a thin, Midwestern monotone that I can't listen to for five minutes without getting very drowsy. And that's no good when you're trying to drive home from work.

My wife doesn't like her, either, for the same reason.

You do realize how valuable that makes him, don't you? My name is not Joe - but I love me some six-packs, occasionally.

I couldn't get enough of Air America throughout the Bush years, but I tuned out not long after President Obama was elected and of course it died out completely anyway. I dunno, I just lost the urge to listen to talk radio after Bush was gone. I guess it was the therapy I needed at the time or something.

She said that it was a Republican that had the idea and started Air America. They picked her up in her Florida market and a some others and designed it to fail. The idea was to say, "See liberal raido can't work." They preceded to steal and crash the the business aspect from the get go.

Unfortunately, liberal radio does work, but there are so few people who own stations anymore you can't get a toe in the door.

Our local station is KPFK. Try it.

Pacifica, I like, which I used to have to get on shortwave.

BUT...I also have to drive around a lot. XM was my link to sanity in Oklahoma and Kansas as I cruised up to Nebraska. Fewer and fewer voices are having access to easily accessible media.

My friends in Nebraska say, so if you don't like Rush or Hannity or whoever, who do you listen to? I say ever heard of Thom Hartmann or Randi Rhodes or Mike Malloy? Nope, not a clue!

We can find the voices to hear, but my friends who may not be so moved to google around or read DU, just keep watching FOX and listening to the 24/7 rotten radio that covers the spectrum.

…on a smartphone, and connect it to your car's stereo (and, if your car's stereo doesn't have an input jack for it, replace the tuner with one that does).

Not only does the TuneIn app allow you to hear stations nationwide, they've also got their own "Progressive Voices" channel, with people like Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartman, Ed Schultz, Bill Press, etc. round the clock and available wherever there's a 3G signal!

Stephanie Miller, Young Turks and a bunch of people I never heard of, right on my phone or computer through the TuneIn radio app

I want to be entertained, informed and defended. Some of the liberals radio hosts are great at informing and defending the left, but they are boring.

they're all on there. Full day of Progressive talk. Got sirius in a new car and for an additional fee added internet and get it on my ipod.

Bush's 2nd term, MSNBC and many other progressive outlets were on the rise, while Fox News had stalled out? There were rumors that Murdoch was threatening to axe some of his bigtime personalities if their numbers didn't improve.

Barack Obama has been a boon for rightwing media and fundraising, just as Bush was for the left. Sadly, it's this same complacency that swept the teanutters to power in the 2010 midterms. I listen to a lot more NPR these days, but I'll miss knowing that Randi's there.

and at least does the internet broadcasts and podcasts her show from Costa Rica. We need as many intelligent liberal voices on radio as possible.

rec on your way out....


Also...Randi sounded like she was just totally burned out. Like she wanted to quit. This is not a good thing...we need to have competent voices out there that speak truth to power.

some of her callers but we sure can't afford to lose her progressive voice. She doesn't spew things from out of her butt, she does her research!

PS: rec'd with pleasure

I think she has ego issues. That election was so close and it was all about the balance in the senate. She said she had information that would destroy Franken. She never gave it. But, she implied he is horrible.

I worked in broadcast TV for over 30 years. I've seen how the on-air egos clash. I was "behind the scenes" as a director. Rather large egos are the reason they are on the air in the first place and frequently when these type "A's" work in the same place they have issues, to say the least.

Randi also has no love for Schultz, who scooped her on what she considered a business model she thought was not not moral. She also doesn't like a lot of people at MSNBC.

But she has a voice that should be heard, she has her own opinions and views.

We're never going to have "cooby ya" talk hosts that just love each other. She does like Malloy and Hartmann and a few others, but who cares? I like what she says, mostly, not always.

And I think you are exaggerating about info that would "destroy" Franken...but my take on him as well is that he isn't exactly the white knight that came to save the state of Minnesota or the United States of America.

That's what made me turn her off completely. That election was far too important. If coleman had won the balance of the senate would have shifted because we needed every vote we could get to make 60 to stop filibusters.

I'm not saying she should lose her job for that . I'm just saying I had to turn her off.

I also didn't like the way she would have listeners call in who she would not listen too. She would often yell at people who had the same opinion as her. They would be agreeing with her, but she didn't have the patience to realize this. I heard she did mellow out a bit in the past few years.

All that said, if people like her, she should have a show. We need the liberal voices out there.

There are just human beings trying their best who make a mistake now and then and sometimes wake up weary just like all of us.

But, Al Franken has been a strong voice for Progressive causes and I am glad he is in the Senate.

Coleman would have been another turd in the tea party manure pile.

There ARE no White Knights.

It would be cruel to lay that yoke on any person.

is there are a few former hosts of air America who feel the same way about Al.. I know ive heard malloy rant about him being money driven or greedy right after AA died.
who knows tho

Mike thought Al was a centrist sellout, and Al thought Mike's rants discredited the entire network. This has been common knowledge for years.

As to Franken being money-driven…remember that he worked for free for many months, in addition to supporting AAR during the tough times by paying the network's bills out of his own pocket.

but I quickly got tired of her. Not sure her voice ever did any good for our side. She didn't seem to treat her callers very well either.

But couldn't stomach her show, and was it necesaary to use the word liar in every sentence? Her rants were horrible and ruined what could have been a really good show.

... I remember listening to RFPI (Radio for Peace International) from Costa Rico on short wave. It went off air and I don't know if they ever started it back up or not. My short wave radio bit the dust a coupple years ago and I haven't replaced it, or I would check it.

...need to be.
that's why progressive radio often struggles to find a market.
Liberals are better informed, educated and well read than conservatives and have strong legit sources for news.
This is a studied proven fact.
Rush and the AM radio idiots on the right are a talking point delivery system designed to buttress a flimsy argument and poor logic to a brainwashed audience.
If you stop the brainwashing they might start thinking for themselves so the RW system delivers daily doses of hate and rationalizations for the masses.

…is that most station/syndicate owners are conservative.

Remember 2005-06? AAR and progressive radio was the up-and-coming thing. Even ClearChannel acknowledged it, and converted a bunch of their stations to progressive content, and bought up other such stations. That all changed with the 2006 midterms, when it became clear that progressive talk not only stood to make investors a great deal if money, but had a real impact in mobilizing the left to take back Congress. All of a sudden, those syndicators who had touted progressive talk weeks earlier suddenly judged it "uneconomic," and started flipping those stations, without warning, to all-sports or even conservative talk -- even when resulting Arbitron reports showed it costing two-thirds or more of its audience. Apparently, in the minds of the "big money" in radio, it was O.K. for progressive talk to be somewhat successful…just not too successful (in terms of actually impacting the political scene), or it needed to be squelched A.S.A.P.

split her audience. I would turn over to listen to her when Thom was out sometimes, but I can't give up Professor Hartmann.

just to listen, she lost me.

back in the bad old days before Keith Ohlberman got fed up with Rumsfeld... When the first strains of AAR started to pierce the suffocating blanket of NO dissent that was 2001 and 2002 and 2003.

Surely there is a place for this warrior's voice in the public sphere!

my antidotes to going nuts, in those darkest Bush years. I'd be sad to hear she has no show. Then again, if that's what she wants herself, more power to her.

humor. A real Brooklyn gal. For awhile she was super nasty. But (not to sound sexist) after she met "The Howard" she mellowed out a lot.

But I relate in a way. Although a bit older (sorry Randi you are not 45) I understand why she is ready to chuck it all and leave. We are in the final stages of packing up and selling our house of 25 years and moving to Otavalo Ecuador. Our home there is built and ready for us. I know it's not nirvana, nowhere is however the mountains are stunning, the weather make it a paradise and the food is fresh and reasonably priced. Rather then paying 300.00 a month heating cooling bills with our money we'll be able to assist young kids with education that they might not be able to afford otherwise. And maybe, just maybe I will someday be able to speak Spanish somewhere outside the present tense.

I don't hate the US. I love it. But at almost 60 I am ready to not know what is around every corner and get away from the division here. And certainly the winters.

I will miss her take on things and her voice.

an inordinate amount of time. WAAAAAAAAY back in the day, when I was more optimistic and had more patience, I'd listen to that gasbag Rush and try to contribute to a "Limbaugh Lies" radio segment that was on a local radio station. When Jackie O died, that fucker said something VERY CLOSE to this, "You know folks, they're burying Jackie O today. I wonder if her grave will be as cold as the bed she shared with her cheating husband". <<<------- I turned him off and never listened to him again, not even to catch him lyin'.

RR calling HC a "whore" was my last straw.

I haven't listened to her since.

I wish her well.

I am NOT tuning in. Ever. Progressive radio needs progressive voices, not ones who claim to be progressive and call an honest to God candidate for POTUS a "whore" on your airwaves. If you want to listen to that, it's fine. It's a free country, but I will not. And I won't advocate for any woman who would do something like that to another woman. Period.

And, no, I don't give a flying rat's ass if she apologized after the fact. I don't know if she did, and it doesn't matter. That's like a newspaper printing the retraction after they ran the damaging headline.

mistaken, she was at a comedy club in Phoenix, and on her personal time? This is why her show wasn't yanked.

and a public radio jockey performing in public is just as bad.

I had really liked her in her early days nationally, but she turned mean, to callers and to candidates. I felt terrible for her the last few times I listened, it was like being in the car with a bitter drunk. Her rants during our Primary are part of why our liberal talk station closed, people did not care to hear that shit. Like a vermin. Fuck that. Is this Uzbekistan? Are we Glen Beck? Fuck that.

There is so much underlying, visceral hatred for this woman, I hope she runs and wins.

And I even see it here now a little bit.

Then, around the primary election, she just started to dissolve under the weight of her own ego. She went on some bizarre screed against Hillary Clinton, called her a "whore" I believe, and then started going off on weird conspiracy tangents for a while. Thankfully after the election, she more or less recovered, but she was never really the same since. I used to stream her every day on my computer before that. After that whole episode, I didn't. I would still tune in if I happened to be on the radio while I was in the car, but didn't bother streaming her daily when I was on the job.

But when she was just a local host--and in her first couple years of syndication as well--she was just excellent, the best liberal voice on the radio. Always well researched and informative. I really thought we had a good liberal counterbalance to Limbaugh. Unfortunately, I think national syndication went to her head.

That being said, if she's calling it quits, I'm still rather sad about it. I consider her back in the early 2000s as a major driving force into me becoming an outspoken liberal.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind her reverting back to her local South Florida ways. That's when she was truly in her element.

I don't listen to talk radio. I don't watch talk tv. If I want to know what someone thinks, I'll ask them, but I just have no interest in listening to talking media heads, one way or another.

Since I'm in a rare minority, though, and people in general and our society in particular all seem to care avidly about what people on tv and the radio say, we need some people who counter the powerhouse propaganda machines that spew right wing, theological, and neoliberal bullshit to the masses who crave being told what to think.

Once upon a time she was cool.

I know that I am not a fan. I prefer opinions in print. I rarely watch MSNBC too.

The right's voracious appetite for having opinions constantly vomited at them baffles me.

they will come.

When she was our local voice of sanity along with the amazing Neil Rogers. Heard Will Pitt on her show and that is how I found DU about a year before I signed up

I hope she doesn't leave but I can't blame her. Clear Channel is going to Bush the country again in 2016 and they can't have anyone getting in the way.

I don't dislike any of the current hosts, but too much of the day is consumed with narrow interests rather than the broad picture of national progress. And some of the programs that ostensibly do cover the broader picture just aren't that good or that focused.

On the every day line-up (not counting the weekend programs), the only program I think is really a consistently effective voice focused on the main issues of progress is Thom Hartmann, and that is after prime time (9PM eastern)

The Agenda is too whiny.

Stephanie Miller is too pro-NSA, and her sidekicks are becoming really intolerable -- nothing but sophomoric, snarky comments. It isn't a "smart" show anymore.

Ed is Ed. We need a person doing what he is doing. He is the answer to "If the Left had somebody who would just demagogue issues the same way Limbaugh does, what would that sound like?"

I like Michelangelo Signorile, but it seems like about 80% of his commentary is to cast issue into a gay perspective -- even when that is a giant stretch. I certainly respect that, but Sirius already has the OutQ channel. Michelangelo has some good observations that have nothing to do with sexuality. I just wish he would try for more balance.

Likewise, I like Mark Thompson. I have learned a lot from him, and I am glad he is on the air. He is very balanced, but a lot of his callers seem to push the idea that just about every issue in this country is essentially racism. I wish this program could be more of a strong, dynamic progressive show with a host who happens to be black and makes observations from the black perspective as the situations present themselves as opposed to a "black talk show."

A right wing radio channel who happened to only carry their only liberal show--hers.

I will miss her dearly. She's the ONly progressive voice we have who is extremely well informed. She can't be compared to Any one from XM progress channel 127. They all seemed to lack the knowledge randi possesses - aside from the fact I can fall sleep while listening to them.the agenda is boring and all can put me to sleep-- early in the morning!!
.
with the exception of the Ed show.. The rest of the line up is pretty much not desirable.

I don't comprehend why progressive radio can't hire randi. She will fit perfect there and will the channel what they need.. Some tough and well informed radio host. Randi is a true progressive!!

I called XM to complain and gave them 30 days to bring her back, if not I would cancel my subscription. XM told me they have nothing to do with randi leaving and said it was clear channel's fault.

So XM said it was not their fault she was no on XM. It looks like a lot of ppl have been calling to complain and threaten to cancel their subscriptions as well. I will truly miss randi. It will torture to go they the midterms without a voice of reason.

I've found myself listening to that one more and more. Shame their getting rid of the WebMD channel also.

even though she was popular here. Our left station has turned into a golden oldies station and the one station I tune into for news and traffic, of course carries fat ass Limbaugh. Now you know the message our Heritage Foundation lord kings want us to hear.

One of these days I hope that we reclaim our airwaves that we the people are supposed to own. Sure we can stream but that gets costly if you just want some radio while out doing your errands. I really think there should be laws about being subjected to propaganda that is one sided.

On edit: sorry I meant to post this to the OP not you.

it's a bootstrap operation, with voices like Thom Hartmann, Nicole Sandler, Shannyn Moore, Carl Wolfson, Ring of Fire and Mike Malloy. We also carry the excellent Kagro In The Morning and our own original voices.

And we're doing it because we love progressive radio.