(Seattle) radio talk show host Mike Webb fired

[Newsjock]

Edit to replace with a more extensive story from the Seattle Times.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002708638_webwebb28.html

By Christine Clarridge
Seattle Times staff reporter

Liberal radio talk-show host Mike Webb has been fired from his job at KIRO radio after he was charged earlier this month with making a fraudulent insurance claim.

A spokesman for KIRO confirmed today that Webb, who pleaded not guilty to the felony charge last week, is no longer with parent company Entercom and will no longer have a show on KIRO.

Attempts to reach Webb or his attorney for comment this morning were unsuccessful.

Webb was charged with making a fraudulent claim after an accident in June 2005, when his Lexus was struck by an uninsured driver.

... Webb, who denied the charge last week, said he believes it is the possible result of an insurance company snafu resulting from a clerical or computer error.

more

[kevinmc]

1. Damn I hope everything works out for him......

I was wondering when he would be back on the air. I like his show.

[Oversea Visitor]

2. Fired?

Over an insurance claim
Judged guilty before he can defend himself
Woah it is a very dark time in US

[PSPS]

3. I also posted about this in the Washington forum

Mike's last blog entry is here:

http://mikewebbradio.blogspot.com

Isn't it funny how Entercom, the parent of KIRO-AM in Seattle, fired Webb before any determination of wrongdoing, while Rush just keeps going on and on after his illegal drug trafficking?

I'll miss Webb. His show really appealed to me. It was local, it was informative, and it was entertaining. There are almost no local liberal voices on Seattle radio, and it will hurt to lose Mike Webb.

[AspenRose]

21. How sad.

"I could go on, but suffice it to say, that people come into our lives on time and they leave on time as well."

Let's hope that's the case with the current occupant of the WH, and soon, Mike. Keep fighting....

[rucky]

4. Webb should've gotten his maid to write Oxycontin scrips for him.

he'd still have his job.

[Peter Frank]

29. Good one!...

There sure seems to be a "rush" to judgment here.

[bluestateguy]

5. Sounds like COINTELPRO stuff

During the COINTELPRO era this kind of stuff was done all the time via snooping through files, altering records and drumming up charges on "enemies" of the state: phony criminal charges, frivolous lawsuits and evictions from apartments were common results. These days it would just take a little bit of computer hacking, record alteration and identity theft to charge him with a phony case of insurance fraud. One thing that has been proven for the last 5 years is that if you criticize the Baby Bush, his babysitters will come after you.

[meganmonkey]

14. I agree

And I think it continues to happen all around us :scared:

[stepnw1f]

19. This Is Fishy as Hell

I hope he gets cleared of these charges if he is innocent. I would like to think, Mike Webb was not the dumb. I used to listen to him a lot.

[rooboy]

6. What does an insurance claim have to do with a radio job?

Shit, virtually everyone on Fox has a rap sheet...

[mallard]

7. If he was Bush and war supporter...

... he wouldn't be out of a job.

[SoCalDem]

8. Ole Shep ran into a woman who was standing in the parking place he wanted

she would'nt move, so he rammed her with his car.. Fox probably gave him a promotion:(

[Garbo 2004]

9. They did. He went from just being a reporter to anchoring Fox shows. n/t

[0007]

23. From what I've heard about Tony Snow's behavior, 'tis hard to understand

why does he still have a job. Brit ain't saint.

[darkism]

10. Right-wingers commit the equivalent of...

...on-air HATE CRIMES all the damn time and THIS guy gets canned over insurance?

what. the. fuck.

[Peace Patriot]

11. What are they doing firing somebody because he was CHARGED with

something? ANYBODY can be charged with breaking a law! That's ridiculous! And an insurance claim? Come on.

I'm inclined to agree with Bluestateguy. This smells like COINTELPRO. This is very similar to how they got rid of CA Sec of State Kevin Shelley, who had sued Diebold and decertified the worst of their election theft machines prior to the 2004 election. He was soon hit with a bunch of phony and substanceless charges, in a foul campaign led by the SF Chronicle. One of the charges was "misuse of HAVA (federal election) funds." What was really going on? He withheld the funds from counties where corrupt election officials had committed to buy crap-ass voting machines. He has been completely cleared of all charges (including campaign violations) by the CA Attorney General. Upshot: Shelley had no personal money (tells you something about Shelley), and no legal defense fund. The cowardly new Dem state leadership in the legislature abandoned him. And Bush Feds at the EAC (Fed electronic voting boondoggle commission) were threatening a long, drawn out fishing expedition, looking for any dirt they could find--so he resigned. I suspect that the "campaign violations" part was black ops. Shelley was clean as a whistle. He forbade "revolving door" employment in his office (election officials going to work for electronic voting companies), and was a tough, vigilant protector of the voters' rights.

The whole thing stank to high heaven. I haven't seen anything this dirty in California since the fascists took down CA Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Byrd in the 1970s (she was anti-capital punishment). We lost one of the last honest election officials in the country. They took Shelley down because he sued Diebold (electronic voting company whose CEO Wally O'Dell is a big Bushite, chair of Bush/Cheney campaign in Ohio*).

And THIS stinks to high heaven. I hope Mike Webb fights back!

----------

*(Yup, that's whose counting all our votes with "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, and virtually no audit/recount controls. The other is ES&S, brethren to Diebold, initially funded by far rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson. These two Bushite corporations tabulated 80% of the votes in 2004.)

[BiggJawn]

13. Common practice in the Radio Biz.

Even the HINT of a "scandal", and you're off the air.

The shit of it is, if Webb is acquitted or the charges are dropped, he'll have to file suit to get his job back.

[truth2power]

15. Not disputing what you say, here,

but then one has to wonder why Rush is still on the air.

I actually know the answer to that. Repugs don't have to follow the rules like everyone else. It's just that it makes me so mad. :banghead:

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

12. Best radio show in Seattle.

Maybe they'll fill his spot with Dori Monson reruns.

:rofl::cry::rofl:

[Richard Steele]

16. This smells. No sane 'crook' would be that stupid.

WE ARE TOLD:
-He bought the insurance AFTER the accident...
but he put the REAL, earlier accident date on the claim form?

-And when he was caught, he didn't LIE about the accident date...
he instead tried to convince the company that he had bought the policy
a month earlier than their records show?


If that is what happened, it would be the stupidest fraud attempt in history,
followed by the stupidest attempt to weasel out of the charges.

I only see three possible explanations:

1: Webb's explanation: simple computer error.
2: He's been framed, by someone deliberately CREATING a computer error.
3: He actually did what he is accused of...

And if #3 is true, I think the events are not so much evidence of a CRIME
as evidence of a serious mental disorder.
Anyone who would actually DO the things he's charged with
doesn't need to be arrested-
they need some serious professional help.

Cuz that's just INSANE.

[newswolf56]

17. More like Operation CHAOS, the CIA counterpart of COINTELPRO,

which was many times more diabolical, aimed not just at the anti-Vietnam-War movement but at the entire Counterculture and specializing in co-opting leadership, destroying infrastructure and discrediting (or otherwise "neutralizing") what leadership could not be co-opted.

To put this in context, remember that the FBI is essentially a police operation, which gave COINTELPRO all the predictable ham-handedness and brutality of the Ku Klux Kops "fascist pig" syndrome characteristic of the Deep South (and big cities throughout the United States) -- the Chicago murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton being a classic example. CHAOS on the other hand was far more subtle (as befits its Ivy League origins) and far more long-term destructive (precisely as desired by its masters in the corporate oligarchy). CHAOS, officially ended sometime in 1975, specialized in disruptive infiltration: of academia to suppress the development of eco-Marxism and eco-socialism in general, of the alternative press to sabotage its already tenuous financing, of community-action coalitions to agitate divisive and eventually paralytic factionalism. But there was also a strong suspicion -- never proven -- that CHAOS also used "wet" tactics whenever its commanders deemed it necessary, as in the still-mysterious 1974 death of Karen Silkwood: martyr to the labor, environmental and ecofeminist movements.

Lest we forget:

http://www.ranknfile-ue.org/uen_0100_slkwd.html

http://www.serendipity.li/cia/lyon.html


Edit: typo.

[patcox2]

18. See, typical moral values of a liberal, sucking off collective system

just pointing out the stupidity of drawing general conclusions from individual cases (in the absence of comprehensive statistical evidence of causation, anyway).

[Straight Shooter]

20. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt

I even gave Limbaugh the benefit of the doubt ... for about 3 seconds, LOL.

[napi21]

22. I'm sorry to hear this! I used to stream his program all the time.

Has anyone asked this network WHY they still AIR Rush? I NEVER listen to Rush, but it sounds like a contradiction of ethics to me!!

[HEyHEY]

24. He shouldn't be fired until after he's proven guilty

I hope he sues the fuckers

[cascadiance]

25. At least he didn't commit suicide like KGO's Duane Garrett did...

Many years ago right after his talk show there when he had a "business problem"... Jumped off the Golden Gate bridge later that night...

[grasswire]

26. G. Gordon Liddy. Oliver North. John Fund.

Come on! A "hint of scandal" doesn't keep GOP-ers off the air.

[grasswire]

27. oh, and Chuck Freaking Colson, too

He has a daily radio program.

[eppur_se_muova]

28. Blatant hypocrisy. What happened to "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" ?

Needs one more recommendation.

[Hissyspit]

30. Surely someone else will hire him? n/t

[bahrbearian]

31. Contact KIRO at

http://www.kiro710.com/

[Maraya1969]

32. I don't know whether he is guilty or innocent but I can tell you paying

online does not always go the way it is supposed to go. I have had money taken out of my bank account on a certain date and the creditor swear that they got the money later. It pisses me off and the only advise I can give is to pay your bills early if you can.

It's pretty stupid of him to be driving around in a Lexus with no insurance though. I hope what he did was legit.

[Kralizec]

33. This is bullshit. Raise the alarm!

Get him back, aim that DU cannon at KIRO in Seattle.