High Drama

The grilling of Rupert and James Murdock elicited a well-polished response from Murdock father and son. They were shocked, shocked, that such sleaze had been done by one of their very teeny, tiny companies, by dastardly staff members who did it without letting poor Murdock know what crimes they were committing. Shocking! Sooo disappointing. But he, Rupert the Clueless, would now get to the bottom of this, he could promise us that!

....except, late yesterday the British Parliament issued a report stating that in 2005-2006 News Corps had engaged in a year-long campaign to block investigation of the crimes now being discussed. There is little to no chance that efforts to block investigation and prosecution could have been carried on for a year without the head of that criminal enterprise knowing about it, unless he was in a coma all year.

And just for fun, the Guardian published some cartoons: CLICK HERE

The comments below the cartoon make interesting reading.

The best source for this story continues to be the Guardian Newspaper, a fearless and outspoken left-of-center newspaper. They have been chewing away at this story for several years, in the face of threats, bluster and serial evasions on the part of News Corp.

One might ask, okay, so why should an American care about all this stuff in London or wherever? The best reason is because there are fairly good odds that similar "business practices" were employed in the US as well. What practices might those have been?

1. Tapping into cell phones, landline phones and voicemail

2. Paying large cash bribes to police officials in return for access to confidential police files

3. Paying private investigators to follow, investigate and harass public and political figures and business adversaries

4. Hacking into competitors' and political figures' computers

5. Using news media to discredit those it does not like and build up those it supports

6. Using book advances to buy favor with political figures (Newt Gingrich got four million)

The current British Prime Minister, a Murdock ally, spoke of having his garbage routinely gone through, even though he employed a former News Corp editor. No one was safe from having their privacy invaded and the details of their personal lives used for leverage or blackmail.

Think it can't happen here, such massive corrupt corporate sleaze? Think again. News Corp admits to paying out a five-hundred million dollars(!) to settle the computer hacking of a competitor in the newspaper-insert business. It would appear that (a) there's a lot of money in that garbage, and (b) News Corps was able to use its access to a competitor's data to gain a competitive advantage. And they got caught. Here, in the United States, not someplace else.

Phone tapping? There is said to be a massive secured room in the basement of the News Corp headquarters in New York City called the "Brain Room" used for "investigations". What kind of investigation could that be? Phone and communications tapping maybe? Who runs it? Roger Ailes, former Nixon hatchet-man. The Justice Department has just opened several investigations of News Corp to pursue leads generated by the uproar in England.

How big is the "uproar" in the UK? There are calls for Prime Minister David Cameron to resign. In a short period of time in office Cameron has made himself highly unpopular by huge cuts in public services. His philosophy would appear to mesh with the extreme right in the US. Tear down the government and find out what happens. Since Parliament is about to go into a two-month recess it is doubtful that anything will happen soon, but when Parliament returns we could easily see a change in leadership. If that happens it will send a powerful message to certain politicians in this country to reconsider their allegiance to Rupert Murdock. The Republicans are in an uncomfortable "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position. The odds of this scandal going global are high. If equivalent (or worse) crimes have been committed in this country, as seems likely, any political figure who has ties to News Corps and Fox News will be in trouble.

Arthur