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

"Fox News is too important to the Republican Party"

Too important for what? The author of this piece in the Telegraph, a London competitor to the recently defunct News of the World tabloid, thinks that Fox News is too central to the Republican Party for it to turn against it, apparently no matter what it has done.

What if News Corporation, the parent company, has committed Treason, either in the UK or the United States? Would that be enough to convince Republican Presidential hopefuls not to have programs on Fox? How about conspiring with "corrupt foreign agents" as has been mentioned in the British press? Would that be enough? Or how about tapping the phones of 9/11 victims and their families in an attempt to gather juicy news items? Would that be okay? I mean, sure, sure, it's sort of a crime, but...

And News Corps has another problem. Elliot Spitzer. Elliot Spitzer is the heir to a large New York City real estate fortune. He went on to Princeton and Harvard Law School and spent time in prestigious law firms and in smiting Corporate evil-doers. Then he became Governor of New York, but before he could enjoy himself very much a huge scandal over his patronage of prostitutes so captured the news in New York that he was forced to resign. Recently he had an opinion show on CNN, but that got cancelled a week ago. Spitzer thinks Murdock has probably broken a lot of laws. He doesn't think those laws were minor or unimportant. He also (if one can read between the lines) seems to think that Fox and their New York Post daily paper helped run him out of office. He does not seem to have forgotten, or forgiven, that insult. Now that he has some free time, and is a free agent, he seems to want to return the favor. Spitzer is powerful, wealthy and a bulldog prosecutor. This is a very bad enemy for Rupert Murdock to have made.

But all is not lost in New York State. Former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani thinks we should give Rupert Murdock the benefit of the doubt, apparently since he has been so nice to Rudi.

Giuliani is such a has-been that he is polling in the 1% range of possible Republican candidates for President. It may have something to do with him trying to move his mistress (now wife) into the Mayoral Mansion in New York City. It may have something to do with his support of his former chauffeur, Bernie Kerik, to be head of Homeland Security, before it was discovered that Kerik was on the take and went to prison... for being on the take. No one cares what Giuliani thinks. No one.

And the news from England is not getting any better. It turns out that Scotland Yard has so far only notified 176 of the 4,000 victims of phone tapping that their privacy was invaded. By my count that means there are 3,824 individuals who will be getting an extremely unwelcome message from the Police. As someone in News Corps said in the UK, "There is worse news yet to come out... ". Some have suggested that the true number of those whose phones were hacked is probably closer to 10,000. That is fairly large scale criminal behavior, to say the least. As the story festers, like gangrene, at some point it may come to be seen as infectious for anyone who speaks up in support of Fox, the News of the World and News Corps. At that point News Corps, under the weight of its own actions, may simply collapse. At that point it may seem quite "important" for Republicans to switch sides and distance themselves from Fox News. What an irony, after Fox has courted, coddled, touted and supported Republicans. Rather like rats leaving a sinking ship, one might say...

Arthur

A Very Moving Experience

I've stopped sobbing uncontrollably. And for the most part, the constant pain in my lower spine and muscles in the back of my legs has eased enough as to allow me to think through a complete thought. I've resigned myself to the realization that I have too many broken electric gizmos that I'll never fix "one day when I get around to it," too many clothes that I'll never again wear even if they do still fit, which they don't, and too many unidentifiable things that have been gathering alien-looking dust balls in the garage.

I was going to do this move scientifically, you see. I was going to throw all the old junk away. I wasn't going to pack it up with the stuff I just absolutely HAD to save, even though I had forgotten about it 10 years ago. We'd lived in this old house ever since my Dad died over 20 years ago, and he lived in it for over 20 years before that. There was a LOT of stuff. The "scientific approach to moving" went out the window on the third full day of packing. The rule suddenly was PACK IT ALL PACK EVERYTHING JUST GET IT IN A BOX ON THE TRUCK.

At any rate, it's practically done. We've some assorted stuff still left to move, but the big stuff is finally in the new place. And of course we don't know where anything is. The standard answer to any question beginning "Do you know where the ..." is "It's in a box somewhere, I know I saw it just a few minutes ago ..."

By the way, moving over the Fourth of July weekend is really not a good idea. All your friends are "camping" all of a sudden. Even those who have never camped in their lives. But we do still have a few die-hard good friends and we'd like to thank good friend Don H. who saved us a lot of work with his truck and huge trailer. He even refused to accept gas money, and instead said "that's what friends are for."

And he's absolutely right.

It's Over

(As we get started again, or "restart," if you prefer, I find that Arthur has been sending regular dispatches from Marin County as though I was still alive, and the following is one of those dispatches. My apologies to Arthur for the delay on my part, and thanks. JP.)

Rupert Murdock owned 40% of the news media and television in the UK and was on the cusp of gathering in total control of a broadcasting company that he only owned 39% of. Then some very bad things happened and more things happened and people who knew a lot of secrets started talking publicly for the first time, shaking off the fear of what would happen to them if they spoke up.

Among those who were deeply afraid were the most powerful political figures, of all the political parties. To a great extent the power of the Murdock press monopoly had begun to decide elections and decide policy. That is a more extreme version of the impact Fox News and the News Corporation have had on the United States. Their cute trick of hiring conservative political figures to give them exposure and face-recognition among the electorate (Gingrich, Palin, Huckabee... ) and to buy their loyalty is a twist on what has been done in the UK.

But while these articles on a scandal in England may seem distant from our political world, they are not. This may be the end, or at least the gelding, of the Murdock machine. It can be seen in England to have acted very like mobsters, trading influence and protection for the right to get their way in regard to expanding their media empire, the better to monopolize, control the public debate and reap financial rewards. It looks to the British public rather as though they ran a decades-long criminal enterprise, while wearing nice suits. What remains to be seen is whether any members of the Murdock family will be jailed in the UK, or as it turns out in the United States through a quirk in the law on bribing foreign officials. Which it is clear that News Corp has done. Several million e-mails appear to have been "lost on their way to Mumbai", as has been quaintly suggested. What, they had one too many drinks and fell over the side of the ship? But data has a nasty habit of staying around a great deal longer than people would like it to. And when the company in question has tarnished its reputation by (a) tapping the phones of kidnapped and killed teenage girls (b) tapped the phones of public officials, movie stars and anyone else they thought to be newsworthy (c) and tapped the phones of the bereaved families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan (perhaps to see if they had any newsworthy dirt in their closets?) and (d) ladled out large cash bribes to members of London's Metropolitan Police Force, apparently in return for tip-offs and access to dirt on public figures... when all of that is exposed and when evidence seems to have been destroyed or attempts were clearly made to destroy it, then the public has turned on News Corporation with a fury I can not recall seeing before. The report that in the lead-up to the Iraq War Tony Blair was calling Rupert Murdock several times a day? That is the sort of story that does not do a political figure's legacy any favors.

And the good news is that things in this country had not gone as far down the tubes as all of that. We think. The other good news is that when a career criminal gets arrested in the commission of one crime, they often are quickly identified as the perpetrator of an entire string of other crimes. And that often is the effective end of their useful criminal career, that up until then seemed to be going so well.

I take no pleasure in the fall of others, but it would seem that they made their own beds, not once, but again and again over many decades, and had come to view themselves as untouchable. Too powerful to fail, one might say. And since they interested themselves in politics, apparently for personal gain and no other reason, it is hard to feel too sorry for them. We can be sorry they got greedy, we can be sorry they appear to have been people of not much character, we can be sorry they do not seem to have cared for anything other than their own self-gain. But some people's children just seem to grow up that way.

Arthur