On Rupert Murdoch today

 

It seems the "big thing" in the news today about Rupert Murdoch and his News Corp. scandal in England is that some guy tried to hit him in the face with shave cream. That, ladies and gentlemen, is not the important part of this story today at all. At all. Far more important is that first, he said he bears no responsibility whatever for the fact that people in his company bribed police officers, at least, to get stories. Second, he immediately followed that with "cover" for his underlings--his sons and Rebekah Brooks, his Chief Executive at News of the World--by saying they weren't responsible, either. It must be nice to run a multi-billion dollar organization, get paid huge money and not be responsible, all at the same time. I wish I had that job. Here's a beauty--it's a quote by Mr. Murdoch this morning from the testimony: ""News of the World is 1% of company and we are a proud and great and ethical distinguished people," whereupon, to make his point, he also slammed the desk. The thing is, is there anyone who is going to believe anything Rupert Murdoch says? Finally, if you check the last link here, below, you'll see the "tabloid hacking scandal" goes back to at least last Fall, last September, when it was discovered NOTW was hacking the Royal's phone messages. It makes it all the more difficult to believe Mr. Murdoch wouldn't have been paying attention to his own property. Link: http://news.yahoo.com/man-rushes-rupert-murdoch-hearing-160244558.html; http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/wall-street-journal-editorial-independence-murdoch-144244300.html; http://www.businessinsider.com/murdoch-testifies-live-coverage-of-the-parliamentary-phone-hacking-hearing-2011-7; http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/news-of-the-world-makes-headlines-of-its-own/; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05hacking-t.html

More proof: If you're not angry, you're not paying attention

It was bad enough when our government--the George W. Bush White House, to be precise--took us into an unnecessary, murderous, wreckless, unnecessary and both nationally and internationally illegal war. The Iraq War, of course, to be specific. That was bad enough. To date, 4415 American Soldiers have given their lives because of it, while at least 31,907 American men and women have been wounded. If that isn't enough to make you angry right there, I don't know what will. But now, after the Supreme Court's ruling earlier this year which made legal unlimited quantities of money they can contribute to any political campaign, here's another one--another reason to be angry and, hopefully, for us to do things about it. Get this: News Corp., the media company controlled by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch, gave the Republican Governor's Association $1 million in June. The floodgates of unlimited money to politicians and political campaigns have been opened, folks, and your democracy isn't just for sale. Your democracy and your vote has been sold. It's been given away. And the corporations bought and sold it. Angry yet? You'd better be. And we'd better start doing something about it all. Links: http://antiwar.com/casualties/ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-16/republicans-set-for-gains-in-u-s-governors-races-as-funding-sets-record.html