Maxnix, some NPR types I have met are certain Stalin could have made a success out of Communism if only he'd been as smart as they are. Others think he was insufficiently rigorous in his ideology. And most of the staff just want to bring back the Dr. Who marathon for pledge week.
Assuring reps from a known terrorist group ( fake, but they thought they were in fact the Muslim Brotherhood ) that they could launder any contributions made for the purpose of pushing the donors agenda, and had experience doing so, should be enough for the FBI ( or at least FCC ) to investigate.
The comment that the newspapers might be run by Jews, but NOT NPR......... These people's attitudes have been around before.
And thats the partly taxpayer paid news.
The subject isn't so much the Rupert scandal, as the prejudice of the original poster against the Fox News company. I still find the news part less biased than most, especially in their CHOICE to cover news others don't.. The editorial & talkshow & "special report" stuff IS very biased. Read Brown's article in the link above.
I'm waiting for more info on Rupert's involvement. Seems like he's trying to scapegoat the publisher of the paper. The whole things stinks.
The rumors tend to be BS in my experience. Bring down a PM? Coke head reporter suicide or stupid?
I'd bring back Dr. Who for PBS legalized panhandling week if it were the Tom Baker episodes.
My problem, well, one of them, is that I enjoy making fun of things with which I don't agree. Or, slaughter and cook the occasional sacred cow. My manners need improving.
Rupert is trying to turn the controls over to son Jimmy and this makes his job harder. Me suspects the Yanks asking for a look see at News Corp. by some federal agency are just hoping to chip away at Fox News. I do glance at Cavutto, but the evening fair is too "News of the World"-ish.
Perhaps I'll start a thread about the coming Obamageddon financial collapse that will separate the wheat from the chafe in American values. I predict zombies in the streets.
I'm waiting for more info on Rupert's involvement. Seems like he's trying to scapegoat the publisher of the paper. The whole things stinks.
I sat through the whole 2 hours + of the Parliamentary committee hearing yesterday and I must admit that I have more sympathy now for the Murdochs than I had before, especially given some the inane questions being asked by MP's who obviously had their own agenda.
Rupert Murdoch looked all of his 80+ years and basically said that he employs 53,000 people in around 200 different papers/news media companies around the world. They are given a large amount of autonomy and have their own budget and legal teams etc so he would not necessarily be involved in day to day decisions or running of the News International business. This may be the wrong way to run a business, but it is probably the truth. Both he and James Murdoch appeared to be contrite over the allegations of phone hacking and hopefully will be able to help get to the bottom of what is a very murky pool.
It was mentioned yesterday as an aside that Piers Morgan (current darling of the American media adn ex-editor of both the Daily Mirror and News of the World) stated in his memoirs (what a dull read that would be!) that phone hacking was common practice amongst tabloid journalists, and he even bragged about hacking into the England football team managers phone to expose some sex scandal or other.
The Murdochs are unfortunately the current scapegoats for dodgy practices by the UK press that have been going on for years right across the industry, so I have some sympathy fo them overall. I do not have any sympathy with the people who actually carried out the hacking or who authorised it, and they are the editorial staff of the papers concerned.
Moxnix said: "I like it best when a politician fears the loss of his protective walls of privilege. It they collapse around him, he finds himself no safer than the next man, exposed to the gaze of the world like a lying husband for his laxities and evasions."
Replace "politician" with "bourgeoisie" and you've just written the most Marxist thing I've read since...well....Marx.
Perhaps I'll start a thread about the coming Obamageddon financial collapse that will separate the wheat from the chafe in American values.
I think you'll find that the financial collapse started a long time before Obama even thought about being President.
Unfortunately successive governments (of all political persuasions) both sides of the pond chose to do nothing about the growing debt mountain over the years rather than risk being unpopular with voters, so now we all have to brace ourselves for the repurcussians that are coming.
With Southern Europe already bankrupt I can't see the other half or the US being able to prop up the global economy for much longer. Printing more money or voting ourselves a bigger debt won't make it go away either unfortunately.
Maybe if we ask our Chinese loan masters for an extension on our national debt they'll be kind to us
This pending financial collapse started in 1917 when the first extension of the debt limit occurred. We've been edging up ever since. Greece and Spain, et al, shan't hold a candle to the debacle our system is falling toward.
The "going banko" is just a matter of time. The war expenses of Iraq, combined with the "derivatives" trading on Wall Street, during the Bush years are what brought us to our knees. Mind you, having Obama the alchemist turn gold into lead to double the historical entire national debt within months of attaining his office was the Obamageddon moment from which there is no pissing backward.
>>>Replace "politician" with "bourgeoisie" and you've just written the most Marxist thing I've read since...well....Marx.
But I didn't replace pols with swells, so the point is moot. Everyone is a target, me, you, rich, poor, left, right, middle, etc. My standing as a self-appointed social and political critic creates a vast field of grist for the mill.
When you tally up the bill for the Iraq war, make sure you subtract what we would have normally spent on the DOD if we weren't in Iraq. The savings disappear rapidly. They don't go away, true, but the delta isn't as big as some think.
When I say "if we weren't in Iraq" of course I mean if we hadn't resumed hostilities in 03. We were already there. I did three tours in the gulf during the "peacetime" Clinton years. Iraq was still shooting at us, and we were still shooting at them.
(Reuters) - Britons love to lecture the world about integrity and the rule of law, but the News of the World phone hacking scandal has laid bare a web of collusion between money, power, media and the police.
Oh, the whole world loves to lecture each other, why should our British cousins be left out.
>>>When you tally up the bill for the Iraq war.... It turned my stomach when Haliburton got the first no-bid contract to support our military efforts, as having it's former head, Meester Cheney, as #2 in the admin just didn't pass the stink test from the get go. Yes, I understand there would be necessary contracts let, but there must have been a way to have it stink less.
$12 billion in cash, from the plane loads of $100 bills, is acknowledged to be "missing." I got not of it. Perhaps I'd quit whining if I had.
Replace "politician" with "bourgeoisie" and you've just written the most Marxist thing I've read since...well....Marx.
Duh. The point of conservatives is that socialism just replaces an "open opportunity" bourgeoisie with an armed and totalitarian one. It believes that the worst bourgeoisie is a government one.
At least when your bourgeoisie is a profit driven one, it has to be able to stand on it's own, and hard working people of all colors and talents are forever finding new ways to worm their way into it. And for the most part, it could care less what other people do, just so long as they get left alone.
Marxism was just another way to seizing control, and the worst sort of control at that. It claimed control over things "evil capitalists" would never consider trying to meddle in.
That no-bid contract was an extension to the fairly bid and won contract that Halliburton was executing right next door in Kuwait. It made complete sense to amend that contract to include Iraq. They already had equipment and personnel in theater.
The Obama administration has extended contracts in a similar manner.
The press' mantra has been the opposite, so It's not surprising that you don't know that.
Everybody calm down, Joel Klein is going to make this all go away. Click the remote to continue the rinse cycle on your thinking apparatus. Nothing to see here. Move along.
True, the "rich" being taxed under Obama's plan are small business owners, schoolteachers and cops, while billionaires get off as usual. ( schoolteachers and the guy running the shoe store can't afford to "contribute" to pols like millionaires and Unions )
No, we need to tax the REAL leaches on society. Congress & the Executive. All congressmen, the Prez, VP, and Cabinet level, vetted by Congress, or "czars", should be taxed at a variable rate leaving them $100,000 a year to live on. All other assets not their primary residence should be taken. ( sorry about that yacht you don't like to pay parking taxes on in your own state, Mr. Heinz. )
Also, thanks to W. Buffet.... Every really really rich guy that insists he should pay more in taxes? Let them. The IRS will happily take a check for, say, half their assets. ( more would be rude )
I'm not actually advocating this fascist notion, but I'd support it as a requirement for a debt increase.
