Former Fox News host claims that not only was she sexually harassed, but that her phone was hacked and the information used against her online.

Courtesy of NPR: 

The host, Andrea Tantaros, alleged in a previous lawsuit that she had been sexually harassed by former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes and former top-rated Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. That suit has been stayed while her complaints against the network are being heard in binding private arbitration. All defendants, through their own representatives or through Fox's parent company, 21st Century Fox, vehemently denied Tantaros' initial allegations.

In Monday's federal lawsuit, Tantaros alleges that Fox News executives including co-President Bill Shine orchestrated the use of material gathered by electronic eavesdropping that was fed to Twitter accounts acting on the network's behalf. Ensuing tweets, she says, reflected knowledge of details of intimate conversations and exchanges with family members and friends. Tantaros alleges this was done to try to undermine her resolve in challenging the network on sexual harassment.

As you may know News Corp the parent company of Fox has a long and scandalous history of tapping people's phones.

According to the lawsuit Fox was fairly nasty in how they used the stolen information:

The suit alleges a rise in offensive material on social media accounts directed toward Tantaros in early 2015, when, she says, she first notified Shine and other Fox News executives that Ailes had harassed her. 

Then in May 2016, according to the complaint, several Twitter accounts started to post material suggesting direct knowledge of her conversations.

For example, a picture of a movie about a black scorpion was posted just after she learned that a friend had been bitten by one. Another tweet invoked the idea of a memorial for Tantaros' dead brother, just after she and her mother had spoken of it; the third anniversary of his death was still a few months away. 

And at the same time that Tantaros was talking to the children of her other brother while they were at Disneyland, according to the lawsuit, a tweet on one of the accounts posted a photograph of Mickey Mouse hugging two children. 

"This is not just cyberstalking," Tantaros' lawyer, Judd Burstein, told NPR. "This is cyberstalking on steroids, because, as alleged in the complaint, they harassed her through sock-puppet social media accounts which conveyed the illegal fruits of their electronic surveillance of her. It was in essence two crimes committed at the same time."

Certainly sounds like something Fox News would do, doesn't it. 

(Similar tactics were used against me back when I reported on the Palin marriage troubles. I was not hacked I don't think, but IM was scoured for dirt and then the information was misrepresented on various right wing news outlets in a way to impugn my character. So I have seen these tactics at work.)

If the lawyer for Tantaros can make these allegations stick, I see a big payout in their future.

President Obama's reaction to learning that Trump claimed he wire tapped his phones was...well....presidential.

NEW: Obama wasn't livid, but "rolled his eyes" in reax to Trump's wiretapping claims. More new details here. 👇 pic.twitter.com/YwgbXkBBHg

— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) March 8, 2017

Here's the thing that gets me, even though he is now just an every day citizen, President Obama responds to a cowardly unprovoked attack by worrying more about protecting the office of the president than the man actually occupying that office.

I think that essentially says it all.

Five new things we just learned about the Roger Ailes sexual harassment case.

So yesterday New York Magazine did a deep dive into the Roger Ailes/Fox News sex scandal.

I read through most of it and was planning to write about it today.

However Talking Points Memo just offered a summary which hits the main points that I was planning to cover so let's follow their lead.

Number one:  

Gretchen Carlson secretly recorded alleged instances of Ailes' sexual harassment 

Sherman’s report confirmed speculation that former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, who is suing Ailes for sexual harassment and retaliation, possesses taped recordings of Ailes’ alleged advances that back her suit, which opened the floodgates for the Fox News boss’ eventual downfall.

Apparently Carlson took her I-Phone in with her when she met wtih Ailes in his office and hit "record" when he started acting like a frat boy on Spring Break, and the rest is history. Just like his career at Fox News.

I saw the author of the New York Magazine piece being interviewed yesterday and when asked if the tapes had been played for Ailes and his attorneys, he said that they had been a central part of the case, so yes.

I'm not going to lie this made me seriously reconsider my former dislike for Gretchen Carlson.

She's a bad ass!

Number two:

Fox News allegedly hacked journalists’ phone records 

As Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper empire was embroiled in a phone-hacking scandal, Fox News allegedly employed “legally questionable means” to obtain a U.S. journalist’s phone records.

Okay now I have been waiting to hear evidence that Fox News was hacking people here in American ever since Rupert Murdoch's  News of the World was busted for that back in 2011.

To me that sounded EXACTLY like something that Ailes would do, and once it was confirmed that Rupert Murdoch's papers did it in Britain, I knew that it was only a matter of time before we learned for certain that it was happening here as well.

Number three:

Megyn Kelly reportedly rallied Fox women to speak to investigators 

As Sherman tells it, fired Fox anchor Gretchen Carlson’s lawsuit provided an opening for the network's star anchor. Ailes was no longer lending Kelly his support and she was in the midst of ongoing contract negotiations. When Kelly alleged to James Murdoch that Ailes had once made harassing comments and hugged her inappropriately in his office, Murdoch reportedly urged her to speak to the investigators at the law firm Paul, Weiss, which is conducting an internal probe into the Ailes allegations. 

Kelly was the third or fourth woman to speak with investigators, an anonymous source briefed on the investigation told Sherman. After her interview, she reportedly called up current and former Fox staffers to encourage them to speak with the lawyers, and many more women came forward.

Damn! SO now I have to reconsider my dislike for Megyn Kelly too?

Number four: 

Real fears of a Trump TV network are reportedly swirling at Fox 

Although there’s been wide speculation that Donald Trump’s 2016 endgame may be to break into cable news with a conservative network that would rival Fox News, anonymous network insiders talked about Trump TV as a near-certainty that was casting a pall over the network’s future. 

The current top talent and leadership will only last through Election Day, one unnamed host told Sherman. 

“As of November 9, there will be a bloodbath at Fox,” the host said. “After the election, the prime-time lineup could be eviscerated. O’Reilly’s been talking about retirement. Megyn could go to another network. And Hannity will go to Trump TV.”

Okay that's it.

If Fox News is actually worried about competition from Trump TV, then it virtually confirms that it is likely a real thing.

So Donald Trump's entire campaign is essentially a coming attractions trailer for his soon to be launched cable news network.

God Republicans are dumb!

Very close to being the truth.

You know I think that Fox News might even be willing to report on News Corp phone hacking just so long as those intercepted phone calls somehow indicated that President Obama was lying about Benghazi.

Did Rupert Murdoch pay Rebekah Brooks hush money? Certainly looks like it!

Serving time in prison is SO much easier when you have 11 million dollars waiting for you on the outside.

Courtesy of NBC News:

Former newspaper executive Rebekah Brooks received a payout totaling more than 7 million pounds ($11.2 million) following her resignation from Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper group last year, the Financial Times said on Tuesday. 

Brooks, the woman at the heart of a scandal shaking Rupert Murdoch's media empire and the British government, is awaiting trial next year on multiple charges in relation to phone-hacking by reporters at one of her papers. 

The FT cites two people with knowledge of her compensation as saying the payout consisted of cash and pension payments as well as an allowance for legal fees and the use of a chauffeur-driven car. 

Two of the people cited by the newspaper said the payout also included substantial claw-back clauses for her former employer, News International. 

These entitle News International, the British arm of News Corp., to recover some of the payment from Brooks in certain circumstances, according to a third person familiar with the details of her exit package. 

A spokeswoman for News International declined to comment and a spokesman for Brooks could not be reached for immediate comment.

Okay so Brooks was paid over ELEVEN MILLION dollars when she left Murdoch's employ under a cloud of suspicion, however there is a clause which states she must return a portion of this money "in certain circumstances?"

Would those "circumstances" include testifying against her old boss? Because I have to say that it kind of looks that way.

Does it look that way to everybody else, or am I missing something here?

And how does this NOT make both her and her employer look even MORE guilty?

Rupert Murdoch resigns.

Courtesy of The Telegraph: 

Rupert Murdoch has resigned as a director of a string of companies behind The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times, fuelling expectations that he is preparing to sell the newspaper group. 

Companies House filings show that Mr Murdoch stepped down from the boards of the NI Group, Times Newspaper Holdings and News Corp Investments in the UK last week. He also quit a number of News Corp’s US boards, the details of which have yet to be disclosed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. 

News Corporation played down the significance of the resignations as “nothing more than a corporate housecleaning exercise prior to the company split”. 

The media giant took a similar line when James Murdoch resigned a string of directorships at News International last November, pouring cold water on suggestions that he was walking away from the UK newspaper arm. He quit as chairman three months later.

I think this is amazing news, and I certainly hope that it is an indication this scandal will be discovered to have happened in America as well.  I cannot imagine that if it was So prevalent among News Corps news outlets in Britain that it would not also have occurred here as well.

There is currently at least two investigations here in America to determine that very thing:

The Justice Department and FBI are in the midst of two investigations into the hacking scandal. One seeks to learn if any News Corp. employees engaged in phone hacking in the United States; another is aimed at determining whether bribes paid to British officials by journalists at two News Corp. papers, the now-defunct News of the World and the Sun, for newsworthy information constituted a breach of a U.S. anti-bribery law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Hopefully these investigations will start to show some progress BEFORE our November election.

Especially since it appears that Fox News will do just about ANYTHING to ensure the defeat of our President:  

Rebekah Brooks, former chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International, charged on three counts of conspiracy.

Courtesy of  the Guardian:

Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, has been charged over allegations that she tried to conceal evidence from detectives investigating phone hacking and alleged bribes to public officials. 

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that Brooks, one of the most high-profile figures in the newspaper industry, would be charged with three counts of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in July last year at the height of the police investigation. 

Scotland Yard later confirmed she had been charged along with her husband, Charlie Brooks, and four others. 

Brooks is accused of conspiring with others, including her husband, a racehorse trainer and friend of the prime minister, and her personal assistant, to conceal material from detectives. 

Brooks and her husband were informed of the charging decision – the first since the start of the Operation Weeting phone-hacking investigation last January – when they answered their bail at a police station in London on Tuesday morning. 

They are among six individuals from News International, along with the company's head of security, Mark Hanna, to be charged over allegations that they removed material, documents and computers to hide them from officers investigating phone hacking. The charge carries a maximum penalty of life, although the average term served in prison is 10 months.

I think Rupert Murdoch is VERY lucky that Brooks has so far been willing to take the bullet to protect him.

I wonder if she begins to think she might actually get that life sentence if that would be enough to get her to cut a deal and send her boss to the slammer. A place by the way that I think we can all agree is exactly where he belongs.

I can tell you right now that if this case extends to Fox News that Sean Hannity would turn state's evidence on his employer so fast it would make our heads spin.

Watchdog group wants FCC to pull Rupert Murdoch's Fox News licenses in response to phone hacking charges. Is it Christmas already?

Courtesy of the Guardian:

A Washington-based ethics watchdog is calling on federal regulators to revoke News Corporation's 27 Fox broadcast licenses in the wake of the highly critical report on phone hacking from the UK parliament. 

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) has written to the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, calling on the regulator to pull the plug on Rupert Murdoch's lucrative television licenses on grounds of character. 

The letter argues that the final report of the UK Commons culture, media and sport committee, which concluded that Murdoch was not fit to run a major international company, had implications for the US regulators that they had now to act upon. 

Melanie Sloan, Crew's director, said that the Murdochs had clearly failed the character test that is embedded within US media law as it is within British. "If they are not passing the character standard under British law, it seems to me that they are not going to meet the character standard in America." 

In their report, the British parliamentarians found Rupert Murdoch was "not a fit person" to exercise stewardship of a major international company. The Commons culture, media and sport select committee also concluded that James Murdoch showed "willful ignorance" of the extent of phone hacking during 2009 and 2010. 

Under FCC regulations, broadcast frequencies can only be handed to firms run by people of good "character" who serve the "public interest" and speak with "candor". In making that judgment, the FCC is entitled to consider past conduct of media owners, including conduct that does not relate directly to their broadcasting interests, as well as any patterns of alleged misbehavior. 

The FCC has so far shown an unwillingness to be drawn into the billowing phone hacking scandal concerning the News of the World and other News Corporation outlets in the UK. Last July, Genachowski indicated that he did not expect his agency to get involved in the probe. 

But Crew insisted that as more information emerges about the failure of News Corp to deal with its hacking crisis, federal authorities would eventually be forced to act. The watchdog has also written to the US Senate and House committees on commerce calling for congressional hearings into whether the Murdochs were fit to hold the Fox TV licenses. A similar request from Crew last year went unanswered.

This is by NO means a done deal, but considering how the Obama administration, and the other news agencies, view Fox News, it would not be totally surprising if these calls for removing the Murdock taint from journalism in this country, in an attempt to bring back the high standards it once enjoyed before it was infected with the cancer of Fox New, don't find sympathetic ears here in the United States.

And how awesome would it be if we could FINALLY have a country where the poisonous lies dripping from the fangs of the Fox News "journalists" did not inject themselves into our political dialogue and negatively impact our ability to separate fact from fabrication?

Not to mention the fact that without Fox News, there would be NOBODY willing to broadcast the wilted word salad of a certain Lunatic from Lake Lucille into our living rooms. 

THAT alone should be enough reason for the FCC to act on CREWS request.

Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch's former deputy, arrested for obstruction of justice. Are Murdoch's days now numbered?

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

Rebekah Brooks and her husband, the horse-trainer Charlie Brooks, were arrested this morning as part of the biggest wave of arrests yet to come out of Operation Weeting, the police investigation into phone hacking in the U.K. press, and specifically into Rupert Murdoch’s former flagship tabloid, News of the World, which closed last summer amid accusations that the paper’s journos had hacked into the cellphone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Brooks is a former editor of that newspaper, as well as of The Sun, which has been battered of late by a parallel investigation into illegal payments to public officials. 

Significantly, the arrests are not in relation to the illegal hacking of voicemails or payments to public officials, but to obstructing justice. On that front, there have been some potentially damaging allegations of late. Earlier this year, it was revealed that an IT worker deleted a controversial email from the account of James Murdoch, who stepped down as the head of News International this month, just 11 days before Operation Weeting began. And court documents released last month allege a so-called “email deletion policy” at News International, discussed by at least one unnamed senior executive, in which “hundreds of thousands of emails, on nine separate occasions, were destroyed,” according to the documents. 

Conspiracy to pervert the course of justice carries more serious legal implications than phone hacking. Tom Watson, the M.P. leading the campaign against Murdoch in Parliament, responded to news of the email deletion policy last month by tweeting, “the game is up @rupertmurdoch.”

At this point I am having a hard time imagining that this does not jump the pond and come to roost at the doorstep of Fox News.

Anybody disagree?

In ANOTHER good news day, Rupert Murdock is about to be buried under an avalanche of lawsuits.

Courtesy of Bloomberg News:

News Corp.'s U.K. unit was sued by 13 people Monday and at least 24 since last week over claims related to phone-hacking at the defunct News of the World tabloid. 

The latest rash of lawsuits in London includes complaints filed by pop star Dannii Minogue, Paul Burrell, Princess Diana's former butler, and Sara Payne, the mother of a murdered eight-year-old girl, who had close ties to the newspaper. 

News Corp. now faces at least 64 lawsuits linked to the phone-hacking scandal that forced the company to shutter the weekly tabloid in July. 

The company is facing probes by British police and an independent body set up by the U.K. government into the activities of reporters and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who was jailed in 2007 for hacking into voice-mails. 

"So far, fewer than 5% of the victims of Glenn Mulcaire have been notified," said Mark Lewis, a lawyer for some phone-hacking victims in an email. 

"He was just one agent used by one paper. When the final tally takes place, we will see thousands of claims and more than one paper." 

Murdoch has extremely deep pockets, so I hope that this is only the beginning, and that soon Murdoch and the empire he built to suck all of the integrity out of journalism, both here and in Britain, will be no more than a distant, and sickening, memory.

Joe McGinniss responds to leaked e-mail.

It looks like Joe responded to Mediaite concerning the e-mail:

My email to Jesse Griffin was an effort to secure Alaskan help in obtaining further corroboration of allegations about Sarah Palin that came to my attention during my research. My reporting continued beyond the date of the email, and only information that checked out to my satisfaction and that of my publisher was included in the book. Ultimately, I published only those allegations which I found to be credible. Other allegations that could not be sufficiently verified, including some of those referenced in my email, are not in my book.

Yes that is precisely correct.

As I mentioned earlier Joe had contacted me after leaving Alaska and asked me try and convince some more sources to go on the record.  This is what I wrote about that exchange:

Even after Joe left Alaska he said "Jesse I need something more than what I found up there." So I tried some more, and essentially ran off people who had once claimed repeatedly to be willing to talk to "the right journalist or author." (If freaking Joe McGinniss was not "the right author" who in the hell were they waiting to interview them?)

I think I was only able to help him with one or two of his questions, but the point was that he was asking if anybody could verify these stories, NOT that he wanted to hear more rumors. (Some like the Brad Hanson affair, I knew less than he did about. Though I DID speak to the reporter that broke the story. And at least three people in Wasilla that also knew of it. Joe knows them as well.)

However the majority of Joe's book is from eyewitness sources that saw the things reported happen just as he describes them. And I certainly did not connect him with Glen Rice, who has substantiated his tryst with Sister Sarah and has no problem with how it is described in the book.

For those taken aback by Joe's style in the e-mail all I have to say is THAT is how Joe talks. There is no patience for bullshit, and he does not beat around the bush.

And do you know what? I was not offended or bothered one little bit, because I knew that the standards for writing a book (And the legal scrutiny that it is subjected to), were MUCH different for a book than they are for my blog.  Which is obviously quite an understatement.

Yes the Right Wing will use this, and every thing else they can find, in a desperate attempt to discredit this book.  But hey if it keeps selling than they fail don't they?

And let's face it, WHO among the viewers of Fox News, and the visitors to Breitbat's blog, were going to buy it anyhow?

The MUCH more important question in my mind is HOW did Breitbart get that e-mail?

I don't share my private e-mails with ANYBODY! At least on my end, the only two people who should have seen it are Joe and I.  And really WHY would Joe send it to anybody else?

So is it possible that we now have an American case of News Corp phone hacking techniques being used by a well known contributor to Fox News? That is the question that I want to see answered!

News Corp receives letter from US prosecutors. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

"Well they could not actually throw me in jail though, right?"

Courtesy of Bloomberg:

News Corp was sent a letter by U.S. prosecutors investigating foreign bribery, requesting information on alleged payments employees made to U.K. police for tips, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. 

The letter is part of an effort by the U.S. Justice Department to determine whether News Corp. violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or FCPA, according to the person, who declined to be identified because the matter isn’t public. News Corp. fell 1.7 percent on the news. 

The inquiry advances an existing U.S. probe that is reviewing claims that victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had their phones hacked by News Corp. employees. The letter doesn’t carry the same legal force as a grand jury subpoena, which would compel a response under law. 

Oh that is awesome!

And here I thought all of the good news this September was going to be about uncovering the truth about Sarah Palin.

(H/T to Alaska WTF)

Somehow despite Wolf Blitzer's involvement CNN manages to be exciting for once.

You can read more about this exchange here, including this rather interesting bit of information:

Morgan later used his show to press his point further. He also flashed the excerpt from his book in which he recounts how someone had warned him that his phones could be hacked.

"Apparently, if you don't change the standard security code that every phone comes with, then anyone can call your number and, if you don't answer, tap in the standard four-digit code to hear all your messages," he wrote. "I'll change mine just in case, but it makes me wonder how many public figures and celebrities are aware of this little trick.

One commentator on a British gossip website asked: "Why would he mention such a trick unless he was smugly hinting at what was taking place while he was an editor?" Another wondered if Mensch had "hit a nerve?"

Among the pair's Twitter messages, Morgan asked journalists to buy his book, saying it was a "good read."
Mensch Tweeted: "New American readers may wish to know the circumstances in which Morgan left the Mirror."

He was fired in 2004 after authorizing the publication of photographs allegedly showing British Army soldiers torturing Iraqis — but which were actually fakes.

I am not personally a fan of Piers Morgan, and have not bothered to watch the time slot that once belonged to Larry King, except for once when Bill Maher made an appearance on the program.  I liked Maher, but found Morgan insufferable.

Personally I do not find it much of a stretch to consider that Morgan might very well have been involved in the phone hacking, and it is my hope that law enforcement should investigate him to find out one way or the other.

Seems fair, right?

BTW I should admit that I AM a fan of MP Louise Mensch, and found her grilling of Rupert Murdoch while he was testifying before Parliament to be perhaps the most compelling part of what was a VERY entertaining piece of history.

Ruopert Murdoch nearly hit by pie plate full of whipped cream while testifying today. Updated with Tweets!

(This is a replacement video, because the first one was yanked.)



I LOVE that Murdoch's ninja wife knocked the snot out of this guy before security can even reach him.

I will add my tweets later.

Update: Here are my tweets during the Murdoch's testimony before the British Parliament.

Murdoch's statement that this is "the most humble day of my life" in front of UK Parliament, may qualify him for a Razzie. Horrible acting!

So to be clear Rupert Murdoch has absolutely NO idea what is going on in his companies. Is that about right?

Is that Murdoch's wife behind him? The cameras should focus on her face while he testifies. I don't believe she has a good poker face.(Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, kept shifting her position and making faces behind her husband while he was testifying. You could tell when she was concerned about what he was saying. At this point I had no idea she was preparing for battle.)

Proof that Murdoch is an American Republican. He says he is NOT responsible for what happened at News Corp.

James Murdoch is a very accomplished bullshit artist. Surprisingly Rupert, much less so.

Parliament needs to focus on Murdoch senior. He is the weak link here. Junior is VERY slick.

That "Willful blindness" question seems to have effectively harshed young James Murdoch's mellow. Don't you agree?

Somebody tried to jump Murdoch? THAT is the guy I want to see interviewed. (I missed the initial attack, and only saw it seconds later on playback form MSNBC, which at first was only showing the reaction from James and Wendy Deng slapping the comedy right out of the guy, before her non-ninja approved high heels made her lose her balance.)

Damn! His wife totally bitch slapped the guy!

It looks like the guy got pied. (At this point I had no idea what was all over him.)

Oh, the guy tried to hit Rupert Murdoch with a pie. Apparently thinks he is on the Benny Hill Show.

Murdoch's ninja trained wife stopped the guy from getting goo on her sugar daddy.

Yes I know that "goo on her sugardaddy" sounds vaguely sexual, but that was probably just an accident on my part.

MSNBC is reporting that the man tried to hit Murdoch with a "white substance." Just leave it alone Gryph. Don't make the bukakke joke. Damn! (Someday I am confident I will mature.  Just not today.)

Murdoch has NOT considered resigning? That arrogance will be his downfall.

At the closing of the testimony from Charles Montgomery Burns and his sidekick, Smithers, they were allowed to read from a prepared statement which you can find here.

I have to say I found that testimony fascinating, but I do not think that even Murdoch's super slick son was effective enough to convince the Parliament that there was not some serious wrong doing on the part of father and son.  Well father at least. 

Rachel Maddow reveals that phone and computer hacking just business as usual for companies owned by Rupert Murdoch.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We knew it was coming! Fox News has "Brain Room" where the phone records of Americans are being hacked.

Courtesy of Business Insider:

A former producer with Fox News claimed in a lengthy essay gaining new traction this week that the conservative television station has a "Brain Room" in its New York headquarters, which enables employees to view private telephone records with ease.

Though published years ago, the allegations have returned to relevance in the wake of the phone hacking scandals that have rocked News Corporation to its very core, threatening to topple one of the world's largest and most powerful media conglomerates.

According to former Fox News executive Dan Cooper, whose gripes with his former employer run quite deep, Fox News chief Roger Ailes allegedly had him design the so-called "Brain Room" to facilitate counter-intelligence efforts and other "black ops."

In a lengthy 2008 diatribe said to have doubled as a book pitch, Cooper claimed his own phone records had been hacked by Fox News employees, who he says used them to pinpoint him as a source used by David Brock, who founded liberal watchdog group Media Matters.

"Ailes knew I had given Brock the interview," he wrote. "Certainly Brock didn't tell him. Of course. Fox News had gotten Brock's telephone records from the phone company, and my phone number was on the list. Deep in the bowels of 1211 Avenue of the Americas, News Corporation's New York headquarters, was what Roger called the Brain Room. Most people thought it was simply the research department of Fox News. But unlike virtually everybody else, because I had to design and build the Brain Room, I knew it also housed a counterintelligence and black ops office. So accessing phone records was easy pie."

See?  I told you it would lead back to Fox News!

My fervent hope is that the FBI get themselves a search warrant and GAIN ACCESS TO THAT ROOM!

Ladies and gentlemen I would bet my house that if they could get in there THAT would be the end of Fox News, Roger Ailes, and Rupert Murdoch.  There is no doubt in my mind.

You know the part that really pisses me off?  That I already KNEW about this story, and even wrote about it, but it completely slipped my mind until I read this article.

Some investigative reporter I turned out to be.

Phone hacking whistleblower found dead. Uh oh, I don't like where this is going!

Courtesy of the Guardian:

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned.

Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems, is said to have been found dead at his Watford home.

Hertfordshire police would not confirm his identity, but the force said in a statement: "At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for the welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after.

"The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious. Police investigations into this incident are ongoing."

Okay I am going to try not to be too conspiratorial here but...oh fuck it, this simply CANNOT be a coincidence!


They need to get somebody besides the local police involved in this investigation immediately, and make damn sure that any other journalitst involved in this investigation, and their sources, are provided protection.

I realize that it is possible that this guy took his own life, or succumbed to "natural causes," but at this point I think those are the LEAST likely scenarios.

Rupert Murdoch protege, Rebekah Brooks, arrested over phone hacking scandal! Update!

Courtesy of The Daily Mail:

Former News International executive Rebekah Brooks was today sensationally arrested over the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

The 43-year-old was held when she arrived for a pre-arranged appointment at a central London police station - two days before she is due to give evidence to MPs. 

The ex-News of the World editor, who is tenth person to be arrested in connection with allegations of corruption and phone hacking, resigned from her job on Friday.

Mrs Brooks is believed to be being held at Lewisham police station. She attended voluntarily and said she is 'assisting police with investigations'.

She is in custody as part of the ongoing investigations by officers from Operation Weeting looking at phone hacking and Operation Elveden, investigating inappropriate payments to police.

She was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications.

Mrs Brooks' arrest comes after it was revealed that Britain's top police officer accepted a free five-week stay at a top health spa where News of the World hacking suspect Neil Wallis was a PR consultant.

She is "assisting police with investigations." If you don't think those words send a chill up the spine of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes than you have not been paying attention.


I have a feeling that this thing is still only at its beginning stages, and that when the dust finally settles there are going to be some very serious changes in how journalism is conducted in Britain, and hopefully America as well.

Update: It looks like another domino just fell.

The commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Services, Sir Paul Stephenson, resigned his post on Sunday just hours after his officers arrested Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of Rupert Murdoch’s media operations in Britain, as damage from a phone-hacking scandal moved to the highest levels of British public life.

In a news conference, Sir Paul said his position was “in danger of being eclipsed by the ongoing debate by senior officers and the media. And this can never be right,” according to a report by The Guardian.

The Metropolitan Police, commonly referred to as Scotland Yard, has come under harsh scrutiny in recent days, accused in the press and by British politicians of currying too close a relationship with tabloid executives.

Like I said this thing is just in the beginning stages. So far almost every day has seen the new allegations and new resignations, from my perspective it feels like the momentum is picking up NOT getting ready to crest nor diminish.


Anybody of a differing opinion?

Rachel Maddow interviews Bill Moyers on his views concerning the Rupert Murdoch scandal and the state of journalism in America.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This is an interview of one of the giants of American journalism in this country conducted by one of the very best reporters we have working today.

In other words it is MUST see!

FBI begins probe to investigate allegations that News Corp hacked phones of 9-11 victims. Well now, things just got a LOT more interesting!

Courtesy of the LA Times:

Responding to allegations from several Washington lawmakers, the FBI has opened an investigation into whether Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. attempted to hack into the telephones of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the families of those who died.

According to federal law enforcement sources, the decision by the FBI's field office in New York to launch the criminal probe came after several members of Congress raised concerns in letters to FBI headquarters, questioning whether reporters for the media empire may have tried to compromise Sept. 11 victims just as they reportedly hacked into the phones of numerous individuals in England.

"We are doing this based on their requests," said an FBI source, who asked not to be identified because the investigation is just getting underway. "But after reviewing the letters and their allegations, and after consultation with the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York, we are proceeding."

At the Department of Justice, officials also acknowledged they are "reviewing" the allegations by Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and others that Sept. 11 victims and families may have been put at risk by News Corp.

"If these allegations are proven true," King wrote in his letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, "the conduct would merit felony charges for attempting to violate various federal statutes related to corruption of public officials and prohibitions against wiretapping. Any person found guilty of this purported conduct should receive the harshest sanctions available under law."

I have to imagine that there are those working at Fox News right now who are trying desperately to clear their email trash bins and clean up their hard drives before the investigation leads the FBI right to their door. Because folks, you just KNOW that this was not something that just took place on the other side of the Atlantic.

I also have to imagine that there are some disgruntled ex-News Corp, and Fox News employees that are more than willing to help the FBI with their case.

Remember when I promised you that this would be a great summer?

Well to be honest there was really NO WAY I could have imagined that it would be THIS great!