Rupert Murdoch, Ratings and The Yellow Journalism of Fox News 1/2

(Originally posted at PoliticalGates earlier this year.)

by Nomad

At the turn of the century, writers searching for the soul of America looked at the country through the new lenses and found much to criticize. While the nation had become a world power with a great navy and mounting wealth, the journalists sought to prove that much of the wealth was gained through cheap labor that kept the laboring class subservient, poor and unhealthy.

Millionaires... had developed a powerful economy enjoyed by the few. What rights should workers have? What education should be afforded child laborers? What quality and safety were afforded the working class in their homes, their food? Through the lens of these news ideologies, early twentieth century journalists re-examined the relationships among politicians, business tycoons, and laborers.

The Public Press, 1900-1945: The History of American Journalism, by Leonard Ray Teel

That quote refers to a time over a hundred years ago - fondly called the Progressive Era- and yet what has changed since that golden age of journalism? 

In some ways, America as a nation is stuck in the right-turn lane.  

A full century has passed and the battle between the wealthy- now super-wealthy- and the middle laboring class- now called the 99%- has re-commenced. Or has it ever really ended? 
One essential difference is, of course, the state of American journalism- the once disinterested crusader for the people’s interests. The press- along with the promise of reform it once represented- has been absorbed into the system and what's left when the capitalists got through with it is, well,  Fox News and CNN.

Beyond Flip-Flopping: Is Romney Just a Liar?

By Nomad

Here we are with only 193 days before the election night and Mitt Romney appears to have the Republican nomination wrapped up. This hellishly long vetting process, with endless, needless debates and primaries run amok, has been an inglorious examination of a variety of political failures. 

From Newt Gingrich's impossible pomposity and Rick Santorum's often unnerving tendency to sound as tolerant as your average Iranian mullah, to Rick Perry's bout with unexpected amnesia in mid-sentence. 

With all that maneuvering, jostling and elbowing, what has emerged out of the muck is a candidate who will, quite literally say anything to get elected. Although this tendency has long been a handicap of Romney, the history of modern American politics has perhaps not seen anything quite like this character. 

Whether the candidate of yore was liked or not, a voter could feel reasonably certain what his core values were. (There were exceptions, of course. Nixon for example.) 

With Romney, it has been a question of wind direction.

Quote Smackdown: Ann Coulter vs. Stephen Hawking

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"Nobody Could Have Predicted it": Bush Administration's Shocking 911 Lie

                Condoleezza Rice

by Nomad
One of the more glaring discrepancies of the terrorist attacks on September 2001 has gone virtually unreported. Not only were authorities well aware that hijacked planes could be used by terrorists as weapons, the information had been widely available to the public since 1993.

During a May 16, 2002 press briefing, speaking about the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters:

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking."

This defense was used repeatedly by the administration and few reporters never seemed to bother to question it.
According to one source,

White House spokesman Tony Fratto showed that Rice's talking point had legs. Spoon-fed last month by Fox News anchor Jon Scott's suggestion that "nobody was thinking that there’d be terrorists flying 767s into buildings at that point," Fratto reliably coughed up the laughably discredited sound bite:

"That’s true. I mean, no one could have anticipated that kind of attack - or very few people."

Asteroid Mining Enterprise: Billion Dollar Boondoggle or Breakthrough to the Future?

by Nomad

Remember this date. Today- April 24 2012- could be the day that the commercial exploitation of outer space began in earnest. No, seriously.

Speculation along those lines has had the Net buzzing for the last week or so. Planetary Resources Inc., founded earlier this year,  will be making a formal announcement of its plans at an event Tuesday in Seattle. Things are somewhat vague with an earlier press release stating only that the proposed operation   would "overlay two critical sectors—space exploration and natural resources—to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP" and "help ensure humanity's prosperity."