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It's Live on the HomePage Now: Peter Maass | As Trump Is Defeated, the Murdochs Try to Dodge Backlash for Fox News On Friday morning, a day before Joe Biden was declared president-elect, one of Rupert Murdoch’s daughters-in-law, Kathryn Murdoch, tweeted out an unprecedented criticism of Fox News and the family’s handling of the network as President Donald Trump was heading for defeat. Responding to CNN anchor Jake Tapper saying that it was time for Fox and the Murdochs to make clear that there was no credible evidence of election fraud, Kathryn Murdoch tweeted, “I agree with this.” Her sentiments appeared to have support within the family, because their media holdings — not just Fox News — began sending out clear signals to President Trump that he should accept defeat. On Friday evening, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page skeptically noted that the Trump campaign “will have to prove” its baseless claims of election fraud, and advised the president to be ready to “concede gracefully.” The article’s headline was “The Presidential Endgame.” On Fox News last night, primetime host Laura Ingraham, a guest at the White House just a few days ago, said the president should exhibit “grace and composure” when the moment comes to admit defeat, which she seemed to feel was coming soon. A graphic displayed during her show stated that one of the three tasks ahead is to “Accept the Results of the Election.” Finally, the front-page headline of Saturday morning’s New York Post seemed to mark a clear turn from the Trump era, blaring out, “Ready, Set… Joe?” The Murdoch family, presided over by 89-year-old patriarch Rupert Murdoch, owns Fox News and a constellation of other media properties in the United States and across the world; the family is the inspiration for the HBO series “Succession.” The political bent of Fox News and other media outlets reflects the right-wing orientation of Rupert and his eldest son Lachlan, who now oversees the network as chief executive of its parent company, Fox Corporation. But the family’s ownership of its media properties is a 50-50 split between Rupert on one side and his six children on the other. The key progeny, when it comes to running the empire, have nearly always been the conservative Lachlan and his younger brother James, who is a centrist. Kathryn Murdoch is James’s wife. In recent years, she and James have not hidden their political preferences: They made significant donations to the campaigns of Pete Buttigieg and later, Joe Biden, once he became the Democratic Party nominee. Earlier this year, after James lost a succession battle to Lachlan and resigned from his last remaining board position, he issued an oblique criticism of the political direction of the family’s holdings, but he did not say anything specific about Fox News and its central role in laundering white nationalist extremism and its related conspiracy theories. With Trump’s defeat, the network and the family are at a crossroads, facing far more critical scrutiny and pressure than they ever have in the United States. Fox is in the position, at this moment, of state broadcasters in unstable countries where an unpopular leader has been voted out of power but refuses to accept the result. Will the broadcaster be loyal to the defeated leader and claim that the election was rigged — a path that will probably not be successful but would nearly guarantee a higher level of post-election instability? Or does the broadcaster take the journalistically and morally correct path of reporting the fact that the president really did lose an election that was not rigged against him? In the 24 hours leading up to Biden surpassing 270 Electoral College votes on Saturday, the Murdoch properties showed added evidence of taking the latter path. It is useful to step back for a moment and realize the deformity of this moment. Due to the unique power of Fox News — alongside Facebook, it is the most prominent platform in the U.S. for spreading right-wing disinformation — a single family with a net worth of approximately $17 billion is positioned to decide whether election conspiracy theories will have the media oxygen they need to spread widely and deeply across the country. It is a concentration of power that has been amassed and abused for decades by the Murdoch family, and has caused immense damage in the U.S. and other countries too (the Murdochs are responsible for similar harm in the U.K. and Australia, where they also have significant media holdings). As election results came in and showed Trump on a trajectory to defeat, Fox’s coverage became notably split earlier this week. The so-called news side of Fox, which is anchored in its daytime programming with conservative but not delusional journalists like Chris Wallace and Bret Baier, has done a generally straight-up job of reporting the results. Fox’s data team is still the only cable network to have called Arizona for Biden, a move that infuriated the White House and was apparently a factor that led a crowd of pro-Trump protesters outside a ballot-counting office in Phoenix to chant “Fox News sucks.” In a reflection of what would seem to be early evidence of a Murdoch inclination to take their media properties in a pragmatic direction, the New York Post, which was one of Rupert Murdoch’s first media acquisitions in the United States and has been consistently right-wing under his decades of ownership, published two articles on Thursday that were sharply critical of Trump’s fraud claims, including a story that was headlined, “Downcast Trump makes baseless election fraud claims in White House address.” But the primetime hosts at Fox News, especially Sean Hannity, who also functions as a nonofficial adviser to Trump, did not move as quickly to change their pro-Trump cheerleading. Thursday night’s episode of Hannity’s show was particularly egregious, with such guests as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich angrily repeating the Trump campaign’s evidence-free assertions of election fraud. It was 60 minutes of nationwide conspiracy dissemination, a brutal demonstration of Fox’s power to superspread a political virus in America. While Ingraham altered her position on Friday night, Hannity did not modulate his they’re-stealing-the-election tune. And this has led to unusually direct scrutiny of the Murdoch family, whose name has not usually been mentioned in the many years and fountains of media criticism of their network. In addition to Tapper’s monologue, CNN’s Brian Stelter put his finger on the Murdochs after news broke that a memo circulated at Fox News on Friday instructed on-air talent to not refer to Biden as president-elect once he amassed enough Electoral College votes to win (Fox denied the CNN report). “The Murdochs are ultimately responsible,” Stelter said. “Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch are responsible for what is on this network in the coming hours.” On Saturday morning, as Fox’s pivot became more apparent but hardly complete, Stelter pointed to Ingraham’s shift and Hannity’s intransigence, saying there is a “giant tug of war” at Fox right now. Kathryn Murdoch is the only family member to have spoken out since the election. The Murdoch family holds its intramural activity fairly close, but her tweet, endorsing a call for the family to put country before profit, touches on what might be the family’s main concern: money. While Rupert and Lachlan have strong conservative political beliefs, the Fox proposition has always been a business one — the family has reaped billions from the network. In the U.K. in 1997, the Murdoch media holdings shifted their support to then-Labour Party leader Tony Blair, not for ideological reasons but business ones. Now, Kathryn Murdoch, in calling for the network to report honestly about election-fraud conspiracy theories in the U.S., seems to be acknowledging that it would not be a revenue-enhancing position. Many of Fox News’s pro-Trump viewers would be incensed, and a loss of viewers could ultimately affect the network’s crucial revenue stream: cable fees. The question could be asked: After decades of running Fox News as an irresponsible right-wing propaganda machine, why change now, why speak out now, after all that’s been done by the network and supported by the family? The answer might be that the Murdoch family’s run of remarkable impunity could really be over as there is now greater scrutiny of what they’re responsible for. Kathryn Murdoch had a little-noticed Election Day tweet that hinted at her reputational concerns. “What will you tell your children or your future self about the part you played in history?” she asked. And after Biden was declared president-elect on Saturday, she tried to publicly implant herself even more firmly in the anti-Trump resistance, tweeting out, “We did it!!!” Whichever direction the Murdochs take with Fox News in the coming hours and days, their effort to avoid history’s judgment, if not the judgment of courts too, is perhaps doomed even if their network reports the truth now that Trump’s defeat is official. This was noted by Angel Carusone, the chief executive of Media Matters for America. “When this is all over,” he tweeted, “Everyone should take a respite. And then, we need to finally do something about the deceitful and destructive force” that is Fox News. |
William Barr. (photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
ALSO SEE: Barr Tells Prosecutors to Investigate 'Vote Irregularities'
Despite Lack of Evidence
FOOTNOTE: BILL BARR is a political hack who destroyed evidence, pardoned criminals and much else to protect the senile pResident and his CIA DIRECTOR VP from impeachment for IRAN CONTRA....
Barr Tells Prosecutors to Investigate 'Vote Irregularities' Despite Lack of Evidence
Ed Pilkington and Sam Levine, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "The US attorney general, William Barr, has authorized federal prosecutors to begin investigating 'substantial allegations' of voter irregularities across the country in a stark break with longstanding practice and despite a lack of evidence of any major fraud having been committed."
READ MORE
Stacey Abrams. (photo: Melina Mara/WP)
Stacey Abrams Says Democrats Will Pour Resources Into Key Georgia Senate Runoffs
Lawrence Hurley, Reuters
Hurley writes: "Georgia Democratic activist Stacey Abrams said on Sunday that her party would pour unprecedented resources into two runoff Senate races in the traditionally Republican-leaning state that will determine control of the top U.S. legislative chamber."
Abrams, who narrowly lost a race for governor in 2018, has been credited with boosting Democratic hopes in the state, where President-elect Joe Biden is currently leading by around 10,000 votes with the race there yet to be called.
Democratic candidates businessman Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock face uphill battles in their Jan. 5 runoffs against incumbent Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in runoff elections.
The election will likely decide whether Democrats can win seats they need to gain control of the Senate. Republicans are currently on course to win 50 seats in the 100-seat chamber while Democrats have 48. If the chamber has a 50-50 tie, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would have the deciding vote.
“I want to push back against this anachronistic notion that we can’t win in Georgia,” Abrams said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “We will have the investment and resources that have never followed a runoff in Georgia for Democrats.”
Georgia law requires runoffs in races unless a candidate wins a majority of the vote. Perdue leads Ossoff 49.8%-47.9%, and secured more votes than either President Donald Trump or Biden did.
Warnock topped Loeffler with 32.9% of the vote to 25.9%, though the incumbent’s results were hurt by a challenge by fellow Republican Representative Doug Collins, who won 20% of the vote in a 21-candidate field.
She said Ossoff and Warnock are working together “to make certain voters come back” for an election in which lower turnout would be expected as presidential contenders will no longer be on the ballot.
After losing the governor’s race, Abrams focused on leading to effort to register more people to vote in a state with rapidly changing demographics, including an increase in the nonwhite population.
That control of the Senate rests on the outcome should also drive Democrats to the polls, Abrams said.
“This is going to be the determining factor of whether we have access to healthcare and access to justice in the United States. Those are two issues that will make certain that people turn out,” she said.
Republicans are equally confident that their voters will be motivated too even without Trump on the ballot, largely because wins in just one of the races would ensure they can block many Biden legislative goals.
“I cannot overstate how important to the country both those seats are,” Republican Senator Ted Cruz said on Fox News.
He said that with Democrats in control of the Senate, they would seek to add seats to the Supreme Court to wipe out its conservative majority, raise taxes and pass sweeping climate change legislation
“If you want a check on Joe Biden, if you don’t want to go over the edge to the socialist abyss, Georgia is the big enchilada,” he added.
'The rising numbers of children detained at the border with one or more family members have received relatively little attention.' (photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
ALSO SEE: US Steps Up Pace of Child Deportations to Guatemala
Citing Pandemic Emergency
500,000 Kids, 30 Million Hours: Trump's Vast Expansion of Child Detention
Anna Flagg and Andrew R. Calderón, The Marshall Project
Excerpt: "New data shows that over the last four years, detention times lengthened as the number of children held at the border soared to almost half a million."
READ MORE
'The incident comes as violent rhetoric has festered on the right amid Trump’s continued attacks on the democratic system and refusal to accept President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.' (photo: AP
Arkansas Police Chief Resigns After Demanding 'Death' for Democrats: 'Leave No Survivors'
Tim Elfrink, Guardian UK
Elfrink writes: "The violent posts appeared Friday on Parler, an unfiltered right-wing social media app, echoing President Trump's unfounded claims that Democrats are stealing the election. They called for 'death to all Marxist Democrats,' and urged followers to 'take no prisoners' and 'leave no survivors.'"
They were all posted under the name and photo of Lang Holland, the police chief of Marshall, Ark.
When journalists and residents asked about the posts, Holland at first claimed they were fake, the Kansas City Star reported. But Marshall’s mayor said when he confronted Holland on Saturday, the chief apologized for the posts and then resigned.
“The City of Marshall condemns the actions of Mr. Holland in his posts to social media,” said Marshall Mayor Kevin Elliott in a letter. “The Marshall community does not in any way support or condone bullying or threats of violence to anyone of any political persuasion! We condemn it!”
The incident comes as violent rhetoric has festered on the right amid Trump’s continued attacks on the democratic system and refusal to accept President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon was banned from Twitter last week after calling for violence against Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, while Donald Trump Jr. has called for his father to wage “total war” to keep power.
Holland had been the police chief in Marshall, a northern Arkansas town of about 1,300, for two years, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. After a decorated career as a deputy, including being shot in the line of duty, he had previously been the “best police chief that I’ve ever seen” in Marshall, Elliott told the paper.
In July, Holland blasted Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) for issuing a mask mandate, insisting he wouldn’t enforce it and suggesting it would lead to the United States becoming a “failed communist state,” reported KATV.
The anti-Democratic tirades under Holland’s name were posted to Parler on Friday, the day before multiple news organizations, including The Washington Post, declared Biden the winner of Pennsylvania and the presidency. The posts claimed that Trump was the victim of a coup.
“Do not forget what these Marxist Democrat b------- have tried to do. When you see one in public get in their face do not give them peace,” said one since-deleted post shared on Twitter by KATV.
It added, “Throw water on them at restaurants. Push them off sidewalks. Never let them forget they are traitors and have no right to live in this Republic after what they have done.”
Another since-deleted post included a photoshopped image of former president Barack Obama, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in orange prison jumpsuits, the Democrat-Gazette reported.
“I pray all those in that picture hang on the gallows and are drawn and quartered!!!!” the post said. “Anything less is not acceptable.”
The posts quickly drew notice, with some tagging the local FBI office, KATV reported. Holland didn’t respond to messages left at the police station, but on Parler, a new account suddenly appeared under his name — this one featuring pro-LGBTQ imagery and congratulating Biden.
“An associate showed me the FAKE profile of me on here and I was horrified and disgusted,” the new profile, which claimed to be the real Holland, posted. “I actually lean hard left on most issues.”
But Elliott called Holland in for a meeting after seeing the violent posts himself, the Democrat-Gazette reported, where he apologized and resigned on the spot.
“I don’t care who they are — Republican, Democrat or whoever — my Police Department for the city of Marshall is here to protect and serve everybody,” Elliott told the paper.
Hutchinson also criticized the former chief on Saturday, the Democrat-Gazette reported, calling the posts “dangerous” and his ouster from the department appropriate.
'Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan announced a peace deal with Azerbaijan early Tuesday.' (photo: Getty Images)
Azerbaijan and Armenia Sign Armistice Over Nagorno Karabakh
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he had signed a deal with Azerbaijan and Russia's leaders to end the military conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday morning after more than a month of bloodshed."
READ MORE
Endangered orangutans have long been losing habitat due to deforestation. (photo: Orangutan Project Kutai/Mongabay)
23% of Earth's Natural Habitats Could Be Gone by 2100, Study Finds
Carly Nairn, EcoWatch
Nairn writes: "Climate change and global food demand could drive a startling loss of up to 23 percent of all natural habitat ranges in the next 80 years, according to new findings published in Nature Communications."
Habitat loss could accelerate to a level that brings about rapid extinctions of already vulnerable species. Shrinking ranges for mammals, amphibians and birds already account for an 18 percent loss of previous natural ranges, the study found, with a jump expected to reach 23 percent by this century's end.
Global food demand currently fuels agricultural sectors to increase land use, moving into habitats previously untouched. What results — deforestation — leaves more carbon dioxide in the air, increasing greenhouse gas emissions, the main driver of climate change. In the U.S. alone, agriculture-related emissions measure 11.6 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, which include carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.
Deforestation and habitat loss also harms the natural cycles of ecosystems, affecting all stages of animal life from reproduction, to migration, to mating. For most species, survivability depends on geographic range. The study, which analyzed changes in the different habitats of 16,919 species from 1700 onward, found that with the increase in habitat destruction due to agriculture and climate change, more species will die sooner than previously expected.
"The tropics are biodiversity hotspots with lots of small-range species. If one hectare of tropical forest is converted to agricultural land, a lot more species lose larger proportions of their home than in places like Europe," said Dr. Robert Beyer of the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, one of the authors of the study.
In many ways, the conclusion is already playing out in real time. Endangered orangutans have long been a noteworthy species dwindling in population due to their rainforest island ranges in Borneo and Sumatra in Southeast Asia transforming into large-scale palm oil plantations. Farming and charcoal production have moved certain species of lemur — Madagascar's signature primate — into private reserves. And Amazon jaguars are increasingly difficult to spot as their ranges are cut into to ranch cattle.
"Whether these past trends in habitat range losses will reverse, continue, or accelerate will depend on future global carbon emissions and societal choices in the coming years and decades," study leader Andrea Manica, a professor at the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, explained.
The report is one more substantiated piece of evidence to push for the reversal of the current conversion of natural habitat to land used for resources.
"It all depends on what we do next," Manica concluded.
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