A charity auction whose grand prize was a business lunch with Fox News owner
Rupert Murdoch has been won by
David Brock. Brock is the CEO of
Media Matters, a group consistently
critical of Murdoch.
Auction site Charity Buzz described the auction as a "once in a lifetime chance" to sit with Murdoch "face to face over a friendly lunch and get his feedback firsthand on your proposed business ideas."
It said it was valid for a total of six people and would be held in New York at a "mutually convenient" time with Murdoch covering the cost of lunch.
"Winner will be subject to security screening and background check," it stipulated.
Media Matters founder and chief executive David Brock expects the lunch to go ahead.
"I look forward to this opportunity to have a friendly lunch with Rupert Murdoch, along with five of my invited guests," Brock said in a statement.
"I will soon contact Mr. Murdoch's office to determine a mutually convenient time and place in New York," he added.
posted by Jon_Evil
on Nov 11, 2010 -
33 comments
"Fog of War" cited by United States Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad. He was
speaking to journalists to clarify reports concerning his
unauthorised contacts with foreign government officials, among them Asif Ali Zardari; a then contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan.
Earlier this year he was being touted as a possible successor to Hamid Karzai as President of Afghanistan as seen in
these two
articles.
So
who is Zalmay Khalilzad?
Neo con and
oil businessman.
[more inside]
posted by adamvasco
on Sep 10, 2008 -
8 comments
Torture innocents or suffer the consequences. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) expounded yesterday on the process of 'extraordinary rendition' where suspects are flown to foreign countries outside of US law, so they can be tortured for information. He's got no problem with it, even if innocents are involved. [more inside]
posted by bitmage
on Apr 25, 2007 -
89 comments
Now they tell us. Neocon hindsight is 20/20. War architect
Richard Perle on invading Iraq, 2002: "We have no time to lose, and I think the president understands that and it's probably taken too long already, but I don't think it'll be much longer... Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder.... Now,
it isn't going to be over in 24 hours, but it isn't going to be months either." Four years later: "If I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies'... Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have."
posted by digaman
on Nov 3, 2006 -
105 comments
"Expertise is a very good thing, but it is not the same thing as sound judgment regarding strategy and policy.
George W. Bush has more insight, because of his knowledge of human beings and his sense of history, about the motive force, the craving for freedom and participation in self-rule, than do many of the language experts and history experts and culture experts." -- From a fascinating profile of Douglas Feith, undersecretary of Defense, and one of the main architects of the
war in Iraq. From the
New Yorker.
posted by digaman
on May 8, 2005 -
64 comments
At the end of the Cold War, Americans said yes to military power. The skepticism about arms and armies that pervaded the American experiment from its founding, vanished. Political leaders, liberals and conservatives alike, became enamored with military might. The ensuing affair had and continues to have a heedless, Gatsby-like aspect, a passion pursued in utter disregard of any consequences that might ensue. Few in power have openly considered whether valuing military power for its own sake or cultivating permanent global military superiority might be at odds with American principles. Indeed, one striking aspect of America's drift toward militarism has been the absence of dissent offered by any political figure of genuine stature... The Normalization of War and
New Boys in Town - The Neocon Revolution and American Militarism are two excerpts from
Andrew J. Bacevich's just released
The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War, concerning who and which there was a previous post
here.
posted by y2karl
on Apr 23, 2005 -
36 comments
Condi's plan for Iraq:
cut and run. Conservative columnist Robert Novak -- the same guy who
hung Valerie Plame out to dry -- launches the media campaign to prepare the US electorate for withdrawal even if, as he puts it with exquisite understatement, "what is
left behind does
not constitute perfection." (
I'll
sa
y.) US commander Gen. George Casey seems to be
on the same page.
posted by digaman
on Mar 28, 2005 -
64 comments
Oh, I So Wish So-And-So Were On The Other Side! Just move over,
dude! For conservatives, it's often the case that our allies are a damn sight worse than our worst so-called enemies. Here's a prime example,
extremely rare in its totality: an embarrassing piece by an embarrassing neo-con,
John Laughland, about an even more embarrassing neo-con,
Michael Ledeen, in a totally embarrassing magazine,
American Conservative. Do liberals and lefties have it any easier? Who are the Center's and the Left's most difficult-to-explain
compagnons de route dudes? Quite honestly - and although they're certainly not immune to the exquisite unease of political companionship - I enviously fear that they do.
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Jul 5, 2003 -
64 comments
Drowning the government in a bathtub -
"My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Thus spoke Grover Norquist, of
Americans for Tax Reform.
"The lunatics are now in charge of the asylum", quipped the conservative UK
Financial Times. Hardly, says
Paul Krugman. The strategy?: "Instead of challenging popular liberal programs directly, the Republicans are creating fiscal conditions that make those programs unsustainable." [lead post, Am. Prospect]. In other words, the
400 billion dollar deficit, coupled with the Bush tax cuts, is designed to shift the obligations of the Fed
onto the States and, later, to cause a fiscal train wreck after Bush is out of office.
posted by troutfishing
on Jun 12, 2003 -
58 comments
NeoConservatism in a Nutshell! Lately I've been researching the NeoConservative movement and stumbled upon this European website which is by far the best overview I have encountered.
Be sure to read the end called The Dangers for Europe. Here is a little tidbit - "What ought to be of concern to Europeans is the fact that Americans are being indoctinated into beliefs which many Europeans (particularly those who are old enough to remember the 1920's and 1930's) would characterise as extremely dangerous.... A country considers itself at war against an ill-defined foreign enemy who threaten its way of life. To protect itself against this enemy, civil liberties are abrogated, arrest and detention without trial are introduced and the state creates a secret police which can spy on citizens and foreigners alike. The state allies itself with big business to protect its way of life and promote national security. Public opinion is manipulated so that dissent from the "national purpose" becomes socially unacceptable.
Those are the conditions which Europeans will recognise as the precursors of fascism. "
posted by thedailygrowl
on Feb 12, 2003 -
22 comments
