Roger Ailes to Be Indicted?!?

Whoo boy. Think back to how loudly the mighty wurlitzer argued that Scooter Libby should not be indicted for lying. And imagine how much louder it will be if Roger Ailes–a cornerstone of Republican success–were indicted for telling Judith Regan to do the same?

That’s what Barry Ritholtz claims is about to happen.

Someone I spoke with claimed that Ailes was scheduled to speak at their event in March, but canceled. It appears that Roger’s people, ostensibly using a clause in his contract, said he “cannot appear for legal reasons.”I asked “What, precisely, does that mean?”

The response: “Roger Ailes will be indicted — probably this week, maybe even Monday.”

The NYT broke the underlying story on Thursday:

It was an incendiary allegation — and a mystery of great intrigue in the media world: After the publishing powerhouse Judith Regan was fired by HarperCollins in 2006, she claimed that a senior executive at its parent company, News Corporation, had encouraged her to lie two years earlier to federal investigators who were vetting Bernard B. Kerik for the job of homeland security secretary.

[snip]

Now, court documents filed in a lawsuit make clear whom Ms. Regan was accusing of urging her to lie: Roger E. Ailes, the powerful chairman of Fox News and a longtime friend of Mr. Giuliani. What is more, the documents say that Ms. Regan taped the telephone call from Mr. Ailes in which Mr. Ailes discussed her relationship with Mr. Kerik.

Frankly, I’m skeptical. After all, Obama’s DOJ doesn’t like to indict any MOTUs. Besides, they’re too busy trying to prevent Scott Bloch from doing any time for having lied to Congress. And to think his DOJ (presumably former Chuck Schumer aide Preet Bharara, who is US Attorney for SDNY) would indict one of the most important players in the Republican party?

I doubt it.

But just on the off chance it’s true, I’m popping popcorn.

Update: It seems, they’d have a hard time indicting for the request that she lie itself: that took place in 2004, and presumably the statute of limitations would have expired in 2009. It’d be hard to say no one knew about the conversation given that it was front page news.

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  1. donbacon says:

    Bernie Kerik, a man of leadership, knowledge and experience but recently sentenced to four years in federal prison.

    President Bush, Police Commissioner Kerik Discuss Police Force in Iraq
    Remarks by the President After a Meeting with Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, The South Lawn, October 3, 2003

    THE PRESIDENT:

    First, I want to welcome Bernie Kerik to the South Lawn, and to the Oval Office. We just had a fascinating discussion about what he did in Iraq, what he saw in Iraq. He can speak for himself. But let me characterize it this way, that he went to help the Iraqis organize a police force. He showed up at times of chaos and confusion. Because of his leadership, his knowledge and his experience, he was able to stand up a police force in Baghdad in a very quick period of time. I think he told me opened up 37 different precinct stations — 35 different precinct stations. They activated and trained 35,000 Iraqi police force. And that’s important because the ultimate solution to the security issues in Iraq is for the Iraqi citizens to manage their own affairs.

    http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031003-2.html

    • mattcarmody says:

      Wonder if Bernie showed him pictures of the shopping bags full of missing NY Fed money he brought back as his and Rudy 9/11’s payoff for their supporting roles in the WTC attacks.

  2. PhilPerspective says:

    There is only one reason they would indict Ailes. If, and only if, the Administration has decided to take the gloves off. It would signal they get it after the last two weeks. I’m not holding my breath. BR is credible, so I wonder where he is hearing this from.

    • donbacon says:

      What does the Administration have to do with it?

      I guess an incriminating tape is principal evidence. NYTimes:

      the documents say that Ms. Regan taped the telephone call from Mr. Ailes in which Mr. Ailes discussed her relationship with Mr. Kerik.

      It is unclear whether the existence of the tape played a role in News Corporation’s decision to move quickly to settle a wrongful termination suit filed by Ms. Regan, paying her $10.75 million in a confidential settlement reached two months after she filed it in 2007.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/nyregion/25roger-ailes.html?_r=1

  3. Aeon says:

    Politically impossible for Obama DOJ to take action here.

    Ailes could run a full-fledged propaganda program against the interests of the USA and wouldn’t be touched.

    • nonpartisanliberal says:

      1. The DOJ is not supposed to make political decisions. Of course, it has done so under the current and past administrations.

      2. Ailes does run a full-time propaganda operation against the interests of the USA and for the interests of that segment of the wealthy whose greed is unbounded and who are dependent on the government’s betrayal of Americans to survive.

  4. phred says:

    Hmmm, didn’t we have a wurlitzer-sponsored impeachment over lying? Funny how the wurlitzer takes umbrage at some lies, but not others. Or not.

    • emptywheel says:

      Right, David Corn had a bit of fun recalling that.

      This tape is Ailes’ blue dress.

      Fox News, founded in 1996, went to town during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and subsequent impeachment crusade. That saga made Ailes’ network. I doubt anyone kept track, but there must have been at least 17 million occasions when a Fox host or guest said that lying about sex in a legal proceeding (to prevent political embarrassment) was a high crime deserving impeachment — or worse.

      Yet that’s what Ailes encouraged Regan to do.

      • phred says:

        Thanks for link EW. This sentence made me laugh out loud:

        Ailes clearly knows that his whole fair-and-balanced shtick is a clever (and profitable) gimmick designed to make conservative shut-ins believe they are the real mainstream.

        And here concludes yet another episode of The Guiding Right’s recurring plot line of IOKIYAR ; )

    • nonpartisanliberal says:

      Orville Redenbacher popcorn popped on the stove is more trouble, but a level better than any microwave popcorn. Less sodium too.

      You can pop some tonight for when you watch your Oscars show. It’s hard for me to take those awards seriously after the Academy has refused to ever recognize Paris Hilton’s work. >:(

  5. Bobster33 says:

    I agree with EW, Obama and Holder have spent their lives sucking up to power. This is no time to change stripes and do the right thing. Also, what evidence do they have that Ailes did this? I suspect that it will come down to a he-said-she-said pissing contest. And with the whole Fox network behind Ailes. . . . .

  6. allan says:

    But, but, what about FREEDOMWORKS OF THE PRESS?!!!!!!!!!

    As much as I want this to be true, color me deeply skeptical, too.

  7. Phoenix Woman says:

    Could it be that Ailes/FOX is leaking the news to encourage their flying-monkey fanbase to harass and screech at DOJ to make sure DOJ’s too cowed to go after Ailes?

    • ThingsComeUndone says:

      Ok your point is valid. I say lets fight this is a fight we want this leak if its by Fox and it might be opens up the question why won’t Obama prosecute this forces the question into the public debate and if Obama doesn’t prosecute he will look stupid next time he goes on Fox News for an interview not that that has ever stopped him before.

    • bmaz says:

      Gosh, speaking of flying monkey shows, I remember back when Henry Waxman turned the House Oversight Committee into one in order to gin up just this kind of charge on Roger Clemens. And the DOJ has gone to the far ends of the earth to prosecute him for a statement that, even if proven to be a lie (not close to that yet), was about 100 times less serious than this allegation against Ailes is. Surely the DOJ will prosecute Ailes with the same vigor, right?

      No, they won’t. And stop calling me Shirley. And, yes, Rusty Hardin is paying close attention to both Bloch and Ailes. So is Mike Rains.

  8. ThingsComeUndone says:

    This administration lives by the leak blame Rahm for that I don’t see what the GOP gains by leaking a false story not that they don’t do this constantly that makes them look bad. What does Obama gain by leaking this a spine.
    I know its hard to believe he found one but he can’t have Fox News lying about him and expect to win the election.
    The Right will say this is censorship but a long fight on lies that kept the war going will only help us end the war. This move will scare Fox News into being more careful about the truth and places the blame on a war 70%?? of the voters over back on the Right’s, Bush’s and Fox New’s head.
    Roger’s smart move is to resign quick or plead guilty quick in return for no jail time or conviction for any felonies.
    Fox does not want the FCC looking at their broadcast license. Advertiser dollars to Fox from prowar groups could easily be called bribes. GOP Fox News working together to create a message to sell the war and lying to sell the war could result in felonies.

  9. Rayne says:

    If you didn’t find that popcorn popper yet, EW, I’ll send you a new one as a housewarming present. You’re going to need one pronto!

  10. Margaret says:

    Frankly, I’m skeptical. After all, Obama’s DOJ doesn’t like to indict any MOTUs. Besides, they’re too busy trying to prevent Scott Bloch from doing any time for having lied to Congress. And to think his DOJ (presumably former Chuck Schumer aide Preet Bharara, who is US Attorney for SDNY) would indict one of the most important players in the Republican party?

    Agreed. We’re too busy looking forward, not back. Now if Michael Moore was to call Roger Ailes a fat toad without any scruples in journalism and suggest that he be keel hauled, that would be worth indictments.

  11. dosido says:

    Agree with all of you…however the public mood is much much different now, isn’t it? That could be a factor?

    • ThingsComeUndone says:

      Yes the crowds in Wisconsin are getting huge even with bad weather and they are not going away. NewDealFarmGirl had a link to a photo of a Wisconsin Protester last night Born Again, Prochoice but now thanks to Walker a Democrat.
      The GOP is losing born Again Prochoicer’s over Wisconsin.

    • myshadow says:

      There is nothing about the ‘public mood’ that would accelerate the possibility of an indictment.
      This a ‘center-stupid’ country. There is no way the propaganda wing of the republican party will face any accountability on this. Tapes or not.
      If the President’s bankster sponsors can bring the economy of the world to a screeching halt committing the most massive fraud in the history of the world and not one single perp walk.
      The schadenfreude one would glean from the possibility of a bust will be suffocated by the fact these jackals are really part of a craven monolith.

  12. ThingsComeUndone says:

    Its win win if Obama does prosecute its lose lose if Obama doesn’t he needs to start attacking Fox and the GOP to win the election since he can’t promote a record of success to run on in he upcoming election.
    Or he can do nothing and lose. Unless someone gots a third option but trying to create jobs now or help homeowners with a GOP House seems impossible. So whats his third option?

    • teejay says:

      Does anyone really care if they indict Ailes? All they will accomplish by an action like that is stir up more hate from the right (and more votes) – can’t indict the Black Panthers, but no problem going after political enemies, etc.

      • ThingsComeUndone says:

        It depends if Obama uses this prosecution to justify leaving Afghanistan early and blame Fox News and Bush for the war then people will care. But yes the prosecution is nothing without follow through.

  13. hackworth1 says:

    Holder can wait til the Statute of Limitations Runs out and blame the lack of prosecution on that. Holder has pulled this stunt already. MOTU’s must be protected at all costs.

    This story won’t get anywhere in the MSM. There are too many poor people “milking the system” that need serious “belt-tightening” austerity measures so they can do their part as Real Murkins. They must make personal sacrifices for War, Inc. and warty toads like Ailes and wrinkly billionaire Warlocks like Murdoch.

    Can medical science remove their heads and attach them to robotic bodies, yet? These ratfuckers want to fuck us for eternity.

    B sides, Obama loves these people.

  14. emptywheel says:

    Actually, they’d have a hard time indicting for the request that she lie itself: that took place in 2004, and presumably the statute of limitations would have expired in 2009. It’d be hard to say no one knew about the conversation given that it was front page news.

  15. nonpartisanliberal says:

    It is a core principle of Obama’s that political and economic elites (or Masters Of The Universe, as you call them) are ever held accountable for their misdeeds. He expects the same courtesy for his many misdeeds.

    Even a wingnut like Michelle Bachmann gets it right for once: gangster government. Obama is a corrupt, lying POS and a lackey of the MOTUs.

  16. greenharper says:

    I agree that a statement by Regan that Ailes didn’t intend to tell her to lie can’t go to his mens rea. Or mens regan, perhaps.

    What I don’t see is anything indicating that Regan agreed to lie to gov’t investigators. No agreement, no conspiracy. No conspiracy, almost certainly no more case: see EW at 34.

  17. scribe says:

    Put me down for “I’ll believe it when I see it, for a thousand, Alex.”

    But, more seriously, this case, if brought, will raise some deeply troubling and interesting First Amendment questions. In the first instance, because Ailes is in effect The MFIC at one of the leading networks presenting “news” and, more to the point shaping opinion, preventing him from working the jurors so he and the government can get a fair (as in even-handed) trial will be a major issue. A few years back, a much-less prominent but still well-known around town defendant, Abe Hirschfeld, went on trial charged with soliciting the murder of a business partner. When he, somehow, won an acquittal, he took the jurors out for a huge party. That led to some restrictions on contacts with jurors beyond those already extant in NY. There is a long history of jury tampering and jury influencing being an issue to be dealt with in NY; every mob trial now seems to feature anonymous jurors, but that was a novel development dating only back to the years Giuliani and Freeh were prosecuting the mob, back in the 80s.

    I could see his bail being conditioned on keeping his mouth shut and staying away from the TV. It’s in NY where they prosecute people for violating Special Administrative Measures which gag unpopular defendants and don’t gag the prosecution. Ask Lynne Stewart about that.

    I’m not a fan of those measures or prohibitions, for anyone. They are, after all, innocent until proven guilty.

    So, now, we have to look to the very courthouse where Ailes would be tried – the Southern District. Yesterday’s Times featured an article about a man indicted for handing out leaflets to passersby on the public sidewalk in which this man advised them of the power of jurors to nullify. Note that he was not singling out jurors for his leaflets, nor was he telling people they should nullify, and last of all he was on a public sidewalk. He strikes me as being the kind of gadfly we’ve all seen at one point or another, whether he be outside City Hall or the courthouse, or standing on a corner preaching his particular thoughts. Harmless, in other words. Nonetheless he was indicted and will be tried for exercising his free speech rights.

    The Times treats this case as something of an amusement. I guess they figure they either can, because they’re the New York Times, or must, because they have to look to their betters in DoJ before publishing anything that might offend the government. Eiher way, they’re wrong to be so cavalier. But I suggest the more thoughtful would do well to read Professor Volokh’s post about the case to see just how dangerous it is. In short, this is just another attack on the First Amendment and, more particularly, Brandenburg. We saw Kagan argue to the S.Ct., shortly before she joined them, that merely speaking in favor of someone deemed a terrorist was punishable as material support of terrorism, i.e., by a sentence which could pretty easily escalate to life. That was directly contrary to Brandenburg, too.

    Now, people will rightly point out that the proposed case against Ailes would most probably be for obstruction of justice by encouraging Regan to lie, and for paying her off with the settlement. Note how, in the history of that case and unlike in O’Reilly’s falafel/loofah case, no one at Fox or anywhere in the News Corp. world ever breathed even the slightest suggestion that the demand for a settlement was “extortion”. O’Reilly and Fox, you should remember, sued Mackris first alleging she and her lawyers were enaging in extortion and other wrongful conduct in trying to settle her case prior to going to suit. She filed her suit a couple hours later, but Fox led off. That there was none of that with Regan tells me Fox knew they had more to lose from going after Regan than they could gain, i.e., that Fox was dirty in this case.

    The point is, though, that if Ailes and/or Fox are charged with obstruction of justice or anything else in regard to this mess with Regan and Kerik, the vast majority of people will think they were charged over their speech, even though the First Amendment issues would only be pertinent insofar as a gag order to prevent their messing with the jury might go. Inducing someone to lie so as to make a mess of a pending proceeding or investigation (and/or paying them off) is a crime and the First Amendment is not involved. But a lot of people will think it was in retaliation for protected speech at Fox.

    That belief will have at least two results – it will polarize people as to Obama, and it will make people more likely to believe it’s appropriate for the government to prosecute people for the content of their protected speech. (There might be more, but I’ll set those aside for the time being.) The first of these will likely excite Obama’s base because Fox has been a bete noire of that base (“he finally found a set!”) – looking upthread I see a couple comments to that effect already. The right’s base vcan hardly be more excited than it already is, so the Admin won’t care.

    But, nurturing the idea that it’s proper to prosecute people for the content of their protected speech – even though that idea would, in fact, be a wrong conclusion to draw from prosecuting Ailes and/or Fox – is something the MOTU want desperately, because they want to change the law so it’s proper to prosecute people for the content of their speech. You can only sell such a change if the ground has been properly prepared for it, and a case like this would be a vehicle toward that end.

    Besides, Ailes is past his prime and has spread enough people he’s mentored through the media such that he’s now expendable. Even cell #1 in a cancer ultmately dies, but only after it has facilitated metastatis.

    Indicting Ailes might happen, but the sequelae will have little to do with justice.

    • bmaz says:

      My understanding is the guy’s specific intent was to influence jurors and potential jurors showing up for the assembly pool. I don’t know that the guy needed to be prosecuted, but he did need to be stopped; what he was doing was inappropriate if he was indeed targeting jurors and potential jurors.

      As to obstruction prosecution via “the settlement”, I am with Mary and have no problem with that in relation to protected speech arguments. However, there were a myriad of issues between Ailes, Fox and Regan. Unless they also have a tape of Ailes saying the settlement amount was specifically partially or all for such an obstruction, I don’t think there is a viable case there. There could have been on the original act. Now maybe you could argue the settlement as a tolling feature on the statute for the original act, but no way the Obama DOJ would ever go there.

      • earlofhuntingdon says:

        I agree. No way Obama’s DoJ will touch Ailes, Fox or Murdoch with a ten-foot pole. Ailes may spill more real and faux secrets than Mata Hari, but he’s not a whistleblower.

        Ailes seems to be laughing about being a principal beneficiary of a two-tiered justice system that won’t touch the MOTU and broadcasting it to the world. What will the Egyptians and Libyans think of us now?

      • scribe says:

        As to the guy’s specific intent, my understanding is that the government’s allegations are that he intended to influence the jurors, but that there is a divergence between the allegations and reality. In other words, he was handing them out to anyone on the street, not just potential jurors.

        He’s also a fricking idiot, b/c he’s representing himself.

        As to our other points, I’m not going to speculate on what DoJ will or will not be able to charge, primarily b/c I don’t have all the relevant facts as to how the settlement was structured and such, let alone the timeline of pre- and post-settlement statements. OTOH I would not reject the possibility of a perjury indictment relative to the initial obstruction, i.e., the feds were investigating Regan and Faux relative to Kerik (remember, his conviction was rather more recent than 5 yr ago) and someone lied to the GJ. Can’t exclude the possibility….

        The last point is one people seem to be not getting: I’m not saying the prosecution would be one in which the government would actually be prosecuting Ailes for protected speech. Rather, I’m saying a lot of people would believe (A) the government was prosecuting Ailes for protected speech and, (B) that such a motive to prosecute was OK. Even though that belief would be wrong because the putative prosecution would be for something entirely different.

        The fact that there would be a subsantial number of people would believe it OK to prosecute someone over protected speech would, to the view of the MOTU, be a benefit. The MOTU want to be able to prosecute people for what is now protected speech and the only way to get to the point where the law will support that is to move the center, so to speak, to a point where people accept that.

        Moreover, we need to take into account the continual habit of the Republicans to accuse the Democrats of doing/being exactly the kind of hideous lawbreakers the Republicans aspire to. They rant on and on about Clinton’s blowjobs and powergrabs, then do exactly that. The complain about Obama installing a socialist dictatorship, when it’s the Rethugs’ who lust for that kind of power. That which Republicans scream most loudly about, is exactly what they want to do.

        We would do a lot better if we listened to their complaints – they are not shy about laying out a very precise road map of where they intend to go.

  18. solerso says:

    OH im sure that “leaks” about a “possible” Ailes indictment wont keep popping up until after the 20212 election.

  19. jdmckay0 says:

    Too risky for delicate, careful, “reaching out” Barack.

    Maybe they’ll just rendition his sorry ass.

  20. bmaz says:

    As far as I can tell, Marcy is right in her comment @38 above. The question is NOT “Will Roger Ailes be indicted?”, the question really is “Why wasn’t Roger Ailes indicted?” Or at least a serious investigation pursued while the statute of limitation was still open.

    Again, back to the Oversight Committee, I think I remember Darrell Issa saying he wanted questions about Executive Branch decisions and actions answered. Well Darrell, here is a good one. What wasn’t done is just as salient an investigation as what was done, Darrell. Show us what you are made of.

    Who is in charge of Oversight on the Senate side where the Kerik nomination was putatively pending? Oh, that’s right, it is good old Rape Gurney Joe Lieberman. Yeah, he’ll get right on this too.

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Yup. Who is it doing the most yelling that the sky might be about to fall on Mr. Ailes? Is it a leak from the DoJ or from Mr. Ailes’ camp, once again purveying the botulism tainted tinned soup that one of the most cringing but powerful creatures of the last forty years is really a “victim”? Imagine the shitstorm of coverage Fox Noise would spew forth if it were to happen. In newspaper terms, it would quadruple circulation.

      Even Murdoch could use the money. His major British paper, besides the Times of London, is in trouble in Britain over allegations that the News of the World allegedly paid to have the phones and e-mails of hundreds of people illegally hacked, and then used the info to smear or black mail politicians, celebrities, ad nauseum. Who could have predicted?

      It does put the DoJ in another self-made quandary, though. Ailes is laughing on the street corner by implying he was guilty of suborning perjury or obstructing justice and is getting away with it, thus promising to do it again. If he were an immigrant in LA doing the same about a stereo, he’d be in prison or worse.

      It would be hilarious, wouldn’t it, if one of Ailes’ army of lawyers misread the SOL by a month or two and a smart young thing at the DoJ, not hired or spiked by Monica Goodling, actually issued an indictment.

  21. GlenJo says:

    No f&*kin’ way. Obama is too much of a wimp. Holder is too much of a wimp.

    That’s pretty much why Obama gets steamrolled in 2012.

    Wimp.

    • nonpartisanliberal says:

      Obama is not a wimp. He’s part of the same fraternity and expects the same professional courtesy.

  22. Mary says:

    I partly agree with scribe and partly don’t. I do think if there is any indictment, it will along the lines scribe mentioned, “Now, people will rightly point out that the proposed case against Ailes would most probably be for obstruction of justice by encouraging Regan to lie, and for paying her off with the settlement.” The 10.75M pay off with terms of a settlement being to keep quiet about or do something with the tape might make a better case than just the tape itself under the original statute.

    The part I don’t agree with is that people would see it as a prosecution over protected speech. Fox viewers may end up believing that, bc Fox would sell it so hard it would be like being brainwashed. But most people in a story about covering up sex – even if the cover up involves a media mogul – focus on the sex and the cover up, not whether it could be an indirect political views pressure point.

    What I don’t buy is that Obama’s DOJ will be bothered with it all. They’re too busy keeping Bloch out of jail, defending the right to presidential torture and Executive branch destruction of evidence, etc. I mean, how do you sit there as a part of the Executive branch that destroyed evidence of torture, even when people were tortured to death and tortured bc of mistaken names, and pretend there’s a problem with it? Selective prosecution has had its finest moments under Obama.

  23. gtomkins says:

    I’m of two minds about this.

    Of course I’ld like to see Ailes indicted. Getting him for this would be like getting Capone for tax evasion, but you settle for what you can get.

    If it does happen though, I’m going to have to start going to church again, and I’ve gotten used to having my Sunday mornings free. If it happens and then he’s convicted, the church thing would become inescapably mandatory.

    If all that happens, and the Pope indicates his agreement with all of this, then the church in question will have to be the Church.

    When I was a kid, the Archbishop of New Orleans managed to get the Pope to excommunicate Leander Perez, the elected dictator of Plaquemines Parish, just downriver from NO. The order of excommunicatin was read from every pulpit in the Diocese one Sunday. Perez ran afoul of the Church because he blocked the desegregation of his parish’s parochial schools. Everybody else in the political establishment in LA at the time was eager to pay lip service to states’ rights and Jim Crow, and fawned over hateful bigots like Perez. But there was the Church condemning the odious dictator to the flames of Hell for all eternity unless he repented the sin of racial bigotry. Wow.

    As I look back over the 50 years since, I can’t recall a single other occasion where the Church sided with the downtrodden over the powerful, and plenty instances of the reverse.

    Both the Church and I are clearly in a rut. Be kind of a shame if we both had to abandon such entrenched habits.

    Or not.

    • nonpartisanliberal says:

      I never heard that story about the excommunication of Leander Perez because it happened when I was a toddler. Thanks for that information.

      Perez’s actions were an illegal government interference into church business, and maybe that’s why the church decided to take the side of the downtrodden. They were retaliating on their own behalf.

      Still, good for the church to integrate its schools.

      I don’t get the connection, though, between the Ailes story and going to church on Sunday.

    • Gitcheegumee says:

      re: Leander Perez

      Wiki has a most interesting entry for Leander Perez. I read a book on him many years ago,and recalled that he was an attorney;but, I didn’t recall that he had represented Huey “Kingfish”Long in his impeachment hearing.

      The segregationist bent was evident as a theme in Perez’ life.To those interested,here’s a little more info about Perez and the Catholic Church,courtesy Wiki:

      Perez and the Catholic Church

      In the spring of 1962, the Archdiocese of New Orleans announced its plan to desegregate the New Orleans parochial school system for the 1962–1963 school year. Perez led a movement to pressure businesses into firing any whites who allowed their children to attend the newly desegregated Catholic schools. Catholics in St. Bernard Parish boycotted one school, which the Archdiocese kept open without students for four months until it was burned down. In response, Archbishop Joseph Rummel excommunicated Perez on April 16, 1962. Perez responded by saying the Catholic Church was “being used as a front for clever Jews” and announced that he would form his own church, the “Perezbyterians.”

      Perez also described himself at one point as “a Catholic, but not an Archbishop’s Catholic.”[3] He eventually reconciled with the church before his death and received a requiem mass at Holy Name of Jesus Christ Church at Loyola University in New Orleans. He is interred at his home in Plaquemines Parish.[6]

  24. Gitcheegumee says:

    Ailes had remarked that he watched Fox News with the sound off…pretty sensible,come to think of it…but then why bother.

    Speaking of silent news coverage,has anyone seen this story yet?

    The Guardian

    Islamabad authorities have arrested a US government security contractor amid a worsening spy agency row between the countries, with Pakistani intelligence calling on the Americans to “come clean” about its network of covert operatives in the country.

    The arrest came at the start of the murder trial of another American held in Pakistan, the CIA agent Raymond Davis.

    Peshawar police arrested Aaron DeHaven, a contractor who recently worked for the US embassy in Islamabad, saying that his visa had expired.

    Little was known about DeHaven except that his firm, Catalyst Services, which also has offices in Afghanistan and Dubai, is staffed by retired US military and defence personnel who boast of direct experience in the “global war on terror”.

    Pakistan arrests US security contractor, Aaron Dehaven, as rift …Feb 25, 2011 … Peshawar police arrested Aaron DeHaven, a contractor who recently worked for the US embassy in Islamabad, saying that his visa had expired. …
    civiliancontractors.wordpress.com/…/pakistan-arrests-us-security-contractor- aaron-dehaven-as-rift-with-cia-deepens/ – Cached

  25. Gitcheegumee says:

    Re: Fox mute

    Ailes comes across as a man completely in touch with his medium. He often watches shows on mute, because sound—what people are actually saying—is always secondary on television. Ailes used this approach to rate anchors, as he recounted in his 1989 book, You Are the Message; Getting What You Want by Being Who You Are. Basically, Ailes would test talk show hosts by watching them “with the sound turned off” for about ten minutes.“If there was nothing happening on screen in the way the host looked or moved that made me interested enough to stand up and turn the sound up,” he wrote, “then I knew that the host was not a great television performer.” Anchors who were boring on mute could get axed.

    “If nothing moved me toward that sound knob,” Ailes warned, “I would often recommend terminating the contract of that performer.”

    Why Roger Ailes Watches Fox News on Mute | The NationJan 19, 2011 … There is a revealing new profile of the man who led and personifies modern conservatives’ mastery of TV—Fox News’ Roger Ailes.
    http://www.thenation.com/blog/…/why-roger-ailes-watches-fox-news-mute – Cached

    • earlofhuntingdon says:

      Ailes knows what he’s doing, unlike most Democrats. At best, a person retains 65% of what they hear. For Fox Noise’s average viewer, widely regarded as among the least informed among us, I’d bet it’s less than half that. Humans being visual animals, we retain a much higher percentage of what we see, whether it be poisonous beauties whose bright colors telegraph their lethality, snakes coiling near ripe fruit, or the visual asymmetry that in minute quantities tells us something or someone isn’t as it or they should be.

      Fox Noise is about message setting, message repetition and message memory. Words, content, meaning beyond the manipulatively emotive, is secondary. Words are merely the tools used to deliver the emotional takeaway, and they aren’t the most important messenger.

      As Alfred Hitchcock used to tell his production teams, if the camera doesn’t tell the story, no amount of dialogue will make up for it. I think it’s time the Dems starting watching a few old movies.

      • Gitcheegumee says:

        Beautifully expressed,Earl.

        However, I for one do not wish to be entertained by news performers. I wish to be honestly informed.
        (Inform,not perform .)

        Ailes is the essence of the Beatty character in Network.
        Frankly, I think a lot of people (think Howard Beale)are mad as hell and they aren’t gonna take it anymore.

        An indictment and conviction would be a very good antidote,indeed ,for what Ailes- and had been ailing this country for far too long now,imho..

  26. dustbunny44 says:

    But Ailes tells everyone to lie. It’s what he does and why he’s such a perfect fit for Fox.
    Still, video of the frog march – priceless.

  27. bobschacht says:

    I’m having a hard time understanding the update. What does “she lie itself” mean?

    In any case, it would be fun to see Ailes indicted. In fact, I am longing to see ANY of the MOTUs indicted for any of their numerous crimes.

    Bob in AZ