Free Republic

The mounting problem Donald Trump poses to Republicans is also a mounting problem for the country’s most powerful conservative media mogul: Rupert Murdoch. This morning’s New York Times gives front-page treatment to the billionaire grudge match that has become a major story line in this year’s (already) fractious GOP primary. The piece by political reporters Amy Chozick and Ashley Parker chronicles Murdoch’s intensifying efforts over the past week to blunt Trump’s surge to the top of the crowded GOP field. In recent days, Murdoch has tweeted that Trump is “wrong” and “embarrassing.” On Sunday, the New York Post mocked...

It was only a few weeks ago when media honcho and Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter and asked when Donald Trump was going to stop being an embarrassment to his friends and to the whole country. That exchange elicited a rather negative response from The Donald (who seems to have a team monitoring the entire planet for any time anyone mentions his name and is never shy about firing back) and the situation has been simmering ever since. That seems to have come to an end last week, when Murdoch reached out to the GOP frontrunner for...

Two weeks ago Rupert Murdoch said Donald Trump was embarrassing "the whole country." But now the two Republican party power brokers may be brokering peace. The two men recently spoke for the first time since Trump entered the presidential race back in June, according to people with direct knowledge of the call. It was just a phone conversation, not an in-person meeting, but it was cordial and forward-looking, the people said. It took place about a week ago. Why does it matter? Because Trump has become the Republican presidential front-runner and a political force to be reckoned with, despite eye-rolling...

<p>Two weeks ago Rupert Murdoch said Donald Trump was embarrassing "the whole country." But now the two Republican party power brokers may be brokering peace.</p> <p>The two men recently spoke for the first time since Trump entered the presidential race back in June, according to people with direct knowledge of the call.</p>

upert Murdoch wants his top executive at Fox News to rein in the network's coverage of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, but the executive has so far refused to comply, according to a report published Wednesday. Gabe Sherman of New York magazine quoted an anonymous source who said that Murdoch has tried to get Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes to have the conservative news channel "back off the Trump coverage." The channel has covered Trump more than any other presidential candidate in the 2016 race, according to the report. And Murdoch has not hesitated to voice his dislike of the current...

84 year-old Rupert Murdoch will step down as CEO and controlling shareholder of 21st Century Fox. Rupert Murdoch to Step Down as CEO of FOX – Hands Reins to Liberal Son June 11, 2015 by Jim Hoft 1 Comment 84 year-old Rupert Murdoch will step down as CEO and controlling shareholder of 21st Century Fox. CNBC reported: Rupert Murdoch, the 84-year-old chief executive officer and controlling shareholder of 21st Century Fox, is preparing to step down as CEO of the media giant and hand that title to his son James, according to numerous sources close to the Murdoch family. An...

Senior intelligence people say certain that Hillary's messages totally hacked by several foreign governments.

Here’s an interesting tidbit we can thank jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for: according to cables included in the recent WikiLeaks document drop, informants have told diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia that American television–particularly Fox News Channel and David Letterman’s Late Show–are proving to be powerful weapons against “violent jihad.” As the U.K.’s Guardian reports, uncensored satellite broadcasts of popular American shows–with Arabic subtitles–carried via Saudi channel MBC, have turned young Saudis into huge fans of Desperate Housewives, Friends, and Fox News: “It’s still all about the war of ideas here, and the American programming on MBC...

Even though Harry Potter has graduated Hogwarts and moved onto bigger and brighter things (with decidedly less peril), J.K. Rowling is still creating magic with her words. As evidenced by her stunning takedown of Rupert Murdoch’s ignorant comments about the recent events in Paris. On Friday, the News Corp chairman had some stunningly misguided words for the Muslim people of the world in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, calling for the “Moslems” of the world to take the blame. Terrorism, you see, is their problem and they’ll have to either fix it for the rest of...

Britain's Sky News channel, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox company, has used the self confessed 'prejudiced' Mira Bar-Hillel as a talking head and authority on the subject of anti-Semitism. Bar-Hillel, who is known for her irrational loathing of the State of Israel, was featured on Sky News as a panellist discussing the rise of anti-Semitism in the UK. The author and commentator has form on the subject, and once wrote (emphasis added): "The Jews of today scare me and I find it almost impossible to talk to most of them, including relatives. Any criticism of the...

The White House believes that the election of a new House leadership team has opened up an opportunity to pass immigration reform this summer, presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett said Friday. Jarrett said the change necessitated by Rep. Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) surprising primary loss gives new life to immigration reform. -snip- But Jarrett said in discussions with business leaders in recent days that “nobody has said to me they thought his defeat was because of immigration reform.” In recent days, Jarrett shared a dinner with News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and a breakfast with the Business Roundtable to discuss the topic....

President Obama's longtime senior adviser Valerie Jarrett confessed to breaking bread this week with conservative media titan Rupert Murdoch, a new White House frenemy of sorts on immigration reform. The two dined at the posh Blue Duck Tavern on Tuesday night in Washington's Foggy Bottom, and Jarrett described the evening as “very enjoyable.” “Good policy sometimes makes strange bedfellows,” she told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor Friday, adding that she was impressed by Murdoch's passion for passing comprehensive immigration reform. He is an immigrant himself and he understands from a business perspective how important immigration...

News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch Rupert Murdoch said his "heart sank" after he learned of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's stunning Republican primary loss last week, because he believes Congress needs to tackle the issue of immigration reform this year. Murdoch, the chair of News Corp., has an op-ed in Thursday's Wall Street Journal in which he argued immigration reform "can't wait." After Cantor's loss, immigration reform was almost universally pronounced dead as a possibility this year, as it was perceived to be one of the issues on which Cantor lost favor with his Republican constituents. But Murdoch,...

Perhaps the least attractive henchman of imperial publisher Rupert Murdoch (and there is fierce competition for that distinction) got into the U.S. on an H-1B visa, lost the job that got him the visa, and, apparently, has not left the U.S. as he should have done. I am grateful to Ben Smith of Politico for breaking the story. It all ties into the huge controversy in the U.K. about Murdoch's media empire, and the serial wiretapping of the phones of murder victims and the royal family by his reporters. The Murdoch corporate employer is American Media Inc. which relates to...

Bill O’Reilly weighed in on immigration reform in tonight’s Talking Points Memo, arguing that a hard-line stance by the GOP will help Democrats. […] “The Republican Party must compromise on the immigration issue or it will lose the presidency again in 2016,” O’Reilly said. He noted that Mitt Romney only got 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2012. “If that happens again, you can say hello to President Hillary Clinton,” he said. …

Several corporate executives have joined forces with prominent local lawmakers, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and George Soros’ National Immigration Forum (NIF) to organize a campaign on Monday to target GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill to get them to try to support amnesty. Those executives include Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Boeing CEO and chairman Jim McNerney, Marriott hotels chairman and CEO Bill Marriott, NewsCorp chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, and Disney president and CEO Bob Iger. Ballmer, McNerney, Marriott, Murdoch, and Iger, along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro form the...

MARK LEVIN: And you see folks, they all look at this poll, this NBC poll, and this has been all over FOX News today. And unfortunately nobody there reads PJ Media or listens to talk radio or reads the internet, because the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is a fraud, an absolute fraud. Bryan Preston, he points it out. A sharp reader caught a statistical problem with that much-cited NBC/WSJ poll that shows Republicans are getting whooped in the shutdown. One-in-five respondents work for the federal government, twenty-percent of those polled. And yet in real life, eight-percent work for the federal...

US lawyers said that if the admission undermines his testimony to regulators, it could leave the News Corporation chief exposed under Title 18, Section 1001, which makes it illegal to lie to law enforcers. Mr Murdoch was filmed talking to disgruntled staff at The Sun after journalists at News Corporation’s British newspaper operation were accused of intercepting voicemails and bribing officials for stories. Journalists told him that they authorised payments to police “oblivious to the fact the long-term practice of this company to pay public officials was illegal”, and now felt they were being made “scapegoats”. Journalists told him that...

Tony Blair denied outrageous internet rumours today linking him with the divorce of Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng. The internet was awash with unfounded suggestions that the former Prime Minister may have been romantically involved with 44-year-old Miss Deng, who is a close friend. The feverish speculation followed a Twitter claim by BBC business editor Robert Peston, who has close links with senior Murdoch empire insiders, that he had been ‘told that undisclosed reasons for Murdoch divorcing Deng are jaw-dropping - & hate myself for wanting to know what they are’. The rumours are understood to have been emphatically rejected...

Media titan Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce from his wife of 14 years, Wendi Deng. The 82-year-old billionaire and CEO of News Corp. filed a one-page document in New York State Supreme Court indicating the start of the divorce Thursday morning. "The relationship between the husband and wife has broken down irretrievably," sealed court documents claim, according to a Murdoch spokesman. A source familiar with the case said the couple had a prenuptial agreement and that the split would have no effect on the management or ownership of the company.