Yesterday, a committee in the UK Parliament investigating the NewsCorp phone hacking and bribery scandal concluded that Rupert Murdoch was "not a fit person" to run a major international corporation.

On today's BradCast on KPFK/Pacifica Radio, Eric Boehlert of Media Matters joined me to discuss that remarkable news, his sobering column yesterday on "Murdoch's Nixonian Demise", what it all means for NewsCorp properties here in the U.S. (like Fox "News", the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal) and how the story is being covered by the media in this country both on the Right and non-Right.

As usual, we're also joined by Desi Doyen for some Green News Report and a few listener phone calls round out the hour.

Download MP3 or listen online below [appx 58 mins]...

Reminder: I don't post ALL of my KPFK shows here, but you can subscribe to the RSS feed to get 'em all, or stop by the KPFK BradCast archives anytime.

Guest blogged by Betsy Rosenberg, The Green Front

"Earth Week" has culminated in today's Earth Day, that brief period once a year when you might actually see an in-depth green story, series, or panel discussion about an environmental topic on TV, or hear a few on the radio. Newspapers and magazines can be counted on to do an eco-themed article in late April, but that’s about it.

Sadly, that’s about all the consistent coverage we’ve gotten from mainstream commercial media over the past 15 years. That’s how long I’ve been focused on this odd programming void. While that reality remains unchanged, ecologically and meteorologically speaking, there’s been a groundswell of dramatic events.

This year I caught NBC’s Today Show --- as part of their “Green Is Universal” week (if it were truly “universal” shouldn’t we see coverage more than once a year?) – doing the obligatory eco-friendly products display, featuring bamboo plates, doormats woven from used lobster twine and purses made from aluminum can tabs and candy wrappers. Nice and feel-good, but is this the most useful and deepest offering on a once-a-year occasion? We’ve come a long way since recycling was our biggest environmental concern, no?

Earth Day Lite, as I call it, is almost a Hallmark holiday – expressed on recycled content cards of course. It’s as predictable as the climate has become UNpredictable. With glaciers melting, sea levels rising and freak storms taking lives and livelihoods at a record rate, why have we not progressed in our coverage of the environment, our life support system, and the tenor of these topics, for the most part, remains unchanged?

Is it because Americans have short attention spans, low tolerance for disturbing news, are just too busy to bother, and programmers fear such content will be a turn-off? I suspect it’s a little of all the above.

The environmental threats facing our country and planet have deepened, grown exponentially in number and complexity --- which is what usually happens when problems are ignored --- and yet, media coverage has, as anemic as it was, actually decreased.

According to Media Matters of America, the major networks --- ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox --- significantly decreased their coverage of climate change between 2009 and 2011 while spending twice as much time discussing Donald Trump as they did our worsening climate. If they compared how often Kim Kardashian “made news” vs. climate change, she would also likely come out on top. Perhaps if we called it "Kim Kardashian’s Climate Change" more Americans would tune in?...

You've heard the Republican meme of the moment. Mitt Romney, the GOP front-runner and presumptive Presidential nominee recently told supporters that the price of gas has "doubled under this president."

Newt Gingrich released an ad last month charging: "Since Barack Obama’s inauguration, gas prices have doubled."

Their reliable allies at the fossil-fuel industry-funded astroturf trade group American Energy Alliance have a similar ad, declaring: "Since Obama became president, gas prices have nearly doubled." And, of course, reliable wingnut stooges like Katie Pavlich at the rightwing "news" site Townhall are all too happy to help spread the propaganda on all of their behalves with articles like the one she filed yesterday headlined "Gas Prices Officially Doubled Under Obama."

Of course, it's not actually all that true. Surprised? More accurately, it's an outright lie, since the folks who are pushing it know damned well how intentionally misleading it is. Worse, we've yet to see anyone in the corporate media bothering to correct it.

FACTS: According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), the average price for a regular gallon of gas today across the U.S. is $3.92.

The week that Obama took office in January of 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration it was $1.83/gallon. But that was just after the price of oil had come crashing down on the global market thanks to the crash of the global economy which led to the Great Recession --- all under the leadership of George W. Bush.

Just months before President Obama took office, and before the crash, in July of 2008, during the Administration of failed former oil man George W. Bush, gas prices had hit their all-time record average high in the U.S. at $4.11/gallon.

Here's what the average price of gas actually looks like in the U.S. from April of 2004 through today, according to GasBuddy.com's data and our own clarity placed over the top [click to enlarge]...

So, yes, strictly speaking the price of a gallon of gas has roughly doubled since Obama took office. That, of course, is barely even half of the story, as you can see above...

In today's New York Times, Jim Arkedis and Lindsay Mark Lewis of the Progressive Policy Institute (Lewis also previously worked for the DNC), warn that Super-PACS aren't just perverting the electoral system through millions in deceptive ads for or against the candidates they are secretly funded to support, but they may also pose an even more direct, more insidious threat to our democracy.

After acknowledging that even President Obama is now embracing the same shadowy-funded PACs he once claimed to eschew, as he refuses to "unilaterally disarm", there is a different between inclinations of left and right, in that one side generally works to increase voter turnout, while the other hopes to suppress it. The lack of accountability and the supposed "firewall" of separation between Super PACs and candidates creates a situation rife for the worst kind of dirty tricks and voter suppression in an atmosphere which is even more difficult to regulate than in the past (when such dirty tricks were already pretty easy to pull off without paying a price --- or, at least, without a price that could be paid before it was far too late).

Their warning is both compelling and ominous, particularly as we don't need to look very far into the recent past --- even here at The BRAD BLOG --- in order to find evidence in support of it...

Out of scores of journalists who work for the Gannett Wisconsin Media-owned Green Bay Press-Gazette, just seven were willing to offer their personal, non-business related support for a recall of Wisconsin's controversial Gov. Scott Walker. They are now being disciplined.

The rest, the vast majority of Press-Gazette employees, all cast a vote for their support of the Republican Walker's fitness to complete his term as governor by refusing to sign the petition for his recall.

How can we now trust them to report without bias on the Walker story they are tasked with covering in a neutral fashion?!

Despite the clear and unethical conflict of interest demonstrated by their support for Walker --- for which the Governor is almost certainly grateful --- those journalist are somehow still expected to cover the Democratic Party and union-supported political challenges against him and his administration in an impartial manner.

Clearly, that is impossible. At least according to an editorial published last night by Kevin Corrado, the president and publisher of the Green Bay Press-Gazette...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

Citizens United rejected a congressional legislative ban on corporate campaign contributions. It says nothing about the ability to tax such contributions...

It so long and detailed, with so many clickable links within it, it took us this long to get through the entirety of a brilliantly written post mortem on the life, havoc and "malicious career" of Andrew Breitbart, as written by mobutu and Gen. Ze'evi at Gawker earlier this week.

The piece is as much about the unforgivable failure of the corporate media who fell, repeatedly, for Breitbart's scams as it is about Breitbart himself. That failure, of course, is the only reason, as we noted in our own "obit", that The BRAD BLOG ever even bothered to step into the toxic swill of his particularly poisonous pig pen of fear, loathing and cruelty towards his fellow man.

The article offers several nods to our months-long tangle with the New York Times and others in the "liberal media", over the "maliciously, fabricated hoax" that was the phony ACORN "scandal". An historic reminder of our occasionally successful attempt at trying to shake the compliant lapdog media out of their stupor to explain how they had fallen embarrassing victim to little more than a series of cheap, partisan con jobs. For example, the story notes how Breitbart's own lies about the ACORN hoax were "definitively debunked on factual grounds several times over" here at The BRAD BLOG and elsewhere.

The entire thing is worth a read --- if you're feeling dirty --- if only for its exceedingly smart prose and unabashed truth-telling about the realities of the shameful moment in American history when a huckster and dishonest profiteer such as Breitbart was able to both flim-flam and expose our once-great Fourth Estate for the utter --- and deadly --- embarrassment they have now become.

Here's just one snippet from the piece to give you an idea...

You can, and should, read it all here.

P.S. So long as we're wading through this particular muck today, see also The Fix's Maer Roshan and Hunter R. Slayton's similarly smart take, and very fine reporting, on "What Really Killed Andrew Breitbart? The Likely Cause of Death the Mainstream Media Ignored", as published at Alternet on Thursday. It documents, among other things, how, even in his death, Breitbart still has the mainstream corporate media shuddering in fear of the mighty reach of this ultimately very small man.

[Now UPDATED with tonight's nightmarish audio archives below! Enjoy!!!]

Mike has the night off! So we're back! Guest hosting the nationally-syndicated Mike Malloy Show on Friday the 13th! It's a Nightmare on Malloy Street!...

We'll be BradCasting all the horror LIVE from 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the uprising globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight (so far):

• YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE! Me! With three hours over our public airwaves to talk about Iowa, New Hampshire & South Carolina voting nightmares! The nightmare that is Election 2012! And other related and unrelated nightmares!
• GRAEME ZIELINSKI, Spokesman from the Wisconsin state Democratic Party, with some late breaking news on the "Recall Scott Walker" effort in the Badger State!
• PLUS! The fraud that is James O'Keefe; the "cold" War against Iran; the failure that is the NY Times; the GOP wants more corporate money in campaigns; and all the nightmares on your minds, via your calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate KPTR 1450 in Palm Springs or at WhiteRose Society or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Tonight's show was a NIGHTMARE! Don't believe me? You can now listen to the full show, sans commercials, in the archives posted below. (You can also read the nightmarish chat room archives below too!) Be afraid...Be very afraid!...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

Did you know that Democrats will have a progressive alternative to President Barack Obama on the ballot in New Hampshire tomorrow? We're guessing you didn't.

Moreover, how ironic is it that Darcy G. Richardson, the only progressive Democrat with the courage to challenge the incumbent Democratic President in tomorrow's "First-in-the-Nation" primary, at one time managed the 1988 Presidential campaign of the late Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy? It was McCarthy's receipt of 42% of the vote in the 1968 NH Democratic primary which led to the announcement by President Lyndon B. Johnson that he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of the Democratic Party for President.

How predictable is it, given the utter failure of the corporate owned media to fulfill its constitutionally envisioned function of insuring an informed electorate, that so few Americans are so much as aware of the fact that President Obama is not running "unopposed" in tomorrow's 2012 NH Democratic Primary?

Finally, what impact, if any, will there be for the fact that President Obama reportedly failed to timely submit a slate of national convention delegates to the NH Secretary of State as mandated by the NH Elections Code?...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

In the latest tracking poll released out of New Hampshire, the Suffolk University/7 NEWS poll [PDF], TX Governor Rick Perry receives 1% support from 500 likely voters in the Granite State. Former LA Governor and four-term U.S. Congressman Buddy Roemer also received 1%. In fact, Roemer received approval from a higher number of respondents (6) than Perry did (4). And yet, Perry was allowed to participate in both last night's GOP Presidential debate in NH as televised on ABC, as well as this morning's on NBC. Roemer was not allowed to participate in either of them.

In fact, out of some 16 GOP Presidential debates to date, Roemer has not been allowed to participate in a single one of them.

The exclusion of Roemer from every single Republican Presidential Debate provides but the latest example of how the corporate-owned media limits the ability of the American people to elect --- or even hear from --- individuals who challenge oligarchic corporate control of our ostensibly democratic institutions.

A candidate like Roemer, who has embraced Occupy Wall Street and spoken (and Tweeted) powerfully and openly and passionately and continuously against the corrupting influence of corporate money on our democratic institutions, poses a direct threat to the corporate media bottom line --- a corporate media which is looking forward to approximately $3 billion in political ad revenues in 2012, courtesy of Citizens United --- the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous 2010 decision which has flung the door wide open to the corrupting influence of unlimited anonymous corporate campaign expenditures.

Whether it entails ending coverage of the Rose Parade before thousands of Occupy demonstrators, their signs and floats could be seen or limiting the scope of discourse in both Presidential Debates and the selection of the nominee in general, exclusion provides a powerful means by which the corporate media maintains the status quo...

[Now UPDATED below with the archives from the year's final Malloy Show below! And it was a fun one! Enjoy!]

Tonight it's our final night guest hosting the nationally-syndicated Mike Malloy Show for the year and, the final Mike Malloy Show of the year, for that matter! It's also our last one before the 2012 voting finally begins...

For our New Years Eve Eve show, we'll be BradCasting again LIVE from 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the uprising globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE chat room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight (so far):

• END OF THE YEAR/BEGINNING OF ELECTION YEAR ROUND-UP: Everything we've yet to get to this year, and everything you'll need to know as the zany 2012 election year circus will finally get under way!
• VISITS FROM FRIENDS: In addition to (hopefully) lots of calls from you guys, we may have a few visits from a few friends o' the blog!
• PLUS! Anything and everything that's on your minds at year's end as 2012 awaits, via your calls over your public airwaves at 877-520-1150 and your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or at WhiteRose Society or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Had a great last-show-of-the-year show tonight! LOTS of fun! If you missed any part of it, the full, commercial-free audio archives are now posted below (along with the archives from tonight's chat room). A really lively end-of-year show! Until next year, enjoy!...