In Wake of Christie/Koch Revelations, State DEM Comes Under Fire in NJ Media!

[BradBlog]

In Wake of Our Revelation That GOP Gov. Christie Secretly Met with Kochs, Battle Rages Over Whether Top State DEMOCRAT Should Step Down --- Heckuva Job, NJ Media!

During the billionaire Koch brothers' secret Summer Seminar near Vail, Colorado on June 26th, their secret superstar keynote speaker, New Jersey's Republican Governor Chris Christie, criticized President Barack Obama, charging that he "had failed the fundamental test of leadership, which I believe is to tell the people who hired you the truth, unvarnished truth."

Never mind that until our exposé at Mother Jones last week, based on a complete audio recording of his secret speech, Christie himself had failed to tell the truth to those who had hired him, by concealing the fact that he had flown half way across the country to address the Koch's gathering...just a few months after he had also secretly met with billionaire brother David Koch himself one-on-one, "for about two hours --- just the two of us," as Koch revealed during his introductory remarks, in the oil and chemical magnate's New York City office. That secret meeting took place just prior to a major announcement by Christie to unilaterally withdraw from a Northeaster greenhouse gas initiative which Koch had been long advocating against.

So what are the local media obsessed with, given so many of the revelations that suddenly came to light in both our detailed report and its accompanying audio and transcript? Whether or not one of the state's top Democrats, Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, should step down from her position!

Naturally. Heckuva job, New Jersey media! (And Democrats!)...

FULL STORY: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8748

===

(Also, if you were too busy last week to keep up with Parts 1 and 2 of our blockbuster Mother Jones exclusives on the Koch Brothers' super-secret (until now) Summer Seminar near Vail, CO, and the extraordinary audio we obtained and released, as recorded inside of it - my interview on the Peter B. Collins Show podcast, including lots of audio, context and analysis is a great way to catch up in one fell swoop! It's now available here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8743 )

[MinM]

1. Christie helped to shape the media landscape by dropping the original HackGate

Floorgraphics v. News America
NBC News
updated 7/21/2011 8:04:08 PM ET

Justice Department prosecutors are reviewing allegations that News Corp.’s advertising arm repeatedly hacked into the computers of a competitor in the United States as part of an effort to steal the rival firm’s business, according to a lawyer for the company.

Bill Isaacson, the lawyer for Floorgraphics, a New Jersey-based advertising firm, told NBC News he was contacted this week by two federal prosecutors and an FBI agent based in New York seeking information about claims that the firm’s computers were hacked by News America Marketing, the advertising division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., seven years ago.

The allegations were first reported to the FBI in 2004 and prompted investigations at the time by the bureau, the Secret Service and the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice, according to documents obtained by NBC News and congressional correspondence.

While never prosecuted, the claims became a key part of a civil lawsuit that Floorgraphics filed against News America. The case was resolved six days into a 2009 trial, when News America agreed to buy Floorgraphics' assets for $29.5 million as part of an out-of-court settlement.

The renewed interested in the incident appears to be part of a broader Justice Department probe into News Corp. ordered last week by Attorney General Eric Holder in the wake of disclosures of rampant phone hacking by reporters at the News of the World, the now-shuttered News Corp. newspaper in London. The claim made by Floorgraphics involves alleged computer crimes, not phone hacking, and is the only such allegation that has surfaced against News Corp. in the United States...

The inquiry into Floorgraphics could pose a problem for another of Murdoch’s top newspaper executives: Paul Carlucci, the publisher of the New York Post. Carlucci also has been the longtime chairman and chief executive of News America and has been accused in three lawsuits of creating a cut-throat competitive culture at the company, including showing his employees a scene from the movie “The Untouchables” in which the mobster Al Capone crushes a rival’s head with a baseball bat.

Carlucci has denied the incident. Asked if Carlucci had any knowledge of the hacking of Floorgraphics’ computers, company spokeswoman Halpin said via email: “Certainly not. No one at News America Marketing had any knowledge of the alleged incident until the claim was made that it had happened.” ...

Floorgraphics was a relatively small start-up firm based in Princeton, N.J., at the time that the computer hacking allegations arose. The firm specialized in creating on-floor advertising displays at grocery store chains such as Safeway — a line of business that put it in direct competition with News America’s own in-store ad business.

Testifying in another civil case two years ago, George Rebh, one of the two brothers who owned Floorgraphics, described a 1999 lunch with Carlucci in which the News America executive allegedly threatened to “destroy” his company.

According to the company’s lawsuit, News America that year launched a “deliberate and malicious” campaign to do that by, among other actions, threatening retailers who did business with Floorgraphics, creating “confusion” in the marketplace by “spreading rumors” that it was about to go out of business and “breaking into” the firm’s password- protected computer system to acquire information about its past and future business contracts.

According to a forensic report that a computer security firm prepared for Floorgraphics as part of its civil case against News America, the security breach was traced to the IP address of a News America computer.

The hacker gained unauthorized access on 13 different occasions between Oct. 6, 2003 and Jan. 13, 2004, viewing floor ads that Floorgraphics had installed in retail customers’ stores as well as “images, instructions and schedules for ads it was preparing to install in the coming months,” according to the report.

FBI agents originally visited Floorgraphics’ offices to examine its computers in early 2004 — and the case was initially assigned to a prosecutor working for Chris Christie, then the U.S. attorney in New Jersey and now the state’s governor. But it’s unclear how far it was pursued; a company source told NBC that the FBI agent assigned to the matter later told the firm that agents were too busy at the time working on security for the 2004 Republican convention in New Jersey...

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43847056/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/us-looks-alleged-hacking-news-corps-ad-arm/

NYT reporting on Carlucci and News Corps payments in US
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1514006

[BradBlog]

2. Yup...

...And just another example of what NJ media *could* be working on, in regard to all of these revelations, versus what they *are* working on (determining if a Dem should step down in the wake of the Christie/Koch revelations.)

[peacetalksforall]

5. Going with the flow - since Christie is associate with the Koch Bros, perhaps

the Koch Bros are associated with News Corp, Murdoch, or one of their other arms under the Murdoch umbrella.

[BradBlog]

6. If u read my first Mother Jones piece on this, you'll see Judge Napolitano was closing night speaker

...So yeah, Fox and News Corp are "associated" with the Kochs.

My first Mojo story on the Secret Koch Tapes is linked here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8728

Excerpts from Napolitano's closing night speech are here: http://www.bradblog.com/?page_id=8701

[Dawson Leery]

7. Napolitano is a come lately anti-government authority type.

He was another cheerleader under Bush's desk during those dark times.

[Octafish]

8. Fascinating! ''Who the hell is Carlucci?''

Has anyone determined if or how Paul Carlucci is related to Frank Carlucci? The GOOGLE seems to fall short and the DU archives pop up a few queries similarly stumped. The editor Paul Carlucci's vitae absolutely reeks of wetwork via the sewer -- character assassination by the ink barrel.

Speaking of which: It seems like the Murdoch story dropped from the British and American media radars PDQ after the Norway massacre.

For those new to the subject: Frank, the former Secretary of Defense and one-time head of Carlyle Group, was one of our officials in Congo during the time of Patrice Lumumba's passing, hence JFK's question. It's understable Frank Carlucci gets touchy when people bring that up.

[MinM]

10. "Ou est Carlucci?"

I was assuming, given their modus operandi, that they were related. But, as you say Octafish, that information is not readily available on the internets.

At the very least we do know that Frank Carlucci and Rupert Murdoch had a mutual friend/associate, and benefactor in Murdoch's case, in Ted Shackley.

[Octafish]

11. Geebush. Must-read for Murdoch Muckrackers!

What The Blond Ghost meant to democracy: :scared:

From MinM's link:

Rupert Murdoch and Ted Shackley

Bill Casey was one of the key men in the acquisition of media after WW2. It was one of his proteges (a young German immigrant to the US) who was sent back to Germany after the war to take over Bertelsmann and build it up. Rupert Murdoch was very tight with Shackley, which is how he got launched on his global acquisitions and has now taken over the WSJ. Murdoch was running a failed national newspaper in Australia while Shackley was station chief in Oz. Then suddenly he becomes a US citizen literally overnight and goes on an endless buying spree. Shackley's pockets were infinitely deep. At the time, Murdoch was facing the likely closure of his newspaper THE AUSTRALIAN. His ticket out was Shackley. This also explains why Murdoch was allowed to break all the rules in acquisition of media in America.

Gosh. It really is a small world.

[radhika]

3. I'd like to hear a big fat HOWL from NJ Dems...

I'm so sick of Loser Left tactics, crawling for forgiveness when doing the right thing.

I'd LOVE NJ voters - Dems or otherwise - to sound off at their state politicians and dump on Christie. Doubt if they will - but I have a capacity to fantasy.

[999998th word]

4. Oh for FLICK sake- but thank you for the info, Bradblog.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Remember, Christie Sold Off Public Broadcasting...

New Jersey sits between the New York and Philly markets and have little local news media other than newspapers. For years New Jersey Public Broadcasting was the state's only real news service and the network was shut down in a "budget cut" last year and the stations sold off to public broadcasters in New York and PA. Unless one of the big market operations picks it up a lot of Christie's antics will go unreported. I'll bet Ed Schultz would like to learn more about this...

[proverbialwisdom]

12. Great OP. I've been outraged by the same observation.

Way to bury the lead, NJ media.

[Overseas]

13. K&R.