Murdoch survives shareholder challenge, may wish he hadn’t

They didn’t announce the vote totals for shareholder votes for Board members, so it was probably a close call for Rupe and James. But they may both find that things can get worse. Dominick Rushe, Dan Sabbagh, and Jason Deans, The Guardian:

The Labour MP Tom Watson, a persistent thorn in Murdoch’s side, travelled to Los Angeles to attend the AGM. He commented on the “deepest irony” of the opening presentation, which included images of Prince William – whom he alleged had been targeted by former NoW private investigator Glenn Mulcaire – and Kate Middleton, whom he claimed had been targeted by another private investigator employed by the now closed Sunday tabloid, Jonathan Rees.

Watson warned News Corp investors that they were facing “Mulcaire 2” in the UK as victims of alleged computer hacking took action against its subsidiary News International.

“You haven’t told any of your investors what is to come,” he told Murdoch, although the News Corp boss insisted that his company was co-operating fully with police inquiries.

Watson told Murdoch that he had evidence that the Metropolitan police was investigating computer hacking by private investigators who had worked for the NoW as well as other papers. Murdoch said he had no knowledge of the situation.

“What happened a few years ago was absolutely wrong and I have said so, and I have said that we’re all ashamed of it,” Murdoch said, adding that “recent rumours” Watson mentioned were under investigation by the police.
…
A few hours before the meeting began, News Corp confirmed it had reached an agreement to pay the family of murdered teenager Milly Dowler £2m in compensation, with Rupert Murdoch personally donating an additional £1m to six charities.

According to Tom Watson on Countdown, security was confiscating cameras and pen knives. And who knows whether they are feverishly altering ballots.

Investment banks send Facebook trolls to disrupt Occupy Wall Street

The story is from Carl Franzen at Talking Points Memo’s Idealab (via Finance Addict, via Avedon):

…bank employees have allegedly “trolled” the Facebook event page, trying to sow dissent with critical wall postings, at least according to Christian.

“Several corporate-level banking institutions have sent ‘trolls’ to discourage the movement through the event page, including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Merrill Lynch,” Christian wrote to TPM in an email. “I’ve encouraged all supporters to respond civilly to these bank employees.”

As proof, Christian provided TPM with screenshots of a wall post from a woman who’s LinkedIn profile indicates she is a “Teller Ops Specialist” at Bank of America.

TPM has contacted the woman and will update when we receive a response.

“When ‘trolls’ have been confronted regarding their employment with a corporate banking institution, their posts & profiles have mysteriously disappeared,” Christian told TPM.

At this point, you can pretty well assume that any negative information about protest movements is being supplied by the elite. They lied about the so-called “Battle of Seattle,” and they’ve been lying systematically ever since.

Friday Cat Blogging

He’s so dignified.

Great cartoon site

Via Bartcop, a cartoon site Mario Piperni.

Sample: