Read the details at Murdoch’s Company Improperly Targeted PM Gordon Brown, Could Face Criminal Prosecution In U.S..  Here is the premise of the hazard in the United States:

But Murdoch may soon have bigger problems on his hands. Legal experts told the AP today that his company could face criminal prosecution in the U.S. for his U.K. papers’ alleged bribery of British police officers, which would be a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

That would be progress.  Maybe Obama could then come out and say what his real political desires are and stop giving in to the Republicans.

The story Director hopes new film will be ‘Brokeback Mountain’ for atheists says,

Director Matthew Chapman hopes that his new movie will do for atheists what Brokeback Mountain did for the gay community.

There is a video of an interview with the director and some clips from the movie.

The topic may be intriguing, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like a very interesting movie that I would want to see.

Well, if you look at the trailer it isn’t quite as uninteresting as the CNN interview would have you believe.

Form the story Arizona lawmaker points loaded gun at reporter’s chest, here are two paragraphs:

While the loaded pistol had no safety and the laser pointer was centered on the reporter’s chest, Klein explained that there was no need to worry.

“I just didn’t have my hand on the trigger,” she said.

The reporter disarmed her and shot her with her own pistol because he was afraid for his life.  Not really, just making up poetic justice.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you actually had to know something about guns in order to get a permit to carry one.

Here is an email I received from boldprogressives.org:

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Steven,

BREAKING: Today, in a press conference, President Obama came right out and said it: He’s pushing for benefit cuts in important programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

You and 175,000 others boldly pledged that if Obama actually cuts Medicare/Medicaid benefits, you’ll take your money and volunteering elsewhere in 2012. 

Click here to stand up for Social Security by adding it to your pledge.

Then, help us reach our new goal of 200,000 people by sharing the pledge:

On Facebook: Click here.

On Twitter: PLEDGE: If @BarackObama cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits, no money from me in 2012

For those of us who worked tirelessly to elect Obama in 2008, here are the 3 most depressing quotes from today’s press conference: 

1) “We’re going to have a sales job. This is not pleasant. It is hard to persuade people to do hard stuff that entails trimming benefits and increasing revenues.”

Significance: This is the first time Obama admitted he is pushing “benefit” cuts that would hurt our grandparents, kids, and the disabled — not just “savings” like negotiating lower drug prices. 

2) “I want to be crystal clear — nobody has talked about increasing taxes now.  Nobody has talked about increases — increasing taxes next year.”

Significance: Polling shows that by 4 to 1, Americans want taxes increased on the rich. The “millionaires tax” proposed by House progressives would raise $1 trillion — helping to take benefit cuts off the table. By his own admission, Obama is not even asking for this!

3) “With respect to Social Security, Social Security is not the source of our deficit problems….the reason to include that potentially in this package is if you’re going to take a bunch of tough votes, you might as well do it now, as opposed to trying to muster up the political will to get something done further down in the future.” 

Significance: Seriously??? Why is a Democratic president going out of his way to help Republicans cut Social Security??? That’s just wrong.

Please add Social Security to the list of programs you pledge to defend. Click here.

Then, please pass this email to others. Thanks for being a bold progressive.

— Adam Green, Stephanie Taylor, Michael Snook, Forrest Brown, and the PCCC team

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Named The Nation’s “Most Valuable Online Activism of 2010″—thanks to you. Help us continue our effective, independent progressive activism. Chip in $3 here.

Paid for by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC (www.BoldProgressives.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Contributions to the PCCC are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.

Well, I just heard President Obama’s press conference on the negotiations about debt and deficit control.

I can forget my post Obama Plays The Republicans Like A Fiddle. That was pretty short lived. It was too much to expect that the President was any kind of a musician.

He summed up the press conference with abysmal closing remarks.  The point is not, as he claimed,  to solve our long term fiscal problems so that we can get back to the issue of jobs.  The point is to solve our long term fiscal problems in a way that will be supportive of economic growth – right now and in the future.

As many people in my business career liked to point out, long term solutions are of no value if you can’t make it through tomorrow.  There has to be a long term for long term plans to be of any value.

Obama talked about all the things he has tried to do to get job growth in this country.  He seems to have run out of ideas once he gets passed that point. He states that he has looked at the whole menu of steps that can be taken, but he seems to have missed the page about raising taxes on the wealthy as one of those steps.  He still doesn’t seem to understand that raising the taxes on high income earners is absolutely essential to getting job growth in this country. He does not see that any alternative plan takes more money out of the hands of the middle class and shifts it to the wealthy.

He missed countless opportunities in his press conference to make the point.  This is probably the very strongest point he can make, and yet he fails every time to make it.  Skewed income distribution is the largest problem this country is facing.  It is larger than health care costs.   It is larger than long term funding of Medicare.  It is certainly a larger issue than the fiscal health of Social Security 75 years from now.

If we don’t solve the issue of skewed income distribution in this country, there won’t be a country like the USA in this location in the world in 75 years.

P.S. I consider a totally flat distribution of income to be skewed, too.  It may be hard to define a “proper” income distribution, but that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize a bad distribution when we see one.

It’s like tuning in a radio station on your old dial radio, if anyone remembers one of those.  I don’t know exactly on the dial where I will get the best reception of a particular station.  I have an indication of a pretty likely spot to start my search. As I turn the dial in the vicinity of that starting point it becomes more and more obvious where the best point is.

This one, Smoke Exposure Linked to Learning Disorders, is for my own memory bank.

An increased risk of neurobehavioral disorders among children should be added to the list of the adverse effects of secondhand smoke, according to the results of a nationwide telephone survey.