Lawsuits against Murdoch's News Corp coming to America

American authorities are too afraid of Murdoch to take action but fortunately at least one UK lawyer is traveling to the US to investigate the process of suing News Corp. The payouts for hacking have been high in the UK but the numbers will take an immediate jump if they're successful in the US. It also stands to reason that once one lawyer has success with a case, many more will be looking for reasons to sue News Corp. This year could be an exciting year for Rupert Murdoch's empire. The Guardian:

Mark Lewis, the lawyer who has been at the forefront of efforts to expose the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, is poised to bring the battle for legal redress across the Atlantic and to the doorstep of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

Lewis will arrive in the US on Saturday and next week will begin legal discussions in New York, just a stone's throw away from News Corporation's global headquarters on Sixth Avenue. His arrival constitutes a major escalation in the legal ramifications of the hacking scandal for Murdoch, who has tried desperately to keep it away from the American core of his multi-billion-dollar media holdings.

Details remain sketchy about precisely what Lewis intends to do in the US, but the Guardian has learned that he will be having legal discussions that could lead to several lawsuits being lodged with the New York courts. The direct involvement of the US judicial system in allegations of illegal activity by News Corp employees would bring the scandal dramatically closer to Murdoch's adopted home.

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Murdoch's Times of London in the news for hacking

The Murdoch media empire really struggles with following the law. Whether it's hiring Special Ops or private hackers to spy on the competition or promoting a "culture of illegal payments" this sounds like a rogue organization. Their latest problem is hacking a police blogger. As in a police officer who blogged.

Rupert Murdoch's Times of London is facing a claim for exemplary damages after admitting hacking into the email of an anonymous police blogger to expose his identity, lawyer Mark Lewis told Reuters on Friday.

Lewis, of law firm Taylor Hampton and representing police detective Richard Horton, said Horton had filed for misuse of confidential information, breach of confidence and deceit at London's High Court this week.

The Times exposed Horton as the author of the blog, in which he wrote about police work under the name NightJack, in 2009. Horton had sought an injunction to protect his anonymity but lost his case.

What will be the next scandal at News Corp? Read the rest of this post...

Obama releases taxes, likely higher than Romney's

It would be a shock and a significant tax increase for Romney is he is even paying the same amount as President Obama. Beyond Obama, who made less last year but still enjoyed a healthy income, how many middle class families will have paid higher tax rates than Mitt Romney? For a person who hasn't worked in years and who can still afford an elevator for his cars or chat about his exclusive horse collection, Mitt Romney sure lives a privileged lifestyle. Even though his wife Ann Romney doesn't think they are rich, they are of course among the richest in the country.

Despite all of the nonsense Republican talk about taxes killing job opportunities, the reality is that the US can't afford to give a free ride to people like Romney. There's no question that Romney worked hard but so do plenty of other Americans. The difference is that others didn't grow up with a daddy who was a governor and then corporate CEO who could put their kid in a position to prosper.

Maybe Romney did a better job with what he was given than say, Bush Jr., it was still a privilege that doesn't exist for most others. So why should he and others like him now get yet another easy ride by paying less than everyone else despite being part of the financial elite? Read the rest of this post...

The iPhone app the phone carriers hate

It's an interesting app, called CarrierCompare, and it's free.  It looks at how good, and fast, your iphone phone service is at the location you're currently at, and then compares it to the results others have reported in the area.  At my parents' place in the Chicago burbs, it's claiming that AT&T is better.  That's not true, at least not in my experience.  I had to drop AT&T and switch to Verizon because I couldn't get more than one bar on my AT&T iPhone at mom's place, or in the neighboring towns (having said that, my parents who have AT&T, but not with an iPhone, have great coverage at home). Now at least with Verizon I have service, though my service in DC with Verizon is now worse than my service was with AT&T.  Sigh.  We're so not #1 sometimes.

I'm curious what you guys have found, in terms of which service you prefer on your iPhones (or other phones), but also whether non-Americans have the same spotty service in their countries.  I know Chris has had problems with his iPhone service in Paris, but now with his previous phones.  More from CNN. Read the rest of this post...

Syria's Assad shelling Homs, breaking ceasefire

No surprise here.

Syrian forces shelled two central districts in the battered city of Homs throughout the night and into Saturday morning, a resident activist and a human rights group said, the first bombings since a ceasefire took hold on Thursday.

"There was shelling last night in the old part of the city, in Jouret al-Shiyah and al-Qaradis. And I have heard eight shells fall in the past hour," Karm Abu Rabea, a resident activist who lives in an adjacent neighbourhood, said on Saturday morning.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said shelling had wounded several people overnight.

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Does Hilary Rosen's not-lobbying firm sell White House access to corporations?

In the wake of L'Affaire Rosen (a Rorschach test for Dems, it seems), we saw a brief but powerful light shined on someone most of us have never heard of — Hilary Rosen.

So forget what Rosen said, and how many triangulated R-fearing Dems have rushed to throw her under the bus.

Who is Hilary Rosen? The fearless investigators at Republic Report have been following this part of the story (my emphasis everywhere):

[T]he entire story may set off a greater, more substantive inquiry about the nature of Rosen’s consulting firm, SKDKnickerbocker, an unregistered lobbying firm that has become one of the biggest names in the influence business by using its ties to President Obama and leaders in Congress.

By following Republican efforts to tie Rosen to the White House, Republic Report uncovered some interesting data. For example:

• Hilary Rosen visited the White House 35 times.
• David Petraeus visited 9 times.
• Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta visited 12 times.
• Joe Biden visited 6 times.
• Tim Geithner visited 40 times.

Since the reference is to "Obama White House visitor logs" I would assume this is during the entire period when that name is accurate. Still, the ratios are telling. Rosen visits less than Tim Geithner (hey, bankers need friends in high places), but quite a bit more than the others on the list. (Of course, there's the phone, but face-time is face-time.)

Lee Fang, the Republic Report writer, also discovers this at Politico:

Per a senior Dem: “It’s an open secret in the Dem consultant community that SKD has been signing up clients based on ‘perceived White House access’ tied to prior relationships and employment.”

Mr. Fang then puts two and two together:

SKDKnickerbocker is led by a team of former Democratic operatives and key White House figures. But instead of promoting a progressive agenda, or even an Obama agenda, these consultants score huge contracts by helping corporate interests lobby for policies that are not in line with the public interest. Many SKDKnickerbocker employees, including Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director, are also frequent White House visitors.

He provides an interesting list of not-lobbying clients and their causes, many of which are indeed anti-progressive and, in fact, anti-stated-Obama-objectives. Among them is this:

A proposal leaked two months ago showed that a group of political consultants, including SKDKnickerbocker’s Anita Dunn, worked up an effort to find hedge funds to pay them to kill efforts to enact the “Buffett Rule.” In the memo, Dunn clearly advertised her ties to the White House.

Buffett Rule ... I remember that. Obama says he wants it.

Look, no one's alleging wrong-doing, quite. Obama and his people can listen to whomever they want on a policy he says he advocates — and which will never pass this Congress — in a election year where his "sell" is that he's the real populist.

If Obama wants to open the White House door to Hilary Rosen, that's his right.

And if Rosen wants to sell that open door, that's her right. Rather cozy, that, but not illegal. Not Blagojevich–illegal.

And given the lax laws governing lobbyists, SKD can sell Rosen the same way Howard Dean is sold — as a wise and friendly "strategic adviser." You know, like Grandpa, but with his hand out.

The business of doing anything for money is a fine little business indeed, a sure-fire money-maker. As Groucho once said, "Clip me off a piece of that."

UPDATE: Tweaked some phrasing for accuracy.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
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B-52's - Rock Lobster

Due to a family emergency we're hosting our 11 year old nephew this week during his school break. Since he was born here I thought he would have better espresso making skills but no, I think I'm going to have to teach him how it all works. I then showed him the pile of flowers on the terrace that needed to be potted but for some reason he took a pass on that fun task. When I offered delicious Fruit & Fiber breakfast cereal, he said that he might look for something else in the kitchen.

We're now looking for movies that are playing this week in the neighborhood. I had initially suggested a gripping documentary about krill but he didn't seem nearly as interested. Kids today, huh? Read the rest of this post...