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Eli Broad's billion-dollar blackjack?
Holey moley, I guess there really isn't anything money can't buy. And no identity you cannot shed if you've got the chutzpah to just do it. Political chameleon Nathan Fletcher, failed mayoral candidate and subsequent employee of the rich-as-Croesus Jacobs clan at Qualcomm and appointed "professor" at UCSD gets to sit with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry as an envoy for peace and advocate for the Iran nuclear agreement. PEACE??? This guy built his entire earlier political career as a friend of the Bush White House where his ex-wife worked, as chief of staff to disgraced flying ace GOP Congressman Randy Duke Cunningham, on identifying himself as a paleo-loving macho Marine throughout the war years in Iraq and as an enthusiastic public spokesman for amorphous "security" measures across American society. What accounts for this reappearance of Nathan? It's gotta be Big Daddy Irwin Jacobs, helping pad the resume for some future purpose.— September 11, 2015 6:13 p.m.
Layoff czar takes over Union-Tribune
My god, the Reader readers don't read regular newspapers and if they do, it's by the subterfuge of deleting cookies. Barron's, WIRED? The LA Times is still a great newspaper, even if diminished from its glory days -- Lazarus and Hiltzik are distinguished business section columnists -- and Jeff Light is looking like a brilliant editor at the Union-Tribune to have survived the turmoil and salvaged some excellent reporters and columnists. Let us think good thoughts for all of them and subscribe to their journals! Please! Should they disappear, we will be in a terrible, even worse place than we already are: a city whose Mayor Sunny is going to run for re-election unopposed.— September 11, 2015 10:53 a.m.
Labor-union trouble at the Navy shipyard in Maine
I doubt that "jnjor" will be the first to wonder anything, as he is "making a good living" now and is blind to what is happening outside his own charmed circle. "Coercive thugs?" I thought those were the Pinkerton boys who busted union heads on behalf of the corporate masters in the olden days.— September 10, 2015 7:08 p.m.
Layoff czar takes over Union-Tribune
From Reader reportage, it seems that Influential Angeleno Austin Beutner may have encouraged Tribune's purchase of the San Diego Union-Tribune and joining the two most powerful papers in SoCal nto a single entity. Beutner then became publisher of both. But he was also a Dem Angeleno friend of billionaire Dem Angeleno Eli Broad who was waiting in the wings to make a lowball offer for the two journals -- just in time for the 2016 presidential coronation of Hillary Clinton. Newspapers are one arena that Broad hasn't ventured into, after having done his Developer thing, his Public Education Reform thing, his Art Museum thing. But somebody less Dem and more GOP back in Chicago's always- conservative Tribune headquarters may have gotten wind of this Dem coup d'etat and pulled the plug on both Beutner and Eli Broad.— September 10, 2015 6:38 p.m.
Layoff czar takes over Union-Tribune
No, there will be no Newspaper Guild to protect U-T reporters if there are cuts under new publisher Ryan, thanks to Karin Winner and the late Helen Copley. But editor Jeff Light will be there to speak up for his people, and maybe that will help. As for the LA Times, its entire editorial staff sat on their hands in August when brilliant and funny editorial cartoonist Ted Rall was unceremoniously sacked and publicly accused of lying about an ancient jaywalking ticket. A possible reason? Rall regularly had targeted the LA Police Department whose union pension funds turned out to be heavily invested in one of parent Tribune's holding companies. So if some of those lily-livered newsroom bozos are axed by Ryan, I personally will believe they had it coming.— September 10, 2015 6:04 p.m.
Labor-union trouble at the Navy shipyard in Maine
Oh really? American prosperity was at its height after WW II when unions were strongest. The erosion of the middle class is directly tied to the decline of unions which negotiated fair wages and good working conditions for its members who were the nation's labor force. No "outsourcing" to Mexico, no "independent contractor" electricians. Steelworkers' union kids went to Harvard College and moved from blue-collar futures to professions. The country was on a roll. You certainly couldn't claim that today. But it's great to hear that you personally are doing so well: THAT is a news flash.— September 10, 2015 2:28 p.m.
Congressman Scott Peters did a lot of buying and selling in July
All's fair in love and war and the brutal world of politics, but you seem to highlight Democratic Congressman Scott Peters' personal mid-year financial readjustments in an attempt to discredit him as a wealthy man, which he is, which he is known to be, and which is not news to anyone. Where are comparable reports for car-alarm-rich GOP Congressman Darryl Issa and his colleagues in the San Diego delegation, GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter and Dems Susan Davis and Juan Vargas? We await these Reader revelations. Meanwhile, people appreciate Scott Peters' moderate representation in his half-blue half-red district of mostly middle-class voters. Peters is hard-working, practical, intelligent and light years better than previous occupants of this seat -- including lightweight placeholder and Dem insider Lynn Schenk and her successor, GOP carpetbagging right-winger Brian Bilbray. To his credit, Peters also campaigns hard and has twice dispatched an extreme-right rival and now has settled into the difficult business of constituent service and governing.— September 10, 2015 2:09 p.m.
Marx Madness
Many happy returns for the big 6-0, Scott. You clearly were a live-wire kid, spoiled silly by your loving parents (whom you usually insouciantly call by their first names in the style of the late great John Hughes) and were way too involved with movies for your own good. And now here you are, an expert putting bread on the table with your writer's gift, your, um, joie de vivre, and an amazing fund of knowledge about film esoterica. You are an original and we are glad you've found a home at the Reader. Loved your postcard of huge round Cinema 21 in Mission Valley -- now a church? -- where we waited in long lines to see "Star Wars" and, toward the end, to see the sappy "Titanic." (In heavy rains, the lower rows of that auditorium would flood.) As for "Duck Soup," I bought a copy from Kensington Video's inventory sale when they went out of business last year and everyone in my family from age 7 to 70 loves it.— September 9, 2015 9:16 p.m.
U-T’s Democratic publisher Beutner ousted
Just amazing. Dem politician/hedge fund operative/Tribune publisher Beutner is out and plain old journalist/publisher Ryan is in. What a surprise. The San Diego Union-Tribune's old-time GOP brand is saved from suffering ownership by autocratic neo-Dem Angeleno Eli Broad for the moment. What a close call. Apparently deposed publisher Beutner, protege of Broad and friend of former LA Mayor Villaraigosa and Hillary Clinton had political dreams of glory of his own, and became distracted from minding his newspaper business p's and q's. No wonder the U-T staff hasn't moved out of the old sold building to new quarters, months after the property sale. What a mess. A saga of politics and power, just as Matt Potter's been saying all along.— September 8, 2015 1:37 p.m.
Chargers owners get cash back from California Assembly speaker
At least Marty Block is not married to an affordable housing honcho. It is depressing to witness your Assembly speaker pushing positions that will benefit her spouse, in this case Jenniifer LeSar. Toni even managed to corral iconic tough-guy LA Times columnist Steve Lopez this summer. He actually took the train down here to get a tour and meet Jennifer.— September 3, 2015 10:39 p.m.