I used to work for that rag back in the 80s, when it was based in Van Nuys, California. The editor in the section where I worked (features section, Jane A. editor) was a nasty right-winger who spouted one homophobic comment after another. This was at the time that Rock Hudson was dying of AIDS. I was in the closet back then and didn’t fit her stereotype of a lesbian, so I got an earful of ignorant and mean-spirited comments about gays. I will never forget that.

All that’s to simply say that it was bad 20 years ago, and it looks like things haven’t changed since. Blech!

I used to work there, too, when I lived in L.A., for about three-and-a-half years, though I didn’t start there until they had moved to Woodland Hills in the late ’80s — back in the day when California was more red than blue, Deukmejian was governor, Pete Wilson was a senator, and Ronald Reagan was in the White House. I worked on the news copy desk, though I did fill in a couple of times at the features desk (I believe the section was called L.A. Life), so I know Jane A. slightly. A real b****.

If I recall correctly, Ron Kaye (who when I was there was something like assistant managing editor) used to work for the National Enquirer and was sort of a loudmouth. Doug Dowie was a step above him (didn’t he get in some sort of trouble after he left the paper and went into P.R.?). Another luminary who worked at the DN back then was SF Chronicle wingnut columnist Debra Saunders (who one of my fellow copy editors referred to as the “wicked witch of the right”), though I have to say she was nicer “in person” than she comes across in her poisonous prose. Her bete noire was the LA teachers union, who were threatening to strike one of the years I was there. As I recall, she once published the personal phone number of some union official in one of her columns (I think it had appeared in an in-house newsletter of some sort; that was her excuse for publicizing it) and the person got lots of nasty phone calls. The DN’s anti-labor attitude was quite apparent back then. It was a real right-wing rag, owned at the time by Jack Kent Cooke, owner of the Washington Redskins, a real piece of work, too.

My copy chief used to keep a file he called Daily News Obit, which kept track of how many people in the news department left the paper during the course of a year. The first year I was there, in 1987, he counted something like 260 employees who had left, which was the equivalent of nearly the entire newsroom turning over. The DN considered itself a stepping stone between the smaller community papers and papers like the LA Times and the Orange County Register. They hired a lot of young reporters just out of J-school, whom they wouldn’t have to pay much and treated like dirt, then when that bunch moved on to another paper, they’d hire a new batch of kids.

I was also there when the employees voted in the Newspaper Guild. Is it still a Guild paper? Management did everything it could to stop that from happening and influence employees not to unionize. Then their lawyers ate those poor naive union reps for lunch in their first contract negotiations. They came away with almost nothing. Since I was in a sort of gray-area semi-management job I heard all the nasty comments and the contempt management had for the union. I see things haven’t changed much even with new owners — in fact, these sound even worse.

And AP more or less locks up the race for Hillary:

Filed at 2:37 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — Memo to the Democratic presidential candidates: You can still beat Hillary Rodham Clinton, but you better act fast.

The former first lady looks more likely to win the nomination every day, showing strength in polling, fundraising and setting the campaign agenda.

She’s so strong, in fact, that the race has become about her.

Funny, I thought it was about America and who will be our next president. Sure sure, she has money and some supporters who know her name. But, who is actually the best person to be our next president?

It ain’t Hillary.

“Several hedge fund managers take more more than $1 billion per year, and their income is treated as capital gains — not income — so they pay a 15 percent tax rate, which is lower than that paid by most middle-class Americans, Reich notes.

“At the very least, you might think that Democrats would do something about the anomaly in the tax code. … But Senate Democrats recently backed off a proposal to do just that,” he writes. “Why? It turns out that Democrats are getting more campaign contributions these days from hedge-fund and private-equity partners than Republicans are getting. In the run-up to the 2006 election, donations from hedge-fund employees were running better than 2-to-1 Democratic. The party doesn’t want to bite the hands that feed.”

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/….._1025.html

Ya know, I don’t even see Republicans in this fight. To me it looks like DLC Dems against Progressive Dems. This and the Harman anti-free-speech bill (if that’s what it is) are DLC ideas of how to get bigger campaign contributions from newspapers and hedge fund managers. Money.

I don’t see Progressive Democrats asking for these things. They just ask for small donations from lots and lots of PEOPLE (as in “We the People”).

And we will NOT mention Rudy and his Trifecta of before/during/after marriages numbers one through three.

Or his Dog-Killing wife!

And a buffoon puts in his two cents:

Filed at 1:37 p.m. ET

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Republican Mitt Romney said Thursday he would be willing to use a military blockade or ”bombardment of some kind” to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon.

He would need to get elected first. Which ain’t gonna happen. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Americans ain’t ready to elect a Mormon for President, period. It’s not politically correct to say it. But it’s the truth.

“Mitt Headroom” (brother of Max) had to gimmick the polling at the Fundamentalists “Values Voters” Convention to get more than 10%. Huckleberry actually got over 50% of the Buble-Thumpers in attendance. But Romney’s campaign dumped hundreds of ballots on the internet (don’t know if they had to pony-up the $25 registration fee for each vote) and ended up in first place, just ahead of Hackleby.

All the Main Stream Media and Romney were out on the Sunday Morning gabfests crowing about how Romney had overcome the resistance of the Christian evangelicals. “Cept it wasn’t so…he stuffed the On-line ballot boxes!

P J Evans @ 37

CalGeorge @ 26

A lot of them aren’t living in LA. They’re living in outlying areas (Rialto, Yucaipa, Lancaster) and commuting. (A $50,000/year draftsman isn’t underpaid, even in LA. You can’t get fancy, and certainly you can’t buy a house by yourself, but you don’t have to live in a slum. FWIW, you can’t afford to buy a house here on less than about $200K/year.)

I remember there was some sort of program to help police officers in LA live nearer their work. It’s a huge problem all over…

yes, even in Dallas and other places nearby which have halfway affordable housing had to create a program to help teachers and police “live where they work”. I knew some folks who took advantage of it and did pretty well.

And thanks for this, BSR:

BlueStateRedHead @ 32

Sorry to interrupt the discussion with some S-Chip information.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/25/13242/981

a diarist has received the list of HR members who are being targeted by Redstate. I for one am looking for advice on where to direct my calls, as my state delegation is entirely pro-s-chip.

Can someone explain if we can help divert their effort?

The letter:

ear RedState Reader,

Several Republican congressmen from California have had to return home because of the forest fires.

As a result, Nancy Pelosi is going to bring the SCHIP bill back for a vote today, banking that with these absences she can get the bill passed.

Several Republicans who voted “no” last week need to hear from us. Call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to stand firm and vote no on H.R. 3963.

Here’s who you need to talk to:

Judy Biggert (IL)
Charles Boustany (LA)
Ginny Brown-Waite (FL)
Ken Calvert (CA)
Ander Crenshaw (FL)
Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ)
Elton Gallegly (CA)
Bob Inglis (SC)
Tim Johnson (IL)
John Peterson (PA)
Mike Rogers (MI)
Bill Shuster (PA)
Greg Walden (OR)

All the best,

Erick Erickson
Editor, RedState.com

Filed at 2:37 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — Memo to the Democratic presidential candidates: You can still beat Hillary Rodham Clinton, but you better act fast.

The former first lady looks more likely to win the nomination every day, showing strength in polling, fundraising and setting the campaign agenda.

She’s so strong, in fact, that the race has become about her.

WC is a union funded organization, though we have gotten support from other organizations on a project basis. We do get funding from IBEW Local 18. The president, Brian D’Arcy is one of our co-chairs. He was actually re-elected by his members this week, overwhelmingly, despite the LADN attempts to undermine him.

Like most things there are some great unions and not so great ones. It is crucial that the people of the unions that have issues, work to fix them. After all, they are the union and it works for them.