The husband says to his wife, "Darling, to hang this picture, I want to put in this screw. You could help by bringing me the screw driver." The yellow rag newspaper reports, "The husband shouted at his wife, 'Screw you.'" The Union-Tribune did another hatchet job on City Attorney Mike Aguirre this morning (Dec. 19) by quoting a bunch of biased sources, taking quotes out of context, distorting the facts -- all its usual tricks, which are not fooling the paper's rapidly-dwindling readership. The paper reported that Aguirre had hired his former unpaid campaign treasurer to be an expert witness in the case in which Aguirre is trying to eliminate excessive pension benefits that have the City on the financial brink. The accountant was paid $127,715. The case is on appeal. The article quoted opposing lawyers saying the CPA contributed little. What does anyone expect opposing lawyers to say? The article made much of the fact that the CPA never testified. But that was because the judge had dismissed the case before there was a chance. Then the article quoted a smidgen of the CPA's deposition -- making it sound like the witness knew nothing. But a full reading of the deposition showed just the reverse; he had good grasp of the topic. Not long ago, the paper's editorial page and so-called news pages came out with a similar blast, claiming Aguirre had broken the law on campaign contributions. The ethics commission immediately said otherwise. The law was clear; the U-T was pathetically wrong. Then the paper retracted it -- in legalese, and buried. This latest incident brings to mind that when Kroll, Inc. and its law firm were ripping off the City for $20 million, the U-T was silent because Kroll, which had done a scissors-and-paste job that reached the same conclusion Aguirre already had, was feeding the editorial page so-called information. The U-T is smearing Aguirre so that the establishment can continue extracting money from taxpayers.
The husband says to his wife, "Darling, to hang this picture, I want to put in this screw. You could help by bringing me the screw driver." The yellow rag newspaper reports, "The husband shouted at his wife, 'Screw you.'" The Union-Tribune did another hatchet job on City Attorney Mike Aguirre this morning (Dec. 19) by quoting a bunch of biased sources, taking quotes out of context, distorting the facts -- all its usual tricks, which are not fooling the paper's rapidly-dwindling readership. The paper reported that Aguirre had hired his former unpaid campaign treasurer to be an expert witness in the case in which Aguirre is trying to eliminate excessive pension benefits that have the City on the financial brink. The accountant was paid $127,715. The case is on appeal. The article quoted opposing lawyers saying the CPA contributed little. What does anyone expect opposing lawyers to say? The article made much of the fact that the CPA never testified. But that was because the judge had dismissed the case before there was a chance. Then the article quoted a smidgen of the CPA's deposition -- making it sound like the witness knew nothing. But a full reading of the deposition showed just the reverse; he had good grasp of the topic. Not long ago, the paper's editorial page and so-called news pages came out with a similar blast, claiming Aguirre had broken the law on campaign contributions. The ethics commission immediately said otherwise. The law was clear; the U-T was pathetically wrong. Then the paper retracted it -- in legalese, and buried. This latest incident brings to mind that when Kroll, Inc. and its law firm were ripping off the City for $20 million, the U-T was silent because Kroll, which had done a scissors-and-paste job that reached the same conclusion Aguirre already had, was feeding the editorial page so-called information. The U-T is smearing Aguirre so that the establishment can continue extracting money from taxpayers.