Have the Kochs Already Bought the LA Times?

I spent last evening at a splendid dinner of the Friends of Ronald Reagan at the California Club in downtown Los Angeles, where our special guest was Senator John Thune.  It was off the record, so no, I won’t tell you what he said, except that when I mentioned I was from Power Line, he recalled running into Scott at the airport recently and was wondering if we were starting to stalk him.

Anyway, as M/C of the evening’s festivities, I had some fun suggesting that since we were just around the corner from the Los Angeles Times, we ought to go out on the balcony and yell, “The Koch brothers are here!,” and watch LA Times staff jump from the upper floor windows.

But from the the looks of the Times this morning, I wonder whether the Kochs haven’t already secretly closed the deal and started replacing staff.  The lead story on the front page today is about the “surprise” that Obamacare isn’t going to work out so well for part-time workers: “Part-Timers to Lose Pay Under Health Act’s New Math.”  Of course, this is only a surprise to clueless liberal journalists, most of whom were trained in the original “new math” of the 1960s and 1970s, which is why they swallowed Obama’s claims that everyone would be able to keep his or her insurance, which would get cheaper, because Obama wasn’t adding to the deficit and wasn’t raising taxes, until it became necessary at the Supreme Court to say that actually, yes, he was raising taxes, and . . .   Anyway, here’s a bit from the story:

Many part-timers are facing a double whammy from President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.  The law requires large employers offering health insurance to include part-time employees working 30 hours a week or more. But rather than provide healthcare to more workers, a growing number of employers are cutting back employee hours instead.

Well, what do you expect from those greedy profit-grubbing private sector entrepreneurs anyway.  Oh, wait, the first example the Times gives is from  . . . local government:

Consider the city of Long Beach. It is limiting most of its 1,600 part-time employees to fewer than 27 hours a week, on average. City officials say that without cutting payroll hours, new health benefits would cost up to $2 million more next year, and that extra expense would trigger layoffs and cutbacks in city services.

Part-timer Tara Sievers, 43, understands why, but she still thinks it’s wrong.

“I understand there are costs to healthcare reform, but it is surely not the intent of the law for employees to lose hours,” said the outreach coordinator at the El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach. “It’s ridiculous the city is skirting the law.”

Apparently Miss Sievers has never heard of the law of unintended consequences, which is the most frequently enacted statute in the nation.  And the city is not “skirting” the law at all; they merely read the law and understood it.  Welcome to the real world of liberal legislation, Miss Sievers.

Meanwhile, I drove right by this fire in the photo below (this very spot in fact) shortly after it broke out about 6:45 am this morning, and thought that it looked like it would be serious.  The media are reporting they think it will burn through to the coast.

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