Marc Cooper

I’M NOT ANGRY WITH Steve Maviglio for branding me on a Democratic Party blog as the “worst” political journalist in the state. In fact, the guy’s got nothing but my sympathy. As top enforcer for Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, Maviglio is much more comfortable working with compliant reporters who had......

WHEN I WROTE IN THESE PAGES a couple of weeks ago that California Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez was on the verge of selling out his longtime union allies and was ready to green-light the largest gambling expansion in recent history to the benefit of a few wealthy tribes, I got......

WHY ANY LINGERING SUSPENSE about the course of the war in Iraq? For the first half of this year, the congressional Democrats — for the most part — have joined with the Republicans in promoting the public fairy tale that we’re going to reach some climactic turning point come September......

YOU KNOW LOCAL, EASTSIDE STATE Senator Gloria Romero, right? The feisty Democratic majority leader in the California Senate? The highest-ranking woman in the state Legislature? Ardent defender of civil liberties, consumers, workers, minorities? Fearless reformer of prisons and rogue police forces? Great.Now you can add another title: Gloria Romero, faithful......

YOU KNOW THE WORLD is upside down when Silvio and Bobby hit the dirt and Tony goes into hiding, but Hillary skates away without a scratch. Certainly, TheSopranos’ penultimate episode Sunday night got a much larger slice of the audience pie than the CNN-hosted debate from New Hampshire that preceded......

THE COMPROMISE immigration proposal served up this past week reminded me of that half-cooked grotesque and agonizing creature that emerged out of mad scientist Seth Brundle’s smoky teletransportation chamber in David Cronenberg’s 1986 film The Fly. It’s exactly the sort of bloody mishmash you get when policy becomes an amalgam......

Uh-oh. What’s happened to that loopy green giant of a governor who recently endeared himself by blazing down the center of the hydrogen-powered highway of reasonable political post-partisanship? Bat your eyes for a moment and — shazam! — that grinchy steel-hearted Terminator has pushed him aside. Just as he once......

During this past weekend’s L.A. Times Festival of Books, I found myself sharing some good conversation with one of our most insightful local writers, D.J. Waldie. Lamenting the state of our city, D.J. said, “Cities are like organisms. And this organism seems destined to divide, destined to split into two......

Even with the current housing slump, a paltry $1.6 million still won’t buy you much of a house on the Westside. Maybe an older 3 + 2 with a fiberglass carport. Better to invest your money in Sacramento, where the same tidy sum can buy you an entire legislative house......

Even with the current housing slump, a paltry $1.6 million still won’t buy you much of a house on the Westside. Maybe an older 3 + 2 with a fiberglass carport. Better to invest your money in Sacramento, where the same tidy sum can buy you an entire legislative house......