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Henry Munoz and Toni Atkins donor Kyle Ferari tying the knot. A nonprofit for New York’s most marginalized residents paid Muñoz more than $30 million.

Big money Democrats

The 2026 gubernatorial campaign fund of San Diego state Senate Democrat Toni Atkins picked up $5000 on April 5 from Greenwich, Connecticut resident Kaia Ferari, according to an April 8 campaign disclosure filing. Back in May of 2017, according to a CBS News account, president Joe Biden presided at the wedding of Ferari to Democratic National Committee Finance Vice Chair Henry Muñoz of San Antonio, Texas. “Actress Melanie Griffith was also there — posting a picture on Instagram,” per the story.

“This marks at least the second gay wedding Biden has officiated: he also married Brian Mosteller, the Oval Office operations director for former President Barack Obama, and Joe Mahshie, a trip coordinator for former First Lady Michelle Obama, in August,” reported the New York Daily News the same month. “Biden’s special ceremony comes as the White House omitted the name of the gay husband of Luxembourg’s prime minister in a Facebook photo of NATO spouses. The photo caption named nine of the 10 spouses, including Melania Trump, but excluded Gauthier Destenay, the husband of Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel. The White House eventually updated the caption, but has not commented on the obvious omission.”

The Daily Beast expose. A follow-up story in 2023 reported that Muñoz had been accumulating large chunks of personal real estate.

Daily Beast

In March of last year, an expose by the Daily Beast reported Muñoz had benefited greatly from his party connections. “Among his most lucrative gigs yet has been as consultant to SOMOS Community Care. Since 2018, the nonprofit network of physicians’ offices for New York’s most marginalized residents has paid Muñoz more than $30 million. The group’s financial disclosures show that it has shelled out over $14.3 million to Muñoz directly, and an additional $15.7 million to a limited liability company he owns.

But the filings are available only through 2020, and the Democratic operative has maintained his relationship with the group in the years since, meaning he’s likely received even more money.” John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, was quoted in the piece as saying, “The question is why a health network in the Bronx that was 100 percent state-funded paid millions of dollars to a San Antonio businessman to do — what? That’s a very big question and it should be answered, especially since Muñoz is such a politically involved figure.”

In a June 12, 2023 followup, the Daily Beast reported that Muñoz had been accumulating large chunks of personal real estate. “In the last four years, he’s also bought a 20-acre estate within the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico; a seven-bedroom mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut; and a full-floor condo on Manhattan’s Park Avenue, where he hosted President Joe Biden for a fundraiser last fall.”

U-T vs. Google

The giant online search engine Google has come under blistering attack in the form of an April 19 San Diego Union-Tribune editorial apparently crafted by Alden Global Capital, the East Coast-based vulture investing outfit that took control of the paper from former owner Patrick Soon-Shiong last summer and merged it into a newspaper chain it owns called Media News Group.

“Google made more than $300 billion last year, most of it from advertising it sells using content it did not create or pay for,” per the editorial. “In its early days, Google sent lots of traffic for news publishers, but in recent years not so much, as it seeks to keep people on its site, where Google makes the money.” Per a line at the top of the piece: “This editorial is being posted in all MediaNews Group newspapers in California.”

In an April 16 writeup, Washington, D.C.-based Axios revealed the backstory: “Alden declared in 2022 that its newspapers would no longer endorse national political candidates in their opinion pages, arguing the public discourse ‘has become increasingly acrimonious.’ But its latest efforts suggest it is interested in driving certain agendas, albeit ones that it probably believes are less likely to draw fiery reactions.”

According to Axios, Alden’s chain-wide blanket endorsements are problematic. “The editorials are labeled differently by different outlets, obfuscating who is deciding to publish the editorial — the staff at the individual papers, their individual editorial boards, or the leadership from Alden’s two subsidiaries: MediaNews Group and Tribune Publishing. The Hartford Courant called it a ‘Staff Report.’ The Boston Herald called it an ‘Editorial.’ The San Jose Mercury News said the editorial was ‘By Mercury News & East Bay Times Editorial Boards.’ The Orlando Sentinel similarly attributed it to ‘The Orlando Sentinel And Bay Area News Group Editorial Boards.’”

However labeled, the editorial was clearly meant to sway public opinion against Google, says Axios. “Alden has long been vocal about Big Tech’s anti-competitive practices toward the news industry, so these editorials aren’t surprising, but the method of a coordinated editorial push is new.” Notes the Axios item: “Without some sort of uniform disclosure, it’s unclear to readers who is ultimately deciding to advocate for a certain position — their local editorial boards or corporate executives at a massive investment company.”

“Give credit to Assembly member David Alvarez for his doggedness, albeit in service to a really bad idea.”

NBC News

David Alvarez slam­med by Alden Global

The Orange County Register, like the Union-Tribune owned by Alden Global Capital, is going after San Diego-based Assembly Democrat David Alvarez, an ex-city councilman here whose bid for mayor was defeated by Republican Kevin Faulconer in 2014 — though for some reason, the scathing opinion has yet to appear in the U-T.

“Give credit to Assembly member David Alvarez for his doggedness, albeit in service to a really bad idea,” begins the April 15 editorial, headlined “David Alvarez’s redevelopment bill is same old farce with a new name.”

Bylined “The Editorial Board,” the piece continues: “Last year, the Chula Vista Democrat introduced legislation that would have brought back California’s redevelopment agencies similar to how they existed before Gov. Jerry Brown mercifully dismantled them in 2012. The legislation died after the powerful California Teachers’ Association opposed it.”

Opines the newspaper: “The entire redevelopment scam is fading from memory, but it was a locally controlled scam that floated debt without voter approval and gave cities the power and incentive to exert eminent domain on behalf of developers. It drove up debt to fund crony capitalist projects favored by city planners and, as a result, created pressure for endless tax increases.”

Now, says the editorial, the Alvarez bill would enable cities to grab private property. “Critics of last year’s legislation sought to have anti-eminent-domain protections inserted into the language, but that never materialized. This year’s bill specifically allows agencies to ‘acquire real property by eminent domain to be used in a redevelopment project.’”

The piece goes on to say, “Eminent-domain abuses fall disproportionately on residents lacking political power, as happened in the case of Bruce’s Beach.” The editorial cites a bit of Los Angeles County history to make its point: “In the 1920s, Manhattan Beach used eminent domain to take a beachside resort mainly to clear the area of Black beachgoers. Los Angeles County ultimately returned the land to the descendants of the family in 2022. Recognizing its abuses, lawmakers increasingly have included more limitations on eminent domain in some housing-related bills, but Alvarez hasn’t gotten the message.”

— Matt Potter

(@sdmattpotter)

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