Ari Paul writes quite the elegy for the New York Daily News after its owner, a media corporation somehow named Tronc, fires half of its editorial workers. The Daily News has given tabloids a good name, by focusing on the local government issues the other New York papers are either too haughty (cough New York Times cough) or too crazy (cough New York Post cough) to cover. But killing off editors and expecting writers to do-that-job-too is a good way of crippling a paper's ability to cover local politics. And even a Times editorial board member says that now "(u)nscrupulous developers and corrupt politicians can breathe a sigh of relief." In a sane and moral society, such people would never have a moment's peace. And you know what that means.
Federal lawsuit digs up evidence of Michigan Republicans actively trying to give their party an advantage in redrawing House districts; one of them boasts of concentrating "Dem garbage" into a small number of districts. If you're the hopeful kind, as I generally advocate you should be, you might think that spelling out how you're trying to create a partisan advantage -- versus, you know, redrawing districts to better represent the people -- might raise a red flag even with someone like Chief Justice Roberts. But lately our Supreme Court has been far less interested in the actual animus of right-wingers than the "animus" supposedly generated by liberals.
What's left for charter school advocates now that their failure is plain? Well, according to Jeff Bryant at the OurFuture blog, all that's left is to "recast their failed agenda as a success." And, I guess, to claim they're "fact-based" and then not produce any facts -- or, at least, any facts that stand up to scrutiny -- and claim that you're the one who's "ideological." Nice work, if you can get it! When your Tea Party uncle tells you that charter schools "do better" than public schools, you can remind him that charter schools can take anyone they want and kick out anyone they want, and yet they still can't win a 500-yard dash with a 490-yard head start.
Beleaguered U.S. House Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) plans to run for Speaker of the House if Republicans still hold the House after the midterms. Because when no less than eight former Ohio State University wrestlers come forward and say you knew about the team doctor sexually abusing wrestlers 30 years ago while you were assistant wrestling coach and you did nothing about it, not only do you not resign, not only do you not "retire at the end of your term to spend more time with your family," you run for Speaker of the House! Moral values!
Finally, our distinguished gentleman of a President slams the FCC's sudden unwillingness to rubber-stamp the proposed Sinclair/Tribune merger, saying that it would deprive America of a "great and much needed Conservative voice for and of the People" (odd capitalization in original). I guess he means the merger would provide yet another "conservative" "voice," since we only have (aside from Sinclair as it's currently constituted) Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Newsmax, World Net Daily, Breitbart, and am I leaving any of them out? I wouldn't expect our President to grapple with Chairman Pai's stated objection to the merger, but the more pertinent question, of course, is whether one corporation should own so many media outlets -- a phenomenon which tends to annoy conservatives as well as liberals.
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