"Under Jim Rich, the editor who lost his job on Monday, The [NY Daily] News positioned itself as an unapologetically liberal counterpuncher..."

"... to Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post. Mr. Rich, who declined to comment for this article, transformed the front page... into a venue for criticizing and often ridiculing President Trump," the NYT writes, in the 6th paragraph of "Daily News Newsroom Cut in Half by [it owner] Tronc as Top Editor Is Ousted." The Daily News "was once the largest-circulation paper in the country." It used to be "the staple publication of the city’s working class" and it was the model for the fictional "Daily Planet" in the Superman stories.

But it has "lost millions of dollars" in what the NYT characterizes as the standard problems of a paper newspaper losing out to the internet. Tronc, the new owner, bought the newspaper last year for $1, and, we're told, "Mr. Rich breathed new life into the paper," because  "he regularly published front pages that captured the staccato energy of social media."

But if it's the staccato energy of social media that you want, why would you buy a newspaper? Just look at it as you walk by the newsstand (or glance at the website). Here's an example of a front page that the NYT shows us to convey the unapologetically liberal counterpunching that the NYT itself is too high-class to do:



Is that something you want to be seen reading on the subway?

"We were wrong: Ending stop and frisk did not end stopping crime."

Say the editors of The Daily News.

The NYPD under Commissioner Ray Kelly used the lawful tactic of questioning suspicious individuals to deter crime before it happened. Many cops believed, for example, that the fear of getting stopped for questioning prompted would-be gun-toters to stop carrying their weapons.

As many readers will know, the Daily News Editorial Board supported the NYPD’s strategy as essential to public safety.  

But, since a federal judge ended the stop-and-frisk program, the shootings have dropped in NYC. The editors don't even attempt to guess why leaving people alone, perhaps to carry guns, would lead to fewer shootings.

At least consider the possibility that "An armed society is a polite society."

"5 stages of GOP grief: Coming to terms with Trump."

The "5 stages of grief" meme is so trite, but this is done well enough to overcome my instinctive aversion to encouraging the old cliché, which, after all, has some real truth to it. Good illustrations, like this, from the "denial" stage:



Remember that, from last summer? Speaking of denial, there was a point when I was refusing to write Trump's name in posts that referred to his potential candidacy. Hard to find those old posts with the key word missing! But by August, I'd moved to open anguish (not really "anger," the official second stage):

I calmly consumed the entire [Trump speech], fell asleep early, and woke up anguished. This man is spending his own money, and he can easily blow a billion dollars on this fabulous ego trip. Who can match him? The others are fading and withering away.

Bargaining, depression, acceptance — those are the next 3 stages. Have I gone through all that? I do tend to get very quickly to acceptance when I believe something is really happening. The thing about the 5 stages is that they were originally about death, and you know you are going to die. You don't know that Donald Trump is going to be President. Why go through all the stages? I'm more about remaining calm most of the time, maintaining perspective, and intermittently getting activated over specific things that I can read, write, and talk about.

IN THE COMMENTS: chickelit somehow remembered that my old posts, refusing to write Trump's name, had the tag "nothing": "Here's the first one which you published as an 'Annagram'":

AND: The next one refers to classic advice from my mother:

Poor Obama!

This is so mean:



There's that brilliant smile America fell in love with. The man is photogenic. Is that so wrong?! Maybe the beams of joy will go out to Foley's parents... and to ISIS... and to the people of Ferguson...

***

Smile though your heart is aching/Smile even though it's breaking./When there are clouds in the sky/you'll get by.... Light up your face with gladness/Hide every trace of sadness/Although a tear may be ever so near....

"I have to say that if I had seen the second article first, I would not have written this post..."

"... which I began after reading only the Daily News article. I almost deleted the post entirely rather than continuing it the way I did."

What I was writing in the draft of a post when I decided to edit it into the form you see right here. I was going to confess that I was averse to discussing the very thing that The Daily News censored from its article, and then I realized that I was too sensitive to talk about that.

The NY Daily News endorses Romney.

It endorsed Obama in '08, but it doesn't always endorse the Democrat. It endorsed Bush in 2004.

Here's today's endorsement.



Interesting halo effect around Mitt's head. I thought that was reserved for Obama.

If the liberal media go big on gun control, will it help elect liberals this fall?

Post-Aurora, the Daily News comes out with "Blood on hands of Obama, Mitt and NRA!" That's the most extreme outburst I'm seeing right now, but there's plenty of outraged/earnest/passionate talk about gun control. I presume these liberal media outlets imagine they are bolstering the case for electing Democrats this fall, but I don't see that working out very well. Should liberals want to forefront gun rights?

"Terror twit cries a river."

A Daily News headline about Mohamed Mamdouh, who was arrested and "charged with terrorism and hate crimes for a scheme to dress as Hasidic Jews and go on a killing spree in New York synagogues." The News interviewed him in jail:

"I was at the wrong place at the wrong time... I don't have problems with anyone - not Jews, not anyone."...

"I never spoke about guns and blowing things up, either... That was [the other guy, Ahmed Ferhani]. It was all his idea. I had nothing to do with any of it."

..."I was drunk ... We had a conversation after the movie ['The Ultra Zionists'] was over. . . . It was just a conversation. It was not serious."

Mamdouh points the finger at Ferhani, but he also tries to help him....

"At the bottom of my heart, I swear I don't think he would kill anyone either... I don't think he has the b----."

... help him and insult him.

Obama is like Bush... even when The Daily News doesn't notice.

I had to screen-capture this juxtaposition:



You're supposed to think Barack Obama is witty and multifaceted, and Bush is a big idiot. But both are just adult men caught in the middle of a goofy facial expression — just about exactly the same expression, but for Bush they used the shot taken in the middle of a blink.

"John McCain threw the kitchen sink - and 'Joe the Plumber,' too - at Barack Obama during Wednesday night's final, in-your-face presidential debate."

Writes The Daily News.

"It was Mr. McCain’s last chance to cast doubt on his opponent’s character and credentials, and he threw the kitchen sink at him — along with the plumber," writes Alessandra Stanley at the NYT.

Seems like everybody saw that joke and went for it. Except maybe Newsweek's Andrew Romano, who kind of just tripped over it in the dark:

The Kitchen Sink Debate

That loud clanging you heard coming from Hofstra University tonight? It was the sound of a kitchen sink soaring from stage right, where Republican nominee Sen. John McCain was seated, and landing stage left. Depending on where you sit and who you support, the unwieldy washbasin either knocked Sen. Barack Obama off his perch or shattered in pieces on the floor....

The answer was immediately apparent to anyone with a pulse. Over the course of 90 minutes--and I apologize if my count is not complete; my fingers can only type so fast--McCain accused Obama of being a) a craven wealth-spreader (at least eight times), b) an abject tax-raiser, especially on folks unfortunate enough to make $42,000 a year, c) a lily-livered coward who's never once stood up to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, d) a town-hall avoider, e) a public-financing flip-flopper, f) the most avid negative advertiser in American history, g) a befriender of "washed-up terrorist(s)," h) an enabler of "one of the greatest frauds in voter history" (which just so happens to be "destroying the fabric of American democracy"), i) an "eloquent" dissembler, j) a support of infanticide and, finally, k) a guy who wants to do all kinds of unspeakable things to someone named Joe the Plumber, up to and including raising his taxes, redistributing his money and fining him for choosing the wrong kind of health care. (No word yet on whether Obama plans to spit in Joe's beer when he's looking in the other direction.) After all that, McCain's claim that his "campaign is about getting this economy back on track, about creating jobs, about a brighter future for America" seemed like a punchline.

Hey, Newsweek, make the punchline. Get Joe the Plumber working on that kitchen sink!

... And I kind of liked the Joe the Plumber concept--even if the senator spoiled it by saying "Joe the Plumber" 21 times and unleashing lines like this one: "You were going to put him in a higher tax bracket which was going to increase his taxes, which was going to cause him not to be able to employ people, which Joe was trying to realize the American dream." Who knew McCain's talking points were written in Swedish then fed through Google Translator.

D'oh. Wrong punchline.