New York Times watch

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/01/opinion/a-just-act-of-war.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Op-Ed Contributor
A Just Act of War
By JACK L. GOLDSMITH
Published: September 30, 2011
ON Friday, an American drone flying over northern Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — a Qaeda affiliate. Mr. Awlaki helped support an attempted attack on a Detroit-bound flight in 2009 and had been linked to other attempted attacks in the United States.
Drone strikes against terrorists outside of so-called hot battlefields like Afghanistan have become commonplace during the Obama presidency, and have reportedly decimated the leadership of Al Qaeda and its affiliates. What made this strike unusual, however, was that Mr. Awlaki was an American citizen, having been born in New Mexico.
This fateful new step in our ever-expanding war against terrorists — intentionally killing an American citizen — is fraught with the danger of executive overreach or mistakes. But the Obama administration has done an admirable job to date of balancing these potential dangers against security imperatives.


.........

Let me start out by saying that I have no problem with the targeting of this man by this administration. What I do find highly amusing, though, is the New York Times’ treatment of this as opposed to its treatment of other measures taken in the same war by a different administration.
Target and kill a U.S. citizen in the name of national security?
No problem.
Submit non-citizen enemy combatants to harsh interrogations in the name of national security and in order to save American lives?
Bad.
Very bad.
War crimes.
Like the Nazi or Pol Pot regimes, as ‘Little Dick’ Durbin would say.

I love it when the folks at the New York Times wet themselves.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/opinion/the-law-of-the-gun-in-florida.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

EDITORIAL
The Law of the Gun in Florida

Published: April 5, 2012

Florida leads the pack in passing bills written by the gun lobby that block any sensible attempt to control the purchase and use of firearms. The dangerous folly of these laws was on display in the Trayvon Martin shooting, and will again be on display when Republicans gather for their presidential convention in Tampa this August.
The City Council is sensibly preparing tight security precautions for the downtown area by temporarily banning clubs, hatchets, switchblades, pepper spray, slingshots, chains, shovels and all manner of guns that shoot water, paint or air.
But not handguns that shoot actual bullets. In other words, someone outside the convention hall will be entitled to pack a handgun, but not a squirt gun.
………
Hypothetical scenarios of a gun-wielding protester “standing his ground” and drawing against an antagonist are being discussed in local media. These seem less farfetched in the context of the Trayvon Martin shooting and the Tea Party political protests of two years ago where demonstrators proudly sported holstered weaponry.

The New York Times certainly knows how to break the important scandals!!!!
Liberal media bias?
What liberal media bias?



http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/06/05/marco-rubio-and-his-wife-cited-17-times-for-traffic-infractions-2/

Rubios on the Road Have Drawn Unwanted Attention


Senator Marco Rubio has been in a hurry to get to the top, rising from state legislator to United States senator in the span of a decade and now running for president at age 44.
But politics is not the only area where Mr. Rubio, a Republican from Florida, has an affinity for the fast track. He and his wife, Jeanette, have also shown a tendency to be in a rush on the road.
According to a search of the Miami-Dade and Duval County court dockets, the Rubios have been cited for numerous infractions over the years for incidents that included speeding, driving through red lights and careless driving. A review of records dating back to 1997 shows that the couple had a combined 17 citations: Mr. Rubio with four and his wife with 13. On four separate occasions they agreed to attend remedial driving school after a violation.
Mr. Rubio’s troubles behind the wheel predate his days in politics. In 1997, when he was cited for careless driving by a Florida Highway Patrol officer, he was fined and took voluntary driving classes. A dozen years later, in 2009, he was ticketed for speeding on a highway in Duval County and found himself back in driver improvement school.
Things got more complicated in 2011 when Mr. Rubio was alerted to the fact that his license was facing suspension after a traffic camera caught him failing to stop at a red light in his beige Buick. His lawyer, Alex Hanna, paid a $16 fee to delay the suspension and eventually it was dismissed.

County records show Senator Marco Rubio and his wife, Jeanette, have been cited for numerous driving incidents over the years.
“Senator Rubio’s license has always been in good standing,” Mr. Hanna said in a statement provided by Mr. Rubio’s campaign. “This matter was resolved by the court system and at no point was the license suspended by the D.M.V.”
That was not the last time Mr. Rubio was ticketed. In 2012 he was caught failing to obey a stop sign, but the infraction was dismissed.
Ms. Rubio’s driving record is even messier.
According to the records, her driver’s license faced suspension on three occasions, including after a 2009 episode where she was driving a white Cadillac at 58 miles per hour on a road in West Miami with a speed limit of 35 m.p.h. She paid a $302 fine and agreed to attend a four-hour course at a local traffic school.
However, Ms. Rubio, who also took a four-hour basic driver improvement course after a careless driving incident in 2000, failed to complete the class and had to pay another $34 penalty.
The lessons apparently did not stick. A year later, in 2010, she was stopped for driving 23 m.p.h. in a school zone where the speed limit was 15 m.p.h. She was fined $185.
It is not clear how the numerous infractions have affected the Rubios’ car insurance policy or premiums. On at least one occasion, Ms. Rubio was cited for lacking documentation that her car was insured.
The Rubios have spent more than $1,000 paying traffic penalties over the years, but after Mr. Rubio was elected to the Senate in 2010 they took a different approach to handling their tickets.
Mr. Rubio hired Mr. Hanna, a Miami-based lawyer and donor, whose website sales pitch says, “Have you received a traffic ticket? Don’t pay it.” With Mr. Hanna’s help, Mr. Rubio’s last two citations were dismissed and seven of Ms. Rubio’s last eight were cleared.
Mr. Rubio’s campaign had no comment on the traffic violations or whether Ms. Rubio’s license was ever actually suspended.
And not all accidents become police matters. Earlier this year, Ms. Rubio, a former cheerleader for the Miami Dolphins, sideswiped a Porsche Panamera while driving her husband’s Ford F-150 truck to a donor event at the Delano Hotel in Miami Beach. According to the Miami Herald, the police declined to take a report on the incident because it was a “minor” fender bender.
If Mr. Rubio is fortunate to make it as far as the White House, there will be many perks that come with the job. Chief among them, however, might be having a driver.




http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D04E7DC1739EF3BBC4051DFB1668382679EDE



A Crowd Applauds as Kennedy Approaches and Leaves Church


PERMISSIONS
Special to The New York Times ();
July 28, 1969,
, Section , Page 1, Column , words
[ DISPLAYING ABSTRACT ]

HYANNIS, Mass., July 27 -- Senator Edward M. Kennedy was applauded today on his first public appearance since his televised statement last Friday on the fatal auto accident that has touched off a national controversy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/us/politics/trump-speaks-with-taiwans-leader-a-possible-affront-to-china.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Trump Speaks With Taiwan’s Leader, an Affront to China

by MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER

DEC. 2, 2016

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump spoke by telephone with Taiwan’s president on Friday, a striking break with nearly four decades of diplomatic practice that could precipitate a major rift with China even before Mr. Trump takes office.
Mr. Trump’s office said he had spoken with the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, “who offered her congratulations.” He is believed to be the first president or president-elect who has spoken to a Taiwanese leader since at least 1979, when the United States severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan as part of its recognition of the People’s Republic of China.
In the statement, Mr. Trump’s office said the two leaders had noted “the close economic, political, and security ties” between Taiwan and the United States. Mr. Trump, it said, “also congratulated President Tsai on becoming President of Taiwan earlier this year.”
Mr. Trump’s motives in taking the call, which lasted more than 10 minutes, were not clear. In a Twitter message late Friday, he said Ms. Tsai “CALLED ME.”
………
The longer-term fallout from the Trump-Tsai conversation could be significant, the administration official said, noting that the Chinese government issued a bitter protest after the United States sold weapons to Taiwan as part of a well-established arms agreement grudgingly accepted by Beijing.
Mr. Trump’s call with President Tsai is a bigger provocation. Beijing views Taiwan as a breakaway province and has adamantly opposed the attempts of any country to carry on official relations with it.
………
These are major pivots in foreign policy w/out any plan. That’s how wars start,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote on Twitter.

………

Let me get this straight – Trump does nothing more than accept a congratulatory phone call from the Taiwanese leader, the New York Times characterizes it as a provocation, and some fucking idiot Democrat insinuates that his action is capable of starting a war. Hence, Trump is the devil.
Obama, on the other hand, did this ....


Mr. Trump’s call with the Taiwanese president came just as President Obama delivered a more subtle, but also aggressive, rebuff of China: He blocked, by executive order, an effort by Chinese investors to buy a semiconductor production firm called Aixtron.
Mr. Obama took the action on national security grounds, after an intelligence review concluded that the technology could be used for “military applications” and help provide an “overall technical body of knowledge and experience” to the Chinese.
The decision is likely to accelerate tension with Beijing, as Chinese authorities make it extraordinarily difficult for American technology companies, including Google and Facebook, to gain access to the Chinese market, and Washington seeks to slow China’s acquisition of critical technology.

…. and this ....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012904113.html

U.S. sells weapons to Taiwan, angering China

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 30, 2010

The Obama administration announced the sale Friday of $6 billion worth of Patriot anti-missile systems, helicopters, mine-sweeping ships and communications equipment to Taiwan in a long-expected move that sparked an angry protest from China.
The sale, formally announced by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, is expected to prompt China to slow or even break military relations with the United States and cancel a visit by President Hu Jintao to Washington in April. Chinese officials have threatened other actions, including sanctions on the U.S. companies supplying the equipment or on businesses in the districts of congressional lawmakers known to be backers of Taiwan.
Its vice minister of foreign affairs, He Yafei, said China was "strongly indignant" about the arms sales to Taiwan and warned that they would have a "serious negative impact" on U.S.-China cooperation.
………

Of all the issues, though, arms sales to Taiwan is the most sensitive to the Chinese. China views Taiwan as part of its territory and contends that U.S. arms sales to the island are, as the vice foreign minister said Friday, "a gross intervention into China's internal affairs."


….and the New York Times still cannot stop seeing the halo that floats above the exalted head of Boy Barry.

Wow - Your post is a giant nothing burger...

Quote :

President-elect Donald J. Trump spoke by telephone with Taiwan’s president on Friday, a striking break with nearly four decades of diplomatic practice that could precipitate a major rift with China even before Mr. Trump takes office.

He is believed to be the first president or president-elect who has spoken to a Taiwanese leader since at least 1979, when the United States severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan as part of its recognition of the People’s Republic of China.

First since 1979? So yeah, that's noteworthy, and certainly newsworthy.

Then there's this...

Quote :

The longer-term fallout from the Trump-Tsai conversation could be significant, the administration official said, noting that the Chinese government issued a bitter protest after the United States sold weapons to Taiwan as part of a well-established arms agreement grudgingly accepted by Beijing.

I wonder what weapons sale is being referenced here? Actually, I don't wonder, because it's right here in the second part of your post...

Quote :

Saturday, January 30, 2010

The Obama administration announced the sale Friday of $6 billion worth of Patriot anti-missile systems, helicopters, mine-sweeping ships and communications equipment to Taiwan in a long-expected move that sparked an angry protest from China.
The sale, formally announced by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, is expected to prompt China to slow or even break military relations with the United States and cancel a visit by President Hu Jintao to Washington in April.

There is no question that China has a real problem with other nations dealing with a regime that they do not view as legitimate.

But there's no basis here to point a finger at the Times for its inability to see through Obama's "halo" as you put it. The arms deal was reported on when it happened, and was referenced in the exact same article about Trump's phone call. And Trump's mistake wasn't "accepting a phone call." His mistake was blabbing about it in public.