In the print edition of The New York Times on Thursday, May 5, 2022, two front-page headlines particularly glare out at the country and the world.
One is "Leak Intensifies View That Court is Too Political." This headlines an article about the leaked U.S. Supreme Court opinion to overrule Roe v. Wade. The news to the headline writers is about the leak, not about the overruling of a Constitutional right.
The NYT's second front-page headline that stands out is "U.S. Helped Kyiv in Targeting Russian Generals." This one requires a bit more explanation. But not a lot.
Here is what that headline is about. It is attached to an article in which it is eventually reported that the U.S. is sharing intelligence about Russian troop movements with Ukraine. (Nothing to get excited about so far.)
And as a part of that intelligence, the U.S. has picked up telephone calls from Russian generals who are using unsecured cellphones to communicate with their troops in the field. The U.S. passes on all of this intelligence to the Ukrainians. (Still nothing to get excited about, except shock at general officers using cellphones to communicate with their soldiers, until you find out that this is the Russian army we are talking about and it becomes entirely understandable that they have no secure lines of communication.)
But this is not the same thing as "helping" Ukraine to "target Russian generals." It's the Russian generals who have made themselves targets by using unencrypted communications, specifically, unsecured cellphones that almost anyone can hack.
Recall the grievance boy who was the last previous Occupant of the White House, and that he used unsecured cellphones despite being warned about the risk of being overheard by anyone and everyone?
The people that wrote today's headlines in the NYT gave us the grievance boy in New York City in the first place.
They are still at it.
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