We’re entering a new level of silliness regarding The New York Times and their weird penchant for publishing stories about Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) that borders on bewilderment. One has to wonder if the Onion staff has taken over some of the Times’ political coverage for some of these rather weak sauce hit pieces against the top-tier 2016 Republican candidate.

The first salvo was the parking tickets:

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.

As Guy wrote, “IMPEACH.” But, seriously, are you kidding me?

Yesterday, Katie wrote about the second salvo launched by the Times against Rubio, which delved into the finances of the Florida senator since he was somewhat irresponsible with his money, though the publication seemed hung up on the fact that he bought a “luxury speedboat,” which turned out to be a fishing boat. First, how one manages their personal finances isn’t indicative of how they’ll run the country fiscally since the American people know it’s an entirely different situation; Bloomberg’s Megan McArdle aptly noted this point on a panel discussion on with MSNBC’s left-leaning host Alex Wagner. Second, does anyone at the New York Times go fishing?The BlazeTV’s Amy Holmes said the news giant was discrediting themselves with this story by taking this bizarre angle on Rubio’s boat.

 
No fisherman in America would call that a luxury speedboat; that’s what you get to load your family up and go out fishing if you live in a place, like I don’t know–Miami,” said Joe Scarborough

 
Willie Geist also acknowledged that maybe the Times staff isn’t into deep-sea fishing, but added that $80,000 isn’t chump change. At the same time, he added that when you use the phrase “luxury speedboat,” readers come off with the impression that Rubio has a 240-foot yacht, which is a gross inaccuracy. Geist added that personal finances are fair game, but this story was a bit of a “reach.”

Oh, and the financial adviser­, Harold Evensey, who said Rubio’s debt was “staggering, and that “this was someone that was living financially dangerously,” is an Obama donor.

Now, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has found himself somewhat in the crosshairs for a 1995 quote, where he said that unwed mothers should be publicly shamed. Apparently, it was Florida law (it was called the “Scarlet Letter” law) when Bush was Governor. Before we harp on this as some sort of horrific reboot of the war on women, have we forgotten that a young Hillary Clinton defended a rapist who brutalized a 12-year-old girl? No one is disputing that Alfred Taylor, the accused, deserved a constitutionally required defense, and as Guy wrote in his post at the time, lawyers look for ways to reduce the legal repercussions to their clients no matter how awful they are–or if they think they’re guilty of the crimes lobbed against them. Apparently, Clinton thought Taylor was guilty­–and it’s a whole other situation when audio recordings obtained by the Washington Free Beacon caught Clinton laughing about the proceedings.

Clinton can also be heard laughing at several points when discussing the crime lab’s accidental destruction of DNA evidence that tied Taylor to the crime.

No wonder why the victim said that Clinton put her “through hell.”

Court documents reveal that Clinton took steps to challenge the victim’s credibility and emotional stability by requesting a psychological evaluation.* To that end, she cited unsourced representations that the then 12-year-old girl had a history of making baseless allegations of assault (representations that the victim vehemently denies to this day). Clinton also quoted the opinion of an expert who argued that adolescent girls from broken homes are prone to “exaggerate” and “romanticize” sexual behavior.” In doing so, Hillary appeared to be maneuvering to tee up an attack-the-victim legal strategy, while potentially calling into question the veracity of an entire class of victims of sexual assault. Critics may wonder how these actions coincide with or impact Clinton’s carefully-cultivated image as a champion of women and girls. The audio recordings also capture Hillary chuckling about her efforts to exploit the local authorities’ mistake, which ultimately allowed her client to get off with an extremely reduced sentence on lesser charges. Her laughter over decidedly unfunny developments is strange and off-putting. A legal expert quoted by the Washington Free Beacon, which published the original story, also questioned the ethics of Clinton revealing the results of her client’s polygraph test. She told a reporter that the accused man passed the test, which “forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs,” a clear indication of Hillary’s opinion of her client’s guilt.

Discrediting female accusers would also be something of Clinton’s modus operandi when other women came forward with allegations of sexual impropriety against her husband when they were at the doorstop of the White House.

So, what’s worse? A less than optimal law, which Bush eventually repealed, regarding single women placing ads in the paper to put their children up for adoption (a very sensitive matter), or going after a 12-year-old rape victim?

Both instances echoes back to the “Romney might have been a homophobe in high school because he cut some dude’s hair” story that emerged in 2012 by the Washington Post. The sister of the alleged victim–the late John Lauber– had “no knowledge” of any bullying that happened to brother when he was in high school. In fact, the family of John Lauber was furious with the story, calling it loaded with inaccuracies–and angry that their late brother would be used as a political football.

As for Scott Walker, well, he didn’t finish college (disqualified), opting to leave during the blow-off semester of his senior year to take a job with the American Red Cross (again, IMPEACH). He also might have ruffled some of the pro-abortion cohorts of the country when he said ultrasounds were “pretty cool” when it came to potential pro-life legislation in Wisconsin.

None of this is even close to the seriousness regarding the legal and ethical questions surrounding Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and their donations/donors. Clinton’s State Department  reportedly approved arms deals to foreign governments who gave millions to the Foundation that were greater than whatever the Bush administration doled out in year prior. Oh, and Bill delivered speeches to some of those governments around the time State was approving the deals. The Foundation has been called a “slush fund;” it gobbled up a quarter of a charity’s proceeds at their gala event when they refused to allow Bill to appear unless his $500k fee was paid; and there’s still the rather interesting timeline regarding the sale of a company–Uranium One–to the Russians which had to be approved by Clinton’s State Department since it involved uranium production. Not only did we sign off on the deal, but also Bill received a speaking fee at a Russian bank, which had staked interests in the deal.

Still, the Clinton Foundation will continue to receive foreign government donations from friendly countries. It’s still a major ethical problem since these donations that are given to a family-owned non-profit, whose matriarch could potentially be the next President of the United States. It would be another thing if the Clintons were transparent in disclosure of their donors and donations, but (shocker) they’re not.

 
The New York Times and the Washington Post have done some good work delving into the financials of the Clintons, which included a then-undisclosed shell company for Bill, but focusing on college, traffic tickets, and fishing boats–and trying to make them sound serious, ominous, and scandalous– is just comical.

So, yeah, you’ve got nothing, liberal media.

 
Bonus: Here’s what Bush wrote about unwed mothers in his book, Profiles in Character:

One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame. Many of these young women and young men look around and see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful.

*Full disclosure my family has a 21-foot Boston Whaler.