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NY Times Outlaws Natural Disasters, PolitiFact Confirms the Truth Is a Lie, And Jill's Hurricane Couture

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Oct 05, 2022
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"Riffed from the Headlines" is Townhall's daily VIP feature with coverage of the deeply flawed aspects of journalism in the nation. We'll look to bring accountability to the mishaps, malaprops, misdeeds, manipulations, malpractice, and manufactured narratives in mainstream media.

10.05.22 

Both Kinds of Standards – VARIOUS OUTLETS

  • We should read Vogue Politics more often to get a handle on this.

Jill and José Biden left DC for the hurricane-ravaged sections of Florida, and some people began to notice something different about the fashion outrage in the press regarding the first lady. Specifically, there was no such outrage. Dr. First Lady Emeritus Jill Biden wore heels as they boarded Marine One, and nobody in the press saw this as improper. Stephen Miller pointed out this discrepancy in coverage. 

Yes, we recall Melania getting scorched over these shoes as she boarded a flight to the hurricane damage in Texas. She changed to practical footwear by the time they landed, but in the eyes of the press, the damage was already done. Ridiculous though that may be, Charlie Spiering got to the bottom of things as to why we heard no peals of offense today from the press corps: It turns out these shoes of Jill's are completely different and far more acceptable. 

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Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – NEW YORK TIMES

In the hurricane's aftermath, The NY Times has not held back on leveling criticism toward Governor Ron DeSantis. In one daft piece, the paper tries to suggest that it is improper of DeSantis to ask for relief aid since he and other Republicans battled President Biden's "climate laws."

What is not clear is how a governor of a state can vote against a federal bill, but Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott are also impugned for voting against the legislation. So what IS clear is that The New York Times apparently thinks that you can declare hurricanes to be illegal.

Body Checking The Fact Checkers – POLITIFACT

  • Rating his accuracy as Half True is downright precious.

JD Vance is running a commercial spot in Ohio regarding his opponent in the Senate race, Tim Ryan.

Well, there is a Republican making statements – and making up ground in the polls – so PolitiFact was dispatched to clear things up – by stirring up muddying confusion and inaccurate details. 

The fact-checkers decided they would rate this commercial from Vance as less than accurate…uh, by agreeing with him. Writer/checker Amy Sherman looked over the comment that Ryan voted with Pelosi 100% of the time and concluded that this accurate statement results in saying "the Democrats' voting records are fairly aligned." But then Sherman has to reach back six years to point to when Ryan ran against Pelosi for the party leadership in the House as evidence that Vance's 100% accurate statement is now Half True.

Low Octane Gas Lighting – Fox News

  • Geraldo resorts to "lanzar deseos" to suggest Ron DeSantis lost favorability with Hispanics.

There is still an undercurrent of outrage in the media over the Ron DeSantis flights to Martha's Vineyard. While the percolating anger is expected from some reporters, what is striking is when they let their emotions cloud their ability to perform basic journalism functions, like research.

Geraldo Rivera felt the need to lash out at the Florida governor, suggesting that Hispanics were going to turn on him in the coming weeks, delivering "wrath" as a direct result of the flights.

The only thing, Geraldo – not only is DeSantis sitting on a double-digit lead over Charlie Crist in most polls but there have been polls conducted asking Hispanics directly what they felt about the relocation moves by DeSantis. The results are not exactly what you are expecting.

Stealth Story Evolution – THE NEW YORK TIMES

  • This way, Stuart is bound to be correct!

The Times covered the story of a Michigan voting firm accused of storing its proprietary information on Chinese servers. In the piece by Stuart Thompson, this was all a big conspiracy theory cooked up by election deniers with "unfounded voter fraud claims," according to Thompson.

But then the story was completely proven accurate, as the head of the company was arrested over the very actions called a conspiracy, as the DA from Los Angeles County charged him after they "found data stored in China," in violation of the company's contract with that county.

The story was debunked the very next day.

The new story was reported by The New York Times.

The story debunking Monday's debunking of the claims was written by the same Stuart Thompson.

News Avoidance Syndrome – VARIOUS OUTLETS

  • It is getting to be that you cannot trust any source inside this administration.

Yes, yes – it is rather tiring to always say, "If this were Trump/the GOP" with news items, but it is unmistakable that in the span of fewer than two years we have seen a tremendous shift in the press about what they consider to be troubling from the White House.

Just try to imagine the media reaction if various entities within the Trump administration were delivering contradictory announcements at the same time. Lies would be alleged, then conspiracies concocted over what they were hiding, who is really in control, and how the official record is being altered. 

With Joe Biden's crew, it is simply another day at the offices. The latest involves the move to once again tap into the strategic petroleum reserve. Jacqui Heinrich Reports that the White House had a statement today affirming it was going to pull more crude from the national stockpile. She also noted how just yesterday the press secretary declared that the administration had absolutely no plans to do so.