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Elon Musk Falsely Accused Over Ukraine, NPR Road Trips With Granholm, and Bill Kristol Fails History

Brad Slager
Brad Slager  |  Sep 12, 2023
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

09.12.23

DNC PR Firm – NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO

President Biden's Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is a fierce supporter of electric vehicles. She has been touting them since her days at Michigan – and also invested in the companies she was promoting as a politician. These have led to problems. 

To promote the EV experience, Granholm struck out on a four-day, multi-state road trip with a convoy of electric vehicles, and NPR rode along. You get the sense the outlet hoped for a beatific experience, yet was required to admit to some significant issues. After teasing that there were problems, Camilla Domonoske was extremely upbeat, before finally getting to the issues. Ten paragraphs in we get served this drama:

Her advance team realized there weren't going to be enough plugs to go around. One of the station's four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy. That did not go down well: a regular gas-powered car blocking the only free spot for a charger?

In fact, a family that was boxed out — on a sweltering day, with a baby in the vehicle — was so upset they decided to get the authorities involved: They called the police. 

Just magnificent. We get below-standard charging stations, Granholm being supported by an advanced team in gas-powered vehicles, and they were blocking out valid citizens to behave in an elitist fashion. Yes, this is all working out wonderfully. 

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Pre-Written Field Reports – VARIOUS OUTLETS

  • When the subject is a reviled figure, verifying details is not important.

You might have seen over the weekend a small furor regarding Elon Musk cutting off his Starlink internet service over a portion of Ukraine. Many a pundit – both professional and amateur – were stipulating this amounted to wholesale support of Vladimir Putin by Musk. 

This all stemmed from a book excerpt in the Washington Post from Walter Isaccson, who has an upcoming biography of Musk. He was detailing that Musk decided to suspend this service in the Crimea area, out of fears that this would aid the Ukrainian drone efforts to hit a Russian fleet and end up sparking a much larger war theater. However, it turned out that Isaacson had gotten a key component of this anecdote incorrect.

Musk later corrected the record to say he never had included Crimea in the coverage area of his Starlink service, so in saying that "He secretly told his engineers to turn off coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast," Isaacson was factually in error. 

He has since issued a correction, and his publisher has announced that it will be revising this section of the book in future print editions.

First Amendment Strike Force – X (or TWITTER, or XITTER)

On the topic of Musk, he has been engaged in a feud of words with The New York Times, which now appears to be escalating to actions. Max Tani writing at Semafor has found a study showing how in recent weeks there has been a measurable dropoff in the traffic for The New York Times items on the social platform. It appears rather obvious the news outlet is having its reach on Xitter completely stepped on, while other sites have had no such impact.

Reporting on the Mirror – NIEMAN LABS

  • That feeling you cannot extricate yourself from politics? That is a real experience.

It is a longstanding frustration these days that we cannot seem to avoid political debates and social activism in our leisure pursuits. Movies, television, sports, and other recreational diversions are constantly becoming infected with social lectures it seems. Well, a new study has been released showing this may be worse than we even realize.

Nieman Labs cites an extensive research study performed in three countries with thousands of participants, to analyze people's internet experience and discovered that political commentary is found to be more prevalent in non-political sources. Whether it is general information outlets, entertainment, or even shopping websites, the likelihood of encountering political discourse was significantly higher:

"Out of every 10 visits to political content, 3.4 come from news and 6.6 from non-news sites," the researchers noted. So, where did they get their political information? From entertainment, shopping sites, celebrity gossip pages — all the things that people prefer in comparison to news and public affairs. These non-news sites emerged as the dominant source of political information simply by virtue of the volume of activity there compared with the little time spent on news sites.

Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – THE BULWARK

  • Next, blaming Donald Trump for time travel.

And, on the topic of Crimea, here we have Bill Kristol exhibiting just how far his mind has been damaged by his Donald Trump obsession. While citing an article about the film "Oppenheimer," Billy found a pull quote that he just had to jump on since it name-checked his favorite demon.

Fact-checking would have been the wiser move, as it claims Trump is responsible for Crimea falling to Putin, despite the fact that the event took place years before Trump took office.

Presentation Paradox – TORONTO STAR

This mounting effort to have governments policing family activities in the name of Trans Rights continues, and in disturbing fashion, we see more news outlets supporting the push to have kids governed apart from the wishes of parents.

In this example, Toronto Star says unequivocally parents do not have a right when it comes to their child's gender identity. It is a completely pernicious opinion, and making it all the more idiotic is the writer details how she is going through extensive work with her transitioning 11-year-old. 

So, the message is it becomes acceptable for HER to have a direct interest in her child's gender issues because it comports with approved government standards. But otherwise, parents taking an opposing stance are in the wrong and have no say with their own children. 

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