As a climate-fueled heat wave stresses California's electric grid, right-wing media are disingenuously attacking electric vehicles

  TED MACDONALD Via Media Matters

A potentially record-breaking heat wave is set to blanket much of California and the Western U.S. throughout the Labor Day weekend. In preparation for this event, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency, and grid operators in the state are urging residents to conserve power during peak hours. This also means advising residents to avoid charging electric vehicles during peak hours. 

Right-wing media are using this potentially deadly heat event to mock both electric vehicles and California’s new rule that would ban the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. These attacks are littered with falsehoods about both EVs and what the gas car ban intends to do. At the same time, these attempts just distract from the fact that this event could result in California logging one of the hottest temperatures ever recorded on Earth.

The main focus of reporting on this event should be climate change, which is making heat waves such as this one more frequent and more severe, with one climate scientist stating recently that “I think we can very confidently say that every heatwave occurring today has been made more intense and more likely because of climate change.” Climate-fueled extreme heat events are also straining California’s power grid. The New York Times notes that the grid situation “could be worsened if a heat wave causes residents to turn to air-conditioners for comfort en masse, driving up energy demand.”

California is not banning all gas cars — a point that has apparently been lost by some right-wing media 

On August 25, California regulators introduced a landmark rule that would ban the sale of new gas-powered cars and light trucks by 2035. The rule applies only to the sale of new gasoline cars — it does not affect the sale of used cars; it does not affect gas-powered cars bought before 2035; and it does not affect out-of-state gasoline cars driving into the state. The year 2035, of course, is more than a decade away, a time when electric vehicles are projected to make up more than half of global car sales. Additionally, The New York Times reports that major auto companies are already “receptive” to the rule. Many of these companies intend to be mostly or fully electric by 2035.

These facts have not stopped right-wing media from lying about the car rule, or forgetting to include some key information about the rule when discussing the new gas-powered car ban in relation to California’s upcoming heat wave. For example, a Foxnews.com headline from August 31 reads “GOP leader slams CA power operator for discouraging EV charging during heat wave after vote to ban gas cars.” Additionally, a Wall Street Journal editorial from the same day reads “No Fun in the California Sun: The state says don’t charge the EVs it will soon force you to buy.” California is not forcing people to buy electric cars, just instituting a ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars. This falsehood was also suggested by Rob Schmitt on the August 31 edition of Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight, when he stated, “Today the state of California sent out a powerful message begging residents for their compliance with a very hot Labor Day weekend ahead: Please keep your thermostat at 78 degrees and don't charge your electric car in the evening. That from the same state that's forcing you to buy an electric car.”

One tweet from the conservative Hodgetwins has over 50,000 likes and implies that California is completely banning all gas-powered cars by 2035:

Meanwhile, Fox News personality Larry Elder also tweeted misleading information about the car rule:

Fox News has also jumped in on this discourse. The network has been banging the drums against the California plan since it first came out; Laura Ingraham devoted her opening monologue to it on August 24, and on August 30, Tucker Carlson used the first 17 minutes of his show to bash the car rule and connect it to California’s grid issues. 

This misleading chyron ran on the September 1 edition of The Faulkner Focus:

Again: California is not banning all gas cars, and the ban on new gas cars will take place 13 years from now.

On the September 1 edition of Outnumbered, Fox Business anchor Cheryl Casone implied that all gas cars are being banned in the state, stating, “It looks like California's going to need to pump the brakes on their electric vehicle plan. Just days after the Golden State regulators banned the sale of gas cars by 2035, a heat wave is now straining California’s power grid and forcing the Dem-led city to urge residents to not charge their electric vehicles from 4-9 p.m.”

On the September 1 edition of America’s Newsroom, climate contrarian guest Michael Shellenberger broadly stated, “It was quite ironic that six days after the state voted to ban internal combustion engines, the state grid operator warned that people should not be charging their cars because of a risk of blackouts.”

California is neither banning people from charging EVs nor urging them not to do it at all; it is only asking them not to charge EVs during peak hours

This last Shellenberger statement brings up a larger point about California’s power grid message: The state is not banning people from charging their electric vehicles; it’s only urging them not to do it during peak demand hours:

In a news release, the California ISO said it expects that it will issue calls for voluntary conservation of electricity through Flex alerts over the long weekend.

"During a Flex Alert, consumers are urged to reduce energy use from 4-9 p.m. when the system is most stressed because demand for electricity remains high and there is less solar energy available," the release said.

California made the same request last year, and data shows that most EV owners don’t need to charge their EVs during peak hours:

Most electric car drivers top off their battery regularly rather than charging it from empty to full. Therefore, many cars are equipped with charging timers and only require a few hours of charging each day, so Californians can easily avoid charging vehicles during peak hours.

Some of the right-wing media discussion ignores this fact. A Daily Wire headline reads “California Asks Residents To Avoid Charging Electric Vehicles Due To Blackout Risk Days After Unveiling New Gas Car Ban.” 

Some Twitter takes from conservative media personalities also contain this falsehood:

Right-wing media are continuing their long-running crusade of attacking electric vehicles and ignoring the climate crisis

Fox News in particular has a long-running campaign against electric vehicles and ignores the evidence that the vehicle market appears favorable to EVs in the next few years. (It could also save consumers trillions of dollars.) The example above shows that Fox personalities seem to want their viewers to believe that the ban on new gas-powered cars in California is taking place tomorrow; they’re ignoring the fact that it’s still over a decade away, by which time the country will inevitably have added more clean power capacity to the grid. 

Fox is also ignoring how climate change is exacerbating extreme heat events and causing major stresses on the electrical grid. A good example of this comes from the September 1 edition of Fox Business’ Varney & Co. Speaking about the upcoming California heat wave, The Federalist’s Ben Domenech blamed the “green agenda” for potential stress on the energy grid, and not the main culprit, which is climate-fueled extreme weather events. (Domenech also claimed nuclear power should be considered more, without noting that California recently just voted to extend the life of its last-remaining nuclear plant.)

A summer of extreme climate-fueled events shows the climate crisis is at our doorstep. Right-wing media refuse to acknowledge this reality, instead preferring to repeat pro-fossil fuel messages — i.e., the ones that got us into this climate mess in the first place.

 MATT GERTZ Via Media Matters

The Justice Department keeps revealing damning details about the ongoing investigation into Donald Trump’s illicit possession of highly classified documents and his alleged effort to conceal and retain those materials. That has some commentators arguing against an indictment of the former president on the grounds that it might spur a backlash from conservatives who will argue that Democrats have weaponized the DOJ.

Trump’s “defenders would claim that every person ostensibly committed to the dispassionate upholding of the rule of law is in fact motivated by rank partisanship and a drive to self-aggrandizement,” Damon Linkler wrote last week in The New York Times. “This would be directed at the attorney general, the F.B.I., the Justice Department and other branches of the so-called deep state. The spectacle would be corrosive, in effect convincing most Republican voters that appeals to the rule of law are invariably a sham.”

But this smear of federal law enforcement cannot be staved off by declining to indict the former president, as Linkler suggests. It is true that a bloc of Republicans and right-wing media personalities have spent the weeks since the FBI’s August 6 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort loudly arguing that the action was a partisan sham, and they would certainly continue to do so if he were indicted. Another faction, however, is now preparing to go after the Justice Department on the exact same grounds of Democratic partisanship if it decides not to indict the former president.

This damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don’t tendency runs through the columns of Andrew McCarthy, a Trump-skeptical legal commentator respected in higher-brow conservative circles. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor whose columns run in National Review and The New York Post and who regularly provides legal commentary in his role as a Fox News contributor.  

McCarthy’s August 9 column, written in the immediate aftermath of the Mar-a-Lago search, provided a somewhat more sober version of the incendiary conspiracy theories of a justice system weaponized for Democratic benefit that were replete at the time on Fox. The National Review columnist argued that the Justice Department had “obviously” used concerns about classified information “as a pretext” to find evidence tying Trump to the January 6 insurrection. He warned against filing charges on such grounds, saying that such an indictment “would fuel the perception that Democrats are using the Justice Department as a political weapon.” 

“The Biden Justice Department is under enormous pressure from the Democratic base to indict Trump, and it is straining to deliver,” McCarthy concluded.

A couple weeks later, McCarthy was still telling readers that any Trump indictment would be politically motivated. After reviewing the redacted affidavit supporting the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, he concluded that the Justice Department would be unlikely to indict the former president unless it had strong evidence to prosecute an obstruction of justice charge or Trump talked himself into an indictment.

“I don’t think the Justice Department and FBI want to prosecute Donald Trump on classified-information or document-retention offenses in light of all the considerable downsides of doing so,” McCarthy explained. But he added: “Of course, the Biden Justice Department has shown itself to be very responsive to the demands of Democrats’ progressive base. As the midterms approach, if the left’s rabid insistence on a Trump indictment gets intense enough, all bets are off.”

After Tuesday’s damning DOJ filing, however, McCarthy concluded in his August 31 column that the DOJ possesses “formidable” evidence of obstruction on Trump’s part and that Attorney General Merrick Garland will likely approve charges. That evidence is so damning, in fact, that McCarthy wrote that the only explanation for not indicting Trump would be that the DOJ is in the service of the partisan interests of the Democratic Party.

This is a serious obstruction case that appears as if it would not be difficult to prove. The Justice Department is under immense pressure from the Democratic base to indict Trump, and the jury pool in Washington, DC, where the government would file any indictment, is intensely anti-Trump. It is thus hard to imagine that Attorney General Merrick Garland will decide against filing charges.

The best hope Trump has of avoiding an indictment is that Democrats would rather run against a wounded Trump in 2024 than indict him in 2022.

Note that McCarthy left himself room to accuse Garland of partisanship regardless of what the attorney general does: If he files charges, it will be because his department is “under immense pressure from the Democratic base to indict Trump,” while if he refrains, the only explanation is that he thinks it will help Democrats by keeping Trump on the 2024 presidential ballot.

To his credit, when the facts change, McCarthy’s stated view changes. To his detriment, the throughline is that if the Justice Department doesn’t do what he wants, it must be because it’s run by Democratic partisans.

It’s easy to imagine that this line of reasoning might spread amid the faction of the GOP that would prefer to see another candidate — perhaps Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — on the ballot in 2024 in Trump’s stead. It gives such individuals a talking point that suggests moving on from Trump without actually criticizing his behavior: It’s the Democrats who want Trump to be the 2024 Republican nominee! You can tell that’s true because the Justice Department isn’t indicting him!

The staunchly pro-Trump faction, of course, has a different view. 

The Justice Department would be wise to follow the facts wherever they may lead and make a decision about whether to indict Trump based on what it finds. Trying to avoid right-wing allegations of partisanship is futile — in that information ecosystem, such conspiracy theories are the coin of the realm.

‘Are you kidding me?’: Reporters slammed for panning Biden’s anti-fascism speech

 David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement from Raw Story

President Joe Biden Thursday night delivered a 23-minute primetime address urging Americans to choose democracy over fascism, while calling out, by name, Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans.

Historians, political scientists, and journalism and extremism experts are praising the President for standing up for American values in the face of rising far-right threats of political violence. President Biden in very clear terms warned Americans they must "defend" and "protect" democracy against the fascism of the far-right – which is not a political speech, but a speech about, as Biden said, the "soul of the nation."

As expected, many Republicans expressed outrage over President Biden calling out the portion of the GOP that identifies as "MAGA," even though he made clear his criticism was not of mainstream Republicans.

One news network's coverage in particular is being highly criticized as several of its reporters took umbrage with President Biden delivering what they wrongly characterized as a "political" speech, while criticizing that two uniformed Marines were standing behind him.

CNN Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny tweeted a photo of the President in front of the Marines, saying: "There’s nothing unusual or wrong with a President delivering a political speech — it’s inherent in the job description — but doing it against a backdrop of two Marines standing at attention and the Marine Band is a break with White House traditions."

Journalist Jamison Foser observed that "Biden is talking about defending democracy and the rule of law from assault by a fascist movement that staged a deadly insurrection. Marines take an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.' Pretty compatible!"

Former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskil (D-MO) slammed Zeleny.

"Are you kidding me Jeff? The last President did official Republican political events at the White House! And used the National Park Service as political event planners. How about political interview inside the Lincoln Memorial? Those are all examples of demolishing WH traditions," she wrote.

U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) asked, "Didn’t TFG," referring to Donald Trump, "accept his nomination on the White House lawn?"

"I recall a certain president giving a political speech on a damn aircraft carrier," blasted national security attorney Brad Moss. "I recall another president accepting his political nomination at the WHITE HOUSE. Ask me how little I care about the two marines deep in the background."

The former Communications Director for Senator Amy Klobuchar, Tim Hogan, corrected the record with photographic evidence:

Zeleny was not the only CNN journalist to instigate the ire of Americans watching the President's speech.

"Whatever you think of this speech the military is supposed to be apolitical. Positioning Marines in uniform behind President Biden for a political speech flies in the face of that. It’s wrong when Democrats do it. It’s wrong when Republicans do it," tweeted CNN host Brianna Keilar.

University of South Carolina Political Science Professor David Darmofal corrected Keilar, saying: "It was a speech about defending democracy."

Mary Trump, the former President's niece who is a psychologist, added: "I see everyone at CNN got their talking point. This was NOT a political speech (unless you think condemning fascism and encouraging people to vote are political positions in which case--that's what we call a tell).

CNN wasn't the only news outlet with reporters attracting anger.

CBS News' Ed O'Keefe was also criticized for equating a call to fight fascism and defend democracy as a "political" speech.

O'Keefe characterized the fight for civil rights as partisan politics, which it is not.

Marquette University Political Science Professor Julia Azari, who teaches about the American presidency, American political parties, and the politics of the American state blasted O'Keefe: "This frame undermines both democracy and journalism."

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain graciously challenged O'Keefe:

Dan Froomkin, one of the most credible media critics also slammed O'Keefe.

"Biden is describing a major democratic crisis that actually exists. But political journalists only see a Democrat saying negative things about Republicans and so, you know, both sides," he wrote.

The White House Deputy Press Secretary, Andrew Bates, summed up what many were saying: "Democracy is not a partisan or political issue."

Florida parents outraged after teacher tells kids that saying Trump lost the election is an example of media bias

 Travis Gettys Via Raw Story

A substitute teacher used news coverage of Donald Trump's election lies as an example of media bias in a Florida classroom, outraging parents.

The teacher assigned a take-home sheet titled “How Does a Historian Work?” to prepare sixth-grade students for a test, including a list of vocabulary words such as primary and secondary sources, and one mother told The Daily Beast she was shocked by the topic cited by the teacher as an example of bias.

"The media is often biased and will add words that persuade you to think one way or another. Read these two statements made by reporters after the 2020 election," the worksheet read. "President Trump made claims that the 2020 election was stolen. President Trump made false claims that the 2020 election was stolen."

"The first sentence is just giving you information," the sheet added, "while the second leads you to believe he is wrong before you have all the facts."

The mother showed the paper to her husband, who shared her concern, and she was among several parents who called R. Dan Nolan Middle School in Bradenton to complain, and the principal promised to look into the matter.

“It’s actually the most biased example of bias I’ve seen,” the mother said. “It seems pretty out of place for a sixth-grade class.”

“We’re laughing," she added, "but it’s not funny."

Another student's father issued a statement expressing his disapproval of the assignment.

“I am very unhappy that the teacher would choose such a controversial example in an assignment supposedly teaching bias in a world history class," the father said. "There are so many other examples that could have been used. And the way this question is phrased would lead a student to believe that the media was incorrect in their assessment that the president’s claims were false.”

“And I would also add it is inappropriate to be using this example at a time when Trump is STILL disputing the results of the 2020 election two years later and demanding a do over!" he added.

The Manatee County School Board issued a statement saying the homework assignment did not meet their standards, but also pledged support for state standards set forth by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has campaigned against left-wing "indoctrination" in schools and has refused to say whether the 2020 election was stolen.

“It’s like, indoctrinating who?” the mother said, adding that she's awaiting the results of Thursday's test. “I’m interested if he had to use his own example of bias, and if they had to use Trump to get extra points.”

Fox News pushed falsehood that the Inflation Reduction Act adds 87,000 new IRS employees more than 200 times

MATT GERTZ/Media Matters

 Fox News has promoted the false claim that the Inflation Reduction Act adds 87,000 employees to the Internal Revenue Service at least 203 times since Senate Democrats announced the bill’s framework on August 5, according to a Media Matters review of the network’s programming. That false talking point fuels Fox’s incendiary smear that President Joe Biden is turning the IRS into a “new Gestapo” that will “hunt down and kill middle-class taxpayers.”

The IRA, which Biden signed into law on August 16, includes $80 billion over the next decade in additional funding for the IRS. A portion of those funds would support tougher tax enforcement targeted at Americans making more than $400,000, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates would raise $204 billion. The net gain of $124 billion, along with prescription drug pricing reform and tax increases on billion-dollar corporations, helps the bill fund investments in clean energy and health care while also reducing the deficit by over $300 billion over 10 years. 

Republicans and their right-wing media supporters oppose increased funding for the IRS; they prefer to hobble tax enforcement so that wealthy people can continue to cheat on their taxes with impunity. GOP politicians spent years defunding the tax police and have focused their IRA criticism on this provision, deceptively warning that the bill creates a “new army of 87,000 IRS agents” who “will be coming for you,” in the words of House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). 

Fox has played a key role in stoking right-wing ire against the IRS, including by spreading the false claim that the bill would lead to the hiring of 87,000 employees at least 203 times. The talking point has been commonplace both on “news side” programs like The Faulkner Focus (20 instances), America’s Newsroom (15), and America Reports (12), and on “opinion side” shows like Fox & Friends First (23 instances), Fox & Friends (16), The Ingraham Angle (15), Tucker Carlson Tonight (12), and Hannity (10). The purported 87,000 new hires were specifically described as “agents” at least 169 times.  

But it is false to claim that the IRA provides for 87,000 IRS hires, agents or not. The IRS has not announced any hiring plans in response to the IRA — the figure comes from a separate Treasury Department proposal from 2021 detailing what the IRS could do with additional funding, which predates that bill. That proposal includes 87,000 new hires across all positions, including secretarial and IT staff, not strictly auditors or “agents.” GOP-driven budget cuts in recent years have reduced the IRS headcount to near-1974 levels, and the hiring plan is meant to address a major loss of employees to retirement and “simply maintain current levels,” according to PolitiFact.

Fox has also regularly promoted the wildly inflammatory and false claim that the new IRS hires would all be armed, doing so at least 40 times over the same period, 9 of which came on Fox star Tucker Carlson’s program. That’s a conflation of a separate talking point the right has used to fearmonger about the IRS. In fact, as the network’s White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich has noted on Twitter, only a tiny fraction of the service’s employees belong to the Criminal Investigation division, a century-old unit whose special agents carry firearms because they handle dangerous cases involving crimes like public corruption, narcotics, and money laundering.

These Fox falsehoods are part of a wave of right-wing demagoguery targeting the IRS. As I noted last week after Carlson alleged that the Biden administration is hiring “87,000 armed IRS agents to make sure you obey”:

Carlson’s falsehood follows a week of unhinged demagoguery from Fox and others in the right-wing media that links the new IRS funding with the Mar-a-Lago search as dark signs that the Biden administration has weaponized the government against Americans. Fox pundits have described the potential wave of IRS hiring as an “economic, financial militia against regular people” deployed by those who “want to control you”; a “new army” that will “hunt down and kill middle class taxpayers”; a “new Gestapo” Biden will use in an “abusive, corrupt manner”; “a Praetorian Guard that will be unleashed again” to “grab all the cash they can by any means necessary”; and “part of an orchestrated campaign to target Americans and have the federal government be at war with those Americans.”

The virulence of the right-wing attacks on the IRS has triggered concerns that its employees may be subject to violence. On Tuesday, IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig announced “a full security review of its facilities nationwide” in light of staff safety concerns, The Washington Post reported. Rettig, a Trump appointee, suggested that Republican criticisms of the service are fueling far-right extremism and threats.

That isn’t giving Fox hosts a reason for pause. On Tuesday, Laura Ingraham once again falsely claimed that the IRA funds “87,000 IRS agents,” and described Rettig’s statement as “preemptive action against its critics” by the Biden administration.

Methodology

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel for any of the terms “Internal Revenue Service,” “IRS,” “Inflation Reduction Act,” or “IRA” or any variation of the phrase “tax enforcement” within close proximity of any of the terms “hire,” “employee,” “personnel,” “agent,” “armed,” “87,000,” “87000,” “87 thousand,” “eighty-seven thousand,” “80 billion,” or “eighty billion” from August 5, 2022, through August 23, 2022.

We counted segments, which we defined as instances when the Internal Revenue Service funding provision of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) was the stated topic of discussion or instances when we found significant discussion of the provision. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in the multitopic segment discussed the provision with one another. We also included passing mentions, which we defined as instances when a speaker mentioned the provision in a segment about another topic without another speaker engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the provision scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We then reviewed all segments, mentions, and teasers for any claims suggesting that the IRA funding for the IRS would result in the hiring of 87,000 new employees. Within those claims, we also noted when speakers described the employees as “agents” or “armed.”

We split Fox programs into “news” and “opinion” sides. We defined “news” programs as those with anchors, such as Bret Baier or Martha MacCallum, at the helm, while we defined “opinion” programs as those with hosts, such as Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham. We used the designations from each anchor or host’s author page on FoxNews.com. We also considered the format of the program; we defined those using a panel format, such as Outnumbered and The Five, as opinion programs.