Right-Wing and Fake News Writers Are Now Going After Elon Musk (qz.com)
Fake news galvanized US president-elect Donald Trump's supporters, and sullied his enemies. Now it may be Elon Musk's turn. Quartz adds: The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX has his fair share of detractors, but a new era in a public relations battle to discredit him appears to be taking shape. Bloomberg reports that hard-right groups are lining up to back misleading websites and fake journalists who attack Musk's business empire. Many of the attacks on Musk begin with something factual: His businesses were built, legally, with the help of billions in government contracts and incentives for renewable energy and space transport. But they go on to accuse Musk of fraud and wasting taxpayer dollars; some compare him to a convicted felon. At least three conservative sites have run negative pieces about Musk -- by a nonexistent writer named "Shepard Stewart" -- that include "Elon Musk Continues to Blow Up Taxpayer Money With Falcon 9" and "Elon Musk: Faux Free Marketeer and National Disgrace." Two later retracted the stories. "There's a very obvious precedent" for this, says Sam Jaffe, managing director of Cairn Energy Research Advisors. "That's Hillary Clinton." Musk tweeted this week, "Can anyone uncover who is really writing these fake pieces?"
This.
Fossil fuel is (I know it's hard to fathom) more desperate for survival than tobacco was back when, and the IP industry is now.
I helped litigate tobacco and the conversation went like this:
Scientists: Your shit is killing people.
Tobacco: Jobs.
Lawyers: Your shit is killing people.
Tobacco: Jobs.
Rinse, repeat.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I agree, the left wing needs a dose of reality, but there's no hate like liberal hate. There's a lot of left wing fake news, including:
* Michael Brown shot in cold blood by a cop (Michael Brown attempted to steal the cop's gun and charged at him)
* Trump campaign might not accept the election outcome (Trump's campaign considered legal challenges just like Gore did in 2000)
* Hackers caused Trump to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania (No evidence of hacking, but demographics can easily explain the outcome)
* 2016 is the hottest year on record (The warming can actually be explained by adjustments to the data, thanks to some scientists having transparency)
* Trump's economic plans to protect American workers were racist (Trump's economic plans were virtually identical to those of Bernie Sanders, who wasn't accused of racism in nearly the same way)
When will we call out the left for their fake news? Why do we always blame the right? The left is far, far worse than the right.
It's a bit much to assume that none of the scientists and engineers are conservative. That's like "all blacks ____", "all Muslims ___", etc.
Fascists are still worse. And, there is no evidence of any "leftist" conspiracy outside of your padded room.
Damn, the denial is strong with you. You just tried to discredit original research. Do you even realize how denialist that is? If doing your own research isn't good enough, then damn what is?
Did you even read the article? Please do, it's important. The subject admits he's a leftist and confirms he's running a false flag operation. Read the whole thing from top to bottom, it is well worth five minutes of your (and everyone else's) time. Especially read the byline.
By Laura Sydell
NPR
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
There's a difference between fake news and biased takes upon it.
It is subtle; but there is a difference.
Michael brown: was shot by a cop; and the only "fake" part of this, is "in cold blood". But that is an interpretation of the news. the "Attempt to steal the cops gun and charged at him" is what the cop who shot him says right? So if the narative is the cop is lying, then it could easily be a true headline. What is being reported here, is that there is a dispute between what happened, and what is being reported. This is a case where there is some complexity. This is not fake news.
Trump campaign might not accept the election outcome. Wheres the part where it was fake news? You agree that Tumps campaign considers legal action, the definition of not accepting the election outcome. So, you agree this is not fake news? PS. I'd like to point out that right now Clinton is considering legal action! would reporting that be fake news too? according to you, just because sometimes not accepting the election outcome is a thing that happens, that it is fake news!
Hackers caused trump to win state X. This might be fake news. (Except, the news in this circumstance is more likely people reporting that Crazy person X says that hackers caused a Trump win - not "hackers caused it" but "crazy man says hackers caused it". I'm still calling it fake news so, thats something for you right?
2016 is the hottest year on record. It is; according to the temperature data released by the scientists. Yes the scientists do modify the data to normalise it, that is how science works, if you don't understand it - please go and learn what they are doing. Is there room for different types of data manipulation? yes. That is what science does. Takes the figures; then normalise them to fix measurement errors. This is not fake news.
Trumps economic plans to protect american workers were racist. OK, so your argument is Bernie had the same policies and wasn't called racist. But that isn't an argument against the headline. That is an argument about favourtism. As far as I can tell you fundamentally agree that Trump and Bernies plans were racist. Therefore, this is not fake news.
As far as I can tell, you are 1/5. And that 1 is borderline.
The "jobs" argument for fossil fuels just doesn't make sense though. There's already more jobs in renewables than in oil or coal (Either one by itself. Not combined, yet.). We hit that tipping point this year. Jobs growth in renewables has been crushing fossil fuels for the last several years. Investments in renewables are growing exponentially. And if you look out past five years or so (Yeah, I know, most MBA types are congenitally incapable of looking past the next quarter. Whatever.) we're close to profit growth; and not long after, profits being larger than fossil duels. Renewables ARE where the jobs are, and it's where the money is fi you play the long game.
Clean-Energy Jobs Surpass Oil Drilling for First Time in U.S.
Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels
Governor Schwarzenegger put it brilliantly. Even if you *don't* believe in global warming (Which is still a stupid-ass position.) fossil fuels are eventually going to run out. Before they run out, they're going to become more expensive to extract. Renewables are the future. Renewables are where the jobs and investment opportunities are, moving forward. And what sort of moron wants to be the last investor in Blockbuster when Netflix is about to crush them?
Imagine all the people...
>Michael Brown shot in cold blood by a cop (Michael Brown attempted to steal the cop's gun and charged at him)
No he didn't. And even if he had it wouldn't mean anything. You can't disprove a pattern by claiming (truthfully or not) that one example doesn't fit the pattern. You may have had a point if there wasn't Tamir Rice (cop acquitted), If the NRA had even MENTIONED Philando Castile, if there was no Eric Garner, of if the list of unarmed black men killed by US police this year alone was not currently at 1039 - that's an average of more than 3 a day, every day.
>Trump campaign might not accept the election outcome (Trump's campaign considered legal challenges just like Gore did in 2000)
He said he might not accept it. He SAID he would "keep you suspense". Oh, right, I forgot - it's a media smear if we quote him right ? You don't GET to consider legal challenges until AFTER an election. Even if you DO decide to raise one you STILL have to accept the results BEFORE you do. A legal challenge is a claim that the published result is not the ACTUAL result - it's is NOT a failure to ACCEPT the result - it's merely a quibble about what the result is. There's a massive difference.
> Hackers caused Trump to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania /. ever since I started reading this site in the previous century. We've had headlines over concerns that Diebold machines cheat in every election since 2000 ! Now all of a sudden asking if voting machines are trustworthy is 'hate' ?
A small number of people said that, had good reasons for saying that - which were trumped by people with more expertise pointing out something they miss. There's no "hate" there. Are citizens now no longer allowed to question whether voting machines are accurate ? Because people have been doing that on
>2016 is the hottest year on record
It is, your claim to the contrary is a lie. You are either a sucker or a liar yourself. Science doesn't stop being true because you don't like it.
> Trump's economic plans to protect American workers were racist
Nobody said that. We said his immigration plans and comments about refugees were racist. Well actually somebody DID say his economic plans were racist, but that only happened once, Friday - never before, and the person who said it was Bernie Sanders.
>Trump's economic plans were virtually identical to those of Bernie Sanders
Only on the surface, go read Bernies recent speech about them - and how he clarifies what the differences are and why those differences are extremely important. Indeed - HE says that THOSE differences makes Trump's version racist.
You can't hold similarity to Bernie's plans up as proof he isn't racist when Bernie himself has pointed out racist differences in the plans. The plans also have, in reality, almost nothing in common anyway. Taking an example. Both claim to want to invest heavily in infrastructure. Sounds the same right ? Wrong, because HOW they want to do it has nothing in common.
Bernie wanted to spend federal dollars fixing the infrastructure most in need of repairs - that would be the infrastructure in poor neighbourhoods and cities where there isn't any profit to be made and the local communities cannot afford to fund the upgrades themselves.
Trump wants to set up an incentive scheme to encourage private companies to do infrastructure upgrade projects as for profit business ventures for tax breaks: that means they will only upgrade it where they can make money. In the wealthy neighbourhoods where the people can afford price hikes to pay them (and where the need for upgrades is smaller meaning they can spend less.
While both would create jobs Bernie would have created a lot more, and his projects would have helped people like those in Flint Michigan. When you're only helping already rich, mostly white, suburbs due to the structure of your plan: that's pretty much the definition of a racist program. FDR had the same problem, many structures of the new deal excluded black people and a
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I am a right winger. We like Elon Musk. He produces a quality product at a decent price. He is against over regulation in his industry. This fucking epidemic of stories about fake news this week is ridiculous. The Liberal media lost big, predicting a Hillary landslide, and they NEED a scapegoat to blame for their own idiocy. Trust in the media is at an all time low, and people aren't fooled by the MSM putting on a different hat and calling themselves "impartial fact-checkers" anymore. So the new plan is to declare any website we don't like as "fake news" and tie them into the other demonized group we made up, the "alt right". They are the enemy and they must be stopped.
Ah yes, the liberal dominated 'Lügenpresse must be eliminated from the face of the Earth and replaced by what? Fox News? Breitbart? Both famous for being the only news organisations that always tell the truth without fail all of the time? Does the part of the media that does not agree with your world view and that your friends on the right wing call 'lügenpresse' have a liberal slant? Yes it does. Is that liberal slant any less than the right wing slant of Fox News and Breitbart? No it isn't. People are going to disagree with you. That's what freedom of speech means. I don't like either Fox News or Breitbart but I'd never dream of calling for them to be muzzled. Just because you don't agree with people does not mean that they are always lying all of the time and that their news organisations are an 'enemy' that must be 'stopped', by which you presumably mean muzzled like the opposition media in Russia? The methodology of the polls used in the recent US presidential elections tuned out to be flawed which was to be expected when one candidate in the US presidential election was flirting openly with xenophobia and racism so there was bound to be a massive Bradley effect around Trump. You can criticise MSM (by which you presumably mean MSN?) for trusting those polls just like everybody else did when there was a good chance of a Bradley effect being in play but don't try to make it out to have been some massive liberal conspiracy to try and muzzle the good god fearing people of the right wing and keep them down. Liberal news organisations deserve to be criticised for trusting those polls but conservative news outlets also deserve to be held accountable when they spread demonstrably false news. Upholding journalistic standard is a task that both right and left wing news outlets must shoulder.
In case you missed it, NPR tracked down a major source of fake news
That is, a left-wing agitator produces large amounts of right wing bullshit online and then left-wing media use that to support their view that there is a massive problem with fake news and "alt-right" views.
This is similar to to the fake post-election hate-crime-wave that we are supposedly experiencing, and to the death threats people fake on Twitter. The left wing outrage machinery is largely fed by self-created fake stories.
>Well, like it or not, laws against owning and carrying firearms were first created to stop black people from being armed. That's a sad genesis for the rabid gun control groups out there willing to see thousands die each year in Chiraq, with their dream gun control laws fully in place there.
There's a big difference between targeted gun control and universal gun control. And you conveniently forget that anti-gun-control movements share the exact same genesis. Gun-nuttery more than anything has always been driven by fear of black people.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
2016 is the hottest year on record" is fake news if you don't include the error bars in your measurements.
2016 is so far ahead of previous records that it is well beyond the margin of uncertainty. Nevermind 1/100 of a degree. This year is over 1/4 of a degree warmer than the previous peak.