Commentary
Backstory, a term used in journalism, refers to material gathered in developing a piece that is not included, or cut, before it is published, when a decision is made to omit something for brevity.
Today, I plan to provide you with some interesting backstory material I chose not to use in recent blog coverage.
All-Electric Bailouts
In my October 21, 2023, I focused on the financial problems facing the wind turbine market and wrote of the troubled companies forced to pay millions of dollars in cancellation fees.
Then, on October 24, 2023, I wrote of the losses the auto manufacturers were incurring in their effort to manufacture and sell electric vehicles. The Biden administration has provided EV tax credits to help manufacturers move their products, but the public isn’t so sure about going electric.
Ford agreed to a $9 million loan from the government this summer to buttress its battery output.
In my coverage of climate change, including wind and solar, I have continued to point out that the Biden administration bit off more than they could chew when it took an overly aggressive path to transition the country from fossil fuels to all-electric. Picking winners and losers over free enterprise never pays.
The backstory here was the prediction of further government financial support – bailouts – of which I chose a wait and see approach. Now, however, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, “Government has invested too much politically and financially in renewables and electric vehicles to let the companies go bust.”
“(Wind project) developers are mulling whether to cancel projects if they can’t coax more corporate welfare out of the Biden administration,” according to the Journal’s Allysia Finley.
Meanwhile, Finley says, “for now, auto makers are simply pumping the brakes on electric vehicle investments,” noting that Ford has postponed $12 billion in planned vehicle investment.
She suggests that perhaps auto executives are seeing Trump’s poll numbers with the knowledge of his plans to scrap EV mandates. “If Biden prevails,” she adds, “the auto makers will need more government (taxpayer) support, (with) no guarantee customers will buy them.”
The Newly Elected Speaker
When I wrote of Meghan McCain’s attack on Speaker Johnson as a “raging homophobe,” I failed to include that Democrats and their media lapdogs are having fits over Johnson because they now believe they are stuck with a man of faith who believes in the sanctity of life being only two heartbeats from the presidency.
An article in The Hill carried a headline: “Democrats make Speaker Mike Johnson their new 2024 boogeyman.” President Biden’s reelection campaign sent out a fundraising e-mail calling Johnson “a Trump lackey.”
The First Amendment
When I wrote about the judge putting a gag order on Former President Trump at a time when he was campaigning for the presidency, the First Amendment be damned, I thought of how Trump might have responded to Mx. Sandra Chou, PhD, who wrote, “I’d rather have a massive nuclear holocaust under Biden than world peace under Trump.”
“It has been scientifically proven that a massive nuclear holocaust under the best president ever, President Biden, would be better than world peace under the Orange Man,” she wrote. Claiming to be “really smart,” she has three doctorates
Chou is a transperson – a transwoman trapped in the body of a transman.
Our Reputation Abroad
Quoting the anti-Israel, anti-American remarks made in the UN last week in my blog on October Surprises, I failed to include the fact that our reputation as the world’s greatest superpower took a hit when France, Spain and the UK refused to join the U.S. in opposing a motion calling for a sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.
So much for Biden’s claim that he has restored our credibility abroad.
The Robert E. Lee Statue
As I have frequently written about my disdain over the removal of statues of historical figures, Confederate or otherwise, I didn’t feel the need to elaborate on that in my coverage yesterday of the melting down of the Robert E. Lee statue that once stood in Charlotteville, Virginia.
While I mentioned that the process was done in secret, I don’t understand why the Washington Post was given permission to watch. NPR, too, which had agreed to keep the story secret under after the fact, observed and spoke of the scoring of the Lee’s head that allowed his death mask to “fall to the floor with a loud clank.”
Andrea Douglas, executive director of the Jefferson School African American Cultural Center in Charlottesville, which led the project, saw that symbolism as poignant, citing the myth around Lee.
Reading how one writer saw this as dangerous thinking, I couldn’t help but wonder how Ms. Douglas would respond to anyone seeking the removal of one of the dozen or so statues and busts of Martin Luther King Jr. publicly displayed across the country.
A Side Note: Writing in opposition to the renaming of military bases, on October 10, 2023 I noted that the newly named Fort Liberty would always be referred to as Fort Bragg. Last week, when troops were deployed from there, newsman John Roberts referred to it as Fort Bragg.
As noted in my October 31, 2023, blog, I selected President Biden to be the recipient of my November Fool’s Day recognition, based on events that took place in October 2023.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
