Inside the Right-Wing Nonsense Machine, Red Meat Edition

Daniel Dale, reporting for CNN:

The paper, by scholars at the University of Michigan and Tulane University, estimates how greenhouse gas emissions would be affected if Americans hypothetically decided to change their diets in various ways, such as cutting their consumption of beef to four pounds per year. The paper does not suggest a mandatory four-pound beef limit — and, more importantly for the purposes of this fact check, the paper is just not related to Biden’s plans.

The paper was published before Biden had won the Democratic presidential nomination. The paper does not even mention Biden’s name. And Biden has never publicly mentioned the paper. So… frankly, you can stop reading here if you just wanted to know if it’s true that Biden is trying to take away your sacred right to a rib eye. That claim is complete nonsense.

But if you’re interested in how right-wing media figures and elected officials turned a little-known academic analysis into a scary presidential plot to limit Americans’ hard-earned cookout freedoms, read on.

★ Monday, 26 April 2021