Hurricanes

UPDATE - 7/13, 1:30 pm: In the face of criticism, the Coast Guard just rescinded this policy, allowing reporters free access to Gulf spill recovery efforts. Details below.Effectively reporting on the Gulf oil spill is now a Class D felony, punishable by a fine of up to $40,000.That's right, the most transparent administration in history has made it a felony, effective July 1, to get within 65…

When Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in 2005, numerous media members blamed racism for President Bush's supposedly poor response to the disaster.According to LexisNexis, there were almost 1,000 reports in the nine weeks following the storm's passage through the Gulf of Mexico that tied racism to the government's post-hurricane strategy.Five years later, as oil slams the same region and…

The mainstream media seem to have boiled down the president's reaction to the Gulf spill to two caricatures: either he has failed to satiate public appetites by feigning outrage, or he is succeeding by acting angry. Whereas journalists rightly expected President Bush to do something about Katrina--and excoriated him when he supposedly didn't do enough--the media seem content listening to Obama…

The mainstream media is of course replete with liberal opinionistas who criticize Republicans far more harshly than Democrats. That is nothing new. It is truly shocking, however, when supposedly "objective" news outlets employ even more egregious double standards than the openly-biased commentators.The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto caught the Associated Press employing one such double…

On Sunday’s syndicated Chris Matthews Show, Time magazine columnist Joe Klein joined the ranks of left-leaning media figures like Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann in blaming the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on the Bush administration. As the panel discussed President Obama’s handling of the disaster, Klein opined that "this is more Bush’s second Katrina than Obama’s first," and, after…

It's the American way, right? It is patriotic to exercise the 1st Amendment by petitioning the government for a redress of grievances - unless of course your effort has a tie to some corporation or lobbying interest. Then regardless of its size, it's phony baloney Astroturf activism. While groups like the George Soros-funded MoveOn.org have managed to elude the "Astroturf" moniker, from its…

The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of…

A new study predicts that global warming, contrary to claims made by Nobel Laureate Al Gore and the his fellow climate alarmists, will actually reduce the number of hurricanes by as much as 34 percent by the year 2100.The report just published in the journal Nature Geoscience also found that the increase in tropical storm activity the planet has seen since 1995 is part of a natural cycle…

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Friday cherry-picked statements from Glenn Beck's radio show to accuse him of lying about global warming.In a brief segment on the MSNBC program bearing her name, Maddow said the Fox News star claimed the snowstorm that hit the East Coast this week disproves Al Gore's favorite myth.Unfortunately, Maddow conveniently left out the part when Beck said "one storm does not prove…

Time after time, the Obama White House has demonstrated a desire to control the message and flow of information, whether it's issues on health care, the economy, bailouts and the latest - climate science.  With cap-and-trade legislation waiting in the wings that would come at an estimated cost of up to $200 billion, or $1,761 per household, according to the Treasury Department, the federal…

On Saturday, NB's Noel Sheppard reported on this statement made by Education Secretary Arne Duncan: "I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster. It took hurricane Katrina to wake up the community and say we have to do better."CNN host T.J. Holmes read that quote aloud during a broadcast. "Of course I…

On Monday’s edition of Rosie Radio, host Rosie O’Donnell spun the outpouring of support for the victims of the Haiti earthquake as a result of President Obama’s leadership. She then falsely accused George Bush of not quickly speaking out after Hurricane Katrina: "If two days after Katrina, you know, the President of the United States went on and said, 'You will not be forsaken. You will not be…

Just days after the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted it used junk science to predict Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035, its claim that global warming is linked to increased natural disasters has also been found to be wrongly concluded.The British Times Online reported moments ago: THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly…

A rather remarkable thing happened Thursday: a documentary highly skeptical of man's role in global warming was aired on broadcast television.The program, "Global Warming - The Other Side," was created and hosted by John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel, and debuted on San Diego's independent television station KUSI.Readers should be familiar with Coleman as the man who not only called…