As the worm has clearly turned on all this global warming hooey, it seems appropriate to begin recording COLD events across the planet not just to highlight the foolishness, but also to infuriate those still buying into the junk science.

With that in mind, it snowed in parts of South Africa Tuesday that haven’t seen the frosty white stuff in many decades.

Thanks, global warming!

As deliciously (and frigidly) reported by Bloomberg Wednesday (emphasis added to really irk the alarmists):

On Tuesday, National Public Radio displayed two very different takes on the current situation in Iraq from reporters for The New York Times and the Washington Post.

John Burns of The New York Times was the cautious optimist on the Tuesday edition of NPR’s Day to Day (in partnership with the liberal site Slate.com):

As for Senator Lugar's assessment that they've overestimated what they can do, I think it's a little early to say that. In the last few days I've been at several places around Baghdad where the offensives are underway. I've been out in Ramadi, where as you know, Anbar province has been the most remarkable reduction in violence. And there's no doubt that this surge is having an effect, that al-Qaida for the time being at least appears to be on the back foot. Can that be sustained? Probably too early to tell.

If think you might be suffering from delayed symptoms caused by a job you had almost 20 years ago, maybe you should testify before Congress and get CBS to do a feature story on you too.

Brent Boyd, a former offensive lineman for the Minnesota Vikings, “slugged it out in the trenches” during the 1980s and now he feels the NFL owes him restitution – even though the league paid him for his efforts. Boyd, the subject of the CBS report, claimed he just “wanted to get his story out there while he could tell it.” But, CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers forgot to tell us Boyd had previously sued for disability benefits from NFL … and lost.

Connecticut's governor, M. Jodi Rell, just issued a veto on a bill that would allow illegal aliens to qualify for in-state college tuition in the state's university system.

Local papers dutifully reported the news. Below are headlines from various papers across the state:

• Illegal immigrants tuition bill vetoed -- Connecticut Post
• Rell vetoes bill to give undocumented children in-state rates for college -- New Haven Register
• Rell deals blow to children of illegal immigrants -- Danbury News-Times
• Veto Dissolves College Dream -- Hartford Courant

The Courant article also starts off by telling the reader of the "shattered dreams" of Victoria (no last name), a graduate of New Haven's Wilbur Cross High School. She will not be able to afford to attend the University of Connecticut (UConn) to study criminal justice. Yes, criminal justice:

“The Daily Show” often pokes fun at President Bush and his closest advisors and Cabinet members, but isn’t it a little low, even for “The Daily Show,” to mock a Vietnam veteran because he supports the President?

On June 25, the Comedy Central show did exactly that, airing a pre-recorded and what appears to be a heavily edited interview with Bill Thomas, a Vietnam veteran who won four Bronze Stars and three Purple Heart medals. Back in April, Thomas decided to give one his Purple Heart to President Bush, believing that the President is a “a hero by virtue of the fact that he’s shown phenomenal courage in the face of bitter personal attacks on his competence, his integrity and everything else.”

Video: Real (1 MB) or Windows (1.3 MB) plus MP3 (199 KB)

On Monday's program, “Daily Show” correspondent Jason Jones sarcastically mocked Thomas’ gesture, asking over and over again who his gift was intended for:

Chris Matthews followed-up his, now infamous, staging of the Ann Coulter vs. Elizabeth Edwards throwdown by inviting on John Edwards to join his wife in the pile-on of the conservative columnist. On tonight's Hardball, Edwards condemned Coulter's "hate-mongering" but Matthews never brought up the fact that Edwards' own staffers spewed some pretty hateful things, or that Matthews on the very same show compared conservative students to violent inbred hicks. While Matthews did mention Edwards campaign has used Coulter to raise money, most of the interview was full of softballs.

Michael Moore is a documented liar who uses “omission, exaggeration and cinematic sleight of hand” to make his political points. But that doesn’t seem to matter to the media who cover his movies.

Now journalists are using “Sicko,” which opens June 29, to make a giddy, unabashed case for socialized health care in America – and even urging Moore to run for office.

He shows “compassion” and “generosity,” he’s a great “campaigner” and an “adroit politician,” reporters have declared.

He’s “taking on America’s deeply flawed health care system,” said Terry Moran on ABC’s “Nightline” June 13. And “… the point his movie ultimately makes: fixing health care is a moral, even a religious obligation.”

Billion-dollar returns just aren’t good enough for NBC. On June 26, the “Nightly News” attacked wealthy hedge fund managers for making high-risk investments and for trying to do business with the “vulnerable” upper-middle class.

Reporter Carl Quintanilla mentioned rich investors who want to become “hedge fund rich,” but then focused his segment negatively on such investment firms.

“[T]he people who run them buy mansions, art – paying themselves salaries of over a billion dollars in just the past year.”

But is there anything wrong with that? According to Quintanilla, they’re run by greedy people and too risky for “a new more vulnerable audience.”

“They are beginning to target the upper middle class – the reasonably wealthy professional rather than the millionaire or the super-rich,” said Columbia University Law Professor John Coffee.

Understanding fellow, that Jonathan Alter . . .

On this afternoon's "Tucker Carlson" on MSNBC, the eponymous host mentioned that Barack Obama had travelled to NYC to seek the support of Charles Barron of Brooklyn. Carlson knows Barron well, the NYC Councilman being a frequent guest on Tucker's show. Carlson described Barron as a "pretty straightforward racist, pretty straightforward black nationalist, anti-white character, exactly the kind of person you would not expect Obama to be courting." He then asked guest Jonathan Alter: "What is Obama doing?

SENIOR NEWSWEEK EDITOR JONATHAN ALTER: "Well, I think Obama wants the support of everybody, and I think the question is whether he can have a tent that's actually as big as the United States . . . The whole point of his campaign Tucker is to say "don't judge me by any one of my supporters, I'm trying to get a super-big tent here" . . . I think it would be unfair to hold any of his supporter's politics, you know, hold him accountable for what Charles Barron thinks.

MSNBC HOST TUCKER CARLSON: If Rudy Giuliani went down and asked David Duke for his support, would you say, "you know, it's unfair to hold Rudy Giuliani accountable for what David Duke said?" No, of course not! You'd write a cover story attacking him. That's a ludicrous point.

Less noticed during Chris Matthews's ambush of Ann Coulter last night was an off-hand remark by the host which established (as if there was any doubt) his elitist left-wing mentality.

Despite his stacking of the deck against Coulter, many in the audience continued to support the conservative author. The fact that Matthews hadn't managed to turn the audience into an anti-Coulter mob clearly befuddled the former top Democratic aide, prompting him to compare them to the violent, inbred, backwoods characters from the 1972 movie "Deliverance."

Watch or listen: Windows Media, Real, MP3.

Anyone that has picked up a newspaper, or turned on a radio or television recently knows that liberals are once again mounting a campaign to subvert free speech, and eliminate conservative talk radio.

With this in mind, Congressman Mike Pence (R-Indiana) announced on the House floor Wednesday a bill he plans to introduce that would prevent Democrat efforts to reinstate what is somewhat hypocritically called the “Fairness Doctrine.”

What follows is the prepared text of Pence’s statement, as well as additional information supplied by the Congressman on a conference call held early this morning (emphasis added):

The June 27 edition of "MSNBC Live" was sponsored by liberal filmmaker Michael Moore.

"'MSNBC Live' is brought to you by 'SiCKO', a Michael Moore film in theatres everywhere Friday," read the announcer dipping into a commercial break about 14 minutes into the 10 a.m. block of MSNBC programming.

Video (0:18): Real (486 kB) or Windows (569 kB), plus MP3 audio (115 kB).

My colleague Amy Menefee at MRC's Business & Media Institute has an article today dealing with the media's role in promoting Moore's pro-socialized medicine propaganda.

In response to Elizabeth Edwards’ attack on Ann Coulter Tuesday during an installment of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” the President of the Media Research Center, Brent Bozell, has issued the following statement:

“Elizabeth Edwards should look close to home when it comes to ‘hatefulness and ugliness’ for it was her husband’s Democratic presidential campaign that hired two official bloggers who attacked ‘Christofascists’ and insulted Christians and their faith in the most repulsive words imaginable, which I won’t repeat here. Go Google Amanda Marcotte and Holy Spirit.

The network morning shows all hyped up the recent remarks from Republican Senator Richard Lugar that the war in Iraq is not going well. ABC’s "Good Morning America" ran a brief story and noted that Republican Senator George Voinovich followed as well.

The CBS "Early Show’s" "Capitol Bob" segment focused mainly on the Lugar remarks. Host Harry Smith discovered admiration for the Indiana Senator exclaimed he is a "smart guy" and is "not fickle." Bob Schieffer forecasted "I think we’re going to begin a withdrawal," claimed the troops are in "the middle of this civil war," and editorialized "the policy as we know it is not going to work." Schieffer also claimed inside sources tell him Republicans are "not enthusiastic" about the president’s Iraq strategy.

On Wednesday’s "Good Morning America," co-anchor Chris Cuomo portrayed the previous day’s on-air debate between Elizabeth Edwards and Ann Coulter as a one sided lecture from the ‘08 contender’s wife. The ABC program edited out or didn’t play either of Coulter’s best verbal barbs.

The conservative author’s zinger, that John Edwards’ use of her name to raise money is better "than giving $50,000 speeches to the poor," was bluntly cut out. And although GMA found time to play Mrs. Edwards’ denunciation of the conservative commentator as hateful, the program skipped over a retort by Coulter that described Mr. Edwards’ law practice as "bankrupting doctors by giving a shyster, Las Vegas routine."

In a related note, MSNBC’s "First Read" page now admits that the ambush by a 2008 candidate’s wife was a preplanned event between the network and the John Edwards campaign:

By now, most people in America have viewed the scene from Tuesday’s “Hardball” when Elizabeth Edwards, wife of presidential candidate John Edwards, called in to dress down Chris Matthews’ guest, conservative writer Ann Coulter.

In fact, the media are having a field day with this as reported by NewsBusters Tim Graham and Mark Finkelstein.

After seeing the coverage of this matter Wednesday morning, a revelation made at MSNBC’s “Hardblogger” emits a bit of a rodent aroma leading one to believe that this entire incident was set up not just to embarrass Coulter, but possibly to advance the current Democrat push to squash conservative talk radio (emphasis added):

Update with transcript of Matthews on MSNBC appended below.

After yesterday's ambush of Ann Coulter by Elizabeth Edwards on Hardball, MSNBC's Chris Matthews was rewarded a victory lap by Meredith Vieira on this morning's Today show. Matthews crowed that Edwards came out the winner, long after he stacked the deck against the conservative columnist with the surprise call-in, from John Edwards' wife, on a live show. Like a bribed referee in a fixed match Matthews, proverbially, raised Edwards' hand in victory as he blared: "Elizabeth Edwards has won this round."

The following is the full transcript of the segment, first noted here, as it occurred on the June 27th Today show.

The search for missing pregnant Ohio woman Jessie Davis and the ongoing investigation into her murder has been all the rage recently on the twenty-four hour news networks, only surpassed by a few "choice" stories such as the coverage of the imprisonment of Paris Hilton. Not surprisingly, one network, CNN, used the murder of this young woman to forward a left-wing agenda. Two guests on Monday's "Paula Zahn Now" program warned that a "big risk factor" or a "big red flag" in cases of domestic violence and/or homicide against pregnant woman are "men who are gun owners."

Host Paula Zahn had three women guests on to discuss the question, "What is it about pregnancy that seems to increase a woman's risk of being killed by her partner?" The first guest to speak, Dr. Gail Saltz of New York Presbyterian Hospital, focused on the increased stresses on a woman and her "partner" during a pregnancy. The second guest, Jacquelyn Campbell, a nursing professor at John Hopkins University, was asked by Zahn if many of the murders of pregnant woman take place very late in the pregnancy. While answering, Campbell included in her list of risk factors "men who are gun owners as particularly dangerous in these cases."

You can expect to hear a lot about this in the coming days: a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll (h/t Britain and America) seems to indicate that the younger generation favors more liberal policies than conservative ones. Among its findings:

*More than half plan to vote for a Democrat for president in 2008

*44% believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry

*62% support a universal, government-sponsored health care plan

*51% said the U.S. was very or somewhat likely to succeed in Iraq

If the respondents get most of their news from the media outlets that sponsored the poll, then perhaps most of these results are not so surprising.

Can we talk?

Update (Ken Shepherd | 09:16 EDT): Matthews appeared with Joe Scarborough a few minutes ago on MSNBC to discuss the matter. Expect more coverage in a followup post on NewsBusters shortly.

Chris Matthews should keep his evening job. Appearing on this morning's "Today," the Hardball host was manifestly bleary and off his game.

Matthews was in, at 7:12 am EDT, to discuss with "Today" co-host Meredith Vieira the dust-up on last night's "Hardball," reported here by NewsBuster Geoffrey Dickens, between Ann Coulter and Elizabeth Edwards. Matthews couldn't keep his names straight. He first referred to Coulter as "Ann Edwards," then recycled the "Ann Edwards" moniker in referring to Elizabeth Edwards.

HARDBALL HOST CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well that was a pretty tough [translation: pro-Coulter] crowd, and if you think Ann Edwards is over the top, she had a lot of people behind her last night who agreed with her.

And later . . .

MATTHEWS: Unfortunately, you're dealing with a real-life situation with Ann Edwards' medical challenges, which we all know about, and the fact that they did lose their son Wade, and you don't make jokes about that.

View video here.

It'll be busy at MRC this morning, as both ABC and NBC played up Elizabeth Edwards dressing down Ann Coulter by phone on "Hardball" last night. (Matthews trashed Coulter as a "Today" guest this morning. More to come.) Wire services like AP and newspapers like The Washington Post are on the story today, but several important elements are missing from this story. None seem to question the ethics of MSNBC