Fox Business Network

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 government recently announced a new service to "help businesses adapt to the impact of climate change."

But AccuWeather.com's chief long-range and hurricane forecaster Joe Bastardi, who appeared on the Fox Business Network's Feb. 9 "Cavuto," warned there are other implications with the government having an expanded role in climate forecasting. According to Bastardi, it could lead to an effort to shut out other opinions.

Is the luster finally wearing off the love affair between the White House press corps and President Barack Obama? It is, if CBS White House correspondent Chip Reid's analysis of President Barack Obama's latest Wall Street proposals is anything to go by.

Reid appeared on the Fox Business Network's Jan. 25 "Imus in the Morning" program and offered an update on the president's financial and economic advisers, mainly Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Director of the National Economic Council Lawrence Summers. He said both Geithner and Summers should survive, despite a run-in with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who chairs the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

"Well, you know, it's really the same as it's all been," Reid said. "That there's some unease about both of them, but the President has been satisfied with the jobs they've done. Behind the scenes, they both still have a lot of control. They lost this battle to Volcker, but now they're on board on this new plan for Wall Street, although it really sounds more like politics than a real plan because it's hard to believe it would get through."

Since Republican Scott Brown won the special election Jan 19 to fill Massachusetts' U.S. Senate seat vacated after the death of Ted Kennedy, President Barack Obama and high-level White House staffers David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs have been on the media circuit in damage control mode.

But according to "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace, efforts to spin this in a positive way are futile. Wallace appeared on the Fox Business Network's Jan. 21 "Imus in the Morning" program to explain their efforts to alter the news coverage to a favorable tone in the wake of this news is not the proper course of action.

"I think it means a big deal and I have to laugh, you know, somebody was saying yesterday, there's some events that are just un-spinable," Wallace said. "They're just too big, too dramatic, too obvious - you can't spin them and yet the White House clearly is trying to spin this."

Liberal billionaire investor Warren Buffett has been very popular among the news media, but that might not hold if Buffett continues to dissent from President Barack Obama.

On Jan. 20, Bloomberg reported that Buffett opposed Obama's proposal to tax a number of large banks supposedly to pay for losses from the bank bailout.

"I don't see any reason why they should be paying a special tax," said Buffett, the chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

This prompted "Fox & Friends" host Brian Kilmeade to ask Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney, "The President might have lost Warren Buffett as an ally ... how do you explain this?"

While countries like China, Brazil and India are on the path to ascendency, the United States appears to be heading in the opposite direction, according to the former CEO of a major U.S. bank.

In a segment on the Jan. 7 broadcast of the Fox Business Channel's "Stossel," John Allison, the former CEO of North Carolina-based BB&T Corporation (NYSE:BBT), the 10th largest bank in the United States, warned of dark times ahead if the country continues on its current course.

"Now, it's a long-term trend," Allison said. "We will have some kind of economic recovery and we'll have some economic growth. I think the most likely intermediate scenario is stagflation like the 1970s."

On Thursday’s Stossel show on Fox Business Network, host John Stossel got to do the kind of show he was not able to do earlier this year when he was at ABC, as he devoted an entire show to the debate over access to health care, and gave attention to the market-based plan utilized by most employees of Whole Foods, which uses health savings accounts and encourages employees to shop around for health care, and to conserve their money for use in future years. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who has been the target of attacks from socialized medicine advocates despite the popularity of his company’s program with its employees, was the featured guest on Stossel's show, though he and Stossel at one point did get to debate socialized medicine advocate Russell Mokhiber. When Mokhiber cited the dubious statistic that 45,000 Americans die yearly from lack of health insurance, and contended that "zero Canadians die from lack of health insurance," Mackey charged that in Canada, "They oftentimes die from a lack of health care as they wait for services that are rationed by governmental bureaucrats."

While Stossel argued that too much involvement by a third party like insurance companies or government programs have caused health care prices to increase because consumers shop around less, Stossel and Mackey also charged that government regulations that forbid health insurance companies to compete across state lines, and that require insurance companies to cover procedures in their plans that are not desired by many customers, have helped create the problem of high insurance prices:

Filmmaker and noted global warming skeptic Phelim McAleer yesterday experienced first hand the disdain for a free press some Copenhagen attendees exhibit during an interview with Fox Business Channel's Neil Cavuto.

Dressed in a polar bear costume with a sign inquiring as to the whereabouts of controversial climate scientist Phil Jones, McAleer was forced to raise his voice above the shouting environmentalists behind him. In the latter segment of the interview, one crazed activist threw something at McAleer (he says it was a vegetable, though it is unclear in the video), striking him in the head (video below the fold - transcript to be added shortly).

McAleer, who produced the film "Not Evil, Just Wrong," questioning Al Gore's statements on global warming, has been silenced on a number of occasions for trying to ask Gore and others about seeming inconsistencies in climate data, and about the ClimateGate scandal.

Howard Kurtz must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed Sunday, for his "Reliable Sources" review of John Stossel's new Fox Business Network show was uncharacteristically way off base.

After presenting a cherry-picked video clip of Stossel talking about how he wished Nobel Laureate Al Gore would come on the program to debate man's role in global warming, Kurtz asked guest David Zurawik, "[D]oes this continue a trend of partisan people going to partisan networks and putting them on partisan shows?"

After Zurawik's answer, Kurtz carped, "My only problem with that first program is that he basically had one guest for three-quarters of the show, a guy from the Libertarian Cato Institute who is also very skeptical of global warming. And so, except from the studio audience, you didn't hear a lot of contrary voices."

Unfortunately, Kurtz edited out the segment when Stossel read an e-mail message from Gore's representative saying the former Vice President had to decline the invitation to appear on the program because he was too busy (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

While the wizards of smart are convening in Copenhagen, attempting to solve what they perceive to be the biggest global societal ill - anthropogenic climate change, one of the things that likely won't be discussed is the possibility of the opposite occurring, global cooling.

But AccuWeather's chief hurricane forecaster, Joe Bastardi warns it is a bigger threat than global warming. He says the phenomenon is coming, based on three priniciple reasons - 1) Natural reversal of ocean cycles, 2) Low sun spot activity and 3) An increase in volcanic and seismic activity. Bastardi made this case on the Fox Business Network's Dec. 11 "Imus in the Morning" program.

"I have something behind me here called the ‘Triple Crown of Cooling,'" Bastardi said. "I'm just as worried that in the next 30 years that we are going back into a period back in the early 1800s which was a mini-Ice Age. We have the natural reversal of the ocean cycles going on. We have very low sun spot activity, increased volcanic activity. I have to tell you something, after this winter in the eastern and southern part of the United States and in Europe - this winter here - a lot of people aren't going to want to hear about global warming because there's already signs that things are turning around."

Despite appearing on CNN and MSNBC Wednesday, Nobel Laureate Al Gore was apparently too busy to discuss global warming on the premiere episode of John Stossel's new Fox Business Network program.

To kick off his new show Thursday, Stossel chose the controversial subject of climate change, and invited on a number of guests to address the issue in great detail.

According to an e-mail message sent to Stossel's producers on November 23, "the growing influence of the climate crisis message and the demand on Mr. Gore's time" made it impossible for the former Vice President to attend.

Of course, Gore's busy schedule didn't prevent him from being interviewed by CNN and MSNBC on Wednesday, nor did it stop him from appearing on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" just two days before he declined Stossel's invitation.

I guess even an esteemed Nobel Laureate has to understand his limitations (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):  

Chris Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday" is the latest in a long line of observers to note the essentially religious fervor of those who believe man is responsible for global warming, and the blind faith with which they cling to the science behind it.  

Wallace, appearing on the Fox Business Network's Dec. 10 "Imus in the Morning" program to discuss the President's European trip with stops in Oslo and Copenhagen, said the religious conviction is evident in the way climate change alarmists treat those who challenge the theory.

"The President's going to Copenhagen - so he's flying all over the world leaving a Sasquatch-like carbon footprint," host Don Imus said. "So what's that all about?"

Prominent libertarian journalist John Stossel's new show is slated to premiere Thursday at 8 PM on the Fox Business Network. Entitled "Stossel", the program will consist of 44 shows exploring topics pertaining to economic liberty.

Thursday's premiere will focus on either Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" or on global warming. Stossel will do the show in front of a live studio audience. Email stosseltix@foxnews.com to secure tickets. The show will broadcast from Fox's studios at 48th Street and 6th Avenue in New York City.

Stossel asks all those who do not get the Fox Business Network on their home televisions to "call your cable company and tell them you won’t pay your bill until they offer FBN!"

Has the emerging international ClimateGate scandal changed President Obama's global warming strategy?

After winning the Nobel Peace Prize last month, expectations were that Obama would not attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen due to it conflicting with the Nobel awards ceremony in Oslo.

This speculation was supported in the past couple of weeks when world leaders meeting in Singapore punted on reaching any firm agreements at the upcoming Copenhagen meeting, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-Nev.) delayed action on cap-and-trade legislation until next spring.

Yet, within days of the ClimateGate scandal breaking, Obama surprisingly announced that he's going to Copenhagen with a pledge for serious carbon dioxide emissions cuts.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner told FBN's Charles Payne Wednesday that this is by no means a coincidence (video embedded below the fold with transcript):

According to Don Imus, it's the late-1970s all over again, and not in a good way. 

Imus appeared on the Fox News Channel's Nov. 24 "Hannity" program and had some disparaging words for the current administration's economic policy. He told viewers that Obama's associations with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers weren't the problem (h/t Erick Erickson at RedState.com).

"You had me convinced - yes, he was. But you had me convinced that Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and some of these people are all going to be in the Cabinet. We'd be better off if they were," Imus said.

We've come to expect intellectual dishonesty from the media elite, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, a columnist for the New York Times, never disappoints.

Krugman, in a Nov. 11 post on his NYTimes.com blog titled "The agony of Fox Business," made it clear he was a subscriber to the left-wing fairy tale that Fox News, and by extension the Fox Business Channel, are not pro-business. Instead - they're "pro-Republican."

"Clearly, the Fox Business crew is having a very hard time," Krugman wrote. "They bill themselves as being truly pro-business - not like those leftists at CNBC. But they aren't really pro-business; they're pro-Republican. They'd like you to believe that it's the same thing; but there's this awkward fact that markets have, you know, gone up under Obama."

On Tuesday's The O'Reilly Factor on FNC, former ABC News anchor John Stossel -- now with Fox Business -- came aboard to discuss the New York Times's recent attack on him for speaking in front of the conservative/libertarian group Americans for Prosperity. After charging that the Times never showed interest in his speeches to conservative groups before he joined Fox Business, the former 20/20 host also relayed that during his early days as a consumer reporter, he received a number of Emmy Awards because "they loved me" for his left-leaning work. But after, in Stossel's words, "I got smarter," turning more pro-business and anti-regulation, the Emmy Awards were no longer forthcoming.

Stossel even recounted an incident in which a person he met on the street expressed a desire that he "die soon" for his conservative views.

After starting the interview by asking Stossel about Web sites that engage in gambling based on election predictions, O'Reilly brought up the Times's newfound interest in the former ABC anchor. Stossel pointed out the double standard: "I make speeches. I make about 25 a year. I've done that for years. And suddenly, now that I'm at Fox, critics are leaping to attack me, according to the New York Times."

Ever since long-time radio talker Don Imus inked a deal with the Fox Business Network to simulcast his morning radio program, he said he has been getting pushback from several acquaintances.

And as he explained and showed on his Oct. 28 program, he's not particularly pleased with the reaction about his deal with Fox News.

"I get this email and the e-mail says, ‘Sorry to see you've sold out to Fox Business, or whatever. But I am not surprised you sold out to Fox Business, disappointed.' Could you explain to me exactly what does that mean? When you walk in the door here, Roger Ailes or Neil Cavuto or what's the other fat guy's name? Kevin McGee? Not the other fat guy, that was unfortunate."

Geraldo Rivera on Thursday lambasted Lou Dobbs for the outspoken CNN host's views concerning illegal immigration.

Speaking at a luncheon sponsored by El Diario La Prensa NY, Rivera disgracefully said, "Lou Dobbs is almost single-handedly responsible for creating, for being the architect of the young-Latino-as-scapegoat for everything that ails this country."

Rivera also told the audience that he had spoken to his boss, and was assured Dobbs was not coming to Fox (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

Is Fox News Channel president Roger Ailes about to score another big name personality for his fledgling off-spin business channel? According to The New York Times television and digital media reporter Brian Stelter, News Corp's (NASDAQ:NWS) Fox Business Network is considering adding CNN "Lou Dobbs Tonight" host Lou Dobbs to its lineup.

"The business channel is also keen on another administration critic, Lou Dobbs, who met for dinner with Mr. Ailes last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting," Stelter wrote in a piece for the Oct. 12 Times about the growing divide between Fox News and the Obama administration. "The shift for Fox News - the favorite network of the Bush administration, now the least favored one of the Obama administration - has financial implications for the News Corporation, especially given the network's status as a growth engine in a perilous time for media companies."

When a group of about 200 doctors gathered in D.C. on Thursday, October 1, to demonstrate against the public option and in favor of tort reform and free market-based solutions, FNC’s Hannity show highlighted the group’s activities, as host Sean Hannity introduced a story by correspondent Ainsley Earhardt on how "doctors from around the country converged on Washington, D.C. today to protest the President's plan to overhaul health care." David Asman and Liz Claman of Fox Business Network even interviewed one participant in the rally – known as the Million Med March – on the same day. On FBN, Dr. Todd Rubin conveyed his fears that a public option would lead to a single-payer system. Rubin: "Eventually, if the bills that are currently presented pass as is written, what will we be left with will be a single-payer-dominated health insurer, and that will be the federal government." Video of the interview can be found here.

When the White House staged a photo-op on Monday with 150 doctors who support ObamaCare, ABC’s World News anchor Charles Gibson touted the event later that day. Gibson: "The doctors were in the house – 150 of them in the White House today, all in white lab coats. It was a show of support for President Obama’s efforts at health care reform."

And NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams got to the story on Tuesday as he defended President Obama from charges that it was the White House that supplied lab coats for the doctors to wear for the photo-op. Williams: "Today's New York Post took issue with a photo from yesterday of a White House staffer passing out lab coats. The White House was accused of staging the photo op. Turns out the doctors group provided the extra lab coats for anyone who forgot to bring one along."

Radio's Don Imus on Friday attacked a litany of present and former CBS personalities including Katie Couric, David Letterman, and Dan Rather.

In an interview with Fox News's Neil Cavuto, Imus called CBS "Evening News" anchor Couric "a little rodent," the "Late Show's" Letterman an "angry, mean-spirited jerk," and former "Evening News" anchor Rather "crazy."

The outspoken shock jock also said the thought of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin becoming the Republican nominee for president is "horrifying" because "she's a dope."

Imus also had some very interesting things to say about his own controversy with CBS surrounding the Rutgers women's basketball team and "nappy-headed hos" (videos in several parts embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t Story Balloon):

BMI's Julia A. Seymour appeared on today's Fox Business Live with Stuart Varney to discuss the discrepancy in media coverage of unemployment under Presidents Reagan and Obama.

Author of BMI's latest study, "Networks Flip-Flop on Jobs," Seymour explained her findings:

We looked specifically at seven months of coverage in 1982 and again in 2009 that had very similar periods of unemployment where it was going up between 8 - between 8 and the high 9 percent range. And what we found was that the network reporting on ABC, NBC and CBS was overwhelmingly negative to Reagan but positive toward Obama. They were actually 13 times more negative to President Reagan than they were to Obama.

This is a notion that hasn't really gotten any traction anywhere yet, but could Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C. be a viable 2012 presidential election candidate? 

The hosts of Fox Business Network's "Happy Hour," Eric Bolling, Rebecca Diamond and Cody Willard, contemplated that possibility on their Sept. 14 show, which comes on the eve of a vote on a "resolution of disapproval" on Wilson for calling out "You lie!" as President Barack Obama spoke to a joint-session of Congress Sept. 9.

"First off, House Dems appear set to censure South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson for shouting ‘you lie' at President Obama during last week's health care speech, but Wilson is not backing down," Diamond said. "He told Fox News Sunday he will not apologize to the House tomorrow. Instead, he is turning this - all of this into a fund-raising campaign, claiming he has raised $1 million since the outrage incident last Wednesday. So we are asking, ‘Hit or Miss' on whether Democrats risk turning Representative Wilson into a viable conservative candidate for 2012."

TVNewser is reporting that "20/20" co-anchor John Stossel is leaving ABC News to join the Fox Business Network:

TVNewser has learned Stossel will host a weekly, one-hour program for the 2-year-old business channel. He's expected to signed a multi-year deal with Fox which will include regular appearances on Fox News Channel during daytime and primetime. He'll also host four, hour-long specials on Fox News, much like the business/consumer specials he'd hosted for years on ABC.

Stossel, a libertarian, has been appearing on Fox News for years as a guest on shows including "The O'Reilly Factor," "Hannity & Colmes" and "The Big Story."

 

Dan Gainor, the Vice-President of Business and Culture for the MRC, appeared on the September 8 edition of Fox Business Live to discuss the media's failure to report on President Obama's green jobs czar Van Jones, who resigned late Saturday night.

Gainor stated that the mainstream media "absolutely ignored" the Jones stories. He detailed:

On Thursday's Special Report with Bret Baier, FNC host Baier ran a report by correspondent James Rosen describing a "troubling pattern of behavior" by President Obama's Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones. The report noted some of the controversial statements and connections of Jones, who has not only described himself in the past with such words as "Marxist" and "radical," but has also been linked to 9/11 Truthers and radical groups such as one organization whose manifesto "equated those killed on 9/11 with, quote, 'the victims of U.S. imperialism around the world.'" The report also showed a clip of Jones from last year accusing "white polluters" of "steering poison" into minority communities.

Rosen ran a soundbite of University of Virginia Politics Professor Larry Sabato -- known for his willingness to criticize politicians of both parties -- who noted that such a controversial figure in the Bush administration would have ignited a "national hurrah of magnificent proportions." Sabato: "If a Bush official had made anything comparable to what Mr. Jones has said and done, no doubt there would have been a national hurrah of magnificent proportions."

BMI's Julia A. Seymour discussed the media's sparse reporting on health care reform's impact on small businesses July 16 on the Fox Business Network. Anchor Stuart Varney asked, "Is Washington waging war on small business? And is the news media ignoring it?"  Seymour told him:  

Yes, I think in - in many cases they are. If you look at last night's evening news coverage of this health care reform bill, or as you, you called it, uh, wealth reform bill, two networks out of three ignored the plight of small businesses altogether. Only CBS' Chip Reid did a story talking about the impact of sma- on small business of this bill.

The news cycle has been dominated by celebrity deaths - Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and even TV pitchman Billy Mays - and President Barack Obama's health care initiative. Obama has used the compliant media to keep the focus to health care, and they are neglecting a critical largest news event that could impact the lives of every man, woman and child for the foreseeable future.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a 1,200-page climate change bill known as the "American Clean Energy and Security Act" sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. and Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., by a narrow 219-212 vote on June 26.

Prospects for that piece of environmental legislation might have been hurt had reporters pointed out the scientific censorship taking place in the Obama administration. A veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency strongly questioned the theory of manmade global warming in a report that was then silenced by the administration. That's exactly the opposite of how many journalists handled a similar controversy during the Bush administration.

Unnoticed in the recent upheaval surrounding the fallout from the Iranian elections earlier this month has been how it could affect the price of oil, and therefore the price of gas. And according to Fox Business Network "Happy Hour" co-host Eric Bolling, the longer this goes, the more likely you'll see it at the gas pump.

Bolling appeared on the Fox News Channel's "Your World with Neil Cavuto" on June 19 and explained how events in Iran, the world's fourth largest oil-producing nation, would have a lagging impact on the price at the pump.

"Now think of this - it takes about 45 days to take a barrel of oil, run it through a refinery and hit the pump, the price at the pump," Bolling said. "So knowing this, for the next two or three weeks, at least, at minimum, pump prices will continue to rise. It may go down a penny or two here, but in general they'll continue to rise."

Neil Cavuto had some harsh criticism of President Obama during his end-of-show monologue on May 5.

The Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network anchor blasted Obama for creating villains of businesses and for presenting an inconsistent message that is keeping businesspeople "anxious."

"I think every administration has its villains. Remember Ronald Reagan had the evil Soviet Empire. President Bush his own axis of evil. That was three countries there. This president - in a word: business. Alright, not all businesses but it seems most businesses, big business at least."

Pointing to Obama's May 4 call to change corporate taxation rules to prevent the use of tax havens, as well as the recent government involvement in Chrysler, Cavuto said: "Huge multinationals that hire workers abroad and get tax breaks here - they're villains. Sick companies like Chrysler being pushed into a foreign automakers hands on taxpayers' dime no less - they're not villains."