Over the Top Media Coverage on Hurricane Matthew: Your Kids Are Going to Die

October 07, 2016

Writer

It's bad. There's no doubt about it. Hurricane Matthew devastated Haiti and hit the Florida coastline hard --- and it's not over yet. But has the media coverage been responsible?

"There is no doubt this is a deadly, really powerful, very dangerous hurricane. But the coverage so far . . . is it just me?" Co-host Pat Gray asked Friday, filling in for Glenn.

RELATED: More Than 500 Reported Dead as Haiti Starts Long Cleanup After Hurricane Matthew

Reporting at Fox News, Shep Smith had this to say:

This moves 20 miles to the west, and you and everyone you know are dead. All of you. Because you can't survive it. It's not possible unless you're very, very lucky. And your kids die too.

"That is not responsible coverage," Co-host Stu Burguiere responded.

Granted, Smith witnessed and reported on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but does that warrant sensational fearmongering?

Read below or watch the clip for answers to these responsible questions:

• What hurricane was two categories higher than Matthew?

• Does Fox News typically cover funeral expenses for citizens?

• Do carton-like threats work better to prevent widespread panic?

• Will Hurricane Matthew be the strongest on record?

• Does climate control prevent hurricanes?

• Did hurricanes occur before people inhabited the U.S.?

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

PAT: Glenn is out today, the Glenn Beck Program. It's Pat, Stu, Jeffy, filling in.

Are you aware that we're all going to die? That's what we heard yesterday on Fox News. We'll start with the media chaos and the insane coverage that is going on, right now.

(music)

PAT: It's the Glenn Beck Program. Pat, Stu, Jeffy.

There is no doubt this is a deadly, really powerful, very dangerous hurricane. But the coverage so far has -- is it just me?

JEFFY: A little strange?

PAT: It's crazy. It is crazy. Listen to this.

SHEP: Over on our wall, a look at the storm track. The forecasters today have expanded the area where the storm may hit.

See this? Melbourne, Daytona Beach, all the way to Jacksonville. This moves 20 miles to the west, and you and everyone you know are dead. All of you. Because you can't survive it.

PAT: Wow. Wow.

SHEP: It's not possible unless you're very, very lucky. And your kids die too.

STU: What? What the hell?

PAT: Is that responsible coverage?

JEFFY: No.

STU: That is not. That is not responsible coverage.

JEFFY: That is not responsible coverage.

PAT: Then there was this.

VOICE: Hugo was, get out.

PAT: Right.

VOICE: As hundreds of thousands of people try to get out of harm's way, I'll speak with somebody who is flatout refusing to leave, and I'll ask her why she's staying and if she expects us to cover her funeral.

STU: What the hell?

PAT: I'm going to guess no, she probably doesn't -- since Fox News doesn't cover a lot of funerals, I would think the answer to that would be no.

JEFFY: No, they do not.

STU: They covered Mandela's funeral.

PAT: Mandela. Maybe Ronald Reagan.

JEFFY: They get Princess Diana?

PAT: Probably.

JEFFY: Probably?

PAT: I don't remember. Probably.

STU: They could have also picked the person in Florida who decided not to leave.

PAT: They could. It's unlikely.

STU: That is weird.

PAT: Wow, that's nutty.

STU: I think there's that element of coverage where they think if they don't scare you, you're going it think, "Eh, that's not that big of a deal."

JEFFY: Yes.

STU: So they, I think, intentionally are telling you thinks that are attempting to scare you. That being said, it actually is a very scary storm.

PAT: It is.

STU: And there is a legitimate amount of panic and preparation that should happen. And "panic" is not the right word. You shouldn't be panicking. But you should be reacting to the danger. The issue is, when you start getting carton-like threats like that, no one takes it seriously.

PAT: I know.

JEFFY: Yeah.

STU: It's like global warming. They keep telling you you're going to die every nine seconds. And when you don't die, nobody believes it anymore.

PAT: Right. Over on the Weather Channel, more of -- I mean, not quite as bad as Shep Smith. But...

VOICE: This is like no storm in the record books. We are concerned about reports of people deciding to stay in areas under mandatory evacuation orders.

PAT: Now, let me ask you just that. This is like no storm on the record books? Andrew was a Cat 5. It was much stronger than this.

JEFFY: Ever. Yeah, ever..

STU: There's only five categories.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: And we all know it's one through five.

PAT: And they're acting like this is a Category 206. There's never been a Category 206 because the scale only goes to five. What are you talking about?

VOICE: This is a mistake. This is not hype. This is not hyperbole.

PAT: Uh-huh.

VOICE: And I am not kidding. I cannot overstate the danger of the storm.

PAT: I think you just did.

VOICE: Central and North Florida have never been hit by a hurricane this strong. If you live in a Florida evacuation zone, you need to head to a safe spot now. Do not assume you can survive if you choose to stay. There will be overwhelming damage and likely a heartbreaking loss of life. Based on everything we know, Matthew will make history. The Weather Channel does not want you to be part of that history.

(music)

JEFFY: Thank you.

PAT: Is it because they haven't had a major hurricane to sink their teeth into, in 11 years in America that this kind of coverage is going on?

JEFFY: Yes. Well, we did have, what, Hermine right up in the armpit of Florida this year, earlier this year.

PAT: Although it was a Category 1.

JEFFY: Yeah. Yeah. And by the time, when it -- it made landfall as a hurricane and then broke apart, you know, almost immediately.

PAT: And, by the way, Hillary said this about Hurricane Hermine.

VOICE: What will I tell my son?

PAT: Oh, that's the other one.

STU: She does do those accent to certain audiences. You can detect it.

PAT: She does.

JEFFY: She does.

HILLARY: Another threat to our country is climate change. 2015 was the hottest year on record.

PAT: Yeah, I've been saying that.

No.

HILLARY: The science is clear.

PAT: The science is not clear. But they keep saying that so you will eventually believe it.

STU: That is --

HILLARY: It is real. It's wreaking havoc on communities across America. Last week's hurricane was another reminder of the devastation that extreme weather can cause. And I send my thoughts and prayers to everyone affected by Hermine.

PAT: Yeah.

HILLARY: But this is not the last one that's going to hit Florida, given what's happening in the climate.

PAT: By the way, it's not the first either, given what's happening in the climate.

STU: I think she's right on that last part though.

PAT: It is not the last that will hit Florida. I'll guarantee you that. It's not -- there's not -- the last hurricane will never happen on this planet because hurricanes happen, and they've always happened. And they'll continue to happen. And they've happened with much more regularity than this.

STU: Because of global warming. Is that --

PAT: No, no.

STU: If you end that --

PAT: Long before global warming. Back in the third century, hurricanes were happening in Florida. Nobody lived there, so we didn't know about it. But hurricanes were happening. In the BC period of time, hurricanes were happening. Was there a lot of global warming, climate change happening at that time?

JEFFY: The media didn't cover it.

PAT: How devastating was Hermine? Because it was a Category 1.

JEFFY: Yeah, Hermine was the first one to hit since '05.

PAT: Since '05. First hurricane.

JEFFY: Technically was a hurricane. And, you know, there was some flooding and stuff. But the aftermath in Florida alone --

PAT: Yeah.

JEFFY: -- in Lee County, crews were deployed to collect plant debris.

PAT: I mean, plant debris.

JEFFY: Hernando County --

STU: You can joke about that, but what does that mean to the plant? The plant -- it hurt the plant quite a bit.

PAT: It means a lot.

JEFFY: Worked in Hernando County before. They provided curbside debris removal, and two parts were closed.

PAT: Two? Is that hyperbole on your part, Jeffy?

(laughter)

STU: I mean, look, there's a big --

JEFFY: I know there was a lot of flooding damage and stuff throughout it.

PAT: Yes.

JEFFY: But it was --

PAT: And I will say, a tree fell on a homeless person and killed him. So they were able then to call it a deadly storm.

STU: Quite a different scale of what we're looking at now.

JEFFY: No kidding.

STU: Haiti, the death toll is up to 478.

PAT: Oh, my gosh.

STU: I mean, it's brutal.

JEFFY: So sad.

PAT: But it has nothing to do --

STU: Yeah.

PAT: I can't believe they're making this into climate change. And they are. I can't believe they're making this into a climate change storm. They've had nothing to go on for 11 years.

STU: And, remember, this was the marquis claim of people who believed in global warming and wanted to scare you about it, when Al Gore's movie came out.

PAT: Right. "There's going to be stronger and more frequent hurricanes."

STU: To the point of, on the theatrical poster of An Inconvenient Truth was a giant hurricane.

PAT: Exactly.

JEFFY: Right.

STU: It was their prime time, number one claim. Following that movie, we went 11 years with no hurricanes in Florida. And, you know, nothing --

PAT: And not a single --

STU: This is the first major one.

PAT: Major hurricane in all that time. We've had a few minor ones. A few smaller ones. I think -- the one that hit us before we left Houston, Ike, was a high two or low three.

STU: Yeah, the one thing that everyone will point to is, quote, unquote, Hurricane Sandy, which was not a hurricane.

PAT: Not a hurricane.

STU: Wound up not being a hurricane before it hit. And it was not a wind-situation incident. You had an island there. There was very unique circumstances.

PAT: There was flooding.

STU: Where a storm hits the place where we store all of our tall buildings. So there was a lot of damage that happened there.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: But as far as natural disasters go that could be linked to climate, we've had a really good run there. And this is the point with global warming. It doesn't matter what the run is. It doesn't matter what the past is.

PAT: Not at all.

STU: It's just, what is happening right now? Right now, people are focusing on weather. Therefore, global warming is going to be -- Al Gore is going to be out on the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton. That's what's going to happen. They're going to tell millennials that this is all daddy and grandpa's fault. You know, the people who built your society. Those terrible, terrible people, they're responsible for the .9-degree temperature rise, and they should be blamed for it. And somehow, that means you should vote for Hillary Clinton, which is inexplicable in --

JEFFY: Well, I mean, technically -- I mean, Matthew is wreaking havoc along the east coast. Right now, it's a little north of Cape Canaveral. But technically Matthew has not made landfall.

STU: Right. I thought I heard --

JEFFY: It obviously made landfall in Haiti, when it was cutting across -- you know, when it was coming across the Caribbean and the Bahamas, but not the US.

STU: Right. I thought it did on an island.

JEFFY: Yeah, that's possible.

STU: Yeah, right.

Regardless though, this is a dangerous storm.

JEFFY: Absolutely.

STU: They're saying they believe that the way it's turning -- you know, it's going to be more of a north Florida -- Georgia is going to be the hardest part hit, rather than Southern Florida, which kind of got away with --

JEFFY: Yeah.

STU: Which is great. But, I mean, the thing about this is, as you look at these hurricane paths -- you'll see this all the time. They have this -- they're called the spaghetti --

JEFFY: The spaghetti models, yeah, sure.

STU: You'll see the spaghetti models. And it looks like a bunch of lines just drawn on top of each other that all pretty much go generally same way.

JEFFY: They all want to go back east.

STU: And then there's always one or two that shows it turning back and circling South America and then stopping on Hawaii for nine months. You know, there's always that one model that's totally --

JEFFY: There's more than one model showing Matthew doing that now.

STU: Right. There's a couple that -- not that. But something else --

JEFFY: No, but turning back around. Turning back around.

STU: I'm just making a general point about when you look at these models. Because this is the time of when everybody is thinking of them. The spaghetti models, they all shoot up the same way. And then there's always one or two that drifts off that kind of just drifts off in some weird direction.

PAT: Uh-huh.

STU: With global warming predictions, they have the same modeling. They have the spaghetti model. And all of them shoot up in all of the same direction. And then there's one or two that just kind of straggle around. And there's almost no warming at all. The temperatures are matching those models. It's going the opposite way.

JEFFY: Right.

STU: The crazy, outlying -- the hurricane model that makes it circle around South America and stop over Hawaii for six months, that's the model the temperatures are actually following. And to see that, when we're supposed to be so sure about what's happening with global warming and how there's going to be so certain -- and the science is settled -- we can give you some polling on this. The American people certainly don't think the science is settled, including liberal Democrats. Even they don't buy --

JEFFY: The administration just keeps driving it home.

STU: They just keep saying it. It's like Shep Smith. I guess if you continue to tell people they're going to die, in your mind, you think, well, maybe one person will take it seriously. Maybe somebody out there will listen.

But I think the other side of that is that a lot of people kind of laugh and move on with their lives.

PAT: What happened to their theory -- and I think is fact: Weather is not climate, and climate is not weather.

JEFFY: Right.

PAT: Don't confuse a weather event with the climate. Because they always said that to us because they were predicting that there was going to be no more snow. Remember that?

STU: Yeah.

PAT: Every Democrat living today. And especially living back then in the early 2000s, would say, "There's not -- pretty soon, you're going to have to tell your children what snow was. Because we're not going to have any." Really? So every time it snowed, we said, "Well, it's still snowing."

Yeah, don't confuse climate with weather. That's just a weather event. But every weather event now that is severe, whether it's a hurricane, snowstorm, whatever, that is now climate change. Every single one of them proves their point.

STU: Right. Even the snowstorms.

PAT: Even the snowstorms.

STU: Which is amazing. Because you're right. That was their answer to, well, there's a big snowstorm. Eh, it's just the weather. It's got nothing to do with climate. Now, even the snowstorms have to do with climate.

PAT: Talk about science deniers. Oh, man.

Featured Image: Screenshot of Fox News anchor Shep Smith reporting on Hurricane Matthew.

Glenn Beck: Here's what's WRONG with conservatism today

Getty Images / Handout | Getty Images

What does it mean to be a conservative in 2025? Glenn offers guidance on what conservatives need to do to ensure the conservative movement doesn't fade into oblivion. We have to get back to PRINCIPLES, not policies.

To be a conservative in 2025 means to STAND

for Stewardship, protecting the wisdom of our Founders;
for Truth, defending objective reality in an age of illusion;
for Accountability, living within our means as individuals and as a nation;
for Neighborhood, rebuilding family, faith, and local community;
and for Duty, carrying freedom forward to the next generation.

A conservative doesn’t cling to the past — he stands guard over the principles that make the future possible.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not.

It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago.

And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no.

But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And it's easy. Because the world got easy. And now the world is changing so rapidly. The boundaries between truth and illusion are blurred second by second. Machines now think. Currencies falter. Families fractured. And nations, all over the world, have forgotten who they are.

So what does it mean to be a conservative now, in 2025, '26. For a lot of people, it means opposing the left. That's -- that's a reaction. That's not renewal.

That's a reaction. It can't mean also worshiping the past, as if the past were perfect. The founders never asked for that.

They asked that we would preserve the principles and perfect their practice. They knew it was imperfect. To make a more perfect nation.

Is what we're supposed to be doing.

2025, '26 being a conservative has to mean stewardship.

The stewardship of a nation, of a civilization.

Of a moral inheritance. That is too precious to abandon.

What does it mean to conserve? To conserve something doesn't mean to stand still.

It means to stand guard. It means to defend what the Founders designed. The separation of powers. The rule of law.

The belief that our rights come not from kings or from Congress, but from the creator himself.
This is a system that was not built for ease. It was built for endurance, and it will endure if we only teach it again!

The problem is, we only teach it like it's a museum piece. You know, it's not a museum piece. It's not an old dusty document. It's a living covenant between the dead, the living and the unborn.

So this chapter of -- of conservatism. Must confront reality. Economic reality.

Global reality.

And moral reality.

It's not enough just to be against something. Or chant tax cuts or free markets.

We have to ask -- we have to start with simple questions like freedom, yes. But freedom for what?

Freedom for economic sovereignty. Your right to produce and to innovate. To build without asking Beijing's permission. That's a moral issue now.

Another moral issue: Debt! It's -- it's generational theft. We're spending money from generations we won't even meet.

And dependence. Another moral issue. It's a national weakness.

People cannot stand up for themselves. They can't make it themselves. And we're encouraging them to sit down, shut up, and don't think.

And the conservative who can't connect with fiscal prudence, and connect fiscal prudence to moral duty, you're not a conservative at all.

Being a conservative today, means you have to rebuild an economy that serves liberty, not one that serves -- survives by debt, and then there's the soul of the nation.

We are living through a time period. An age of dislocation. Where our families are fractured.

Our faith is almost gone.

Meaning is evaporating so fast. Nobody knows what meaning of life is. That's why everybody is killing themselves. They have no meaning in life. And why they don't have any meaning, is truth itself is mocked and blurred and replaced by nothing, but lies and noise.

If you want to be a conservative, then you have to be to become the moral compass that reminds a lost people, liberty cannot survive without virtue.

That freedom untethered from moral order is nothing, but chaos!

And that no app, no algorithm, no ideology is ever going to fill the void, where meaning used to live!

To be a conservative, moving forward, we cannot just be about policies.

We have to defend the sacred, the unseen, the moral architecture, that gives people an identity. So how do you do that? Well, we have to rebuild competence. We have to restore institutions that actually work. Just in the last hour, this monologue on what we're facing now, because we can't open the government.

Why can't we open the government?

Because government is broken. Why does nobody care? Because education is broken.

We have to reclaim education, not as propaganda, but as the formation of the mind and the soul. Conservatives have to champion innovation.

Not to imitate Silicon Valley's chaos, but to harness technology in defense of human dignity. Don't be afraid of AI.

Know what it is. Know it's a tool. It's a tool to strengthen people. As long as you always remember it's a tool. Otherwise, you will lose your humanity to it!

That's a conservative principle. To be a conservative, we have to restore local strength. Our families are the basic building blocks, our schools, our churches, and our charities. Not some big, distant NGO that was started by the Tides Foundation, but actual local charities, where you see people working. A web of voluntary institutions that held us together at one point. Because when Washington fails, and it will, it already has, the neighborhood has to stand.

Charlie Kirk was doing one thing that people on our side were not doing. Speaking to the young.

But not in nostalgia.

Not in -- you know, Reagan, Reagan, Reagan.

In purpose. They don't remember. They don't remember who Dick Cheney was.

I was listening to Fox news this morning, talking about Dick Cheney. And there was somebody there that I know was not even born when Dick Cheney. When the World Trade Center came down.

They weren't even born. They were telling me about Dick Cheney.

And I was like, come on. Come on. Come on.

If you don't remember who Dick Cheney was, how are you going to remember 9/11. How will you remember who Reagan was.

That just says, that's an old man's creed. No, it's not.

It's the ultimate timeless rebellion against tyranny in all of its forms. Yes, and even the tyranny of despair, which is eating people alive!

We need to redefine ourselves. Because we have changed, and that's a good thing. The creed for a generation, that will decide the fate of the republic, is what we need to find.

A conservative in 2025, '26.

Is somebody who protects the enduring principles of American liberty and self-government.

While actively stewarding the institutions. The culture. The economy of this nation!

For those who are alive and yet to be unborn.

We have to be a group of people that we're not anchored in the past. Or in rage! But in reason. And morality. Realism. And hope for the future.

We're the stewards! We're the ones that have to relight the torch, not just hold it. We didn't -- we didn't build this Torch. We didn't make this Torch. We're the keepers of the flame, but we are honor-bound to pass that forward, and conservatives are viewed as people who just live in the past. We're not here to merely conserve the past, but to renew it. To sort it. What worked, what didn't work. We're the ones to say to the world, there's still such a thing as truth. There's still such a thing as virtue. You can deny it all you want.

But the pain will only get worse. There's still such a thing as America!

And if now is not the time to renew America. When is that time?

If you're not the person. If we're not the generation to actively stand and redefine and defend, then who is that person?

We are -- we are supposed to preserve what works.

That -- you know, I was writing something this morning.

I was making notes on this. A constitutionalist is for restraint. A progressive, if you will, for lack of a better term, is for more power.

Progressives want the government to have more power.

Conservatives are for more restraint.

But the -- for the American eagle to fly, we must have both wings.

And one can't be stronger than the other.

We as a conservative, are supposed to look and say, no. Don't look at that. The past teaches us this, this, and this. So don't do that.

We can't do that. But there are these things that we were doing in the past, that we have to jettison. And maybe the other side has a good idea on what should replace that. But we're the ones who are supposed to say, no, but remember the framework.

They're -- they can dream all they want.
They can come up with all these utopias and everything else, and we can go, "That's a great idea."

But how do we make it work with this framework? Because that's our job. The point of this is, it takes both. It takes both.

We have to have the customs and the moral order. And the practices that have stood the test of time, in trial.

We -- we're in an amazing, amazing time. Amazing time.

We live at a time now, where anything -- literally anything is possible!

I don't want to be against stuff. I want to be for the future. I want to be for a rich, dynamic future. One where we are part of changing the world for the better!

Where more people are lifted out of poverty, more people are given the freedom to choose, whatever it is that they want to choose, as their own government and everything.

I don't want to force it down anybody's throat.

We -- I am so excited to be a shining city on the hill again.

We have that opportunity, right in front of us!

But not in we get bogged down in hatred, in division.

Not if we get bogged down into being against something.

We must be for something!

I know what I'm for.

Do you?

How America’s elites fell for the same lie that fueled Auschwitz

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

The drone footage out of Gaza isn’t just war propaganda — it’s a glimpse of the same darkness that once convinced men they were righteous for killing innocents.

Evil introduces itself subtly. It doesn’t announce, “Hi, I’m here to destroy you.” It whispers. It flatters. It borrows the language of justice, empathy, and freedom, twisting them until hatred sounds righteous and violence sounds brave.

We are watching that same deception unfold again — in the streets, on college campuses, and in the rhetoric of people who should know better. It’s the oldest story in the world, retold with new slogans.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage.

A drone video surfaced this week showing Hamas terrorists staging the “discovery” of a hostage’s body. They pushed a corpse out of a window, dragged it into a hole, buried it, and then called in aid workers to “find” what they themselves had planted. It was theater — evil, disguised as victimhood. And it was caught entirely on camera.

That’s how evil operates. It never comes in through the front door. It sneaks in, often through manipulative pity. The same spirit animates the moral rot spreading through our institutions — from the halls of universities to the chambers of government.

Take Zohran Mamdani, a New York assemblyman who has praised jihadists and defended pro-Hamas agitators. His father, a Columbia University professor, wrote that America and al-Qaeda are morally equivalent — that suicide bombings shouldn’t be viewed as barbaric. Imagine thinking that way after watching 3,000 Americans die on 9/11. That’s not intellectualism. That’s indoctrination.

Often, that indoctrination comes from hostile foreign actors, peddled by complicit pawns on our own soil. The pro-Hamas protests that erupted across campuses last year, for example, were funded by Iran — a regime that murders its own citizens for speaking freely.

Ancient evil, new clothes

But the deeper danger isn’t foreign money. It’s the spiritual blindness that lets good people believe resentment is justice and envy is discernment. Scripture talks about the spirit of Amalek — the eternal enemy of God’s people, who attacks the weak from behind while the strong look away. Amalek never dies; it just changes its vocabulary and form with the times.

Today, Amalek tweets. He speaks through professors who defend terrorism as “anti-colonial resistance.” He preaches from pulpits that call violence “solidarity.” And he recruits through algorithms, whispering that the Jews control everything, that America had it coming, that chaos is freedom. Those are ancient lies wearing new clothes.

When nations embrace those lies, it’s not the Jews who perish first. It’s the nations themselves. The soul dies long before the body. The ovens of Auschwitz didn’t start with smoke; they started with silence and slogans.

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

A time for choosing

So what do we do? We speak truth — calmly, firmly, without venom. Because hatred can’t kill hatred; it only feeds it. Truth, compassion, and courage starve it to death.

Evil wins when good people mirror its rage. That’s how Amalek survives — by making you fight him with his own weapons. The only victory that lasts is moral clarity without malice, courage without cruelty.

The war we’re fighting isn’t new. It’s the same battle between remembrance and amnesia, covenant and chaos, humility and pride. The same spirit that whispered to Pharaoh, to Hitler, and to every mob that thought hatred could heal the world is whispering again now — on your screens, in your classrooms, in your churches.

Will you join it, or will you stand against it?

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.