Free Republic

As the extreme heat now baking the U.S. and other spots around the globe is being fueled by climate change, scientists say we are likely to see similarly hot summers in the future. But, while this type of heat is expected more often, that does not mean every summer will look like this year’s. “We have very high scientific confidence that the world will continue to experience summers like this one and in fact that the frequency of extreme heat will intensify further in response to further global warming,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford...

Included in the 99-page deal to lift the debt ceiling is the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a pipeline that would carry fuel from West Virginia to Virginia and has become a pet project of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Manchin, who would face reelection next year in ruby-red West Virginia if he decides to run, touted the inclusion of the pipeline as something he helped to secure. “I am proud to have fought for this critical project and to have secured the bipartisan support necessary to get it across the finish line,” he said in a written statement.

President Biden is expected to announce a proposal for stronger regulations on the oil and gas sector aimed at controlling emissions of a planet warming gas called methane. The stronger methane regulations are part of a slew of climate-related actions that Biden is expected to announce during his trip to the COP27 global climate summit in Egypt. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projects that in 2030, the requirements would cut 87 percent of methane emissions from the pollution sources that it regulates when compared to 2005 levels. The proposal strengthens a Biden administration proposal from last year that was expected...

A group of 15 Democratic senators wrote to 11 major banks last week asking them to ban funding oil and gas drilling or exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "The scale of your banks’ assets individually, let alone together, give you the ability to drive change in protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in shifting towards a U.S. financial sector that effectively analyzes and plans for climate risks," the senators wrote. "We respectfully urge you to reassess your current environmental and climate policies and update them to include a prohibition on funding for oil and gas drilling or...

Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) announced Friday that he will not seek reelection, making the six-term lawmaker the latest House Republican to head for the doors. "After prayerful consideration, I have decided to retire at the end of the 116th Congress," Roe said in a statement. "Serving East Tennesseans these past 11 years has been the honor of my life, and I will be forever grateful for the trust my friends and neighbors put in me to represent them," said Roe, the top Republican on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee. "As someone who practiced medicine for over 30 years, I said...

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo referred to President Trump as "Dirty Donald" on his show Friday night and sought to promote the hashtag on Twitter while criticizing Republicans' handling of the impeachment process. Cuomo particularly went after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for saying this week that he would be in "total coordination" with White House counsel on strategy for an impeachment trial that is expected to take place in January. "It's not illegal, but there is another word that keeps seeming to fit so much what of this president and his pals do: 'dirty,'" said Cuomo, who has regularly...

An aide to Sen. Kamala Harris blasted the treatment of staff on the California Democrat's presidential campaign in a resignation letter this month. "This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly," wrote state operations director Kelly Mehlenbacher in the Nov. 11 letter, which was obtained by The New York Times. "While I still believe that Senator Harris is the strongest candidate to win in the General Election in 2020, I no longer have confidence in our campaign or its leadership," she added. She wrote that the way staff was treated...

Fox News host Bret Baier said Friday that President Trump's tweet criticizing former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was "adding an article of impeachment real-time." "That was a turning point in this hearing so far," Baier said on Twitter of Trump's tweet. "She was already a sympathetic witness & the President’s tweet ripping her allowed Schiff to point it out real time characterizing it as witness tampering or intimidation -adding an article of impeachment real-time," he added.

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore on Friday endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for president in 2020, saying "he absolutely can win this." Moore said a reason for his decision to support Sanders is the senator's willingness to recognize that capitalism "is at the core" of a number of issues facing the country. "Why me for Bernie?" he said in an MSNBC interview. "Bernie understands that capitalism, and the greedy form of capitalism especially that we have now, is at the core of so many of the problems that we're talking about."

President Trump went after former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden during his Thursday night rally, repeatedly asking where the younger Biden was. ”Joe’s son Hunter got thrown out of the Navy and then he became a genius on Wall Street in about two days,” Trump said while targeting the Democratic presidential candidate's son. “Whatever happened to Hunter? Where the hell is he?” he added at the rally in Minneapolis. “Where’s Hunter?” “Hey fellas, I have an idea for a new T-shirt,” the president continued, turning to the audience. "Let's do another T-shirt: 'Where's Hunter?'" Earlier in...

President Trump recently joined the video streaming platform Twitch, live-streaming his Thursday night rally on the Amazon-owned site. Presidential contenders and politicians have been using the platform over the past several months, live-streaming Q&As and informal conversations to audiences of tens of thousands. Trump's Twitch account had nearly 47,000 followers as of Friday morning. The page indicates that his Minneapolis rally had more than 40,000 views as of Friday, and that his campaign plans to broadcast his rally next week in Dallas. Trump also plans to hold a rally in Louisiana later on Friday. The president is known for his...

Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg doubled down on his support for getting rid of the Electoral College in an interview that aired Thursday on NBC News, calling the institution "undemocratic." "Twice in my young lifetime I've seen the American people overruled by the Electoral College," Buttigieg said. "It's time for that to go because it's undemocratic." Pressed by NBC's Harry Smith on whether Republicans would back scrapping the institution, Buttigieg suggested making the reform years down the road. "So maybe when we make this reform, we set it to take effect in the 2030s, when...

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said Thursday during a sit-down with abortion rights advocates at the Georgia Statehouse that laws prohibiting or limiting abortion rights are "against Christian faith." "If you are a person of the Christian faith, one of the tenets of our faith is free will," Gillibrand said at a press conference, according to CBS News. "One of the tenets of our democracy is that we have a separation of church and state, and under no circumstances are we supposed to be imposing our faith on other people," the Democratic presidential candidate added. "And I think this is an...

President Trump told aides to deny that his internal polling showed him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in key states, according to a new report from The New York Times. Later, when the polling in 17 states conducted by Tony Fabrizio leaked, Trump told aides to tell reporters that other data showed him doing better, according to the Times story written by Annie Karni and Maggie Haberman. The polling reportedly showed Trump behind Biden in a number of the states he needs to take to win reelection, though the Times report did not identify them. Beyond Trump's internal polling,...

YouTube is investigating conservative commentator Steven Crowder after Vox host Carlos Maza accused him of harassment and making derogatory comments about his ethnicity and sexuality. YouTube responded to Maza's tweet thread detailing his allegations, saying that it was "looking into it further." The company also confirmed to The Hill that it was investigating in response to Maza's thread, but declined to comment further. Maza, the host of Vox's media literacy series "Strikethrough," accused Crowder on Twitter this week of "repeated, overt attacks on my sexual orientation and ethnicity." He said that the pundit has called him "an anchor baby" and...

Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) said at a Wednesday congressional hearing that she believes deaths of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border are "intentional." Her comments, made to Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan as he testified to the House Committee on Homeland Security, come days after the announcement that a Guatemalan teen was the fifth minor to die at the border since December. "With five kids that have died ... the evidence is really clear that this is intentional, it’s a policy choice being made on purpose by this administration and it’s cruel and inhumane," the freshman Democrat, who is...

President Trump on Sunday criticized Fox News, accusing the network of "wasting airtime" over its coverage of South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and other Democratic 2020 contenders. "Hard to believe that @FoxNews is wasting airtime on Mayor Pete, as Chris Wallace likes to call him," he wrote, referring to Buttigieg and the Fox News host. Fox News is scheduled to host a town hall with Buttigieg on Sunday night. Trump: "They forgot the people who got them there. Chris Wallace said, 'I actually think, whether you like his opinions or not, that Mayor Pete has a lot of substance...fascinating...

A new book on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts offers new details of his negotiation with liberal justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer to save ObamaCare ahead of the court's landmark ruling in 2012, according to excerpts released on CNN. In Joan Biskupic's "The Chief" which is scheduled to release next Thursday, she writes that Roberts originally opposed upholding the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate that required people to buy insurance, and cast his initial vote to strike it down, but he did join the liberal justices in voting to uphold Medicaid expansion, according to the book. He later...

Comedian Bill Maher drew backlash on Friday after he suggested that Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tx.), who is black, collected intelligence near “Popeyes” during his career in the CIA. Maher had pressed Hurd on why he was a Republican. "They’re not good at national defense — the president’s a traitor. What’s in it for you? What is in the Republican Party for you? You were in the CIA!” Hurd, discussing his work in the CIA with Maher, said “I was the dude in the back alleys at 4 o’clock in the morning collecting intelligence.” “That’s where they collect them?” Maher responded,...