Addison Mitchell McConnell III is an American politician and retired attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky, since 1985. McConnell is in his seventh Senate term and is longest-serving senator in Kentucky history. He served from 2007 to 2025 as the leader of the Senate Republican Conference, including two stints as minority leader, and was majority leader from 2015 to 2021, making him the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history.
John Andrew Boehner is an American retired politician who served as the 53rd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. A member of the Republican Party, he served 13 terms as the U.S. representative for Ohio's 8th congressional district from 1991 to 2015. The district included several rural and suburban areas near Cincinnati and Dayton.
Leon Acton "Lynn" Westmoreland is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for Georgia's 3rd congressional district from 2007 to 2017 and the 8th district from 2005 to 2007. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Frank Ian Luntz is an American political and communications consultant and pollster, best known for developing talking points and other messaging for Republican causes. His work has included assistance with messaging for Newt Gingrich's Contract with America and public relations support for The Israel Project. He advocated use of vocabulary crafted to produce a desired effect, including use of the term death tax instead of estate tax, and climate change instead of global warming.
Edward Scott Pruitt is an American attorney, lobbyist and Republican politician from the state of Oklahoma. He served as the 14th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from February 17, 2017, to July 9, 2018, during the Donald Trump presidency, resigning while under at least 14 federal investigations. Pruitt denies the scientific consensus on climate change.
Conservapedia is an English-language, wiki-based, online encyclopedia written from a self-described American conservative and fundamentalist Christian point of view. The website was established in 2006 by American homeschool teacher and attorney Andrew Schlafly, son of the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, to counter what he perceived as a liberal bias on Wikipedia. It uses editorials and a wiki-based system for content generation.
In addition to its standard interviews, The Colbert Report features many recurring segments that cover a variety of topics.
Barack Obama's tenure as the 44th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 2009, and ended on January 20, 2017. Obama, a Democrat from Illinois, took office following his victory over Republican nominee John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Four years later, in the 2012 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee Mitt Romney, to win re-election. Obama is the first African American president, the first multiracial president, the first non-white president, and the first president born in Hawaii. Obama was succeeded by Republican Donald Trump, who won the 2016 presidential election. Historians and political scientists rank him among the upper tier in historical rankings of American presidents.
Brian Christopher Deese is an American economic and political advisor who was the 13th director of the National Economic Council, serving under President Joe Biden.
350.org is an international environmental organization addressing the climate crisis. Its stated goal is to end the use of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy by building a global, grassroots movement.
Rick Perry is an American politician who served as the 47th Governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015. He was a candidate for the nomination of the Republican Party for President of the United States in 2012 and 2016, and served as the United States Secretary of Energy until December 1, 2019.
Lenar Marie Ledet Whitney is an American businesswoman from Houma, Louisiana, who is a Republican former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 53 in Terrebonne Parish. She was a member of the Louisiana delegation of the Republican National Committee. Whitney lost her election on Saturday April 6, 2024 for an additional term on the RNC. Whitney was soundly defeated by Gena Gore. Whitney lost her bid for a second term in the runoff election held on November 21, 2015. A year earlier, she had been an unsuccessful candidate in the nonpartisan blanket primary for Louisiana's 6th congressional district seat.
In late October 2012, the post-tropical cyclone once known as Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey. By the time it made landfall, it had merged with other storm systems. Though no longer a hurricane, the combined storm caused over $50 billion in damages and cost over 100 lives in the United States.
The second inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States was the 57th inauguration, marking the commencement of his second and final term, with Joe Biden as vice president. This is the most recent presidential inauguration where the incumbent president was sworn in for a consecutive second term after winning reelection. A private swearing-in ceremony took place on Sunday, January 20, 2013, in the Blue Room of the White House, followed by a public inauguration ceremony on Monday, January 21, 2013, at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.
Regina McCarthy is an American air quality expert who served as the first White House national climate advisor from 2021 to 2022. She previously served as the thirteenth Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2013 to 2017.
The Climate Action Plan is an environmental plan by Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, that proposed a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. It included preserving forests, encouraging alternate fuels, and increasing the study of climate change. The plan was first prepared in 2008 and was then updated every two years.
The Clean Power Plan was an Obama administration policy aimed at combating climate change that was first proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in June 2014. The final version of the plan was unveiled by President Barack Obama on August 3, 2015. Each state was assigned a target for reducing carbon emissions within its borders, which could be accomplished how the states saw fit, but with the possibility of the EPA stepping in if a state refused to submit a plan. If every state met its target, the plan was projected to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation by 32 percent relative to 2005 levels by 2030, and would have reduced other harmful air pollution as well.
Thanks, Obama is an Internet meme both seriously and satirically used in regard to policies pursued by Barack Obama, the President of the United States from 2009 to 2017.
The environmental policy of the first Donald Trump administration represented a shift from the policy priorities and goals of the preceding Barack Obama administration. Where President Obama's environmental agenda prioritized the reduction of carbon emissions through the use of renewable energy with the goal of conserving the environment for future generations, the Trump administration policy was for the US to attain energy independence based on fossil fuel use and to rescind many environmental regulations. By the end of Trump's term, his administration had rolled back 98 environmental rules and regulations, leaving an additional 14 rollbacks still in progress. As of early 2021, the Biden administration was making a public accounting of regulatory decisions under the Trump administration that had been influenced by politics rather than science.
The political positions of Mitch McConnell are reflected by his United States Senate voting record, public speeches, and interviews, as well as his actions as Senate majority and minority leader. McConnell was known as a pragmatist and a moderate Republican early in his political career, but shifted to the right over time. He led opposition to stricter campaign finance laws, culminating in the Supreme Court ruling that partially overturned the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold) in 2010 and was influential in the opposition to abortion rights, culminating in the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe V Wade and ended federal abortion protections.
