Was Hurricane Irene caused by global warming?  —  Hurricane Irene hadn't even made landfall in the United States before some people figured out what to blame it on.  —  “Irene's got a middle name, and it's Global Warming,” environmental activist Bill McKibben wrote Thursday night in The Daily Beast.

Gore: Eat less meat to fight warming  —  Al Gore wants society to ditch meat-heavy diets and go organic to combat global warming.  —  “Industrial agriculture is a part of the problem,” Gore said Friday during an interview with FearLess Revolution founder Alex Bogusky.

ESPN Moves to Silence Golf Analyst Who Criticized Obama *UPDATED: ESPN Ignores Political Tweets of Other Personalities *UPDATE: More Cherry-Picking  —  A note for future prospective ESPN employees: You can only cheerlead Obama at ESPN.  I'm not joking.  —  Case in point: The network's golf analyst …

Louisiana Congressman: GOP ‘Sinful’ To Tie Disaster Aid To Spending Cuts … WASHINGTON — As East Coasters brace for what some say will be a historic pummel by Hurricane Irene, at least one lawmaker is fuming over a requirement by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) …

Republican Politician Naked, Bending Over on Gay Sex Site  —  Puerto Rico's Anthony Weiner is much more thrilling than ours: Last week, images from Puerto Rican senator and GOP cheerleader Roberto Arango's alleged profile on gay hook-up app Grindr surfaced.  When a Puerto Rican TV show confronted him …

Don't Panic, Mitt Romney!  —  “Right now,” David Brooks writes today, in the wake of Rick Perry's surge to the front of the G.O.P. field, “the Romney camp is passively hoping [Perry] implodes.  That seems unlikely ... Sooner or later, Romney is going to have to prove his own toughness by taking Perry on directly.”

Bachmann says she'd consider minimum wage changes  —  JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla.—Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said Friday she wouldn't rule out changes to the federal minimum wage as a way to lower the cost of doing business and lure corporations back to the United States.

BREAKING: Joe Solmonese to leave HRC in December; official announcement on Tuesday  —  This is a Pam's House Blend exclusive.  —  Yes, it's the end of an era.  The Blend has learned, from a trusted source in a position to know the details, that Joe Solmonese, President of the Human Rights Campaign …

GOP senator: White House ‘failed miserably’ on economy  —  Freshman Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) on Saturday bashed President Obama's economic record while calling for a balanced budget amendment and a tax code overhaul that lowers rates.  —  Heller's GOP weekly address arrives amid of a wave …

Indiana College Bans “Too Violent” National Anthem  —  First it banned the words, now the whole song  —  The National Anthem is a tradition at sporting events, but it is banned at Goshen College.  —  Tiny Goshen College in Indiana has banned the “The Star Spangled Banner …

U.S. Offers Key Support to Canadian Pipeline  —  WASHINGTON — The Obama administration gave a crucial green light on Friday to a proposed 1,711-mile pipeline that would carry heavy oil from Canada across the Great Plains to terminals in Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast, saying the project …