Thursday punditry. It was 108 degrees at the airport in Las Vegas. Well, that's the weather; let's talk climate.
Dave Leonhardt:
This city just endured its hottest June since records began in 1872, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. So did Miami. Atlanta suffered its second-hottest June, and Dallas had its third hottest.
In New York, the weather was relatively pleasant: only the fourth-hottest June since 1872. Then again, New York is on pace for its hottest July on record.
Yet when United States senators and their aides file into work on Wednesday, on yet another 90-degree day, they may be on the verge of deciding to do approximately nothing about global warming. The needed 60 votes don’t seem to be there, at least not at the moment.
Timothy Egan:
In Senator Inhofe’s home state of Oklahoma, the National Weather Service issued a warning this week of "dangerous heat index values" of up to 110 degrees. A report from AccuWeather.com last month stated that, this year, "no other region has seen the variety of extreme weather" as much as Oklahoma.
Extreme weather. Perfect for an extreme politician, a man who won his senate seat in 1994 by using, as his slogan, the actual words of a cynical strategy to get people to think about anything but real issues: "God, guns, and gays." Maybe, with this weather, God is trying to tell the senator something.
In Washington, I expected to see a homemade greenhouse constructed by Inhofe, complete with pithy remarks about the heat. No?
Karen Tumulty and Ed O'Keefe:
Ousted Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, who was portrayed as a racist in a selectively excerpted Internet video, on Wednesday achieved something almost unheard of in overheated Washington: swift and utter vindication.
Eugene Robinson:
After the Shirley Sherrod episode, there's no longer any need to mince words: A cynical right-wing propaganda machine is peddling the poisonous fiction that when African Americans or other minorities reach positions of power, they seek some kind of revenge against whites.
If journalists were really journalists, Andrew Breitbart would be discredited and from now on, ignored.
Greg Dworkin (that's me):
But it is symptomatic of right-wingers deliberately trying to gin up fake issues and trying to get the media to bite. You are being played every day, folks. You are being played every time you turn on Fox or click Drudge. There’s nothing fair or balanced about it. And that, my friends, is the real story.
NY Times Room for Debate:
Twenty-seven states have said they will adopt the recently unveiled national education standards, and several other states are expected to sign on in the next two weeks.
The Obama administration has pressed hard for the speedy acceptance of the so-called common core standards, arguing that the establishment of centralized norms replacing those in 50 states will raise the achievement of students who most need help. The opponents say that a system created in Washington will become captive to the education establishment, and that the standards, as currently written, will promote mediocrity across the board.
Will the adoption of the national curriculum standards improve public education? What are the risks?
Desmond Tutu:
HAVING met President Obama, I’m confident that he’s a man of conscience who shares my commitment to bringing hope and care to the world’s poor. But I am saddened by his decision to spend less than he promised to treat AIDS patients in Africa.
George W. Bush made an impressive commitment to the international fight against AIDS when he formed the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program. Since 2004, Pepfar has spent $19 billion to help distribute anti-viral treatments to about 2.5 million Africans infected with H.I.V.
PEPFAR is the one thing Bush did right.