President Obama left the Denver fundraiser, where Mark Udall was a no-show, for Dallas, where the real action was. Conservatives wanted Obama to go to the border just to get a photo of him there, but it was Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who seems to be running for president again, who ended up doing the photo op. Perry met Obama on the airport tarmac, and Obama challenged Perry to back his $3.7 billion plan for the humanitarian border crisis. Via The New York Times.
Twitter was agog with comments and retweets on a tweet by Doug Mills, New York Times photographer, who caught Obama laughing and Perry scowling in the photo above, at a meeting with Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings. The Wire called a slightly different view, same scowl, a “photo for the ages.”
Dana Milbank makes the obvious point that it wasn’t Obama’s “lawlessness” that caused the crisis on the border. The problem, long in the making, has had far more to do with Obama’s willingness to follow the law. Via the Washington Post.
For a different kind of insecurity, the latest disclosures from the Snowden papers: the NSA and the FBI monitored the emails of prominent Muslim-Americans, including a longtime Republican Party operative. In The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain explain and profile five whose stories have sparked mixed reactions. Vox notes the “most inflammatory” revelation in the story: an NSA training document from 2005 used the made-up name “Mohammed Raghead” for a fictitious terrorism suspect. The slur, Vox says, is a reminder that “it’s important to have robust judicial oversight before the NSA is allowed to spy on Americans.”
Vox also helpfully explains 13 ways the NSA spies on all of us.
Here’s a question no one has put on a test, but what do you think Mark Twain would have thought of the common core testing? I’ll bet you can come up with a good answer. How about this Twain quote: “In the first place God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.” Via the Atlantic.
If you ever wondered what we would do if we took global warming seriously, you’re in luck. Vox provides a step-by-step guide.
Women are from Venus; flat-earth climate deniers have this extremely unscientific thing about Mars. Here’s the best (worst?) one yet. Via The New Republic.
This is the statistic that even George Will couldn’t dismiss: Forty percent of colleges haven’t investigated even a single sexual assault case over the last five years. Via the National Journal.
One thing is clear about the kick-starter potato salad guy: He should keep every penny. Via the New Yorker.
[Note: This post has been updated.]
[Photo via Twitter by New York Times photographer Doug Mills @dougmillsnyt]
