(wsj)  Last November there was a world-wide outcry when a trove of emails were released suggesting some of the world's leading climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Keith Briffa called "a nice, tidy story" of climate history. The scandal became known as Climategate.

Now a supposedly independent review of the evidence says, in effect, "nothing to see here." Last week "The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review," commissioned and paid for by the University of East Anglia, exonerated the University of East Anglia. The review committee was chaired by Sir Muir Russell, former vice chancellor at the University of Glasgow.

Mr. Russell took pains to present his committee, which consisted of four other academics, as independent. He told the Times of London that "Given the nature of the allegations it is right that someone who has no links to either the university or the climate science community looks at the evidence and makes recommendations based on what they find."

No links? One of the panel's four members, Prof. Geoffrey Boulton, was on the faculty of East Anglia's School of Environmental Sciences for 18 years. At the beginning of his tenure, the Climatic Research Unit (CRU)—the source of the Climategate emails—was established in Mr. Boulton's school at East Anglia. Last December, Mr. Boulton signed a petition declaring that the scientists who established the global climate records at East Anglia "adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity."

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(thehill) Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Thursday that strong global warming legislation lacks 60 votes and claimed Republicans are paying attention to conservative media pundits rather than climate science.

"It is absolutely incredible and very, very sad — and I say this not from a political point of view — that a lot of very bright Republicans no longer pay attention to science and are much more interested in the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck," he said.

Sanders spoke with reporters in the Capitol on his way to a meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus on energy and climate.

The meeting comes as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is trying to craft an energy package to be brought to the floor this summer.

 Sanders said that with "virtually" no Republican support, every Democrat would have to support a climate plan.

"Do I think we have 60 votes to come up with strong global warming legislation? No," Sanders said. "I think it is a tragedy, but that's the way it is."

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(townhall)  Oil is spewing from beneath a British Petroleum oil rig into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of about 1 million gallons a day. There's no end in sight -- although White House officials have made it clear their goal is to stop the leak before the midterm elections in November.

Obama now spends at least half of every day answering pointed, increasingly aggressive questions about the oil spill, most of them from his daughter Malia.

The president finally went down to take a look at the oil disaster last week –- which is weird because I didn't even know there were golf courses near the Gulf. To show his concern, Obama is thinking about returning some of the nearly $1 million the oil industry donated to his campaign.

Ha, ha -- just kidding. He's not returning any oil money. But the situation has gotten so urgent that Obama did take time off from his golf game to praise the Phoenix Suns for protesting Arizona’s new immigration law.

He really did endorse the Phoenix Suns, which -- like most of his endorsements -- has resulted in their being eliminated by the Los Angeles Lakers over the weekend. (Did I dream this, or was it just yesterday that President Obama was congratulating Al and Tipper Gore on their long and happy marriage?)

The media have been crowing that Republicans will lose the Hispanic vote forever if they support enforcing laws against illegal immigration, such as the Arizona law. To great fanfare, a poll was released last week showing that 67 percent of Hispanics oppose the Arizona law.

The headline on that poll should have been: "One-Third of Hispanics Support Arizona Immigration Law Despite Frantic Media Campaign to Convince Them It’s a Racist Plot Against Hispanics."


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(newsbusters)  On Saturday, the Associated Press informed its readers that President Obama cannot be expected to focus all of his attention on the Gulf Coast oil spill.

The reason? Presidents have to juggle a number of pressing issues at a time, and what with America being in a recession, Obama simply can't afford to give sole focus to this disaster.

Too bad the AP wasn't so understanding in 2005 when President Bush was perceived as being detached from the suffering in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Back then, the wire service was quick to mention vacation plans and peddle accusations of the federal government not caring about the poor.

But what a difference with a Democrat in the White House: as BP's efforts to plug the leak continue to fail, there is increasing danger of Americans putting partial blame on an ineffective government - and we just can't have that.

The AP's Ben Feller helpfully published a reminder that there's more going on in the world than oil pumping into the water in the Gulf.

Suddenly after years of ignoring the constant threat of terror, it dawned on the AP that keeping America safe is kind of a full time job.

Obama is concerned with swaying Republicans to vote for finance reform, the election in November, and a diplomat visiting the White House next week - so obviously those things are important enough to distract the president from the worst oil spill in America's history.

Oh, and there's also this pesky detail of allegations that the White House offered a job as a bribe to a Congressman. Feller mentioned it as another distraction while downplaying its serious nature:

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