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A proper tweet for a brave congressman and hardy salutes to four American heroes.

Mother Nature could use an injection of creativity. All she’s giving us is 94 and 78 with afternoon thunderstorms. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Your elected officials have a way of beating the heat this time of year. They hop on a United jet (firstclass upgrade at no charge) to junketize. Here’s a fill-in-the-blank letter we imagine getting. Dear Constituent, I hope you’re enjoying Houston’s glorious heat, humidity and the melodic buzz of mosquitoes. I write today from (a) the Caribbean, (b) Europe, (c) the Middle East, (d) a tropical paradise far, far away from you.

I am (a) on a fact-finding mission, (b) thinking about economic development, (c) being your ambassador for the city of Houston, (d) accepting umbrella drinks below the reportable minimum from a lobbyist.

It’s too bad that you can’t join me on (a) vacation, (b) I mean, on my fact-finding mission. Yours truly, (a) City official, (b) County official, (c) State official, (d) Congressman

Greg Abbott is spending your tax dollars on, among other things, a press machine that pumps out countless (remember that last word) news releases, op-eds and other communications touting, of course, the boss’ greatness. In an op-ed this week making the case for putting voter fraud on the special session call, Abbott wrote, “I prosecuted countless cases of voter fraud across the state” as attorney general. We now turn to Pulitzer Prize-winning watchdog, PolitiFact, for its analysis. “If Abbott has the goods on this, he’s keeping secrets,” it wrote in 2016. PolitiFact called Abbott’s claim, “incorrect and ridiculous” and gave it a “PANTS ON FIRE” rating.

The Tweeter-in-Chief could learn something from his predecessor when it comes to effective use of the medium. “John McCain is an American hero & one of the bravest fighters I’ve ever known,” @BarackObama wrote in our Tweet of the Week. “Cancer doesn’t know what it’s up against.”

Thank heavens for the uniformly intelligent federal bench in the Southern District of Texas. The latest example of sound decision-making and crisp writing comes from Keith P. Ellison. He ruled this week that the Texas prison system must provide relief for vulnerable inmates forced to endure the state’s un-air-conditioned cells. “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons,” Ellison wrote. “To deny modern technology to inmates today for the simple reason that it was not available to inmates in past generations is an argument that proves too much.”

The families of Ed and James White have given us far more than we can return. Those American veterans paid the ultimate price. Ed lived in the Houston area in 1965 when he stepped out of a Gemini space capsule as our first space walker. He died two years later in the Apollo 1 fire at the Kennedy Space Center. His younger brother, James, an Air Force pilot, was declared missing in action in 1969 after his airplane crashed in Laos. Last week, the Pentagon announced that his remains were located and will be returned to the U.S., bringing closure to a story of two brothers and to their families.

And speaking of closure, a Jordanian military court sentenced one of its own soldiers to life in prison for killing a Houston Green Beret and two of his team members in a brazen and unprovoked 2016 shooting. Staff Sgt. James “Jimmy” Moriarty was mortally wounded when his convoy returned to a Jordanian base. The conviction came after a relentless campaign by the Houstonian’s father. Everyone should have a dad like James Moriarty Sr. on their wing.