"Iowa Democrats showed on Tuesday night that they are far from convinced that Hillary Clinton should be president.

"As Donald Trump was handily beaten by Sen. Ted Cruz on the Republican side of the ledger, and was in danger of being pushed into third place by Sen. Marco Rubio, Clinton found herself deadlocked with 74-year-old socialist Bernie Sanders. ...

"She blew a 50-point lead in the Hawkeye State against an elderly extremist whom the Democratic establishment see as far from an ideal champion of American progressivism. ...

"Clinton may well win the Democratic nomination. But her supporters in every state have good reason to be unenthusiastic about her, just as Iowans were on Monday night."

"Spin and puffery have a long history in politics, but something has snapped in our culture that we no longer even expect our leaders to talk straight. We have become immune to lies and the liars who tell them.

"I blame it on the Clintons. Their survival despite a quarter-century of shameful dishonesty has lead the way in lowering the bar for integrity in public life. ...

"We would have better politics and be a better country if we had stopped the Clintons years ago. It was obvious before his election that Bill Clinton was a stranger to truth, and it soon became obvious that Hillary was no better. ...

"In a world that prized truth, she couldn't be dog-catcher. In our world, she could be president."

"Despite what all the best and the brightest assured us was inevitable, the Republican party is in its strongest electoral position since the presidency of Herbert Hoover. It enjoys majorities in both houses of Congress, and commands a large majority of the state legislative houses and governorships. Conservatives have won important debates and political victories on everything from taxation to free speech to foreign policy. Those conservatives who complain that the Right hasn't accomplished very much forget where the country was in 1955 when National Review was founded and central planning was assumed by all the right people to be the model of the future, or where the country's domestic policies stood in 1980 or its national-security policies in 2000. ...

"[R]egardless of what happens on Election Day 2016, we will wake up in a world in which property rights need to be secured, free trade protected and expanded, government limited, the rule of law honored, children reared, citizenship cultivated, and enemies defeated. These are among what Russell Kirk called 'the permanent things,' and the defense of them, which we call 'conservatism,' is the permanent burden of free people. That isn't going anywhere."

"Mr. Sanders has attracted a cult of personality among so-called millennials by advocating a revolution to topple the American political and market systems.

"Fundamentally, Mr. Sanders declares in a thick Brooklyn accent, gesticulating like an orchestra conductor, his campaign is about 'transforming the United States of America.' 'Millions of people ... have concluded it is too late for establishment politics,' he says. 'It is too late for establishment economics. They want this country to move in a new direction. They want to be part of a political revolution!'"

"Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, said the 'most surprising' part of his panel's forthcoming report on the 2012 terror attack involves the question of whether the Obama administration had forces in position to intervene on the night of the raid.

"'If the president did say, 'Do everything you can,' and [Defense] Secretary [Leon] Panetta communicated that order to his command staff, 'Do everything you can,' both of those communications took place before 7 p.m. eastern time,' Gowdy said Monday evening during an appearance on the 'Hugh Hewitt Show' radio program. 'Why did the first wheel not take off for hours and hours and hours? That is the part that we are getting at that I would submit to you the other committees did not, and I think you're going to be surprised by that part of the report.'"

"Forget Solyndra. When it comes to misguided federal energy policy, the real scandal involves the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that are being wasted on biofuels. ...

"The Solyndra fiasco involved a $535 million loan that was supposed to help the company produce solar panels. Instead, in 2011, the company went bust. But the Solyndra loan represents only about half of the more than $1 billion that the Department of Energy has provided to various companies to research and develop cellulosic biofuels. That money has been spent despite research showing that production of cellulosic biofuels likely results in carbon-dioxide emissions that are higher than those from conventional gasoline. ...

"Despite these facts, the biofuel lobby continues to have its way in Washington and even, unfortunately, at the Pentagon. Such is the utter foolishness of modern American energy policy."

"Premised on a heavy dose of international peer pressure, the final Paris Agreement reached last December includes a combination of both binding and non-binding provisions. The agreement is meant to shame countries into complying with self-proscribed greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. While the Obama administration continues to insist that this time around, the climate agreement really is historic, the reality is that the final Paris agreement will be no more significant to the United States than was the Kyoto Protocol.

"Despite the administration's best efforts, the Paris agreement has no means of enforcement, sustainability or legal significance without approval from the U.S. Senate. And so, with no democratic legitimacy, this agreement should not be viewed as the policy of the United States, but rather a perpetuation of the president's climate legacy that Congress and the American people consistently reject. International representatives have been duly warned that promises made through sole-executive agreements only last as long as the president who made them. ...

"When it comes to the Paris agreement, the Senate's role in this matter does not exist at President Obama's prerogative; it is derived from the Constitution. If President Obama is truly looking for a historic achievement, he would be seeking out Senate involvement instead of attempting to find ways around it."

"The simple proposition that everyone is equal before the law suggests that Mrs. Clinton's state of mind -- whether mere knowledge of what she was doing as to mishandling classified information; or gross negligence in the case of the mishandling of information relating to national defense; or bad intent as to actual or attempted destruction of email messages; or corrupt intent as to State Department business -- justifies a criminal charge of one sort or another.

"But will it be brought? That depends in part on the recommendation of FBI Director James Comey, a man described by President Obama, at the time the president appointed him, as 'fiercely independent.' If no recommendation to charge is forthcoming, or if such a recommendation is made but not followed by the attorney general, what happens then?

"Would the public stand for it? My guess is not. However, my guess is also that we won't be put to that test because our public officials will do their duty."

"It's now clear that despite escalating jihadi attacks and threats worldwide, nothing will dissuade President Obama from releasing or bringing in some of the world's most vicious Islamic killers. ...

"Mr. Obama now intends to return to his original plan: release all but about 59 of the most incorrigible jihadis, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who will be transferred to supermax federal prisons in the United States. Further, as national security expert K.T. McFarland has suggested, once it's emptied, he's also likely to turn the base over to his new friends, the Castros of Cuba. This could have been one of the main drivers for his rapprochement with Cuba in the first place. If President Carter can give away the Panama Canal, Mr. Obama can give away another vital strategic asset, this one just 90 miles offshore.

"He will close Guantanamo, even if it means replenishing the terrorist ranks, endangering the American people, and aiding and abetting the enemy. After all, his quarrel with Islamism is secondary to his quarrel with American power."

"A .50-caliber rifle found at Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's hideout in Mexico was funneled through the gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, sources confirmed Tuesday to Fox News.

"A .50-caliber is a massive rifle that can stop a car, or as it was intended, take down a helicopter.

"After the raid on Jan. 8 in the city of Los Mochis that killed five of his men and wounded one Mexican marine, officials found a number of weapons inside the house Guzman was staying, including the rifle, officials said. ...

"Out of the roughly 2,000 weapons sold through Fast and Furious, 34 were .50 caliber rifles that can take down a helicopter, according to officials. ...

"This is the third time a weapon from the Fast and Furious program has been found at a high-profile Mexican crime scene."