"The first thing to understand about Vladimir Putin is that he's not content just to win. He has to destroy his opponents, foreign or domestic.

"His deeds may be despicable and his manners far too crude for the Upper West Side, but the guy is a force of nature, a man who -- by sheer strength of will -- has used a broken country and its rusting military to change the world. Meanwhile, our astonished president sulks like a high-school girl stood up by her boyfriend ('But Vladimir ... you promised!'). ...

"Never before has a US presidential administration combined such naked cowardice, intellectual arrogance and willful blindness. We don't have a president -- we have a scared child covering his eyes at a horror movie.

"And Putin knows it."

"The so-called 'progressives' love to talk about how their policies will create a worker's paradise, but then why is it that day after day, month after month, year after year, people are fleeing liberal blue states for conservative red states? ...

"The latest Rich States, Poor States document (which I co-author) published by ALEC, the state legislative organization, finds that nearly 1,000 people each day on net are leaving blue states and entering red states. This migration is changing the economic center of gravity in America -- moving it relentlessly to the South and West. ...

"Data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) show a similar trend. Each year the IRS issues a migration data report which examines how many tax filers (and dependents) in the year changed their residency and how much income was transported from one state to another. The numbers for the most recent year (tax filing year 2013) are gigantic and put the lie to the claim that interstate migration is too small to matter in terms of the wealth and economic opportunity in one state versus another."

"As the curtain falls on Fiscal Year 2015, Congress should send Obama a new spending bill that gives him all the funding he wants, with one exception: no $150 billion bailout to Iran's al-Qaeda-coddling ayatollahs.

"After such a measure has passed the House and Senate, departing Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Kentucky) should not rely on anonymous aides to transmit this measure to Obama. Instead, the entire GOP congressional leadership physically should travel to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, with scores of journalists in tow, and hand deliver the enrolled bill to the West Gate of the White House. American news viewers will see this dramatic proof that Congress did its job and provided the funds to keep the government running. This evidence will remain on videotape for constant TV replay in the weeks ahead."

"Speaker Boehner's successor inherits a diminished role in a diminished institution, and it isn't clear that there is much of anything he will be able to do to help the national legislature recover its self-respect, which lags so far behind its self-importance. Congress no longer has the power to return the president -- and the presidency -- to its proper role. That power, too, is now in the hands of the president, which is why it is unlikely that our national slide into autocracy will be reversed until the current political equilibrium is disturbed, which is to say until certain danger encounters uncertain danger."

"All told, there are at least 35 FOIA lawsuits pending for Clinton-related email. Nearly everything important we've learned has come from those suits. They are why the State Department is releasing emails; why we know they contained classified information; why we know Mrs. Clinton's aides also used unsanctioned email accounts; why we know that the State Department is covering for Mrs. Clinton.

"Which explains why the Justice Department wants the judiciary to 'consolidate' the lawsuits, claiming that the State Department is overwhelmed. The real goal is to shut down the process. Consolidation will slow discovery, and the chances of stopping the information flow is better if all the suits come before one judge, who might be friendly, rather than six unpredictable ones. But each organization bringing a suit deserves a separate hearing. It isn't these groups' fault that the State Department allowed Mrs. Clinton to go email rogue and now has a mess.

"What Democrats are only beginning to understand is that 35 FOIA lawsuits is a guarantee of weekly Clinton email-news bombs. This isn't ending. The polls keep measuring Mrs. Clinton in theoretical matchups. The only matchup that matters is this one: Clinton vs. FOIA. And FOIA is crushing it."

"If the Democratic Party cares to salvage a sliver of moral authority, its leaders and early state voters need to send Hillary Rodham Clinton an urgent message: Come clean or get out. Stop lying and deflecting about how and why you stashed State Department email server - or stop running."

"Multiple senior Iranian officials have vowed in recent weeks to violate the recently inked nuclear accord that aims to constrain the Islamic Republic's contested nuclear enrichment program, according to multiple comments by top Iranian leaders.

"Iranian leaders, including President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, have said that the country has 'no intention' of abiding by a United Nations Security Council Resolution that encompasses the deal and other restrictions on Tehran's rogue activities, according to these comments."

"Think before you selfie, you guys, because sometimes getting the right angle on those pictures can have serious (even fatal!) consequences...

"According to a new study, there have now been more deaths this year from selfies than there have been from shark attacks. Ahem, we repeat, sharks! The death toll for selfie-related deaths now totals 12 people, whereas deaths related to shark attacks totals 8 people."

"Months into her e-mail scandal, Hillary Clinton is still trying to get away with lines like, 'There's no evidence of that.' Oh, and answering questions with laughter.

"No wonder she keeps falling in the polls -- behind a 74-year-old Brooklyn-born socialist in the first two primary states, where more folks are paying attention. ...

"Donors are panicking because she can't make the story go away -- and her campaign is reaching for a lifeline: It's started sending Bill Clinton out to fund-raise.

"He's not doing public events yet -- the campaign doesn't want to be seen to need him. But that moment is coming -- because it's looking like the only thing that can save Hillary Clinton now is a truly gifted liar."

"Once again, President Obama and his foreign policy team are stumped. Why is Vladimir Putin pouring troops and weaponry into Syria? After all, as Secretary of State John Kerry has thrice told his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, it is only making things worse.

"But worse for whom? For the additional thousands of civilians who will die or flee as a result of the inevitably intensified fighting. True, and I'm sure Lavrov is as moved by their plight as by the 8,000 killed in Russia's splendid little Ukrainian adventure.

"Kerry and Obama are serially surprised because they cannot fathom the hard men in the Kremlin."