"President Obama made it explicit Wednesday for everyone to hear: Only hard-headed Israel, which apparently is intent on war, he said, is standing in the way of his dubious nuclear deal with Iran.

'"This is such a strong deal,' he said in a speech at American University, that 'every nation in the world that has commented publicly, with the exception of the Israeli government, has expressed support.

"He forgot one other opponent: the American people.

"No less than four different major national polls over the past week show rising public disapproval of his deal -- by as much as 2-to-1 against. Americans plainly don't buy Obama's claim that no better deal was possible, and that rejecting this one guarantees 'some sort of war.'"

"Every political analyst, every political observer, every politician is absolutely sure that Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee for president in 2016. And we're all absolutely sure that Donald Trump is not going to be sworn in as president on January 20, 2017. Could we all be wrong?

"So far, every poll seems to only be giving him more strength. Who would have thought even a month ago that as we enter the first GOP debate of the presidential election that Donald Trump, The Donald Trump, would be the leader in every single national poll and gaining strength in all the early primary and caucus states? Time and time again, in just a few weeks, his candidacy seems to have survived what we professional political observers all think are obviously fatal gaffes and flubs. Could this be the rare instance when politics is actually about to go haywire? ...

"Before offering up any certainties about what might happen to Trump, it might be useful to use a tool that Trump himself has never employed: humility."

"On the eve of the first Republican primary debate, state party leaders across the nation say the 2016 contest is in a state of flux, as unpredictable and wide-open as any they can remember.

"A sprawling field of contenders, no clear frontrunner, still-unsettled primary election dates and rules, the combustible presence of Donald Trump -- all of it has top GOP officials scratching their heads over which direction the nominating fight is going and how it all ends.

"That's according to a survey of 50 Republican state party chairmen from across the country, more than half of whom spoke with POLITICO ahead of Thursday's Fox News debate in Cleveland, a prime-time spectacle already infused with chaos and drama surrounding which candidates will qualify for a slot onstage."

"The Obama administration is expected to announce today new restrictions on U.S. power plants that are, in the words of the New York Times, 'the strongest action ever taken in the United States to combat climate change.' In reality, the new regulatory regime is no such thing, a fact that ought to inform the years-long political and legal fight that the president's unilateral rulemaking inevitably will provoke.

"The president will instruct U.S. power plants to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by just under one-third (32 percent). How that is to be achieved and at what cost is . . . not Barack Obama's problem. States will have until 2018 -- comfortably remote from any presidential election -- to submit their plans, and until 2030 to implement them.

"The president and his partisans insist that these measures are necessary to prevent catastrophic global warming. But global warming is, famously, a global issue, and even steep cuts in one sector of one country's economy many years in the future will have only a minuscule effect on global atmospheric conditions, especially given the fact that developing nations such as India have made it clear that they will not artificially lower their peoples' standards of living to satisfy a moral panic in the affluent world. China, for its part, promises that it will freeze its emissions right where they are -- someday -- in exchange for certain concessions, a promise with about as much credibility as the Iranians' insistence that they want enriched uranium to supply a new plant powering a national fleet of Chevy Volts because they'€™re on a jihad to comfort the polar bear."

"[Trump's] rise is not due to his supporters' anger at government. It is a gesture of contempt for government, for the men and women in Congress, the White House, the agencies. It is precisely because people have lost their awe for the presidency that they imagine Mr. Trump as a viable president. ...

"Mr. Trump's supporters like that he doesn't in the least fear the press, doesn't get the dart-eyed, anxious look candidates get. He treats reporters with courtesy until he feels they're out of line, at which point he calls them stupid. They think he'll do that with Putin. His insult of John McCain didn't hurt him, and not because his supporters have any animus for Mr. McCain. They just saw it as more proof Mr. Trump will take the bark off anyone. ...

"Trump's power is not name ID. He didn't make his name in this cycle or the last, he's been around 35 years. He's made an impression."

"A federal judge Wednesday rebuked the Obama administration's IRS for refusing to divulge documents, including Lois G. Lerner's emails, and warned that he would hold in contempt those who break his orders.

"Judge Emmet G. Sullivan called the administration's defense 'nonsensical' and said the IRS must release documents every Monday to Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest law firm that requested the documents under open records laws and then sued after the IRS didn't comply. ...

"Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said Judge Sullivan's displeasure with the IRS shows just how poorly the agency is performing.

"'The missing-and-then-not-missing Lois Lerner saga is a stark example of the Obama administration's contempt for a federal court and the rule of law,' Mr. Fitton said. 'That Obama administration officials would risk jail rather than disclose these Lerner documents shows that the IRS scandal has just gotten a whole lot worse.'"

"The current fashion among progressives is the demand for a $15/hour minimum wage. Bernie Sanders supports it, Elizabeth Warren supports it, Martin O'Malley supports it, and Hillary Rodham Clinton . . . won'€™t quite answer the question. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that a $15/hour minimum wage would throw 3.3 million Americans out of work. Jonathan Meer and Jeremy West of Texas A&M put the number at 6.6 million lost jobs; Jeffrey Clemens and Michael Wither's estimate for the National Bureau of Economic Research puts the number of lost jobs at 16.8 million. If those jobs do in fact disappear, the politicians will try to redress this development with more economy-distorting subsidies and penalties, and when these fail you can be confident that Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump will make a lot of noise about the wily Chinese and dirty Mexicans 'stealin' our jobs!'"

"While in all probability Clinton remains the prohibitive favorite to win the nomination, it is true that her favorable ratings have taken a tumble. For over four years, from 2009 until well into 2013, Clinton's favorable ratings in the Gallup Poll were in the 60's, but a few months into 2013 they started a plunge down to 43 percent. Arguably, her favorable ratings were unsustainably high during her tenure as secretary of State, when she was a diplomat more than a politician. Yet it does raise the question of what happens if the USS HRod begins taking on water. What would Democrats do? Is there an emergency 'break the glass' option if real questions of Clinton's electability arise? It seems extremely unlikely that any one issue could bring Clinton down, but what if she begins to suffer 'death by a thousand cuts'?

"Would Vice President Joe Biden and/or Sen. Elizabeth Warren jump in? Or would/could someone not being currently mentioned throw a hat into the ring, like say, Sen. Sherrod Brown or former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg? Presumably Bloomberg would need to join the Democratic Party, but then again, has Sanders joined yet? Or would O'Malley effectively win the political Powerball by being the only plausible alternative running? While all of this is just idle speculation, it is an interesting hypothetical."

"No sooner did President Obama claim last week the IRS scandal was just a mirage than new evidence emerged to show it was anything but.

"The conservative group Judicial Watch says documents it obtained 'confirm' the agency targeted the donors of certain tax-exempt organizations. And the Government Accountability Office faulted IRS procedures, saying they failed to prevent bias in the selection of nonprofits for audits. That's key, since the agency has been accused of targeting conservative groups. ...

"Of course, the biggest scandal of all is that Team Obama has managed to stonewall and leave the public hanging. And that no one has been held accountable."

"WASHINGTON -- Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state, senior government officials said Thursday.

"The request follows an assessment in a June 29 memo by the inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs. Clinton's private account contained 'hundreds of potentially classified emails.' The memo was written to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management.

"It is not clear if any of the information in the emails was marked as classified by the State Department when Mrs. Clinton sent or received them."