"A few years from now -- after Iran has used its negotiated breathing space to rearm, ratchet up its terrorist operations, and eventually gain a bomb to blackmail its neighbors -- the current deal will be deeply regretted. Expect a Nobel Peace Prize for Secretary of State John Kerry now, followed by Chamberlain-like infamy later. ...

"China and Russia will never again see any advantage in joining the West in embargoing and sanctioning a would-be nuclear state -- not when such a hard-won common front can become utterly nullified at any moment by a fickle United States. Both powers will grow closer to Iran.

"In 2015, we naively hail peace with honor, but by 2020, sadder and wiser, we will lament war and shame."

"She's still an obvious favorite for the nomination, but it's telling that the Clinton campaign is already trying to lower expectations for the New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucuses, suggesting that Bernie Sanders might win some early bouts.

"The point is that personality matters a lot, and no one would confuse Clinton's personality for a secret weapon. It's been a cliche for three decades for Clinton's defenders to say, 'If only you could know the Hillary I know.' That's an unintentionally damning defense. It may be true that she's a wonderful friend to her friends, but as a candidate, she is a remarkably uninspiring, un-charming and un-compelling woman who has every bit as much of a problem connecting to ordinary people as Mitt Romney did. Indeed, like Romney, she has polled poorly (June, CNN) on the question of whether she 'cares about people like you.'"

"President Obama thinks he has the U.S. Congress right where he wants it as the Members consider his nuclear deal with Iran. Not only do opponents need a two-thirds majority in both houses to stop it, the President has maneuvered to box them in by having the United Nations approve it first.

"That's the meaning of Monday's unanimous vote by the U.N. Security Council approving the deal less than a week after negotiations were completed. ...

"Congress shouldn't fall for it. Other than Israel and the Sunni Arab states, the U.S. has the most to lose from a bad nuclear deal. Iran doesn't call China 'The Great Satan,' and its proxies haven't murdered Russian soldiers. The ballistic missiles that Iran will be able to build with impunity after eight years won't be aimed at Paris. They'll be aimed at U.S. allies, troops and the American homeland."

"The lethal confrontation between African-American Trayvon Martin and 'white Hispanic' George Zimmerman elicited a presidential editorial about the shared racial affinity between the victim and the president. (The president did not include the half-Peruvian George Mesa Zimmerman in such ethnic intimacy.) 'Ferguson' is casually dropped as a racial fillip by the president, as if he is unaware that his own Justice Department did not find officer Darren Wilson culpable in the shooting of strong-armed robber Michael Brown, who rushed him. Even Sandra Fluke, in her quest for cosmic justice in campaigning for the federal government to cover her own birth-control expenses, earned a presidential phone call, as warranting her Susan B. Anthony-like struggle.

"There was no such outreach concerning the tragic fate of Kate Steinle. Her senseless death, for the president, proves so far not a wake-up call about any dubious government policy or dangerous trend in American social life. He apparently does not believe that arbitrarily suspending federal law is scary (cf. his own executive orders), much less that doing so in the case of convicted felons is only doubly so.

"Perhaps the president, who is an advocate of the sort of de facto amnesty that empowered Francisco Lopez, was embarrassed over Kate Steinle's death, and so kept uncharacteristically mum. Perhaps the ethnic divide this time around was not rich enough to be mined -- a felon and shooter of color and an innocent victim without color. Perhaps Obama was afraid that he might say something inane and untoward, in Trayvon Martin style, about the physical resemblance or non-resemblance of the victim to one of his possible offspring. It was this president, remember, who established the principle that, in controversial criminal matters, the chief executive would seek political traction, and thereby has found himself morally wanting through his abject silence in the Steinle case. ...

"Let us be honest: San Francisco's legal nullification is not an act of racial blindness and fairness under the law, but one of political pandering, ethnic chauvinism and misplaced liberal narcissism....

"San Francisco has become one sick city."

"Americans who purchase health insurance on the Affordable Care Act's exchanges should buckle up. Within the month, state regulators will begin approving premium hikes for plans sold in every state. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has already released the premium increases that health insurers have requested for their 2016 plans. By law, insurers must receive regulatory approval for any increase more than 10% -- and more than 10% is what many of them want.

"The numbers are staggering. According to the rate requests posted on Healthcare.gov, nearly every state has multiple plans that are facing a more than 10% premium increase. Many plans -- including some offered by state-market leaders -- could see hikes of more than 30%, 40% or even 50%. Though most of these requests have not been approved, nor have all of the rate hikes that are less than 10% been unveiled, it is undeniable that millions of Americans are facing double-digit premium increases for health insurance next year."

"A little bit of common sense and discretion might have prevented the killing this month in San Francisco of Kathryn Steinle -- a victim not only of random gunfire but of the mindless handling of the city's immigration policy. ...

"Kathryn Steinle's death ought to be a cause for sober reevaluation of sanctuary policies. Without a cease-fire and a working agreement in this war that has pitted local law enforcement against federal immigration authorities, there will be more innocent casualties."

"President Obama was right on Tuesday to hail his nuclear agreement with Iran as historic, though not because of his claim that it will 'prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.' The agreement all but guarantees that Tehran will eventually become a nuclear power, while limiting the ability of a future President to prevent it. ...

"[T]his means that the deal leaves Tehran as a nuclear-threshold state even if it adheres to the terms, able to continue its nuclear research and retain its facilities while it waits for U.N. supervision to end. The other nations of the region will take that point, no matter Mr. Obama's assurances. Instead of eliminating a revolutionary regime's nuclear ambitions, the Vienna accord promises to usher in a new age of nuclear proliferation."

"From the initial reports we can already conclude that this agreement is an historic mistake for the world.

"Far-reaching concessions have been made in all areas that were supposed to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capability. In addition, Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars with which it can fuel its terror machine and its expansion and aggression throughout the Middle East and across the globe.

"One cannot prevent an agreement when the negotiators are willing to make more and more concessions to those who, even during the talks, keep chanting: 'Death to America.'"

"Look out, Grandma: Medicare said on Wednesday it wants to start paying for end-of-life counseling.

"It's being sold as 'death with dignity,' but it'€™s more like dying for dollars. Seniors are nudged to forego life-sustaining procedures and hospital care to go into hospice. That enriches the booming hospice industry and also frees up dollars for the left's favored social causes.

"Why is the government meddling with how we cope with death? The Institute of Medicine does't mince words. Scrimping on seniors will free up money 'to fund highly targeted and carefully tailored social services for both children and adults.' Just like ObamaCare. Robbing Grandma to spread the wealth."

"Washington (CNN) -- FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that the bureau thwarted ISIS terrorist plots linked to the Fourth of July holiday that were intended 'to kill people in the United States.'

"He would not discuss the number or nature of the plots, but earlier Thursday, U.S. officials told CNN that the thwarted plots included targets 'coast to coast,' and in fitting with calls by ISIS to attack in any way possible, they were unsophisticated, relying on guns, knives and other weapons.

"Also fitting with recent patterns, investigators believe the plots, though not directed by overseas terror groups providing specific means of attack or specific targets, were 'enabled' by actors abroad, including recruiting the suspects and encouraging them to carry out attacks on U.S. soil."