"Violent criminals are getting the upper hand as the 'Ferguson effect' takes hold in cities across the country. Less-aggressive policing has emboldened the bad guys, leading to a nationwide spike in murder.

"New data show murder rates have shot up across major cities as police morale plummets. Surveys show police feel 'under siege' by race-baiting politicians and activists, as well as increasingly hostile suspects, and are second-guessing themselves as they respond to crimes. ...

"Cop-bashing doesn't make anybody safer, least of all inner-city residents caught in the crossfire."

"If you're unlucky, you've heard some speeches this weekend about all the great things the Teamsters and the IBEW and the UAW have done for the American worker, and all the things they want to do. Don't believe a word of it. You want to do the American worker a favor, then get rid of the interference -- the taxes, the regulations, and, yes, the dopey antiquated union rules -- that stand between the worker and the factory door. American workers are among the most creative and productive people who have ever lived, and it wasn't a corrupt Jimmy Hoffa protection racket that made them great. They aren't weaklings, and they don't need protection -- not from you, not from Donald Trump, not from Bernie Sanders, and not from James P. Hoffa. All they need is a chance to use the talents and the strength God gave them."

"I doubt a Biden-Warren ticket will happen, but it remains the only threat to Clinton outside of some Justice Department prosecutor showing the same zeal in going after Hillary Clinton as the administration did in going after David Petraeus.

"Otherwise the Democrats remain lashed to Clinton. Their only hope is that the Republicans self-destruct in a blaze of intraparty warfare. Something for which they are showing an impressive talent."

"Those who reject the proposition that 'all lives matter' have chosen payback as their guiding principle and have consigned the call of Martin Luther King for a color-blind society to the dustbin of history. Americans yearning for a similar leader won't find him in Barack Obama, whose presidency has cultivated racial resentment and anger. The model they seek is reflected in the love and kindness of the black Christians of North Charleston, S.C., who, when their loved ones were murdered by a white man with hate in his heart, responded with forgiveness. Only their conviction that humankind is one family has the power to forge a nation unified."

"While she was secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton wrote and sent at least six e-mails using her private server that contained what government officials now say is classified information, according to thousands of e-mails released by the State Department.

"Although government officials deemed the e-mails classified after Clinton left office, they could complicate her efforts to move beyond the political fallout from the controversy. They suggest that her role in distributing sensitive material via her private e-mail system went beyond receiving notes written by others, and appears to contradict earlier public statements in which she denied sending or receiving e-mails containing classified information."

"Government officials need some modicum of privacy to get work done. But this Administration's evasion goes way past a reasonable standard of conduct. Why shouldn't the public conclude that officials serving in the Obama Administration are flouting the disclosure system because they are engaged in practices they wish to hide from public knowledge and debate?

"President Obama favors government by executive order. How about this one: A Presidential directive requiring every appointee and bureaucrat to attest to the existence of any private email, texting or instant-messaging systems being used for government work. All off-the-reservation documentation must cease. Private email is for personal needs.

"The chances of this happening are nil. Opacity has served the Obama Administration's political purposes if not the country. A sunnier day will have to wait until 2017."

"Whether to approve the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran is the most important question to face Congress in years -- yet the president wants to stop the Senate from even debating it.

"He's pushing Democrats to use the filibuster rule to stop the question from making it to the Senate floor -- and Minority Leader Harry Reid's rallying the votes to do it. ...

"It's time for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to go nuclear: To do just what Reid threatened when he ran the Senate, and change the rules for the filibuster. ...

"Obama and Reid are resorting to low politics on an issue vital to the nation. Republicans have a duty to finally answer hardball with hardball."

"A federal judge in North Dakota acted late Thursday to block the Obama administration's controversial water pollution rule, hours before it was due to take effect.

"Judge Ralph Erickson of the District Court for the District of North Dakota found that the 13 states suing to block the rule met the conditions necessary for a preliminary injunction, including that they would likely be harmed if courts didn't act and that they are likely to succeed when their underlying lawsuit against the rule is decided.

"The decision is a major roadblock for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers, who were planning Friday to begin enforcing the Waters of the United States rule, expanding federal jurisdiction over small waterways like streams and wetlands.

"But the Obama administration says it will largely enforce the regulation as planned, arguing that the Thursday decision only applies to the 13 states that requested the injunction."

"President Barack Obama's almost certain to get the Iran nuclear deal through Congress -- but whether he gets there by filibuster or sustained veto could make all the difference.

"A Democratic filibuster in the Senate would be a clear victory for the president, allowing Obama to say that for all the political noise there wasn't enough actual opposition to the nuclear agreement with the Islamic republic to even get to a final vote.

"Having to save the deal with a veto (just the fifth of his presidency) and relying on liberals in the House and Senate to sustain it would be much more trouble: a procedural pull across the finish line that sows more doubts in a public already skeptical of the deal, leaves international partners worried about America's long-term commitment and adds weeks of added time and tangles.

"The White House very much prefers option A."

"Move over, Carlos Danger, there's a new alias in town: Toby Miles, an electronic front for Lois Lerner.

"Lerner famously took the Fifth rather than testify about how the Internal Revenue Service came to target right-leaning advocacy nonprofits in the run-up to the 2012 election. ...

"Mind you, it's been two-plus years since the scandal broke, yet the agency that promised to clean up its act is only now revealing this fresh evidence. ...

"The capper: One Lerner acquaintance says 'Toby Miles' is the name of Lerner's dog.

"Nothing quite says truth and transparency like doing Uncle Sam's work under your dog's name."