"For seven decades, every American President save Jimmy Carter has understood that the best way to conduct foreign policy is to leave no one guessing about whose side we're on. Mr. Obama has pursued a different policy. His Arab guests can be forgiven if they nod at his guarantees and accept his weapons, while also concluding that in the end they are on their own."

"A sobering new report on the cost and scope of federal regulations puts the price of the rules at $1.88 trillion annually, a 'hidden tax' of $14,976 on every single household, or about 23 percent of an average American's income.

"In 'Ten Thousand Commandments,' the Competitive Enterprise Institute also reveals that regulations far more than laws are how the administration rules the land. While Congress, well known recently for doing little, passed 224 new laws last year, federal agencies issued 3,554 new regulations, or 16 per law.

"Author Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., CEI vice president for policy, spread the blame for overregulation around, but said that congressional inactivity is partly at fault and he called for reform that would have Congress oversee and even vote on new burdensome regulations."

"In a new Bloomberg-St. Anselm poll of New Hampshire, Donald Trump is running in fifth place in the 2016 Republican presidential field. The real estate developer and reality TV personality is behind only Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio - and is ahead of Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum. ...

"What to make of it all? Here's the important thing to remember about Trump, or any other political candidate, for that matter: Maybe you think he's a clown. But some voters, perhaps a significant number of voters, take him seriously. They're not dumb. So the question is, what concern of those voters, what need, is being addressed by Donald Trump? ...

"Donald Trump is the third party candidate running for the Republican nomination. It's been clear for quite a while that some conservative voters are so disgusted with the GOP that they would entertain the notion of a third party. If he pursues a race seriously, Trump could win the support of those I've-had-it-up-to-my-eyeballs voters. Their concerns aren't a joke. If Trump doesn't address them, somebody else will."

"With Congress now in Republican control, I am hopeful that reasonable measures to end IRS corruption can finally make it to President Obama'™s desk. There, he can join the legislative branch in taking a small first step -- albeit a necessary one -- in closing the dangerous gap between the public and their government that has undeniably widened under his administration's watch.

"Ultimately, why does this matter?

"Because the legitimacy of our democratic government still depends on public trust. Because every American, by virtue of his or her citizenship, ought to have complete confidence in the integrity of our system. Because, two years after the unthinkable at the IRS became reality, that integrity has still not been restored and, in fact, is only further crumbling.

"It'€™s long past time to give the American people a government they can trust again."

"Hillary Clinton is doing the country a great service.

"By making it clear she is going to run for president as an unapologetic left-liberal -- with emphasis on the 'left' -- she has made sure that the 2016 election will be exactly the referendum on America's future it ought to be. ...

"She will be presenting Americans with a clear and unambiguous choice."

"The IRS doled out more than $5 billion in potentially bogus college aid payments in 2012 under an Obama stimulus tax credit, according to a report Tuesday from the agency's inspector general that said the administration still doesn't have a good handle on how to root out erroneous claims.

"Nearly 4 million students had questionable claims, totaling more than $5.6 billion in that one year alone, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said. At least half of the students never provided tuition statements showing what they paid, while others attended schools that didn't qualify them for the tax credit. ...

"'The IRS still does not have effective processes to identify erroneous claims for education credits,' said Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George, who said he has warned the IRS repeatedly about the problem, but 'many of the deficiencies TIGTA previously identified still exist.'"

"There could be no greater examples of the diversity of the 2016 Republican presidential field than the dueling announcements of Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina Monday morning.

"Carson, the only black candidate in the race, and Fiorina, the only woman, are also the only two candidates who have never held public office before. Each is working to turn what some would call a gap in their resumes into a strength by attacking what they call the 'political class' -- that is, office-seekers other than themselves. ...

"The RealClearPolitics average of poll measures 14 candidates in the Republican race. Fiorina is 14th, with 1.0 percent of the vote. Carson is eighth, with 4.8 percent. Neither seems set to scare the leaders anytime soon.

"But both bring something to the race; if nothing else, the Carson and Fiorina rollouts Monday showed the sprawling range of the Republican campaign. And while each GOP candidate is different from each other, perhaps the greatest contrast of all is between Republican diversity and the virtually single-candidate race on the other side."

"A former terror suspect has been named as one of the gunmen shot dead by police after two attackers blasted an unarmed security guard in the ankle during an anti-Islam art contest in Texas on Sunday night.

"Two heavily-armed men, who are believed to have been carrying explosives, were killed by police after opening fire outside the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Dallas, at around 7pm during a controversial event where caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad were being displayed.

"A senior FBI official has identified one of the men as Elton Simpson, who was previously the subject of a terror investigation, according to ABC News.

"He had been convicted of lying to federal agents about his plans to travel to Africa five years ago, but a judge ultimately ruled it could not be proved that the was heading there to join a terror group."

"Obama has piled as many new obligations on employers as possible. He has pursued new healthcare mandates, environmental regulations and labor policies that keep big union bosses as fat and happy as they can be in the sunset years of the labor movement. But none of these policies ever held forth the promise of causing a burst of job creation. Not only has national job creation been slow -- relying mostly on the booming Texas economy to pad the statistics -- but non-farm business wages are actually lower now than they were in 2012.

"As the presidential candidates for 2016 begin developing their economic agendas and talking points, Americans should pay close attention. Some of the candidates will talk up a populist-sounding economic agenda consisting of empty platitudes about inequality and proposals (minimum wage, for example) that not only won't pass but also won't help.

"If you want to repeat or continue the experience of the last six years, then vote for the candidate who sounds most like Obama."

"BALTIMORE -- A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray 'banging against the walls' of the vehicle and believed that he 'was intentionally trying to injure himself,' according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

"The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court. The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate's safety.

"The document, written by a Baltimore police investigator, offers the first glimpse of what might have happened inside the van. It is not clear whether any additional evidence backs up the prisoner's version, which is just one piece of a much larger probe."