"When it comes to elections, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu is the political equivalent of a scrambling quarterback. During the three-month election campaign that ended Tuesday night, the prime minister fell 20 yards behind the line of scrimmage before evading a savage blitz, escaped a catastrophic sack, then, at the last moment, turned upfield, crossed the line of scrimmage and galloped ahead for a huge gain. ...

"He gambled his entire career and he won, just as he did with the speech in front of Congress earlier this month.

"The three-month election process was heart-stopping and melodramatic, like an old 'Batman' episode from the 1960s without the camp -- including the startling role played by Special Guest Villain Barack Obama doing everything in his power to take down the man he seems to have chosen as his Enemy No. 1."

"In September, the Brookings Institution's Metro Monitor report listed twenty cities that are leading the nation's comeback from the Great Recession through the agonizingly slow economic recovery of the past seven years. As if on cue, the Environmental Protection Agency is now hatching a plan to strangle these cities' recoveries in the crib.

"EPA's new ozone regulations, slated to be finalized in December, would immediately subject 18 of these 20 cities, including all of the top ten, to what is known as 'non-attainment status,' an official designation that cripples a region's industries and can sometimes even subject private citizens to heightened environmental regulation.

"Non-attainment prevents business in a county or region from receiving government approval to expand. It presents a huge discouragement for new businesses thinking of relocating to an area. It also blocks local governments from accessing the funds allocated to them from the federal highway trust fund. ...

"The economic consequences would be devastating, and come just as Americans are finally beginning to see the return of jobs lost during the financial crisis."

"The Obama administration has quietly killed an IRS tax preparation program designed to help low-income and disadvantaged citizens, choosing instead to give millions of dollars to liberal groups for the same purpose.

"Without fanfare, the administration has closed down the free walk-in services at hundreds of taxpayer assistance centers around the country.

"Administration officials are now trying to steer the 'face-to-face' help to volunteer community groups, some with political ties. But one undercover inspection of those groups in 2013 revealed a 49 percent error rate."

"So, here's my own seditious foray into interfering with the conduct of US foreign policy:

'To Whom It May Concern in Tehran,
You're unlikely to ever encounter someone this weak and credulous again in the Oval Office.'"

"President Obama's powers never cease to amaze. He has made it suddenly fashionable to question others' patriotism for dissenting on foreign policy, and has turned the Democrats -- yes, the Democrats -- into a presidential guard who respond with unthinking fury to skepticism about their leader's claims to ever-expanding executive power. ...

"During the Bush administration, none other than Hillary Clinton angrily lamented: 'I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.'

"We agree. The notion that Congress has a patriotic duty to be seen but not heard on Iran is absurd. But it serves at least one purpose, as it illustrates the hypocrisy of those who once proclaimed dissent to be patriotic."

"'Trust me, I'm a Clinton'. This is part of a decades-old pattern: For all their strengths, Hillary and Bill Clinton have a weakness for victimization, entitlement, and their unbounded belief that the ends justify the means.

"Rules are for little people, not them.

"She had a choice -- the right way or the wrong way, the new way or the old way. She chose to turn back the clock to the 1990s, when her husband's White House overcame its wrongdoing by denying the truth, blaming Republicans, and demonizing and bullying the media."

"We are halfway there: On Friday, the state assembly of Wisconsin voted to make the state the 25th to pass right-to-work legislation ... That'€™s 25 down, 25 to go. ...

"Right-to-work laws end the practice of union bosses' enriching their organizations through a legal variety of extortion under which all workers are required to pay the equivalent of union dues, whether they wish to be represented by a particular union or do not. ...

"In 2015, there is one effective way to increase workers' power at the bargaining table: a growing economy with a hungry demand for workers. Self-serving union bosses have for too long stood in the way of achieving that. Wisconsin and 24 other states have taken a step in the right direction on the latter issue -- achieving the former will require a national effort."

"If you treat IRS rules the way the IRS treats IRS rules, you go to prison; if you treat federal law the way the secretary of state does, you go to prison. If you treat immigration controls the way our immigration authorities do, you go to prison. If you'€™re as careless in your handling of firearms as the ATF is, you go to prison. You cook your business'€™s books the way the federal government cooks its books, you go to prison.

"Hillary Clinton is not going to prison. She's going to release whatever emails she feels like releasing and dare any of you peons or your elected representatives to try to make her do otherwise. You'€™ll take what she offers, and you'€™ll like it. ...

"A self-respecting people would have sent this clan of scrofulous grifters and po-faced con artists into whatever passes for exile (comfortable exile, of course) in the 21st century. Instead, we are giving them a serious shot at a return to the White House.

"At least this time, we'll know to keep an eye on the silver."

"For six years, Obama has offered the mullahs an extended hand. He has imagined that with Kissingerian brilliance he would turn the Khamenei regime into a de facto U.S. ally in pacifying the Middle East. For his pains, Obama has been rewarded with an Iran that has ramped up its aggressiveness in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen, and brazenly defied the world on uranium enrichment.

"He did the same with Russia. He offered Vladimir Putin a new detente. 'Reset,' he called it. Putin responded by decimating his domestic opposition, unleashing a vicious anti-American propaganda campaign, ravaging Ukraine and shaking the post-Cold War European order to its foundations.

"Like the Bourbons, however, Obama learns nothing. He persists in believing that Iran's radical Islamist regime can be turned by sweet reason and fine parchment into a force for stability. It's akin to his refusal to face the true nature of the Islamic State, Iran's Sunni counterpart. He simply can't believe that such people actually believe what they say."

"Hillary Clinton hasn't even begun her expected presidential candidacy, but already Americans are being reminded of the political entertainment they can expect. To wit, the normal rules of government ethics and transparency apply to everyone except Bill and Hillary. ...

"The real story here is that none of this is a surprise. This is how the Clintons roll. They're a political version of the old Peanuts cartoon character who was always surrounded by a cloud of dirt. Ethical shortcuts and controversies are standard operating procedure. A brief 1990s roll call: The Riadys, Johnny Chung, Travelgate, the vanishing Rose billing records, a killing in cattle futures, the Marc Rich pardon.

"The Clintons and Democrats want Americans to forget all of that. But as the email and foundation discoveries show, the Clintons haven't changed. They still think they can do what they please and get away with it."