"In high-level strategy sessions on Capitol Hill, Republicans are going through reams of historical information and sitting through marathon slide show presentations, trying to figure out how to gut Obamacare through a complicated budget process that requires only a simple majority -- a sign of how seriously they're taking their best shot yet at dealing a long-term blow to the health care law.

"Behind closed doors, Washington's top budget experts have quietly met with Sen. Mitch McConnell, the incoming majority leader, and the Senate Republican Conference to detail options for action next year. ...

"While no one believes repealing the Affordable Care Act is feasible with President Barack Obama still in office, Republicans are eager to use a special procedure that might let them kill at least a large piece of the law --” potentially the Medicaid expansion, subsidies for purchasing health insurance or even the individual mandate --€” with only a simple majority.

"Whether Republicans can navigate the byzantine Senate rules successfully will set a key precedent: It will show voters exactly how they would execute a strategy to gut the health care law should they take back the White House and keep control of Congress in 2016."

"Although the House Intelligence Committee report claims to be the definitive statement of the House of Representatives on matters of Benghazi and intelligence, interviews over the past week make clear that it's not even the consensus position of Republicans on the committee.

"It's not hard to see why. Although it adds to our overall understanding of Benghazi, even a cursory read reveals sloppy errors of fact and numerous internal contradictions. For instance, on one page, the report has a top intelligence officer sending an email from Benghazi on September 15, before a crucial White House meeting on the Benghazi talking points. ...

"The report begins by asserting that it is a 'comprehensive' look at Benghazi resulting from an intensive investigation of nearly two years. Neither claim is true. Instead, the report is a reflection of a dysfunctional committee and the reluctant, ad hoc approach to Benghazi of its leadership and top staff."

"There's no easy way to say this, so I'€™ll just say it: We're no longer No. 1. Today, we're No. 2. Yes, it's official. The Chinese economy just overtook the United States economy to become the largest in the world. For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet. ...

"This will not change anything tomorrow or next week, but it will change almost everything in the longer term. We have lived in a world dominated by the U.S. since at least 1945 and, in many ways, since the late 19th century. And we have lived for 200 years -- since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 -- in a world dominated by two reasonably democratic, constitutional countries in Great Britain and the U.S.A. For all their flaws, the two countries have been in the vanguard worldwide in terms of civil liberties, democratic processes and constitutional rights."

"Less than a week after 'fessing up that it found some 2,500 documents potentially showing that the IRS shared taxpayer returns with the White House, the Obama administration has reversed course and won't release the trove to a group suing for access.

"In an abrupt decision, the Treasury inspector general's office said that the documents are covered by privacy and disclosure laws and can't be provided to Cause of Action, despite a promise last week to hand over some 2,500. ...

"Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, said Treasury was using 'sophisticated' lawyering to weasel out of providing the documents. And he noted that their letter said that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is now looking into 'potential liability' that his tax aides broke laws in sharing taxpayer information with the White House."

"Now that the 2014 elections are over and national politics is all about 2016, Democrats have good reason to worry that, for all his success at the polls, President Obama will leave his party with a toxic legacy.

"The Obama damage is two-fold. First, his success relied on a coalition that likely will not survive, or at least survive at full strength, without Obama himself on the ticket. Secondly, Obama drove a significant portion of white voters away from the Democratic Party. ...

"In the end, no single group will mean defeat for the Democrat and victory for the Republican in 2016. But President Obama's troubling legacy -- a weakened coalition and growing ranks of alienated white voters -- could mean a serious post-presidential hangover for Democrats."

"Obama's immigration legacy will be the juxtaposition of his serial insistence that he was not a king or an emperor, and could not contravene the Constitution by granting a blanket amnesty, with his efforts to do just that when it was no longer politically inexpedient. I don't think a president has ever quite so habitually warned the country of the dangers that would soon emanate from himself.

"Illegal immigration is praised only by those who benefit directly from it, whether in the familial sense of inexpensive nannies, cooks, or gardeners; or in the corporate interest of cheap labor in the hospitality industries, agriculture, and construction; or in the political sense of new liberal constituents; or in the tribal sense of expanding the so-called La Raza base. But the vast majority of Americans accept that when federal law is ignored, chaos ensues."

"The nation is already turning away from the orgy of hatred, destruction, and entitlement that incinerated Ferguson last week, even as protesters, wedded to the now-discredited myth of an innocent Brown's unprovoked martyrdom, continue to indulge in sporadic violence across the country. But it is well to remember, before the riots are shelved under the 'too uncomfortable to confront' category, that such mass destruction threatens civilization itself by exposing the rule of law as powerless to check hate-driven anarchy. And the only people responsible for such an inferno are the perpetrators themselves."

"There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American."

"The Fifth Amendment states: 'No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury.'

"The Constitution does not consider the grand jury to be a rubber stamp. It is a core protection. It stands as the buffer between the government prosecutor and the citizen-suspect; it safeguards Americans, who are presumed innocent, from being subjected to the anxiety, infamy and expense of a trial unless there is probable cause to believe they have committed a serious offense. ...

"Officer Wilson had a constitutional right not to be indicted in the absence of sufficient evidence."

"I used to think most Democrats in Congress who voted for [ObamaCare] really believed they were doing something good for the poor and the middle class. Now I wonder. It's crystal clear that just about everything President Barack Obama promised about his health plan was false, his deception deliberate. If Democrats really cared for the people harmed by the law, you'd think they'd admit their mistake, try to fix it. They haven't.

"Perhaps they put party loyalty ahead of the welfare of their constituents, are afraid of crossing the president or are as stupid as Mr. Gruber thinks the American people are.

"I suspect it's because Truman Democrats have been replaced by Gruber Democrats -- self-styled elitists who feed lavishly at the public trough and think government should serve them, not the hoi polloi they disdain and deceive."