"The Federal Election Commission recycled the computer hard drive of April Sands -- a former co-worker of Lois Lerner’s -- hindering an investigation into Sands’ partisan political activities, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. 

"Sands resigned from the Federal Election Commission in April after she admitted to violating the Hatch Act, which bars executive branch employees from engaging in partisan political activities on federal time and at federal facilities. 

"The twist is that Sands also worked under Lois Lerner when the ex-IRS agent -- who is currently embroiled in a scandal over the targeting of conservative political groups -- worked at the FEC’s enforcement division. ...  

"Though it is unclear whether Sands and Lerner communicated after Lerner’s move to the FEC, the Oversight Committee letter points out that Lerner was known to have communicated with other FEC employees after her switch."

"The national media may get tired of stories about young illegals crossing the border in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. But as these youngsters are sent to places as distant as Chicago and Lynn, Mass., other troublesome stories are likely to emerge, on local newscasts (which are often starved for news) if not on Obama-protective mainstream media. ... 

"Oldtimers may remember that the influx of Mariel refugees from Cuba hurt Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election. Carter failed to carry Florida, where many refugees were housed, and Arkansas, where many were sent to Fort Chaffee. Also defeated that year were some incumbent Democrats who hadn't seemed to be in great trouble: U.S. Sen. Richard Stone of Florida and a young governor of Arkansas named Bill Clinton. Most current voters were not alive in 1980 or have forgotten the political fallouts from the Mariel influx. I'm sure Bill Clinton hasn't. I suspect that, if asked, he might have some advice for Democrats in states to which the underage illegals are being sent."

"Some of my friends on the right think the border crisis is some grand political scheme of Obama's, that he in effect wants a border crisis. I think that’s wrong. Buffeted by scandals and the growing realization by large swaths of the public that he is out of his depth, the last thing he needed was this tragic spectacle on the border. 

"But that doesn’t mean this isn’t a crisis of his making, triggered by his tendency to think politics first and policy second. In economic terms, he thought he could lower the price of a very valuable good -- legal residence in the U.S. -- without seeing any rise in the demand. These immigrants aren’t fools. They’re responding rationally to new information: If you make it past the border, you can stay. If you’re a kid, all you have to do is make it to the border. ...   

"But the law didn’t cause the crisis, nor did the violence in Central America. The cause comes from a president who puts politics first."

"On July 3, with Americans preparing to celebrate freedom, the Obama administration reduced freedom by adding 1,296 pages of new regulations to ObamaCare. 

"It was a classic pre-holiday document dump, publishing the mind-numbing rules in the Federal Register on the eve of Independence Day, when few were likely to be watching. So much for transparency. 

"ObamaCare regulations compel doctors and their office staff, business owners, local officials and virtually everyone else subject to the law to spend hours filling out paperwork with no pay for their labor. It’s a colossal theft. ...

"In the end, only an outraged public can put a stop to this regulatory oppression."

"The American Dream is dying for tens of millions of unemployed, underemployed, and long-term-jobless citizens. But the White House has guaranteed that one sector of the U.S. economy will thrive for decades to come: immigration lawyers. 

"Don’t believe the fibbing D.C. flacks. While the president’s spokesman Josh Earnest promised that 'most' of the illegal-immigrant youths from Central America flooding across our borders will 'likely' be deported, decades of reality expose the White House lie. Our deportation system is designed to fail. 

"'Due process' in deportation is a euphemism for interminable delay. According to TRAC Immigration, which gathers data on the chronically backlogged immigration-court system, there are currently more than 366,000 pending deportation cases, with average wait times nationally of nearly 600 days."

"In January, President Barack Obama outlined his strategy for 2014. 'I've got a pen, and I've got a phone,' he said. The president planned on using his pen to sign executive and administrative orders and his phone to call outside groups -- not Congress -- to rally behind his pet programs. ...  

"Rather than working with Congress, Obama's second term is all about blaming Congress for whatever goes wrong. In that can't-do spirit, Obama mocked House Speaker John Boehner's threat to take legal action against the White House's imperial ways. 'So sue me,' Obama said to laughter. As long as House Republicans are 'doing nothing, I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something.' ...  

"As a constitutional law professor, Obama should not need the House Judiciary Committee to tell him, 'If the President disagrees with that law, he must convince Congress to change it.'"

"We may not have a strong job market, but the numbers definitely have improved since the start of the year.  ... 

"But better numbers are not the same as impressive numbers. This is still the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression. So while it’s good to have a bit of improvement, we should be dissatisfied until we at least get back on the long-run trendline for 3 percent average real growth.

"And what needs to happen to give us that kind of growth? The answer is simple: Free markets and small government."

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."

"It’s hard to imagine a more apt summation of the lunatic state of the nation’s immigration debate than this week’s split screen. 

"In Washington, most respectable opinion lined up, yet again, to condemn Republicans for not passing an amnesty under the guise of defunct-for-now 'comprehensive immigration reform.' 

"Meanwhile, the crisis on the Southern border continued. A massive influx of people — largely driven by Central Americans, many of them children — drawn here in the expectation of lax immigration enforcement is overwhelming border officials and facilities. ... 

"The border crisis is of a piece with a broad unraveling of the president’s policy over the past year. His erstwhile spiritual mentor might have put it under the category of 'chickens coming home to roost.'"

"Great men (and women) can't change a nation, even if they are supremely ruthless and cynical. Not in a constitutional republic like ours. 

"It can only be accomplished when the people fall silent and give up their freedoms willingly.  ... 

"[W]hen a free people lose their capacity for outrage, they are susceptible to almost anything. ... 

"This is happening now, in the Internal Revenue Service scandal, in which one of the federal government's most feared agencies descended upon some conservative groups that were political enemies of President Barack Obama.  

"You know the story. You've heard it on radio and have seen it on TV and read some of it in the papers. And what I don't see is outrage. ... 

"But if the party in power can send out the IRS and club its opponents to the ground, and if we remain silent and numb, a lot more than political advantage is threatened.

"Ultimately, our liberty is too."