"As undignified as it is unedifying and unnecessary, the vulgar State of the Union circus is again at our throats. The document that the Constitutional Convention sent forth from Philadelphia for ratification in 1787 was just 4,543 words long, but this was 17 too many. America would be a sweeter place if the Framers had not included this laconic provision pertaining to the president: 'He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union.'

"'Information'? Not exactly.

"The Constitution’s mild requirement has become a tiresome exercise in political exhibitionism, the most execrable ceremony in the nation’s civic liturgy, regardless of which party’s president is abusing it. You worship bipartisanship? There is not a dime’s worth of difference between the ways the parties try to milk partisan advantage from this made-for-television political pep rally."

"Democrats have assumed all along that once implemented, ObamaCare would be too popular to be repealed or even modified. Republicans shared the same assumption and even now many worry that no matter how grievous the impact of the law on the American economy, it will be impossible to rescind coverage from those who have gained it via ObamaCare. 

"But what neither party anticipated was the emergence of an entirely new demographic — the millions upon millions of ObamaCare losers — whose anger over the law could well be a game-changer. More corporate decisions such as Target’s that have the potential to increase the size of this group is bad news indeed for ObamaCare and the Democratic Party that, without a single Republican vote, foisted it upon an unwilling public."

"The odds of moving up — or down — the income ladder in the United States have not changed appreciably in the last 20 years, according to a large new academic study that contradicts politicians in both parties who have claimed that income mobility is falling. 

"Both President Obama and leading Republicans, like Representative Paul Ryan, have argued recently that the odds of climbing the income ladder are lower today than in previous decades. The new study, based on tens of millions of anonymous tax records, finds that the mobility rate has held largely steady in recent decades, although it remains lower than in Canada and in much of Western Europe, where the odds of escaping poverty are higher. 

"Raj Chetty, a professor of economics at Harvard and one of the authors, said in an interview that he and his colleagues still believed that a lack of mobility was a significant problem in the United States. Despite less discrimination of various kinds and a larger safety net than in previous decades, the odds of escaping the station of one’s birth are no higher today than they were decades ago."

"Obamacare has so far fallen dramatically short of what was expected -- technically, and in almost every other way. Enrollment is below expectations: According to the data we have so far, more than half of the much-touted Medicaid expansion came from people who were already eligible before the health-care law passed, and this weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that the overwhelming majority of people buying insurance through the exchanges seem to be folks who already had insurance. Coverage is less generous than many people expected, with narrower provider networks and higher deductibles. The promised $2,500 that the average family was told they could save on premiums has predictably failed to materialize. And of course, we now know that if you like your doctor and plan, there is no reason to think you can keep them. Which is one reason the law has not gotten any more popular since it passed. ... 

"[...] The law is unpopular, not only with voters, but also apparently with the consumers who are supposed to buy insurance. The political forces that were supposed to guarantee its survival look weaker by the day. The Barack Obama administration is in emergency mode, pasting over political problems with administrative fixes of dubious legality, just to ensure the law’s bare survival -- which is now their incredibly low bar for 'success.'"

"If a bill to eliminate the risk corridors comes to a vote, many congressional Democrats will decide that the success of their cherished health-care program is worth a bailout. But then they will face a choice: Do they really want to stand for an open-ended commitment of tax dollars to insurance companies? Is that what the party now favors? Is that what swing-state senators and swing-district representatives wish to defend?

"Conservatives, who almost all believe that Obamacare is a very bad law that can’t be made to work tolerably through mere tinkering, have every reason to fight a bailout. Campaigning against one will undermine the alliance between the White House and insurers by raising its price for both parties. Let’s find out just how much 'sustainability' that alliance has."

"When Americans first learned last year that the IRS had illegally targeted Tea Party, conservative and evangelical nonprofits for harassment during the 2010 and 2012 campaigns, Obama said such activities were unacceptable and he promised to get to the bottom of the scandal. But not long afterwards, he began dismissing the IRS matter as a 'phony scandal' concocted by Republicans unhappy that he had won re-election.  

"Then, Attorney General Eric Holder, or somebody reporting to him, appointed Barbara Bosserman, a long-time Obama campaign donor, to head the investigation. So it came as no surprise last week when it was reported that the FBI expects no criminal charges to be filed in the IRS scandal. Politicized justice is no justice at all.

"[...] The tragedy is that a man elected in large part because of his perceived integrity has turned out to be a  political dissembler of the first rank."

"Terrorism: The bipartisan Senate report on the Benghazi attack is damning to both President Obama and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She may be sorry she asked, 'What difference does it make?' ... 

"President Obama's appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state was one of the most politicized choices in history, done to close ranks in his favor within the Democratic Party and give the former first lady a big boost for the 2016 presidential race. Both Obama and Clinton are now damned by this bipartisan report for their mismanagement and corruption. 

"There is no excuse post-9/11 for either non-sharing of vital intelligence or security shortcomings at U.S. facilities in places swarming with terrorists. Yet, glaringly, Clinton is mentioned only a single time in the report. 

"'What difference at this point does it make?' Clinton asked Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., nearly a year ago. 

"The lives of four Americans serving their country, lost due to incompetence and politicization. That's what difference."

"There haven't been so many reporters chasing a story in Trenton, N.J., since Washington crossed the Delaware. But compared with the methods the Democratic Party is using now to take down its opponents, Chris Christie looks like Little Bo Peep. ... 

"The Christie bonfire has burned for a week. In that same week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI found nothing in the IRS's targeting of conservative political groups that warrants criminal charges.  ... 

"Thus, two of the most powerful public institutions in the U.S. — the FBI and the IRS — have concluded no harm, no foul, and the memory hole swallows the Obama administration's successful kneecapping of the GOP's most active members just as they prepared to participate in the 2012 presidential campaign. Many — ruined or terrified by the IRS probes — shut down. Mr. Obama won.

"World economic freedom has reached record levels, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. But after seven straight years of decline, the U.S. has dropped out of the top 10 most economically free countries. 

"For 20 years, the index has measured a nation's commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating 10 categories, including fiscal soundness, government size and property rights. These commitments have powerful effects: Countries achieving higher levels of economic freedom consistently and measurably outperform others in economic growth, long-term prosperity and social progress. ...

"It's not hard to see why the U.S. is losing ground. Even marginal tax rates exceeding 43% cannot finance runaway government spending, which has caused the national debt to skyrocket. The Obama administration continues to shackle entire sectors of the economy with regulation, including health care, finance and energy. The intervention impedes both personal freedom and national prosperity."

"While the creation of a traffic jam in a small New Jersey town shows the calloused ugliness too often found among political operators puffed up with their own power, this cannot compare with the threat to freedom when the Internal Revenue Service targets the administration's political opponents during an election year. 

"Nor can a traffic jam compare with the Department of Justice's gun-running operation that led to the death of an American Border Patrol agent in the southwest or the State Department's actions and inactions that led to the deaths of four American officials killed by terrorists in Benghazi. 

"Nevertheless, media coverage of the traffic jam in New Jersey was several times as extensive as any -- or all -- of these far more consequential scandals in Washington."