"Former Senator Tom Coburn once called earmarks a 'gateway drug' to big government spending. He was right. Earmarks, once a small fraction of federal spending, ballooned into corrupt schemes by members of congress for often nonsensical or vanity projects. From bridges to nowhere to buildings named after spouses, your tax dollars were sought after by congressmen and their friends for personal projects.

"Earmarks became so outlandish over time that a conservative revolt led to them being banned. Now some Republicans want to bring them back and are up to the typical games the left plays -- re-defining and renaming. ...

"The addicts are restless and hoping to get out of rehab and back on the drug. Republicans just won an election to drain Washington's swamp. They do not now need to direct the sewer into the swamp by re-establishing earmarks. It is not a coincidence that the chief advocates of earmarks are also the most liberal Republicans in the Congress. They know their and the left's expansionist tendencies are dampened without earmarks. We should not give in."

"As much as Trump's voters were motivated by economics, they were also motivated by resentment toward what they viewed as an aggressive culture war being waged against them by left-wing politicians. It seems highly unlikely that a more leftist Democratic Party will be more tolerant of the religious minority groups that just rejected them, including Catholics, who went not only for Trump but also for House Republicans by 7 points, according to exit polls.

"If this year's election teaches us anything, it is that neither political party can be counted out forever. There can be no obituary for the Democratic Party, which could well come roaring back.

"But Democrats have just driven their party hard into a ditch, and their road to recovery isn't obvious. How they react could determine how long they are stuck in their rut."

"If in the first 100 days Trump can push through tax reform, deregulation, Keystone, clean coal, new leases for fracking and horizontal drilling on federal lands, an end to the crony-capitalist Solyndra-like subsidies, a cut-off of federal aid to sanctuary cities, support for school vouchers, the wall, deportations of those illegal aliens who committed crimes or have no work history, plans to rebuild the military, a freeze on federal hiring, trade renegotiations -- then surprising things will follow.

"Success in getting these initiatives passed will be proof of strong-horse leadership. And even Trump'€™s critics will for a while defer to his power, both in private admiration that he did what they could not, and in public out of fear that he might do even more -- and, again oddly enough, also in mordant curiosity about whether the Trump agenda might in fact jump-start America."

"Keep rioting, kids. Every car you set ablaze, every window you break, his poll numbers go up."

"Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death."

"There were a lot of losers in this election, well beyond Hillary Clinton and the smug, incompetent pollsters and know-it-all, groupthink pundits who embarrassed themselves.

"From hacked email troves we received a glimpse of the bankrupt values of Washington journalists, lawyers, politicians, lobbyists and wealthy donors. Despite their brand-name Ivy League degrees and 1 percenter resumes, dozens of the highly paid grandees who run our country and shape our news appear petty and spiteful -- and clueless about the America that exists beyond their Beltway habitat.

"Leveraging rich people for favors and money seems an obsession. They brag about wealth and status in the fashion of preteens.

"Journalists often violated their own ethics codes during the campaign. ...

"One big loser is the Obama Justice Department -- or rather the very concept of justice as administered by the present administration. It has gone the tainted way of the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Veterans Affairs and National Security Agency. The Justice Department clearly pressured the FBI to limit its investigation of pay-for-play corruption at the Clinton Foundation and the State Department."

"The nation's cultural and political elite has been handed its walking papers by the American electorate.

"What just happened is the most momentous shift in American political and cultural life in our time. There's no way to digest the meaning of Donald Trump being on the verge of victory. Understanding it is the work of a generation. ...

"He won it because he had something to say that resonated across the country and Hillary Clinton ran saying absolutely nothing other than that Trump was scum.

"That's why the confident folk who understood he would be the next president had shocking clarity while the rest of us were blinded by the steam rising from the stew. They thrilled to the way Trump threw all the ideological cards in the conservative Republican deck in the air and then went entirely on instinct about what was troubling America and what America needed to make it great again."

"Ever since Jimmy Carter's early concession in 1980 was blamed for losses to down-ballot Democrats in Western states, both politicians and media outlets have been religious about not reporting the results until everyone's voted.

"But that's all about to change, starting early Tuesday morning.

"This year, a handful of different projects are underway to disrupt the rhythm and flow of information on Election Day -- including one controversial effort that some worry could affect the actual election results.

"Slate and Vice News have partnered with Votecastr, a company helmed by Obama and Bush campaign veterans, to provide real-time projections of how the candidates are faring in each state throughout the day. They expect to begin posting projections at 8 a.m. Eastern time on Election Day -- a dramatic departure from current practice, where representatives from a consortium of news organizations (The Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News) huddle in a quarantine room without cell phones, poring over the earliest exit poll data but declining to release anything that points to an election result until all the polls have closed."

Read entire article here.

"If you think our marathon election season will end on Tuesday, you might be wrong.

"'Margin of litigation' is a phrase we might hear a lot after Tuesday if the presidential election is close in one or more states. It refers to the number of votes by which a candidate must win in order to prevent litigation -- and delays -- before a result is final. Both parties will have armies of lawyers deployed on Election Night looking for irregularities and opportunities to go to court. On Sunday, Trump running mate Mike Pence told Fox News Sunday that 'a clear outcome, obviously both sides will accept.' But then he went on to say, 'I think both campaigns have also been very clear that, you know, in the event of disputed results, they reserve all legal rights and remedies.' ...

"It's said that the fervent wish of every election official is 'Lord, please don't make the election super close.' But if several of Tuesday's races are tight, we could enter a quagmire of recounts, lawsuits, and protests outside government offices. If you thought the election campaign was ugly, just wait in case there is a post-election legal contest."

"The FBI has found emails related to Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state on the laptop belonging to the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner, according to a U.S. official.

"These emails, CBS News' Andres Triay reports, are not duplicates of emails found on Secretary Clinton's private server. At this point, however, it remains to be seen whether these emails are significant to the FBI's investigation into Clinton. It is also not known how many relevant emails there are."