"President Obama came into office seven years ago pledging to end the wars of his predecessor, George W. Bush. On May 6, with eight months left before he vacates the White House, Mr. Obama passed a somber, little-noticed milestone: He has now been at war longer than Mr. Bush, or any other American president.

"If the United States remains in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria until the end of Mr. Obama's term -- a near-certainty given the president'€™s recent announcement that he will send 250 additional Special Operations forces to Syria -- he will leave behind an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war.

"Mr. Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 and spent his years in the White House trying to fulfill the promises he made as an antiwar candidate, would have a longer tour of duty as a wartime president than Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon or his hero Abraham Lincoln."

"Socialism is having a moment.

"I'm not just referring to Bernie Sanders's surprisingly strong showing in the Democratic primaries. Various polls show that Millennials have a more favorable view of socialism than of capitalism. And Millennials generally are the only age group that views socialism more favorably than unfavorably. ...

"Writing in The Federalist, Emily Ekins and Joy Pullmann note that many of these young people think socialism is federally mandated niceness. A 2014 Reason-Rupe survey asked Millennials to define socialism. They had in mind a more generous safety net, more kindness and, as one put it, more 'being together.' ...

"Young people understandably are drawn by the promise of 'being together.' But they think the federal government can make it happen. If government planners can't even provide goods and services efficiently, how will they ever provide togetherness?"

"Liberals will far outnumber conservatives as college commencement speakers this year, the latest sign of higher education's censoring of speech, according to the latest tally from the Young America's Foundation.

"YAF's 24th annual Commencement Speakers Survey found 45 liberal speakers and 12 conservatives scheduled to speak at the nation's top 100 universities."

"Brian Pagliano's e-mails have gone missing, the State Department confirmed this week. Is anyone really surprised that the guy Hillary Clinton hired to keep her communications secret also seems to have scrubbed his own?

"Back in 2009, Clinton hired Pagliano to set up and maintain that now-infamous home-brewed e-mail server. She also had him hired at State -- whose bureaucrats were more than a bit befuddled at having the first-ever political appointee in the IT department....

"The Clinton campaign has yet to comment on the news. Hey, it takes time to make up even a bad lie for a mess this bad."

"Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network's influential 'trending' news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site's users.

"Several former Facebook 'news curators,' as they were known internally, also told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially 'inject' selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren't popular enough to warrant inclusion -- or in some cases weren't trending at all. The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module. ...

"The former curator was so troubled by the omissions that they kept a running log of them at the time; this individual provided the notes to Gizmodo. Among the deep-sixed or suppressed topics on the list: former IRS official Lois Lerner, who was accused by Republicans of inappropriately scrutinizing conservative groups; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; popular conservative news aggregator the Drudge Report; Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was murdered in 2013; and former Fox News contributor Steven Crowder. 'I believe it had a chilling effect on conservative news,' the former curator said."

"Although the issue of Puerto Rico's insolvency has been buried beneath other important news, Congress and the White House have been fighting over it lately. The island territory is in crisis because its improvident governments have accumulated $72 billion in debt, and they can't keep it up. ...

"This issue should concern you deeply, even if you never plan to visit. As Joseph Lawler notes in his cover piece of the magazine this week, Puerto Rico's collapse may be only 'the first leak to spring in the boat,' with many more coming all across the United States.

"Estimates of the 50 states' unfunded pension liabilities range from $1.3 trillion to $3.3 trillion, depending on the assumed rate of return. Illinois, Connecticut and Kentucky are three examples of states whose pension account is out of control already or nearly so.

"This is the result of states making unwarranted assumptions about growth in their pension funds, and failing to fund them properly, thereby leaving more money in the hands of extravagant politicians to spend immediately rather than saving for the future."

"Congratulations, liberals of the Washington press corps and elite organizations: You're a bunch of suckers. We all know this because the Obama White House just told us so.

"In an astounding New York Times piece by David Samuels, senior White House officials gleefully confess they use friendly reporters and nonprofits as public-relations tools in the selling of President Obama's foreign policy -- and can do it almost at will because these tools are ignorant, will believe what they're told, will essentially take dictation and are happy to be used just to get the information necessary for a tweet or two.

"Their greatest triumph, according to Samuels, was selling a misleading narrative about the nuclear deal with Iran -- the parameters of which were set a year before the administration claimed and had nothing to do with the fact that a supposedly more accommodating government had risen to power."

"The Obama administration is revising a federal rule that allows wind-energy companies to operate high-speed turbines for up to 30 years, even if means killing or injuring thousands of federally protected bald and golden eagles.

"Under the plan announced Wednesday, companies could kill or injure up to 4,200 bald eagles a year without penalty -- nearly four times the current limit. Golden eagles could only be killed if companies take steps to minimize the losses, for instance, by retrofitting power poles to reduce the risk of electrocution. ...

"Wind farms are clusters of turbines as tall as 30-story buildings, with spinning rotors as wide as a passenger jet's wingspan. Blades can reach speeds of up to 170 mph at the tips, creating tornado-like vortexes. ...

"Wednesday's announcement kicks off a 60-day comment period. Officials hope to issue a final rule this fall."

"Mr. Obama's efforts in Iraq today are the anti-Iraq surge. Whereas Mr. Bush in 2007 learned from his mistakes, Mr. Obama remains stubbornly committed to his failing approach. Whereas Mr. Bush listened to military leaders, Mr. Obama's favors inexperienced ideologues. Whereas Mr. Bush doubled-down to win in Iraq, Mr. Obama plays to run out the clock -- fueling a foolish narrative that the Islamic State will 'collapse under its own weight.' Whereas Mr. Bush ultimately did not care if his wartime decisions were politically popular, Mr. Obama preys on the anxieties of a 'war-weary' American public.

"Recent gains have been made against the Islamic State, with some of its terrain recaptured and its flow of foreign fighters slowing dramatically. There are signs of low morale and high desertion rates among its fighters. These are all good things. But as long as their black flag flies over Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, the caliphate will continue to export violence across the region (i.e., Libya) and inspire violence in the West."

"Despite a massive budget increase for the department charged with handling the illegal immigrant crisis, deportations by the U.S. Customs and Enforcement agency have plummeted 43 percent in just three years, according to federal data released by Sen. Jeff Sessions Monday.

"A new fact sheet from the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, chaired by the Alabama senator, said ICE agents removed 235,413 illegal immigrants in fiscal 2015, a decrease of 174,436 from the 409,849 removed in fiscal 2012.

"The biggest drop off came from deportations of illegal immigrants deep inside the United States rather than at the border, according to the data from the Department of Homeland Security."