"Premised on a heavy dose of international peer pressure, the final Paris Agreement reached last December includes a combination of both binding and non-binding provisions. The agreement is meant to shame countries into complying with self-proscribed greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets. While the Obama administration continues to insist that this time around, the climate agreement really is historic, the reality is that the final Paris agreement will be no more significant to the United States than was the Kyoto Protocol.

"Despite the administration's best efforts, the Paris agreement has no means of enforcement, sustainability or legal significance without approval from the U.S. Senate. And so, with no democratic legitimacy, this agreement should not be viewed as the policy of the United States, but rather a perpetuation of the president's climate legacy that Congress and the American people consistently reject. International representatives have been duly warned that promises made through sole-executive agreements only last as long as the president who made them. ...

"When it comes to the Paris agreement, the Senate's role in this matter does not exist at President Obama's prerogative; it is derived from the Constitution. If President Obama is truly looking for a historic achievement, he would be seeking out Senate involvement instead of attempting to find ways around it."

"The simple proposition that everyone is equal before the law suggests that Mrs. Clinton's state of mind -- whether mere knowledge of what she was doing as to mishandling classified information; or gross negligence in the case of the mishandling of information relating to national defense; or bad intent as to actual or attempted destruction of email messages; or corrupt intent as to State Department business -- justifies a criminal charge of one sort or another.

"But will it be brought? That depends in part on the recommendation of FBI Director James Comey, a man described by President Obama, at the time the president appointed him, as 'fiercely independent.' If no recommendation to charge is forthcoming, or if such a recommendation is made but not followed by the attorney general, what happens then?

"Would the public stand for it? My guess is not. However, my guess is also that we won't be put to that test because our public officials will do their duty."

"It's now clear that despite escalating jihadi attacks and threats worldwide, nothing will dissuade President Obama from releasing or bringing in some of the world's most vicious Islamic killers. ...

"Mr. Obama now intends to return to his original plan: release all but about 59 of the most incorrigible jihadis, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who will be transferred to supermax federal prisons in the United States. Further, as national security expert K.T. McFarland has suggested, once it's emptied, he's also likely to turn the base over to his new friends, the Castros of Cuba. This could have been one of the main drivers for his rapprochement with Cuba in the first place. If President Carter can give away the Panama Canal, Mr. Obama can give away another vital strategic asset, this one just 90 miles offshore.

"He will close Guantanamo, even if it means replenishing the terrorist ranks, endangering the American people, and aiding and abetting the enemy. After all, his quarrel with Islamism is secondary to his quarrel with American power."

"A .50-caliber rifle found at Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's hideout in Mexico was funneled through the gun-smuggling investigation known as Fast and Furious, sources confirmed Tuesday to Fox News.

"A .50-caliber is a massive rifle that can stop a car, or as it was intended, take down a helicopter.

"After the raid on Jan. 8 in the city of Los Mochis that killed five of his men and wounded one Mexican marine, officials found a number of weapons inside the house Guzman was staying, including the rifle, officials said. ...

"Out of the roughly 2,000 weapons sold through Fast and Furious, 34 were .50 caliber rifles that can take down a helicopter, according to officials. ...

"This is the third time a weapon from the Fast and Furious program has been found at a high-profile Mexican crime scene."

"The latest indignity to plague this city of nearly 100,000 is lead poisoning via their drinking water, a man-made disaster created by the arrogance and incompetence of government officials in Flint, Lansing and Washington -- Democrats as well as Republicans.

"Anybody angry enough to call for GOP Gov. Rick Snyder's resignation should also want the scalp of a President Obama appointee at the Environmental Protection Agency who sat on lead test results.

"'The EPA buried this,' said Virginia Tech researcher Marc Edwards, whose water analysis in 2015 helped expose Flint's contamination."

"There's this guy with a funny name and a cool plane and a lovely house who gets talked about a lot in Washington, especially at Republican debates, but the Democratic presidential candidates haven't been talking about him much lately -- even though he's a Democrat, and he's the president. But at their debate in South Carolina last night, they apparently remembered that the name of the guy they hope to succeed is Barack Obama, and that they really like the job he's doing, because last night they couldn't stop talking about how much they like him and his policies. ...

"Embracing Obama has risks for Democrats after the Republican midterm landslide of 2014, especially now that only one-fourth of the American public believes the country is heading in the right direction. But since Democrats are likely to be held responsible for the dramatic changes of the Obama era no matter what they say about it, they might as well own the legacy, and act as if they believe it's been an era of progress. That's especially true if the nominee turns out to be Obama's former secretary of state, no matter how much bitterness she may harbor about 2008. With Republicans gleefully trashing Obama as a 'petulant child' who hates the Constitution and cowers before our enemies, Democrats needed to provide some counter-programming, and last night they at least tried.

"In any case, in a Democratic primary dominated by Obama fans, it seems wise for Democratic candidates to at least pretend they're Obama fans, too. The winner of the Obama coalition is going to win the nomination. And that nominee's most daunting task will getting the Obama coalition to come to the polls in November. Because the guy with the funny name and the cool plane won't be on the ballot anymore."

"We have a special problem in the United States, which is that the Democratic party is more of a crime syndicate than a political party, and it is deeply embedded in institutions ranging from the universities (where manufactured hate crimes and phony rape cases are used as political weapons) to the prosecutors' offices (which bully law-enforcement personnel and file specious felony charges against politicians for such ordinary actions as vetoing legislation) to the unions (see California) and the schools. It doesn't matter how many laws Hillary Rodham Clinton breaks, or how often she lies about it -- the attorney general is a Democrat, and that's that. Tom DeLay can be brought up on felony charges for allegedly having broken a law that wasn't even on the books at the time he was said to have broken it (the case was eventually laughed out of court, after it had ended his political career, which was the point) but IRS criminal conspirator Lois Lerner is going to spend the rest of her days enjoying a fat pension at your expense."

'They must know that we will protect our ships, and if they threaten us, they will pay a price.'

"With those words, President Ronald Reagan justified his approval of Operation Praying Mantis, a day-long engagement in which U.S. Navy and Marine forces delivered a powerful response to the Iranian assault of the USS Samuel B. Roberts. A hidden Iranian mine had struck the frigate in the open waters of the Persian Gulf on April 14, 1988. No sailors died, but several were injured and the ship was severely damaged.

"Operation Praying Mantis remains the largest surface battle engaged in by the U.S. Navy since World War II, and its outcome was decisive. According to official reports released afterward, using a combination of anti-ship missiles, naval gunfire, and aircraft launched from several ships, including the aircraft carrier the USS Enterprise, the Navy destroyed two oil platforms used by Iran for intelligence collection, sank 4 small Iranian Navy boats, sank an Iranian frigate, and severely damaged another Iranian warship.

"But that was all on April 18, 1988. Back when the United States believed in delivering swift, decisive responses to enemy provocations."

"Look, if Barack Obama didn't consider Barack Obama's presidency a success, who would? Of course his last State of the Union was filled with happy talk about the current condition of the United States and its limitless future. He has a year left to convince America and his posterity that his tenure has not been a failure.

"He's got his work cut out for him. According to Gallup, a mere 23 percent of the American people are satisfied with the direction of the United States. But since it's unlikely the president is going to get any part of his domestic agenda through Congress -- and since he really doesn't want to do much of anything abroad -- he might as well take a shot at it. ...

"In what was arguably the most boring major speech of his presidency, Obama didn't even attempt to make a consistent argument or prove the case he was making for his presidency and the glorious moment to which he has brought this country."

"A new report on the Syrian refugee resettlement program reveals that the United Nations -- not U.S. officials -- initially pick and choose who can move to the United States and even become an American citizen.

"What's more, the vetting system used by the U.S.-funded United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is wide open to rampant fraud, raising the specter that potential terrorists could buy their way into the United States, according to the analysis from the Center for Immigration Studies.

"The report focused on a little-known path to how refugees get into America: The United Nations makes the first pick, not the State Department."