"Obama knew the media would take their eye off the ball if he distracted them with a passion play about GOP bigotry. He ridiculed Republicans for their cowardice and cruelty in raising concerns about the potential security threats posed by Syrian refugees. Never mind that such caution is informed in part by warnings from the heads of Obama's CIA, FBI, and DHS. Obama ludicrously mocked the idea that we prioritize Christian refugees -- victims of Islamic State genocide -- as an Islamophobic 'religious test' that was 'not American,' even though his administration already gives special preference to Yazidi refugees from Iraq and federal law requires taking religion into account when screening refugees. For Obama, politics ends at the water's edge, unless he's speaking abroad.

"Obama's dithering sparked the refugee crisis. He's now using a smattering of refugees as a cynical prop to prove he's the hero of his own morality tale. The reality is that he's a villain in his own theater of the absurd. And we're the suckers in the audience falling for it."

"If you've watched President Obama's various speeches and press conferences over the past few days, you can be forgiven for coming away with the distinct impression that he doesn't like you. ...

"If you doubt any portion of our current refugee policy, you're 'hysterical.' Never mind that a recent poll showed 13 percent of Syrian refugees declaring a 'positive' or 'somewhat positive' view of ISIS, or that at least one of the Paris attackers apparently arrived in France posing as a refugee. Never mind the 26 charges of terrorism brought up against foreign-born individuals in the U.S. in the past year, as Sen. Jeff Sessions documented this week, or the fact that in October, FBI Director James Comey testified that our current system likely can't effectively vet Syrian refugees.

"More importantly, never mind the fact that opposition to current refugee protocols doesn't necessarily translate into opposition to helping refugees altogether; had Obama led with an acknowledgment of the system's weaknesses and showed genuine concern towards fixing them, we might be in a different situation today. As it is, a new Bloomberg poll shows 53 percent of Americans opposing the current settlement plan."

"Obama's own policy decisions -- allowing Assad to convert peaceful demonstrations into an increasingly ugly civil war, refusing to declare safe havens and no fly zones -- were instrumental in creating the Syrian refugee crisis. This crisis is in large part the direct consequence of President Obama's decision to stand aside and watch Syria burn. For him to try and use a derisory and symbolic program to allow 10,000 refugees into the United States in order to posture as more caring than those evil Jacksonian rednecks out in the benighted sticks is one of the most cynical, cold-blooded, and nastily divisive moves an American President has made in a long time. ...

"To think that conspicuous moral posturing and holy posing over a symbolic refugee quota could turn President Obama from the goat to the hero of the Syrian crisis is absurd. Wringing your hands while Syria turns into a hell on earth, and then taking a token number of refugees, can be called many things, but decent and wise are not among them. You don'€™t have to be a xenophobe or a racist or even a Republican to reject this President's leadership on Syria policy. All you need for that is common sense and a moral compass."

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"President Obama on Monday assailed the U.S. political backlash against resettling more Syrian refugees, especially Muslims, calling it un-American. Well, maybe he should have thought about that before he decided to do so little in Syria and let Islamic State build a vast terror sanctuary. ...

"As France is learning, Islamic State is only too happy to use the Syrian diaspora to plant its agents to kill the French. At least one of the killers on Friday is believed to have migrated from Syria through Greece and into Paris. Nearly all of the other migrants, Muslim and Christian, have no such bloody intent. But can you blame the average American for refusing to volunteer as a next door neighbor? ...

"If Mr. Obama fought Islamic State with half the vigor with which he delivers moral lectures, he'd find that a much less fearful America would welcome far more refugees."

"During Saturday's debate, all three Democratic presidential candidates refused to say that the U.S. was at war with 'radical Islam.' They all bobbed and weaved as they tried to follow the PC line and avoid admitting that obvious fact. ...

"The debate on Saturday exposed the real weakness the Democratic field has on national security. None of the three candidates were willing to state the obvious: that President Obama's foreign-policy fecklessness has made America less safe. Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell told CBS News's Face the Nation on Sunday that 'it's now crystal clear to us that our strategy, our policy, vis-a-vis ISIS is not working, and it's time to look at something else.' The day before, Morell had told CBS's 48 Hours that it was now the duty of the intelligence community to confront President Obama with that news."

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

"The Republican debate on CNBC was riveting, the way a train wreck is riveting -- you couldn't take your eyes off it. The Fox Business Network debate was merely satisfying. A serious political discussion requires a bit more work, but it repays the effort. ...

"On Tuesday, all the contenders were required to show their hand. We saw character and we saw policy. Substance is never sizzling, but the FBN debate was both revealing and sobering: Which one of these can you actually see inhabiting the Oval Office?"

"Hillary Clinton has moved to the left of President Obama on trade, energy, immigration, student loans, health care and entitlements. But even we're surprised by her latest move, which is to turn against charter schools as an engine of education opportunity. ...

"Charters serve some of the most troubled students, including a higher percentage in poverty than all public schools, according to Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes. In urban centers in particular, charters serve mostly minority students and include more who are learning English than do public schools as a whole. ...

"Mrs. Clinton's charter reversal suggests her Education Department would be a wholly owned union subsidiary. The losers will be the poor parents and children who Democrats claim to represent."

"I understand why the idiot children at Yale are so sensitive. Really, I do. I sometimes list in my mind all of the poor, suffering people who get a raw deal in this life, and Yale students are always right at the top, with the Bangladeshi orphans and women traded by sex traffickers in Vietnam. Yale isn't a safe space, Congo isn't a safe space -- it all makes sense, as long as you don't expect it to make sense. ...

"We're all real sorry about your safe spaces and your pacifier and your stuffed puppy, Caitlyn. Really we are. Yet the perpetual revolution of configured stars continues in its indifference, and the lot of man is ceaseless labor, and though you may find the thought terrifying -- and thinking itself terrifying -- it may turn out to be the case that the screaming in the dark you do on campus is more or less the same screaming in the dark you did in the crib, the same howl for the same reason."

"President Obama's executive action preventing the deportation of an estimated 5 million people living in the United States illegally suffered another setback Monday after a federal appeals court upheld a federal judge's injunction blocking the measure.

"The 2-1 decision by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans further dims the prospect of implementation of the executive action before Obama leaves office in 2017. Appeals over the injunction could take months. Depending on how the case unfolds, the injunction could even go back to the Texas federal court for more proceedings.

"Republicans had criticized the plan as an illegal executive overreach when Obama announced it last November. Twenty-six states challenged the plan in court. U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen granted the temporary injunction preventing the order's implementation this past February, agreeing with the states that legalizing the presence of so many people would be a 'virtually irreversible' action that would cause the states 'irreparable harm.'"