"Much ink has been spilled blaming the state of U.S.-€“Israel relations on the poor personal rapport between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The fact is that huggable Barney the Purple Dinosaur could have been Israel's elected leader, and the relations would have been equally hostile. ...

"Anyone who believes that the president's toxic foreign policy on Israel is a mere personal vendetta against a foreign leader he doesn't like is giving Obama far too little credit. His foreign policy has never wavered: He sought 'daylight' between himself and Israel. He has achieved a chasm.

"The only question left is how much more blood the president can extract from Israel in his last twelve months."

"Ted Cruz has suggested that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Mark Levin moderate Republican debates. Good idea, wrong target. How about this arrangement? Limbaugh & Co. should moderate the Democratic debates. What a splendid blood-soaked spectacle that would be."

"At the past 16 Republican National Conventions, the party's presidential nominee has been selected on the first ballot. That long streak might end next year. For the first time since 1948, when the GOP nominated Thomas E. Dewey for president after three rounds of voting, Republicans might take more than one ballot to settle on their nominee. ...

"It is unlikely that the GOP will reprise 1880, when it took 36 ballots to nominate James A. Garfield, who wasn't even a candidate when the convention began. But it is possible that the nomination will still be up for grabs when the GOP convention opens on July 18, and that delegates could need more than one ballot to select the party's candidate. That's not necessarily a bad thing. After all, Republicans took three ballots in 1860 to pick a fellow named Lincoln."

"I firmly believe that the conservative-media revolution has caused the liberal media to abandon any pretense of objectivity and fairness and actively advocate on the Left's behalf. This has led in turn to the hyper-partisan nature of our politics today. When Republicans were perennial losers and happy about it, the media could stay hidden behind their wall of phony objectivity. But they were called out. Now there is a fierce competition for the hearts and minds of the American people, which the Left used to believe it owned.

"So it is not I, nor anyone else in conservatism, who is to blame for the partisanship in Washington. That is on the Democrats and the Left, for trying to destroy the traditions and institutions that have defined this country. We stand in defense of this great nation, and we always will. And we look forward to the Republican party's someday joining us."

"Two senior officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs have pleaded the Fifth Amendment in front of a House Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing on relocation bonus corruption.

"Philadelphia and Wilmington VA regional offices director Diana Rubens and St. Paul VA regional office director Kimberly Graves pleaded the Fifth and refused to answer any of the numerous questions put forward by HVAC chairman GOP Rep. Jeff Miller. ...

"An inspector general report from Sept. 28 found that two VA officials abused the relocation program to the tune of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. To successfully take advantage of the program and receive extra money during a time of salary caps in the department, the two officials pushed subordinates out from their positions and subsequently applied for those newly open positions, so that they could then receive generous expense accounts during the move, in addition to bonus incentive funds."

"In or out of office, Fred Thompson stayed true to the conservative principles he believed had made America great. He always thought a major reason Republicans lost the presidency in 2008 was that they had aided and abetted runaway government spending. Republicans had to commit themselves to smaller government, he contended, because Democrats are incapable of following through on ever being fiscally prudent. 'Their political coalition needs more revenue like a car requires gasoline,' he told me as he ran for president. 'Reagan showed what can be done if you have the will to push for tough choices and the ability to ask the people to accept them.'

"Fred Thompson never made it to the White House, but he nonetheless showed a strength of character and a grounded belief in common sense that left his country a better place."

"For the first three Republican debates, the moderators have spent most of each debate asking candidates to respond to what other candidates have said to them. These kinds of petty questions have led to debates being more about personal attacks than substantive policy. ...

"The candidates can, if they focus on this, set themselves apart by their policies, not their witty comments about each other. The American people need to see the policy differences between Republicans and Democrats. Because right now they're seeing what the Democrats have to offer but only what Republicans will say about each other."

"Boulder, CO -- After a performance by CNBC moderators that Republicans characterized as both biased and inept, a manager for a top GOP campaign says he will try to organize other campaigns to force the Republican National Committee to make 'wholesale change' in the debate process.

"In an interview shortly after the debate, Barry Bennett, manager of the Ben Carson campaign, called the session here in Colorado 'unfair to everyone' and said the current debate structure should not remain in place. 'I think the families need to get together here, because these debates as structured by the RNC are not helping the party,' Bennett said. 'There's not enough time to talk about your plans, there's no presentation. It's just a slugfest. All we do is change moderators. And the trendline is horrific. So I think there needs to be wholesale change here.'"

"House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz began the impeachment process against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen on Tuesday, accusing him of misleading the public and destroying documents that were sought under a congressional subpoena. ...

"Among the specific charges leveled by Mr. Chaffetz and 18 of his fellow Republicans on the committee were that Mr. Koskinen, appointed by President Obama in December 2013 after the targeting scandal broke, misled Congress when he said he had turned over all of former IRS senior executive Lois G. Lerner's emails and that he oversaw destruction of evidence when his agency got rid of backup tapes that contained the emails."

"For all the promises and warnings about the Iran deal, it is nothing more than surrender dressed up as diplomacy. The correlation of forces in the Middle East has shifted in the past year, and Mr. Obama will not lift a finger to restore the balance. Mr. Khamenei knows this, and he is not about to give the U.S. a dignified surrender. Then maybe Mr. Obama knows it, too. He doesn'€™t seem to mind the ignominy."