"Fifty-one percent of working Americans make less than $30,000 a year, new data from the Social Security Administration (SSA) shows.

"That's $2,500 a month before taxes and just over the federal poverty level for a family of five. The new numbers come from the National Wage Index, which SSA updates each year based on reported wages subject to the federal income tax.

"In 2014, half of working Americans reported an income at or below $28,851 (the median wage), and 51 percent reported an income of less than $30,000. Forty percent are making less than $20,000. The federal government considers a family of four living on an income of less than $24,250 to be impoverished."

"At this point, there is really only one angle on Benghazi: Americans were in danger in a very dangerous country, security was deteriorating, and the State Department and Secretary of State did little, and in some cases nothing, to protect them."

"On Sept. 11, 2012, terrorists killed four of our fellow citizens in Benghazi, Libya: U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods. Their lives are worthy of unyielding respect as they epitomized the service and sacrifice so often found in the women and men who serve our country. Their deaths demand a thorough, fact-centric investigation because a country worth serving and sacrificing for is also strong enough to warrant self-scrutiny -- even at the highest levels. ...

"A lot of media and public attention has been paid to Secretary Clinton's testimony before the committee. She was secretary of state at all relevant times, so of course we need to speak with her. But she is only one witness out of more than 50 so far. The hearing is not the culmination of our investigation. The investigation will continue gathering facts and interviewing witnesses after Thursday.

"This committee and our work will ultimately be judged by our final report. We will write the final, definitive accounting about what happened in Benghazi, because the families of the fallen - and all Americans - deserve the truth. And there is no statute of limitations on the truth."

"In the sadistic era of fraudulent Hope and Change, inspectors general inside the federal government have been kicked, neutered, and starved of the authority and information they need to do their jobs.

"It's transparently clear: President Obama loathes and fears independent watchdogs.

"Accountability is an empty talking point without whistleblower protection and investigative autonomy. That is why Capitol Hill must do everything in its power to stop the White House war on the public's ombudsmen. Federal inspectors general across dozens of agencies are begging lawmakers to grant them access to public records, as guaranteed by the 1978 Inspector General Act.

"The call for help comes as Obama-administration obstructionists and cover-up operatives impede and downplay several key investigations into government corruption and malfeasance."

"Since at least 1950, all but two public mass shootings in America have taken place where general citizens are banned from carrying guns. In Europe, there have been no exceptions. Every mass public shooting -- and there have been plenty of mass shooting in Europe -- has occurred in a gun-free zone. In addition, they have had three of the six worst K-12 school shootings, and Europe experienced by far the worst mass public shooting perpetrated by a single individual (Norway in 2011, which from the shooting alone left 67 people dead and 110 wounded). ...

"Bill Landes of the University of Chicago and I gathered data on mass public shootings from 1977 to 1999. We studied 13 different types of gun-control laws as well as the impact of law enforcement, but the only law that had a statistically significant impact on mass public shootings was the passage of right-to-carry laws. Right-to-carry laws reduced both the frequency and the severity of mass public shootings; and to the extent to which mass shootings still occurred, they took place in those tiny areas in the states where permitted concealed handguns were not allowed."

"As he approaches the end of his career in elected office, Barack Obama is in a truly precarious position: He is going to exit the White House having accomplished almost nothing substantive on the policy front -- his health-care program is not going to survive, Gitmo is not going to be closed, we are not leaving Afghanistan, and he is sending troops into Iraq -- and outside of his perch at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, his party is in ruins: In Congress and the states, the Democrats are in their weakest position in modern political history. If the Democrats do not win the presidency in 2016, there are going to be some very uncomfortable questions about what exactly Obama & Co. accomplished, and at what price.

"What to do? Throw Herself to the wolves, of course."

"So Clinton swept the pundit class, lost the focus groups to Sanders and may have kept Joe Biden out of the pool.

"But she tried out answers on her national security-compromising server and her litany of half-truths or worse (Kevin McCarthy! Kevin McCarthy! Kevin McCarthy!) that will not serve to help her at all come October 22 when she appears for hours and hours before the House Select Committee on Benghazi to answer focused, precise questions from the lawyers, including experienced prosecutors, who make up the GOP side of the committee such as Trey Gowdy, Susan Brooks, Mike Pompeo and Peter Roskam.

"Committee Democrats may try and throw themselves on the fire for Clinton as Sanders did, but it won't stop a patient prosecutor. ...

"Sanders is not the boss of the committee, the Congress, the FBI, future debate panelists or participants or even voters. Clinton did a happy dance Tuesday night. It won't last."

"If you watched Tuesday's Democratic debates, you probably noticed a whole lot of yelling. Indeed, the event, sponsored by CNN, was a veritable white-knuckle ride of hollering, with most of it coming from just one guy -- a guy who looked like he just received a nasty shock trying to jump-start his DeLorean in a shed filled with half-baked inventions and sad, peeling posters celebrating the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. This guy also specialized, I should add, in occasional, disgusted harrumphs.

"I'm talking, of course, about Bernie Sanders, who may not have won the debate, but who certainly set the tone. It was amazing to behold: In a country where just 26 percent of voters describe themselves as 'liberal,' the Democratic Party has apparently gone full-bore, hair-on-fire Oberlin dorm room progressive.

"Sanders' poll numbers with Democratic voters -- which hover around 25 percent, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average -- are astounding, given the fact that he aims to haphazardly micromanage our country back to the economic Stone Age."

"Hillary Clinton won. She won because she's a strong debater. She won because Bernie Sanders is not. She won because the first Democratic presidential debate focused on liberal policies and not her email scandal or character.

"The embattled front-runner won herself a news cycle or two, because she stretched the truth and played to a friendly audience. It won't always be so."

"Drama over Tuesday night's Democratic debate has disinterred an important question from liberals: Why is the party establishment so scared of having voters see their presidential candidates on TV?

"... the Democrats have limited the number of their debates to just six, compared to the Republicans' eleven. Even worse, they've scheduled them for time slots when few other than hardcore supporters will watch. They'll be like those Potemkin debates in the Senate that you see on C-SPAN, in which a senator is on screen proclaiming rhetorically as though to a crowd, when everyone knows that the chamber is empty and he or she is doing it just for TV.

"Except in this case, the TV audience won't be there either. Tuesday's debate will be the most accessible of the lot even though it is scheduled to begin during Game Four of a drama-filled Mets-Dodgers National League Division Series. The next debate is scheduled for a College Football Saturday night in November. The third is scheduled for the Saturday before Christmas. The fourth takes place during a three-day weekend in January."