"President Obama says those who oppose the Iran nuclear deal are either ideological or illogical. I support the deal, yet I think this assessment is incorrect and unfair. ...

"Obama once understood, even celebrated, this gray zone of difficult policy choices. He was a man who took pains to recognize and validate the legitimate concerns of those on the opposite side of nearly any complex debate.

"The new Obama, hardened and embittered -- the one on display in his American University speech last week and in the follow-up spate of interviews -- has close to zero tolerance for those who reach contrary conclusions."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's clumsy, tone-deaf response to the toxic disaster on the Animas River was an embarrassment even to the EPA. One agency official managed to admit the reaction was 'cavalier,' but that's putting a mild face on it.

"The agency was so slow in notifying people downstream, for example, that New Mexico officials complained they didn't hear about the spill of 3 million gallons of contaminated water from the Gold King mine for 24 hours.

"And the information wasn't only tardy -- when it finally came, it was often incomplete and ill-informed. An agency accustomed to demanding answers and accountability from private polluters was unprepared when the tables were turned and its own reputation was on the line."

"All Americans who bought health insurance policies this year - not just those enrolled in Obamacare - face a 41 percent increase in excise taxes because of hidden fees contained in an obscure section of the Affordable Care Act, according to an investigation by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

"Virtually everyone who pays for health care insurance this year will be affected by the tax. The little-known tax was imposed on all consumers regardless of whether they obtained their insurance through Obamacare or through their employer or as individuals in the private market.

"This year the tax will cost individuals more than $500 in extra premiums according to one actuarial estimate. Families who purchased insurance will see their premiums go up by more than $700."

"Two top congressional Democrats announced late Thursday that they would oppose President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.

"Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the No. 3 Senate Democrat, and Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., the leading Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, both announced their objection to the deal in a blow to the Obama administration ahead of next month's vote. ...

"Schumer's decision also puts him at odds with the Democrats' likely presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, who has cautiously embraced the deal. The Senate's No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, supports the accord and has been working hard to persuade lawmakers to do the same."

"President Obama made it explicit Wednesday for everyone to hear: Only hard-headed Israel, which apparently is intent on war, he said, is standing in the way of his dubious nuclear deal with Iran.

'"This is such a strong deal,' he said in a speech at American University, that 'every nation in the world that has commented publicly, with the exception of the Israeli government, has expressed support.

"He forgot one other opponent: the American people.

"No less than four different major national polls over the past week show rising public disapproval of his deal -- by as much as 2-to-1 against. Americans plainly don't buy Obama's claim that no better deal was possible, and that rejecting this one guarantees 'some sort of war.'"

"Every political analyst, every political observer, every politician is absolutely sure that Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee for president in 2016. And we're all absolutely sure that Donald Trump is not going to be sworn in as president on January 20, 2017. Could we all be wrong?

"So far, every poll seems to only be giving him more strength. Who would have thought even a month ago that as we enter the first GOP debate of the presidential election that Donald Trump, The Donald Trump, would be the leader in every single national poll and gaining strength in all the early primary and caucus states? Time and time again, in just a few weeks, his candidacy seems to have survived what we professional political observers all think are obviously fatal gaffes and flubs. Could this be the rare instance when politics is actually about to go haywire? ...

"Before offering up any certainties about what might happen to Trump, it might be useful to use a tool that Trump himself has never employed: humility."

"On the eve of the first Republican primary debate, state party leaders across the nation say the 2016 contest is in a state of flux, as unpredictable and wide-open as any they can remember.

"A sprawling field of contenders, no clear frontrunner, still-unsettled primary election dates and rules, the combustible presence of Donald Trump -- all of it has top GOP officials scratching their heads over which direction the nominating fight is going and how it all ends.

"That's according to a survey of 50 Republican state party chairmen from across the country, more than half of whom spoke with POLITICO ahead of Thursday's Fox News debate in Cleveland, a prime-time spectacle already infused with chaos and drama surrounding which candidates will qualify for a slot onstage."

"The Obama administration is expected to announce today new restrictions on U.S. power plants that are, in the words of the New York Times, 'the strongest action ever taken in the United States to combat climate change.' In reality, the new regulatory regime is no such thing, a fact that ought to inform the years-long political and legal fight that the president's unilateral rulemaking inevitably will provoke.

"The president will instruct U.S. power plants to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by just under one-third (32 percent). How that is to be achieved and at what cost is . . . not Barack Obama's problem. States will have until 2018 -- comfortably remote from any presidential election -- to submit their plans, and until 2030 to implement them.

"The president and his partisans insist that these measures are necessary to prevent catastrophic global warming. But global warming is, famously, a global issue, and even steep cuts in one sector of one country's economy many years in the future will have only a minuscule effect on global atmospheric conditions, especially given the fact that developing nations such as India have made it clear that they will not artificially lower their peoples' standards of living to satisfy a moral panic in the affluent world. China, for its part, promises that it will freeze its emissions right where they are -- someday -- in exchange for certain concessions, a promise with about as much credibility as the Iranians' insistence that they want enriched uranium to supply a new plant powering a national fleet of Chevy Volts because they'€™re on a jihad to comfort the polar bear."

"[Trump's] rise is not due to his supporters' anger at government. It is a gesture of contempt for government, for the men and women in Congress, the White House, the agencies. It is precisely because people have lost their awe for the presidency that they imagine Mr. Trump as a viable president. ...

"Mr. Trump's supporters like that he doesn't in the least fear the press, doesn't get the dart-eyed, anxious look candidates get. He treats reporters with courtesy until he feels they're out of line, at which point he calls them stupid. They think he'll do that with Putin. His insult of John McCain didn't hurt him, and not because his supporters have any animus for Mr. McCain. They just saw it as more proof Mr. Trump will take the bark off anyone. ...

"Trump's power is not name ID. He didn't make his name in this cycle or the last, he's been around 35 years. He's made an impression."

"A federal judge Wednesday rebuked the Obama administration's IRS for refusing to divulge documents, including Lois G. Lerner's emails, and warned that he would hold in contempt those who break his orders.

"Judge Emmet G. Sullivan called the administration's defense 'nonsensical' and said the IRS must release documents every Monday to Judicial Watch, a conservative public interest law firm that requested the documents under open records laws and then sued after the IRS didn't comply. ...

"Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said Judge Sullivan's displeasure with the IRS shows just how poorly the agency is performing.

"'The missing-and-then-not-missing Lois Lerner saga is a stark example of the Obama administration's contempt for a federal court and the rule of law,' Mr. Fitton said. 'That Obama administration officials would risk jail rather than disclose these Lerner documents shows that the IRS scandal has just gotten a whole lot worse.'"