"Speaker Boehner's successor inherits a diminished role in a diminished institution, and it isn't clear that there is much of anything he will be able to do to help the national legislature recover its self-respect, which lags so far behind its self-importance. Congress no longer has the power to return the president -- and the presidency -- to its proper role. That power, too, is now in the hands of the president, which is why it is unlikely that our national slide into autocracy will be reversed until the current political equilibrium is disturbed, which is to say until certain danger encounters uncertain danger."

"All told, there are at least 35 FOIA lawsuits pending for Clinton-related email. Nearly everything important we've learned has come from those suits. They are why the State Department is releasing emails; why we know they contained classified information; why we know Mrs. Clinton's aides also used unsanctioned email accounts; why we know that the State Department is covering for Mrs. Clinton.

"Which explains why the Justice Department wants the judiciary to 'consolidate' the lawsuits, claiming that the State Department is overwhelmed. The real goal is to shut down the process. Consolidation will slow discovery, and the chances of stopping the information flow is better if all the suits come before one judge, who might be friendly, rather than six unpredictable ones. But each organization bringing a suit deserves a separate hearing. It isn't these groups' fault that the State Department allowed Mrs. Clinton to go email rogue and now has a mess.

"What Democrats are only beginning to understand is that 35 FOIA lawsuits is a guarantee of weekly Clinton email-news bombs. This isn't ending. The polls keep measuring Mrs. Clinton in theoretical matchups. The only matchup that matters is this one: Clinton vs. FOIA. And FOIA is crushing it."

"If the Democratic Party cares to salvage a sliver of moral authority, its leaders and early state voters need to send Hillary Rodham Clinton an urgent message: Come clean or get out. Stop lying and deflecting about how and why you stashed State Department email server - or stop running."

"Multiple senior Iranian officials have vowed in recent weeks to violate the recently inked nuclear accord that aims to constrain the Islamic Republic's contested nuclear enrichment program, according to multiple comments by top Iranian leaders.

"Iranian leaders, including President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, have said that the country has 'no intention' of abiding by a United Nations Security Council Resolution that encompasses the deal and other restrictions on Tehran's rogue activities, according to these comments."

"Think before you selfie, you guys, because sometimes getting the right angle on those pictures can have serious (even fatal!) consequences...

"According to a new study, there have now been more deaths this year from selfies than there have been from shark attacks. Ahem, we repeat, sharks! The death toll for selfie-related deaths now totals 12 people, whereas deaths related to shark attacks totals 8 people."

"Months into her e-mail scandal, Hillary Clinton is still trying to get away with lines like, 'There's no evidence of that.' Oh, and answering questions with laughter.

"No wonder she keeps falling in the polls -- behind a 74-year-old Brooklyn-born socialist in the first two primary states, where more folks are paying attention. ...

"Donors are panicking because she can't make the story go away -- and her campaign is reaching for a lifeline: It's started sending Bill Clinton out to fund-raise.

"He's not doing public events yet -- the campaign doesn't want to be seen to need him. But that moment is coming -- because it's looking like the only thing that can save Hillary Clinton now is a truly gifted liar."

"Once again, President Obama and his foreign policy team are stumped. Why is Vladimir Putin pouring troops and weaponry into Syria? After all, as Secretary of State John Kerry has thrice told his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, it is only making things worse.

"But worse for whom? For the additional thousands of civilians who will die or flee as a result of the inevitably intensified fighting. True, and I'm sure Lavrov is as moved by their plight as by the 8,000 killed in Russia's splendid little Ukrainian adventure.

"Kerry and Obama are serially surprised because they cannot fathom the hard men in the Kremlin."

"There will be four more debates -- one a month -- before the Iowa caucuses, then three debates in February. Until then, the only thing we know for sure is that the race will be determined by how the candidates conduct themselves. That would be true in any political year; it's triply true in this unusually volatile era, when many of the usual rules don't apply. The candidates -- and all the rest of us -- should buckle our seat belts. We're in for quite a ride."

"WASHINGTON -- A group of intelligence analysts have provided investigators with documents they say show that senior military officers manipulated the conclusions of reports on the war against the Islamic State, according to several government officials, as lawmakers from both parties voiced growing anger that they may have received a distorted picture about the military campaign's progress.

"The Pentagon's inspector general, who is examining the claims, is focusing on senior intelligence officials who supervise dozens of military and civilian analysts at United States Central Command, or Centcom, which oversees American military operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. ...

"The New York Times reported last month that the investigation had begun, but the scope of the inquiry and the focus of the allegations were unclear. The officials now say that the analysts at the center of the investigation allege that their superiors within Centcom's intelligence operation changed conclusions about a number of topics, including the readiness of Iraqi security forces and the success of the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria."

"It's been 11 years since the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates in the heat of a presidential campaign, but this time the stakes are much higher -- both for the Fed and for the two parties' hopes of taking the White House.

"The last occasion was the summer of 2004, in the closing months of a race that focused more on the tremors of 9/11 and what George W. Bush or John Kerry planned to do in the Middle East. The economy was steadier than it is today, and the Fed's increase of 0.25 percentage points in borrowing costs -- up from around 1 percent -- had little effect on the broader economy.

"But now the Fed's decision on approving its first rate hike in nine years, which could come as soon as a meeting Thursday, has fraught but uncertain consequences for the 2016 election. Some analysts worry that increasing the Fed's main borrowing rate, which has been near zero since 2008, will unsettle a still-uneven U.S. economy. And the conventional wisdom is that any economic clouds would aid the GOP and hurt Democrats like Hillary Clinton."