"Dear Democrats: It's too late to start over.

"As in, there's no replacing Hillary Rodham Clinton as your party's front-runner for the presidential nomination. Not with Vice President Biden -- even if he runs. Not with former vice president Al Gore. (I mean, come on.) Not with your ideal rich-person-with-no-record-and-a-fresh-faced-appeal. ...

"The idea of a late entrant reshaping the race -- and unseating Clinton -- might make sense to doubting Democrats. But the nature of the modern presidential contest makes it more fantasy than reality. Democrats threw their lots in with Clinton more than a year ago. Now they just have to try to ride it out. They don't have any choice. Not really."

"The first rule of Clintonism is that someone else is always to blame. That's why the first iteration of Clinton's defense was that evil Republicans were simply smearing her. When that didn't stick, Team Clinton expanded the indictment to include the partisan witch hunt by that famously right-wing organ the New York Times and two independent inspectors general (one at the State Department, the other for the intelligence community). ...

"So now that the FBI and the Justice Department, both run by Obama appointees, are on the case, attacking the motives of inconvenient people no longer works. So the Clinton campaign has invoked a little-known codicil to the first rule of Clintonism: Blame an inanimate object. ...

"Hopefully the server will one day be able to testify on its own behalf: 'I was just following orders.' ...

"I've talked to several lawyers who assure me that the FBI doesn't conduct criminal probes into anthropomorphized IT equipment. The bureau does investigate criminal abuses of them -- by people."

"The only thing more outrageous than the EPA's release of three million gallons of toxic waste into Colorado's Animas River has been its cavalier response to the disaster in the days since. ...

"This is an agency that will aggressively fine businesses, municipalities and anyone or anything else for even the slightest violation of its ridiculously strict standards, but that will face zero fines for its own environmental catastrophe.

"It's an agency that claims that even the tiniest levels of pollutants are extremely hazardous, yet has been busy downplaying the damage after its own incompetence caused the release of millions of gallons of toxic waste. ...

"The 'safe' level for arsenic in drinking water is a tiny 10 parts per billion. ...

"Yet tests have shown lead spiking at thousands of times higher than government-approved levels, arsenic at 800 times and extremely high levels of beryllium, cadmium and mercury because of the EPA spill."

"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."