"It has been apparent for some time that the United States lacks a strategy to fulfill President Obama's pledge to 'degrade and ultimately destroy' the Islamic State since it has no plan to root out the terrorists' base in Syria. There was hope, though, that Mr. Obama's half-measures might be enough to blunt the Islamic State's advances in Iraq, leaving the Syria problem for the next U.S. president. With the stunning fall of Ramadi on Sunday, even that modest optimism is questionable. ...

"Beginning almost a year ago, the Islamic State carved out, across large swaths of Iraq and Syria, a terrorist state of sorts that Mr. Obama deemed intolerable. He said in September that it is a threat to 'the broader Middle East,' including U.S. citizens and facilities, and 'if left unchecked . . . could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States.' Yet he refuses to commit the Special Forces and military assistance that could meet that threat, portraying any alternative to his minimalist policy as being 'dragged back into another prolonged ground war.' In fact, Sunni allies in the region will be reluctant to work with the United States until it has a Syria policy, and Sunni tribes in Iraq will not confront the Islamic State unless they believe the United States will stand by them. Every conflict will have ups and downs, as administration spokesmen said Monday. But it is Mr. Obama's unwillingness to match means to strategy that threatens to prolong this war."

"What to think about George Stephanopoulos? ...

"It is impossible to see how Stephanopoulos could do his job with any integrity in an environment in which the Clintons and their foundation will be central to the political news for the foreseeable future. Certainly not after concealing his relationship with the foundation. ABC News owes it to itself to live up to at least the standards of a small-town weekly newspaper. It owes them a lot more than that, in fact, but it cannot deliver the goods with Stephanopoulos at the desk."

"This was absolutely pathetic. If this was meant to reassure the Gulf States, I'm sure that their hair is still standing on end ...

"They should be terrified. In fact, in one of the other answers he was answering the objection that we would be unleashing billions of dollars into the Iranian treasury which they will obviously use for the mischief, the destabilization that they are doing in the region including Yemen, Syria, etc., threatening the Gulf Arabs.

"His answer was, among other things, not to worry, because Iran has a lot of economic needs and they have made a commitment to their people to invest in infrastructure.

"They are not going to spend it, I assume, on Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and all the others.

"That is preposterous and any Gulf Arab would be triply terrified."

"Barack Obama's romance with the Castro brothers is rapidly turning into a sour shack-up. That's what happens sometimes to romances under a tropic moon and the rustle of the coconut palms. Cuba wants to redefine the sanctity of embassies, and how they function. The public still doesn't know what concessions the president is making to keep a flame under the romance, but it doesn't sound good for our side. ...

"The State Department's record of managing real estate is not good. The new Russian embassy in Washington was built on Mount Alto on Wisconsin Avenue with an unobstructed electronic sight line to Foggy Bottom and beyond the Potomac River to the Pentagon. In exchange, the State Department deftly negotiated a site for a new American embassy in a swamp in Moscow.

"'There is a limit to what the United States in self-respect can endure,' President Dwight D. Eisenhower said on the break in diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961. 'That limit has now been reached.' Yes, Virginia, that'€™s how American presidents used to talk."

"For seven decades, every American President save Jimmy Carter has understood that the best way to conduct foreign policy is to leave no one guessing about whose side we're on. Mr. Obama has pursued a different policy. His Arab guests can be forgiven if they nod at his guarantees and accept his weapons, while also concluding that in the end they are on their own."

"A sobering new report on the cost and scope of federal regulations puts the price of the rules at $1.88 trillion annually, a 'hidden tax' of $14,976 on every single household, or about 23 percent of an average American's income.

"In 'Ten Thousand Commandments,' the Competitive Enterprise Institute also reveals that regulations far more than laws are how the administration rules the land. While Congress, well known recently for doing little, passed 224 new laws last year, federal agencies issued 3,554 new regulations, or 16 per law.

"Author Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., CEI vice president for policy, spread the blame for overregulation around, but said that congressional inactivity is partly at fault and he called for reform that would have Congress oversee and even vote on new burdensome regulations."

"In a new Bloomberg-St. Anselm poll of New Hampshire, Donald Trump is running in fifth place in the 2016 Republican presidential field. The real estate developer and reality TV personality is behind only Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio - and is ahead of Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum. ...

"What to make of it all? Here's the important thing to remember about Trump, or any other political candidate, for that matter: Maybe you think he's a clown. But some voters, perhaps a significant number of voters, take him seriously. They're not dumb. So the question is, what concern of those voters, what need, is being addressed by Donald Trump? ...

"Donald Trump is the third party candidate running for the Republican nomination. It's been clear for quite a while that some conservative voters are so disgusted with the GOP that they would entertain the notion of a third party. If he pursues a race seriously, Trump could win the support of those I've-had-it-up-to-my-eyeballs voters. Their concerns aren't a joke. If Trump doesn't address them, somebody else will."

"With Congress now in Republican control, I am hopeful that reasonable measures to end IRS corruption can finally make it to President Obama'™s desk. There, he can join the legislative branch in taking a small first step -- albeit a necessary one -- in closing the dangerous gap between the public and their government that has undeniably widened under his administration's watch.

"Ultimately, why does this matter?

"Because the legitimacy of our democratic government still depends on public trust. Because every American, by virtue of his or her citizenship, ought to have complete confidence in the integrity of our system. Because, two years after the unthinkable at the IRS became reality, that integrity has still not been restored and, in fact, is only further crumbling.

"It'€™s long past time to give the American people a government they can trust again."

"Hillary Clinton is doing the country a great service.

"By making it clear she is going to run for president as an unapologetic left-liberal -- with emphasis on the 'left' -- she has made sure that the 2016 election will be exactly the referendum on America's future it ought to be. ...

"She will be presenting Americans with a clear and unambiguous choice."

"The IRS doled out more than $5 billion in potentially bogus college aid payments in 2012 under an Obama stimulus tax credit, according to a report Tuesday from the agency's inspector general that said the administration still doesn't have a good handle on how to root out erroneous claims.

"Nearly 4 million students had questionable claims, totaling more than $5.6 billion in that one year alone, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said. At least half of the students never provided tuition statements showing what they paid, while others attended schools that didn't qualify them for the tax credit. ...

"'The IRS still does not have effective processes to identify erroneous claims for education credits,' said Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George, who said he has warned the IRS repeatedly about the problem, but 'many of the deficiencies TIGTA previously identified still exist.'"