"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.'"

"There could be no greater examples of the diversity of the 2016 Republican presidential field than the dueling announcements of Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina Monday morning.

"Carson, the only black candidate in the race, and Fiorina, the only woman, are also the only two candidates who have never held public office before. Each is working to turn what some would call a gap in their resumes into a strength by attacking what they call the 'political class' -- that is, office-seekers other than themselves. ...

"The RealClearPolitics average of poll measures 14 candidates in the Republican race. Fiorina is 14th, with 1.0 percent of the vote. Carson is eighth, with 4.8 percent. Neither seems set to scare the leaders anytime soon.

"But both bring something to the race; if nothing else, the Carson and Fiorina rollouts Monday showed the sprawling range of the Republican campaign. And while each GOP candidate is different from each other, perhaps the greatest contrast of all is between Republican diversity and the virtually single-candidate race on the other side."

"A former terror suspect has been named as one of the gunmen shot dead by police after two attackers blasted an unarmed security guard in the ankle during an anti-Islam art contest in Texas on Sunday night.

"Two heavily-armed men, who are believed to have been carrying explosives, were killed by police after opening fire outside the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Dallas, at around 7pm during a controversial event where caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad were being displayed.

"A senior FBI official has identified one of the men as Elton Simpson, who was previously the subject of a terror investigation, according to ABC News.

"He had been convicted of lying to federal agents about his plans to travel to Africa five years ago, but a judge ultimately ruled it could not be proved that the was heading there to join a terror group."

"Obama has piled as many new obligations on employers as possible. He has pursued new healthcare mandates, environmental regulations and labor policies that keep big union bosses as fat and happy as they can be in the sunset years of the labor movement. But none of these policies ever held forth the promise of causing a burst of job creation. Not only has national job creation been slow -- relying mostly on the booming Texas economy to pad the statistics -- but non-farm business wages are actually lower now than they were in 2012.

"As the presidential candidates for 2016 begin developing their economic agendas and talking points, Americans should pay close attention. Some of the candidates will talk up a populist-sounding economic agenda consisting of empty platitudes about inequality and proposals (minimum wage, for example) that not only won't pass but also won't help.

"If you want to repeat or continue the experience of the last six years, then vote for the candidate who sounds most like Obama."

"BALTIMORE -- A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray 'banging against the walls' of the vehicle and believed that he 'was intentionally trying to injure himself,' according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post.

"The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court. The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the person who provided it feared for the inmate's safety.

"The document, written by a Baltimore police investigator, offers the first glimpse of what might have happened inside the van. It is not clear whether any additional evidence backs up the prisoner's version, which is just one piece of a much larger probe."

"The evidence suggests very strongly that the left-wing, Democratic claques that run a great many American cities -- particularly the poor and black cities -- are not capable of running a school system or a police department. They are incompetent, they are corrupt, and they are breathtakingly arrogant. Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit, Baltimore -- this is what Democrats do.

"And the kids in the street screaming about 'inequality'? Somebody should tell them that the locale in these United States with the least economic inequality is Utah, i.e. the state farthest away from the reach of the people who run Baltimore.

"Keep voting for the same thing, keep getting the same thing."

"You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to know that foreign companies and countries expected something in return for donating to the Clinton foundation rather than the countless other charities not connected to the U.S. presidency.

"You don't have to be a lawyer to know the Clintons violated ethics rules.

"You don't have to be a historian to know their ethical blind spot has decades-old roots.

"You don't have to be a political scientist to know this behavior contributes to the public's declining trust in its leaders.

"But to believe this is just about the actions of a book author, the mainstream media, and the Republicans, it helps to be a Clinton."

"In a closed-door meeting with Jewish Donors Saturday night, former President George W. Bush delivered his harshest public criticisms to date against his successor on foreign policy, saying that President Barack Obama is being naive about Iran and the pending nuclear deal and losing the war against the Islamic State.

"One attendee at the Republican Jewish Coalition session, held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas with owner Sheldon Adelson in attendance, transcribed large portions of Bush's remarks. The former president, who rarely ever criticizes Obama in public, at first remarked that the idea of re-entering the political arena was something he didn't want to do. He then proceeded to explain why Obama, in his view, was placing the U.S. in 'retreat' around the world. He also said Obama was misreading Iran's intentions while relaxing sanctions on Tehran too easily. ...

"Bush said that Obama's plan to lift sanctions on Iran with a promise that they could snap back in place at any time was not plausible. He also said the deal would be bad for American national security in the long term: 'You think the Middle East is chaotic now? Imagine what it looks like for our grandchildren. That's how Americans should view the deal.'"