"Attorney General Eric Holder, who announced his resignation on Thursday, leaves a dismal legacy at the Justice Department, but one of his legal innovations was especially pernicious: the demonizing of state attempts to ensure honest elections.

"As a former U.S. attorney general under President Reagan, and a former Ohio secretary of state, we would like to say something that might strike some as obvious: Those who oppose photo voter-ID laws and other election-integrity reforms are intent on making it easier to commit vote fraud. 

"That conclusion is inescapable, given the well-established evidence that voter-ID laws don't disenfranchise minorities or reduce minority voting, and in many instances enhance it, despite claims to the contrary by Mr. Holder and his allies. As more states adopt such laws, the left has railed against them with increasing fury, even invoking the specter of the Jim Crow era to describe electoral safeguards common to most nations, including in the Third World. 

"Ascribing racial animus to people who are trying to safeguard democratic integrity is a crude yet effective political tactic that obscures the truth. But there's something even worse than name-calling: legal interference from Washington with valid laws."

"[T]he economy remains the top issue for the electorate. ... 

"The Democratic Party's problem is that voters don't believe the president's claims that the economy is thriving. Even people with jobs feel apprehensive. Paychecks are flat, growth anemic, and people are worried about their children's prospects. Mr. Obama had a 38% approval on handling the economy in the Sept. 9 Fox News poll. In the Sept. 7 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 67% believe America is on the wrong track. ... 

"To win in November, Republican candidates must show they are in touch with voter concerns about growth, jobs, paychecks, government spending and debt. The only way to do this is by offering specific, persuasive ideas."

"Is Mitt Romney, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination and lost in 2008, ran again and won the nomination but lost the general election in 2012, really thinking about running yet again for president in 2016? Many Republicans have simply assumed not. Romney has seemed to discourage such talk in media appearances, and there has been a general belief that after losing as the party's nominee, the 67 year-old Romney would return to private life for good. 

"That belief is wrong. Romney is talking with advisers, consulting with his family, keeping a close eye on the emerging '16 Republican field, and carefully weighing the pluses and minuses of another run. That doesn't mean he will decide to do it, but it does mean that Mitt 2016 is a real possibility."

"It is now well known that the IRS targeted tea party organizations. What is less well known, but perhaps even more scandalous, is that the IRS also targeted those who would educate their fellow citizens about the United States Constitution. 

"According to the inspector general’s report (pp. 30 & 38), this particular IRS targeting commenced on Jan. 25, 2012 — the beginning of the election year for President Obama’s second campaign. On that date: 'the BOLO [‘be on the lookout’] criteria were again updated.' The revised criteria included 'political action type organizations involved in … educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.' ...

"Five years ago, Obama, our constitutional law professor-in-chief, presented his first, ringing Constitution Day proclamation: 'To succeed, the democracy established in our Constitution requires the active participation of its citizenry. Each of us has a responsibility to learn about our Constitution and teach younger generations about its contents and history.' Quite so. Perhaps this year, Obama could explain why his IRS would target those who answered this call."

"The United States, joined by five Arab allies, launched an intense campaign of airstrikes, bombings and cruise-missile attacks against the Islamic State and another militant group in Syria Monday night – marking the first U.S. military intervention in Syria since the start of that country’s civil war in 2011.  

"U.S. Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement released early Tuesday that 14 Islamic State targets were hit, including the group's fighters, training camps, headquarters and command-and-control facilities, and armed vehicles. The operation involved a combination of fighter jets, bombers, Predator drones and Tomahawk missiles launched from the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. ... 

"The mission was not limited to hitting Islamic State positions. Centcom said that U.S. aircraft also struck eight targets associated with another terrorist group called the Khorasan Group, made of up Al Qaeda veterans. Those strikes, near the northwestern Syrian city of Aleppo, targeted training camps, a munitions production facility, a communication building and command-and-control facilities."

"NEW YORK — It's hard to make a really big protest march about just one thing. Back in the days of giant rallies against the Iraq war, all sorts of groups wanted in on the action. There were communists. Anarchists. Protesters mad about the Florida recount. Katrina justice groups. Civil rights organizations. And more. The crazy quilt of aggrieved demonstrators made it hard to keep the focus on protesting the war.

"A similar dilemma faced organizers of the giant People's Climate March, which clogged a big part of Manhattan on Sunday afternoon. ... 

"Put it all together — all the justice demanders, the tax Wall Streeters, and the spirit of Occupy symbolized by the angry pacifist — and the People's Climate March was one long, loud, loosely organized demand that vast sums of money be taken from the wealthy and given to the clients of the coalitions and alliances and networks and task forces that make up today's environmental justice movement. They've had enough of debating climate models. They want to start taking — now.

"Testifying on Wednesday to the Senate, Kerry issued a stern declaration: 'ISIL must be defeated. Period. End of story.' Not the most wisely crafted of declarations: The punctuational emphasis carried unfortunate echoes of Obama’s promise about health-care plans, and the word 'must' carried similar echoes of Obama’s assertions that Bashar al-Assad had to go. 

"But Kerry’s statement remains true for strategic and even moral reasons. But especially because when the enemy deliberately brings you into combat, it is all the more imperative to show the world that he made a big mistake."

"Americans are afraid. The White House is afraid. Democrats are afraid. 

"President Obama's 'Year of Action' has turned into a Year of Fear. The country seems mired in dread. And that could have mortal consequences for midterm Democrats. 

"New polls out this week betray a rattled public, one that is jittery about war, security, and the economy -- and one that is increasingly looking to the GOP, not the party in power. Even as the White House has sought to reassure Americans that the campaign in Iraq will be limited, that the president isn't going to act alone on immigration in the near future, and that the economy is doing better, the damage appears to be done. 

"Obama and his aides have been caught between messages: that the country wasn't going to war, until it was (sort of). That the president couldn't act on immigration, until he could, until he wouldn't (yet). That the economy had turned the corner, but not quite. (Wait.)"

"For Obama, a successful counterterrorism strategy is one that simply saves him from having to talk about terrorism. That’s the approach that led to the rise of the Islamic State. As for the 'success' in Yemen, on Monday the Wall Street Journal reported: 'Scores of al-Qaeda militants have moved into Yemen’s capital Sanaa in an attempt to exploit swelling political unrest and destabilize the government.' 

"No wonder a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds that 62 percent of Americans approve of Obama’s actions against the Islamic State, but 68 percent have very little or just some confidence it will succeed. 

"With so little confidence in the commander-in-chief, shouldn’t the president call in political reinforcements? What about the last decade should lead any American, Republican or Democrat, to trust Washington to get something like this right in a hurry? I’m rarely on the side of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but it’s right to want a clear, stand-alone vote on war. It’s debatable whether the president needs one constitutionally (I think he does), but politically it’s a no-brainer."

"We have as close to a national consensus as possible in the war against ISIS. Polls show the public wants strong measures. ... 

"And yet Congress can’t bring itself to vote to authorize military action. President Obama doesn’t want to ask for an authorization and Congress doesn’t want to be asked. 

"Who says that no one can get along in Washington? When it comes to evading democratic accountability, the consensus is broad and deep. ... 

"So the president rummages around his desk drawers searching for a legal basis for his war, while Congress mumbles and looks at its shoes. Such are the exertions of the nation’s political branches as they embark on a long fight against an enemy of the United States."