"Terrorism: The bipartisan Senate report on the Benghazi attack is damning to both President Obama and ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She may be sorry she asked, 'What difference does it make?' ... 

"President Obama's appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state was one of the most politicized choices in history, done to close ranks in his favor within the Democratic Party and give the former first lady a big boost for the 2016 presidential race. Both Obama and Clinton are now damned by this bipartisan report for their mismanagement and corruption. 

"There is no excuse post-9/11 for either non-sharing of vital intelligence or security shortcomings at U.S. facilities in places swarming with terrorists. Yet, glaringly, Clinton is mentioned only a single time in the report. 

"'What difference at this point does it make?' Clinton asked Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., nearly a year ago. 

"The lives of four Americans serving their country, lost due to incompetence and politicization. That's what difference."

"There haven't been so many reporters chasing a story in Trenton, N.J., since Washington crossed the Delaware. But compared with the methods the Democratic Party is using now to take down its opponents, Chris Christie looks like Little Bo Peep. ... 

"The Christie bonfire has burned for a week. In that same week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI found nothing in the IRS's targeting of conservative political groups that warrants criminal charges.  ... 

"Thus, two of the most powerful public institutions in the U.S. — the FBI and the IRS — have concluded no harm, no foul, and the memory hole swallows the Obama administration's successful kneecapping of the GOP's most active members just as they prepared to participate in the 2012 presidential campaign. Many — ruined or terrified by the IRS probes — shut down. Mr. Obama won.

"World economic freedom has reached record levels, according to the 2014 Index of Economic Freedom, released Tuesday by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. But after seven straight years of decline, the U.S. has dropped out of the top 10 most economically free countries. 

"For 20 years, the index has measured a nation's commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating 10 categories, including fiscal soundness, government size and property rights. These commitments have powerful effects: Countries achieving higher levels of economic freedom consistently and measurably outperform others in economic growth, long-term prosperity and social progress. ...

"It's not hard to see why the U.S. is losing ground. Even marginal tax rates exceeding 43% cannot finance runaway government spending, which has caused the national debt to skyrocket. The Obama administration continues to shackle entire sectors of the economy with regulation, including health care, finance and energy. The intervention impedes both personal freedom and national prosperity."

"While the creation of a traffic jam in a small New Jersey town shows the calloused ugliness too often found among political operators puffed up with their own power, this cannot compare with the threat to freedom when the Internal Revenue Service targets the administration's political opponents during an election year. 

"Nor can a traffic jam compare with the Department of Justice's gun-running operation that led to the death of an American Border Patrol agent in the southwest or the State Department's actions and inactions that led to the deaths of four American officials killed by terrorists in Benghazi. 

"Nevertheless, media coverage of the traffic jam in New Jersey was several times as extensive as any -- or all -- of these far more consequential scandals in Washington."

"The Obama administration is trying to persuade millions of uninterested, or perhaps reluctant, Americans to purchase health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges. But the heart of Obamacare is coercion. If Americans fail do what the law's Democratic authors believe is best, the federal government will punish them, through the progressively higher penalties of the individual mandate, until it hurts more not to buy coverage than it does to give up and purchase it. 

"But what if many of those Americans rebel? Even if they know having health insurance is better than not having it, what if they refuse to be forced to buy the kind of coverage dictated by the government -- which may not really meet their needs -- at prices they don't want to pay? What then? 

"'I don't think Obamacare can survive without people wanting to buy it,' Robert Laszewski, the respected health care analyst whose writings on Obamacare have become essential in recent months, told me in an email exchange recently."

"They sure don’t make political scandals like they used to. 

"In 1903, the sitting lieutenant governor of South Carolina shot and killed the editor of the state’s largest newspaper in broad daylight, in front of the State House. Jim Tillman believed the paper’s attacks cost him his bid for governor. 

"He was acquitted in a trial controlled by his uncle — former governor and then U.S. Sen. 'Pitchfork Ben' Tillman. He literally got away with murder. 

"Now that was a scandal. 

"Yesterday Gov. Chris Christie held a 107-minute presser responding to a story about the politically motivated closure of several traffic lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge."

"New Obamacare health insurance enrollees may feel a pang of envy when they eye the coverage plans offered by Walmart to its employees. 

"For many years, the giant discount retailer has been the target of unions and liberal activists who have harshly criticized the company's health care plans, calling them 'notorious for failing to provide health benefits' and 'substandard.' 

"But a Washington Examiner comparison of the two health insurance programs found that Walmart's plan is more affordable and provides significantly better access to high-quality medical care than Obamacare."

"In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obama’s leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 he had concluded the president 'doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.' 

"Leveling one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander in chief sending forces into combat, Gates asserts that Obama had more than doubts about the course he had charted in Afghanistan. The president was 'skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail,' Gates writes in 'Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.' ... 

"It is rare for a former Cabinet member, let alone a defense secretary occupying a central position in the chain of command, to publish such an antagonistic portrait of a sitting president. ... 

"Gates writes, 'I did not enjoy being secretary of defense,' or as he e-mailed one friend while still serving, 'People have no idea how much I detest this job.'"

"Another midterm election beckons, and over the next 10 months we’ll see headlines about a thousand supposedly critical developments — the 'game changers' and the 'tipping points.'  But we all know there aren’t a thousand powerful drivers of the vote. I’d argue that three factors are paramount: the president, the economy and the election playing field. And, at least preliminarily, those three factors seem to be pointing toward Republican gains in both houses in the 2014 midterms.  ... 

"The ebb and flow of politics is one of the few constants throughout American history, and 2014 will be no exception. The GOP fared well in 2002 and 2004, then it was the Democrats’ turn in 2006 and 2008. Since then, the back-and-forth cycle has speeded up, with Republicans winning handsomely in 2010 and Democrats in 2012. In the quick 'surge and decline' politics of our highly polarized era, the early bet has to be on Republicans to do well in 2014 — despite themselves."

"Liz Cheney announced early Monday morning that she is withdrawing from the Wyoming Republican Senate primary, bringing an abrupt end to her unsteady challenge to the incumbent, Michael B. Enzi. 

"'Serious health issues have recently arisen in our family, and under the circumstances, I have decided to discontinue my campaign,' Ms. Cheney said in a statement. 'My children and their futures were the motivation for our campaign and their health and well-being will always be my overriding priority.'"