"Grab a chair: Congress is about to get as fascinating and powerful as it gets. 

"In the next two months, the most unpopular institution in America will decide the fates of a president’s power, a military strike, defense contracts, the budget, health-care implementation, the Federal Reserve chairmanship, illegal immigrants, and all of us who would be hit by a debt default. 

"It will be bitter, ugly, extremely high stakes and in every case wildly unpredictable. 'In 33 years, we’ve never come back from summer break with the number of very critical, important issues that we’re going to confront over the next 90 to 120 days,' House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told us. 'It’s an amazing time.'"

"The grim reality is that key people in positions to shape our foreign policy during the Obama administration -- the President, the Vice President, two Secretaries of State, and the current Secretary of Defense -- all have a track record of grossly misconceiving the issues, our enemies and our national interest. 

"This is the administration that is now asking for a blank check from Congress to take unspecified military action to achieve unspecified goals."

"The president of the United States is preparing in advance to shift the blame if his strike on Syria proves to be unpopular and ineffective. He’s furious about the box he’s placed himself in, he hates the ridicule he’s (rightly) incurring, but he doesn’t see any way out. 

"What he does see is a political (and geopolitical) disaster in the making. And so what is emerging is what comes most naturally to Mr. Obama: Blame shifting and blame sharing.  Remember: the president doesn’t believe he needs congressional authorization to act. He’s ignored it before. He wants it now. For reasons of political survival. To put it another way: He wants the fingerprints of others on the failure in Syria.  

"Rarely has an American president joined so much cynicism with so much ineptitude."

"Without labor nothing prospers."

"Republicans have long blamed President Obama's signature health care initiative for increasing insurance costs, dubbing it the 'Unaffordable Care Act.' 

"Turns out, they might be right. 

"For the vast majority of Americans, premium prices will be higher in the individual exchange than what they're currently paying for employer-sponsored benefits, according to a National Journal analysis of new coverage and cost data. Adding even more out-of-pocket expenses to consumers' monthly insurance bills is a swell in deductibles under the Affordable Care Act."

"What happens when American military action has neither public support nor congressional approval? Looks like we're getting ready to find out.

"Americans did not much like President Obama's 2011 decision to intervene in the Libyan civil war, and the looming entry of American forces in Syria's conflict is shaping up to be even less popular. The consequences, especially with a president famously unwilling to put his own political clout on the line for national security policies, could be serious. ... 

"The implicit promise of the post-Vietnam understanding of presidential military authority largely unchecked by Congress is that the wars will be popularly supported. What happens in the absence of such support will set a new course for foreign policy and the use of force."

"Vladimir Putin surely isn’t the only one in the world who regards the president of the United States with barely disguised contempt. As the Syria crisis burns hotter, President Obama has never looked so feckless. He has perfected the art of speaking reproachfully and carrying little or no stick. The grand theory of his foreign policy coming into office, that more national self-abasement would win us greater international good will and respect, has done the opposite. Adversaries don’t fear us, and allies don’t trust us. ... 

"Elsewhere in the region, Iran progresses toward a nuclear weapon, Iraq reverts to civil war, and al-Qaeda gains in Yemen and Somalia. In an essay in Commentary magazine, analyst Elliott Abrams argues that the guiding principle of Obama’s foreign policy is, as he put it in an early speech as a presidential candidate, to end the old 'habits' of American international activism and leadership. The new habit, evidently, will be tolerating irrelevance and humiliation."

"The irony isn’t merely rich. It’s tragic. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 'I Have a Dream' speech this week, the Obama Justice Department is suing the state of Louisiana to stop it from distributing school vouchers to kids seeking to escape failing schools.  ...

"In King’s 1963 speech, he told of his 'dream' that his four children would 'one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.'  

"That dream remains noble, but it hasn’t been advanced by a civil-rights leadership that opposes school choice and often follows an 'I have a scheme' method of activism. As liberal journalist Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News said last Friday: 'We’ve gone from Martin Luther King to the Reverend Al Sharpton, and . . . it’s very dispiriting.' It’s also deplorable that King’s dream as been sullied by an administration that claims King’s mantle but acts against the interests of children so that they can be counted 'by the color of their skin.'"

"Shortly before July 4, Obama unilaterally suspended for a year Obamacare’s employer mandate — its requirement that most businesses provide government-sanctioned health insurance. In refusing to execute this part of the law (which, according to the statute itself, 'shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013'), Obama invited the question of whether a future Republican president could simply refuse to enforce, say, Obamacare’s exchange-subsidy provisions (which, by law, 'shall apply to taxable years ending after December 31, 2013'). Asked whether his successor could 'pick and choose whether they’ll implement your law and keep it in place,' Obama offered an astonishing reply: 'I didn’t simply choose to delay this on my own. This was in consultation with businesses all across the country.' Apparently, Obama has rewritten Article II of the Constitution; henceforth the president shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed unless he and some businessmen decide differently. As a Tammany machine politician famously said, 'What’s the Constitution among friends?'"

"News reports suggest Bashar al-Assad marked the first anniversary of President Obama’s 'red line' on chemical weapons in traditional fashion: by launching a new chemical attack on civilians. 

"The White House says the president is 'deeply concerned' and insists those responsible 'must be held accountable.'  Surely Assad is quaking in his boots. ...   

"One year after he drew it, Obama's red line has become Assad’s green light."