U.S. patent office cancels Redskins trademark registration, says name is disparaging  —  The United States Patent and Trademark Office has canceled the Washington Redskins trademark registration, calling the football team's name “disparaging to Native Americans.”

The Collapsing Obama Doctrine  —  Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many.  —  As the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threaten Baghdad, thousands of slaughtered Iraqis in their wake, it is worth recalling a few …

Poll Shows Erosion in President's Support  —  As clouds gather abroad, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds Mr. Obama's job approval rating at 41%, matching a previous low.

Is Hillary Clinton Imploding?  —  Last week was a very, very bad week for Hillary Clinton.  —  By just about every account, her book is uninteresting and unreflective, a carefully contrived piece of positioning.  Yet instead of owning that, she insisted at an event that she was “done with being really careful about what to say.”

Politico's reporting disaster  —  Politico's media blogger, Dylan Byers, regularly supplies his readers with tidbits on comings and goings in the news business, but this week he provided an additional service: a lesson in the limitations of armchair journalism.

Obamacare subsidies push cost of health law above projections  —  The large subsidies for health insurance that helped fuel the successful drive to sign up some 8 million Americans for coverage under the Affordable Care Act may push the cost of the law considerably above current projections, a new federal report indicates.

Iraqi premier Maliki gaining strength as Shiites rally behind him  —  BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is tightening his hold on power in response to the catastrophe unfolding in Iraq, even as his critics blame his policies for causing the mayhem that is tearing the country apart.

TED CRUZ RESISTS CALLS TO CRITICIZE REPUBLICAN COLLEAGUES  —  Tuesday after CNN's town hall presentation with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “OutFront” host Erin Burnett had Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on to offer his reaction.  —  After talking briefly about the former secretary …

Israel's occupation of the West Bank is indefensible  —  JERUSALEM — There is a pleasant fiction in the United States and parts of Israel that the Israel-Palestine conflict exists in a sort of suspended animation, on pause and simply awaiting diplomatic resolution.

Cutting the Poor Out of Welfare  —  Over the past three decades, Congress has conducted a major experiment in anti-poverty policy.  Legislators have restructured benefits and tax breaks intended for the poor so that they penalize unmarried, unemployed parents — the modern day version of the “undeserving poor.”

White House: GOP Shutdown Threat Is All About Protecting ‘Big Polluters’  —  The White House fired a warning shot to Republican senators on Wednesday after several of them expressed interest in using a must-pass government funding bill to block the Obama administration's environmental regulations.

Anti-Tax Crusader Grover Norquist Endorses Renaming Redskins After Ronald Reagan  —  “A great idea.”  —  Chris Ritter/BuzzFeed/Greg Fiume / Getty Images  —  Washington, D.C., anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, who has been on a long campaign to name pretty much everything after Ronald Reagan …

IRS chief promises stricter rules for ‘dark money’ nonprofit groups  —  Expect new round of proposed regulations during early 2015  —  The Internal Revenue Service will propose new and specific rules defining how much money “social welfare” nonprofits may spend on political campaigns …