"Securing the border would be the most popular element of any immigration reform deal, according to a new poll. 
 
"Eight-in-ten Americans support hiked-up border security and 72 percent support more Visas for high-skilled immigrants, the ABC News/Washington Post poll on Wednesday found. Fifty-seven percent support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, a number in line with other recent polling on the subject."

"Regardless of their respective positions on immigration reform, legislators on both the dovish and hawkish sides of the debate should agree on one fundamental principle: The Nancy Pelosi approach to lawmaking — pass the bill to find out what’s in it — is no way to go about repairing our defective immigration system. ... 

"'But we’ve been debating these issues for decades,' the argument goes. True enough. But we have not been debating the specific legislation under consideration for decades, years, weeks, days, hours, minutes, or milliseconds: As of this writing, the text of the bill has not even been finalized, much less made public, and still less been subject to rigorous debate.

"The distinction is important. Senator Sessions and others are not calling for delay for the sake of delay. They are asking for time to examine thoroughly the specifics of the legislation. The price of failing to do that can be very high: See, for example, the Affordable Care Act, which already has evolved into an incomprehensible mass of regulations with an ever-growing price tag, or New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s rushed-through gun-control legislation, which the governor himself already has conceded is unworkable. Immigration reform is too important to go about willy-nilly; there are key questions of national interest at stake, not to mention the futures of millions of immigrants."

"Obama has left a long trail of broken hearts, reneging on commitments to major groups – political, national, and social – that thought they might count on him. The great challenge of Obama’s second term isn’t one particular program or another. It’s merely getting people to trust him. ... 

"Just the week before [the President's trip to Israel], Republicans were barraged with a furious series of phone calls, visits, and White House invitations from a president who had ignored them for much of his first term and savaged them each time campaign season came around. Suddenly, the husband who’d been out club hopping and golfing with the boys was home for dinner and eager to help take care of the kids. 

"Obama wants Republicans to believe he’s serious about a deal on the budget, and that he won’t suddenly slap another $400 billion in taxes down on the table like he did last time House Speaker John Boehner thought he had an agreement. 

"Republicans had better read the fine print, and remember that while tax increases happen today, spending cuts are for later and are always renegotiable."

"It is opening day for America's favorite pastime that ushers in summer, fun and freedom. It feels great, but more and more it's a nostalgia that's not all together true anymore. All-American items fifty years ago may indeed have been these:   Baseball, Hotdogs, Apple Pie.

"But nowadays there's no doubt these things are more popular:  Football, Hamburgers, Fudge. ... 

"The things we enjoy are being changed for our safety, so soon football players may all have to run upright with the use of helmets in tackling and blocking prohibited. And the way things are going, we could one day see hamburgers and fudge replaced by tofu and wheatgrass shakes. ..."

"Easy money from the federal government is hard to resist. After all, it's 'free.' A key section of Obamacare makes states the offer they can't refuse: Expand eligibility for Medicaid on an unrealistic scale, and Uncle Sam will hand over a big, fat check. A number of Republican governors have succumbed to this temptation, including Chris Christie in New Jersey, Rick Scott in Florida and Rick Snyder in Michigan. This is a dangerous bargain for us all. ... 

"States are foolish to fall for the administration's promise to pick up the tab for 90 percent of the expansion. With all the lavish promises it has been presenting, the U.S. government can't make good on all its future obligations. ... 

"Inevitably, state taxpayers will be stuck with the bill. ... 

"Governors would better serve their constituents by advocating block grants, rather than sticking their successors with a bloated bureaucracy that will push everyone over that fiscal cliff."

"Not even the most ardent defenders of Obamacare -- aka the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- claim anymore that the law will lower health coverage costs for Americans. How, then, will it achieve universal coverage, its central goal? 
 
"The short answer is, it won't. ... 

"The Iraq War cost $1 trillion and produced a quagmire abroad. Obamacare will cost $1 trillion and will create a quagmire at home. Americans need an exit strategy."

"[...] Mr. Obama has become a minor actor on Capitol Hill. On a growing array of issues, members of both parties have come to understand that progress is more likely with the president on the sideline. ... 

"There has been no movement in Congress on the president's carbon tax. During Saturday's budget debate, 79 senators supported repeal of ObamaCare's tax on medical devices and 62 senators backed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline (alas, both nonbinding votes). On issue after issue, Mr. Obama is being routinely ignored or rebuffed.  

"No president is ever irrelevant, but less than 10 weeks into his second term Mr. Obama's power is waning. Even members of his own party view him as an obstacle to getting things done."

"Republicans working to craft a comprehensive immigration reform bill say there is one rock-bottom requirement for any deal: The border must be secure, and proven to be secure, before any path to citizenship is created for the millions of immigrants currently in the country illegally.  That is the one non-negotiable GOP demand.  And on Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano flatly rejected it. 

"'Relying on one thing as a so-called trigger is not the way to go,' Napolitano told a breakfast meeting of journalists.  ... 

"Napolitano’s comments were one more bit of evidence, if Republicans needed any, that the Obama administration does not intend to make enhanced border security a precondition of immigration reform.  'Every position and action the administration takes is consistent with the idea that they have no desire to accomplish immigration security,' said one GOP Senate aide who spoke on condition of anonymity."

"The U.S. government is very unlikely to just seize money wholesale from people's bank accounts, as is being done in Cyprus. But does that mean that your life savings are safe? ... 

"When the federal government spends far beyond the tax revenues it has, it gets the extra money by selling bonds. The Federal Reserve has become the biggest buyer of these bonds, since it costs them nothing to create more money. 
 
"This new money buys just as much as the money you sacrificed to save for years. More money in circulation, without a corresponding increase in output, means rising prices. Although the numbers in your bank book may remain the same, part of the purchasing power of your money is transferred to the government. Is that really different from what Cyprus has done?"

"What the heck has happened to Paul Ryan?

"Just months removed from being on the GOP ticket, he has faded from the national political conversation in a way that’s remarkable for a politician possessed with youth, fame and ambition.

"This is partly by his choosing. Ryan, 43, has purposefully sought not to fan the 2016 flames and instead plunged headlong back into his work in the House. He’s been the anti-Palin: returning to his previous job with gusto and gladly immersing himself in the minutiae of governing."