"Already, Democrats in the Senate have declared that they have no interest in taking Judge Gorsuch or his confirmation hearings seriously.

"'The high burden of proof that Judge Gorsuch has to meet is largely a result of the president who nominated him,' said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who was elected to the Senate from the ridiculous state of Connecticut despite repeatedly lying about fighting in the Vietnam War.

"In other words, according to Mr. Blumenthal, it's all about politics. Nothing to do with the Constitution. He doesn't like the president, so he will never vote for Judge Gorsuch's confirmation.

"Break out the smelling salts. It's gonna be a long, putrid week along the Potomac River."

"For much of the Washington news media, cutting federal funding for something is the same as opposing that thing. Trump's budget, however, makes a distinction that these critics miss. Federal funding should be for things that are best done by the federal government. Many things are better done at a level of government closer to the individual, or even outside government altogether. ...

"Total funding levels matter. Efficiency and demonstration of results are important. But the most important thing in this budget is the White House's efforts to get the federal government back in the business of doing what it should be doing and can do better than anyone else, and leaving the other things, however crucial they are, to the people who can do them better."

"House Speaker Paul Ryan says the nation has just two options. It can accept his repeal and replace bill or it can keep the mess it already has. 'It really comes down to a binary choice,' he said, trying to whip recalcitrant conservatives into line behind the American Health Care Act. 'This is the closest we will ever get to repealing and replacing Obamacare.' ...

"There's another option. Republicans could pass a better Obamacare replacement, one that doesn't preserve costly regulations or create a brand new entitlement. ...

"There's also no reason to believe the current bill has a better chance of passing than a genuinely conservative alternative. Centrist Republicans are abandoning Ryan's bill after the Congressional Budget Office predicted that it would leave millions more people without insurance. ...

"The 'binary choice' is a false premise and thus a bad argument. It's also bad politics that will yield bad policy. Republicans and conservatives who want real healthcare reform (not merely tax cuts) should withhold support at least until their leaders agree to consider other possible roads out of Obamacare."

"MSNBC's unapologetic liberal 'journalist' Rachel Maddow lit the internet on fire Tuesday night when she teased via Twitter that she'd gotten her hands on President Donald Trump's tax returns -- a scoop that would have been pretty juicy, considering Trump never released his tax returns during the presidential campaign as all other modern-era presidents have done.

"If only it'd been true.

"What Maddow and the fine folks over at MSNBC actually managed to do was get part of a copy of Trump's 2005 tax return. Which was already 12 years old. And which the White House had already released.

"And which the Wall Street Journal had already reported on -- a year ago."

"Why is IRS Commissioner John Koskinen still in office? A growing number of Capitol Hill Republicans want to know -- and they have good reason to be troubled.

"When he took over in 2013, Koskinen was supposed to 'fix' the IRS -- and in particular get to the bottom of the scandal in which the agency deliberately held up approvals for 75 conservative and Tea Party groups that had applied for legitimate tax exemptions.

"Instead, what Congress and the public got from him was obstruction, open defiance and a refusal to discipline anyone at the agency. Indeed, he seemed most concerned with running interference to shield the Obama administration from any embarrassment. ...

"It's clear there'll be no IRS reforms while Koskinen is in office. He's the No. 1 candidate in Washington for President Trump's signature line: 'You're fired.'"

"President Trump won the election with a promise to drain the Washington swamp. No swamp is more in need of draining than the Department of Justice, horribly corrupted by eight years of misrule. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has his work cut out for him. Bureaucrats and lawyers at DOJ will fight him every step of the way as he tries to reform the department.

"The press will fight him, too -- especially when it comes to efforts to restore professionalism to the Civil Rights Division. That division is now a cesspool of bias and incompetence, but reporters will imply that every effort Sessions makes to reform it is 'racist.'

"Sessions faces a daunting task, but he is the right man for the job. Conservatives need to be prepared to support him, aggressively, as he begins to clean the Augean stables of the Department of Justice."

"When he was Ronald Reagan's secretary of state, George Shultz was once asked about the CIA's disavowal of involvement in a mysterious recent bombing in Lebanon. Replied Shultz: 'If the CIA denies something, it's denied.'

"Has there ever been a more dry, more wry, more ironic verdict on the world of espionage? Within it, there is admission and denial, smoke and mirrors, impenetrable fog and deliberate obfuscation. Truth? Ask the next guy.

"Which is why my default view of espionage is to never believe anyone because everyone is trained in deception. This is not a value judgment; it's a job description."

"Washington (CNN) - Illegal Southwest border crossings were down 40% last month, according to just released Customs and Border Protection numbers -- a sign that President Donald Trump's hardline rhetoric and policies on immigration may be having a deterrent effect.

"Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly himself announced the month-to-month numbers, statistics that CBP usually quietly posts on its website without fanfare.

"According to CBP data, the 40% drop in illegal Southwest border crossings from January to February is far outside normal seasonal trends. Typically, the January to February change is actually an increase of 10% to 20%.

"The drop breaks a nearly 20-year trend, as CBP data going back to 2000 shows an uptick in apprehensions every February."

"In many ways, the House Republican proposal released last night not only accepts the flawed progressive premises of Obamacare but expands upon them. Ronald Reagan once said, 'Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.' The AHCA does all three.

"Many Americans seeking health insurance on the individual market will notice no significant difference between the Affordable Care Act (i.e., Obamacare) and the American Health Care Act. That is bad politics and, more importantly, bad policy.

"Rather than accept the flawed premises of Obamacare, congressional Republicans should fully repeal the failed law and begin a genuine effort to deliver on longstanding campaign promises that create a free market health care system that empowers patients and doctors."

"House Republicans on Monday released their long-awaited healthcare bill, but the plan would only repeal major parts of Obamacare starting in 2020 -- when the political world will be engulfed in the next presidential election.

"This implementation timeline raises major questions about whether, if Republicans were able to overcome the current legislative hurdles and pass this plan into law, its version of repeal would actually ever go into effect.

"House conservatives have already raised alarms about a number of elements of the plan, even describing it as Obamacare 2.0. Though the plan aims to repeal a lot of taxes, spending and mandates within Obamacare, it also preserves much of the law's regulatory structure and also includes a new form of federal subsidies toward the purchase of health insurance. ...

"Though the political temptation for a transition period on Obamacare is understandable, the problem is that delaying the implementation of repeal doesn't give states and health insurance markets enough time to adjust to the new system before Republicans have to face voters in 2020. Under the proposed plan, Democrats can run on their apocalyptic warnings about repeal in 2018 and then run in 2020 on whatever implementation hiccups are likely to occur in states as they work through the new system."