"President Obama touted Obamacare’s supposed benefits Thursday in the hope of distracting attention from Wednesday’s bipartisan House vote that for the first time revealed fissures in congressional Democrats’ lockstep support for his health care law. An unprecedented 35 Democrats bucked the president by voting to delay Obamacare’s 'employer mandate,' while 22 Democrats voted to delay its 'individual mandate' for one year. Obamacare opponents now have an opportunity to widen the fissures among its supporters. ... 

"[...] While most House Democrats voted to preserve the individual mandate — which may haunt them in their next election — one in six voted against President Obama on the employer mandate, while one in nine voted against him on the individual mandate. These votes exposed the first fissure in more than three years of lockstep support for Obamacare among congressional Democrats, and are the latest sign that support for the law is fracturing. ... 

"Every implementation glitch that emerges between now and 2014, every complaint ObamaCare supporters hear from unions and other Democratic constituencies will soften congressional opposition to reopening ObamaCare. If the same one-in-nine share of Senate Democrats buck the president on the individual mandate, there would be more than enough Senate votes — 52 — to delay or repeal the individual mandate through the budget-reconciliation process."

"The congressional investigation into the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of tea-party groups inched closer to the White House yesterday as testimony from three IRS attorneys indicated lawyers in the agency’s chief counsel’s office were involved in reviewing the applications of tea-party groups for tax exemption. The office is led by William Wilkins, one of two IRS officials appointed by President Obama. 

"A source tells National Review Online that Judith Kindell, a senior adviser to Lois Lerner, also held up the processing of tea-party cases by demanding to review them herself. ... 

"Wilkins, who, according to the IRS, heads an office of 1,600 attorneys, has been involved in Democratic politics for over three decades."

"Welcome to the Obama administration's cringe-inducing non sequitur of the week. On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder continued stoking the fires of racial resentment over a Florida jury's acquittal of George Zimmerman. In an address to NAACP leaders, who are demanding federal intervention, Holder attacked Stand Your Ground self-defense laws. ... 

"The Obama administration's cynical campaign against Stand Your Ground laws is a racially charged weapon of mass distraction. The goal isn't public safety or community harmony. The goal is for conservative political opponents to Surrender Your Ground. Silence, as always, is complicity. Political self-defense, as with physical self-defense, begins with self-assertion."

"The Treasury Department has admitted for the first time that confidential tax records of several political candidates and campaign donors were improperly scrutinized by government officials, but the Justice Department has declined to prosecute any of the cases. 

"Its investigators also are probing two allegations that the Internal Revenue Service 'targeted for audit candidates for public office,' the Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, has privately told Sen. Chuck Grassley. ... 

"Mr. Grassley has asked Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to explain why the Justice Department chose not to prosecute any of the cases. The Iowa Republican told The Washington Times that the IRS 'is required to act with neutrality and professionalism, not political bias.'"

"The George Zimmerman case was a wretched spectacle from the beginning, but for this we are glad: People in America are still tried in the courts rather than by left-wing protesters or by the media. To their credit, the jurors appear to have decided the case strictly on the facts, which gave them no choice other than to acquit Zimmerman, despite the long campaign of defamation against him outside the courtroom. ... 

"We wish the purveyors of perpetual outrage would pause from saying stupid and inflammatory things about the Zimmerman case long enough to consider how wrong they were about it all along. But we are realists."

"The conventional wisdom evolves. Yesterday, Washington was merely broken, gridlocked, dysfunctional. The passive voice spread the blame evenly. Today it’s agreed that Republican obstructionism is the root of all evil — GOP resistance having now escalated to nihilism and indeed sabotage. 

"Sabotage carries a fine whiff of extralegal, anti-constitutional vandalism. This from media mandarins who barely bat an eyelash when President Obama unilaterally suspends parts of his own health-care law — just as he unilaterally stopped enforcing current immigration laws for 1.7 million young illegal immigrants, thereby enacting by executive order legislation that had failed in Congress. So much for faithfully executing the laws (Article II)."

"Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, tweeted Wednesday evening that the Senate's immigration bill is unconstitutional because it raises revenues and originated in the Senate instead of the House. ... 

"Language in the U.S. Constitution requires any bill that raises revenue, also known as a tax, must originate in the House of Representatives, not the Senate. America’s founders included that language because they believed the House was more accountable to the people of the country than the Senate, which was elected at that time by state legislators rather than through a direct vote. That clause of the Constitution is called the 'origination clause' and reads as such: 'All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.'"

"SPRINGFIELD -- Lawmakers made Illinois the last state to allow concealed carry of firearms in two quick votes Tuesday that formalized the deepening rift between Gov. Pat Quinn and the legislature. 

"The House and Senate voted to override Quinn's amendatory veto of a legislative compromise aimed at satisfying a federal court deadline for legalizing some form of public possession of firearms. Illinois was the last state without some form of legal concealed carry, but the appeals court ruled late last year that the ban was unconstitutional. 

"While Tuesday's court deadline for passing a law was a major motivating factor, the 77-31 House vote and 41-17 Senate roll call were more than a rejection of Quinn's efforts to toughen the regulations — they were a repudiation of the Democratic governor's leadership style by a Democratic-led legislature."

"We are conservatives who have differed in the past on immigration reform, with Kristol favorably disposed toward it and Lowry skeptical. But the Gang of Eight has brought us into full agreement: Their bill, passed out of the Senate, is a comprehensive mistake. House Republicans should kill it without reservation. 

"There is no case for the bill, and certainly no urgency to pass it. During the debate over immigration in 2006–07, Republican rhetoric at times had a flavor that communicated a hostility to immigrants as such. That was a mistake, and it did political damage. This time has been different. The case against the bill has been as responsible as it has been damning. 

"It’s become clear that you can be pro-immigrant and pro-immigration, and even favor legalization of the 11 million illegal immigrants who are here and increases in some categories of legal immigration – and vigorously oppose this bill."

"Senate Democrats are inching ever closer to pulling the trigger to limit the filibuster, even after a notable spate of bipartisanship in the chamber to pass the comprehensive immigration bill. 

"And the liberal base is cheering them on. 

"A coalition called Fix the Senate Now is launching a full-court press urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to move forward with the so-called nuclear option — changing the Senate rules to prohibit the filibuster, and its 60-vote threshold — for some of President Barack Obama’s nominees. ... 

"How this all plays out will be determined behind closed doors at Senate Democratic Caucus lunch meetings, the first of which is on Tuesday. After huddling with his membership, Reid will determine which nominee comes to the floor first to face a likely GOP filibuster."