"The White House is reportedly weighing two options for executive action similar in kind to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that was implemented — also by executive fiat, via memorandum — in 2012. One option would grant temporary legal status to illegal-immigrant parents of U.S. citizens, authorizing them to remain in the country and to work here. The second option would do the same for illegal-immigrant parents of DACA recipients. These actions could affect anywhere from 3 to 6 million people. 

"Although the specifics are unknown, any unilateral action of this magnitude and type would be unprecedented. ... 

"Is Congress — and, through it, the electorate — responsible for the laws governing America’s borders? Or does one man get to decide who may enter and work in the United States? The assumption by the president of the ability to unilaterally welcome or reject migrants is a rank violation of the separation of powers. The president would no longer be enforcing existing law; he would be writing it anew at will on a scale heretofore unimagined."

"Congress can overturn an executive order. It can overturn parts of an executive order. If the executive order is based on a statute, Congress can change the statute, thereby nullifying the order. Congress can also refuse to fund activities stemming from all or part of the executive order. ... 

"In addition, a targeted move to overturn an executive order on immigration -- an order which could, according to some reports, involve the president unilaterally granting legal status to a large portion of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally -- would put some red-state Democrats in a tough position with the November midterms approaching. Lawmakers who would find it easy to reject the extreme option of impeaching the president might have a more difficult time defending an executive order that many of their constituents oppose. 

"Obama is, by many accounts, preparing to 'go big' on immigration. If so, his actions will clearly encroach on Congress' constitutional authority. With Democrats sitting on the sidelines, Republicans have to be ready to respond -- without going around the bend on impeachment."

"'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice' is one of Obama’s favorite sayings. Ultimately, injustice and aggression don’t pay. ... 

"The world is aflame and our leader is on the 14th green. The arc of history may indeed bend toward justice, Mr. President. But, as you say, the arc is long. The job of a leader is to shorten it, to intervene on behalf of 'the fierce urgency of now.' Otherwise, why do we need a president? And why did you seek to become ours?"

"This week the original 9/11 Commission put out an update on global terrorism. The report says the 'complacency' that led to 9/11 'is happening again.'

"How, then, to explain someone who claims he can run the country and a troubled world out of his back pocket while he flies from fundraiser to fundraiser? Barack Obama is the most provincial U.S. president in at least a century. The progressive Democrats who displaced the Clinton machine in 2008 and came to power with Mr. Obama have no interest beyond consolidating political and electoral power inside the U.S. Not even the White House of Lyndon Johnson, the ultimate pol, was so purely politicized.

"The fundraising is a frantic effort to protect this new Democratic voter machine. The world doesn't vote, so the world doesn't matter. Unless, of course, the American people in November decide that a world defined by events like Flight 17 does matter."

"The breadth of problems at the VA has proven continually surprising, even as the torrent of unrelated bad news knocks new revelations about VA corruption off the front pages. The Office of Special Counsel investigating the VA is looking into 67 whistleblower complaints -- 25 of which have been initiated since June 1. ...  

"There’s no question that the extent and urgency of the problems at the VA demand swift and comprehensive action. Further, this scandal is easier to address, as it is harder to politicize, than some of its rivals. The problems at the VA also serve to highlight issues underlying other Obama administration scandals. When it’s proven that corrupt and incompetent employees exist throughout the VA, it will be harder for Democrats to defend keeping such people entrenched at the IRS. And shining a light on the VA’s version of government-run health care -- our very own single-payer system for millions of veterans -- would further accelerate public demand to repeal Obamacare. ... 

America’s vets have never given up when the odds were against them. The least we owe our veterans is to be as dogged in protecting them as they were protecting us."

"A top IRS official is now uncertain about whether backup tapes of the lost Lois Lerner emails may exist, according to testimony released by Republicans -- a potentially significant plot twist in the controversy that has shaken the IRS in recent weeks. 

"IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane, who oversees the tax-collecting agency’s document production to Congress, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in private testimony that he’s now unsure whether all the backup tapes with correspondence from the ex-IRS official were recycled. ... 

"The IRS official suggested new information has come to light since the IRS revealed in a June 13 letter to Congress that two years of Lerner emails were lost in a 2011 computer crash. Lerner was the head of the tax-exempt division that singled out conservative groups for additional scrutiny and since has become a lightning rod for Republicans probing the matter."

"New data shows the White House has painted a false picture of the Central American migration by hiding a huge spike in 'family units' who are illegally crossing the Texas border. 

"The data, which was dumped by the U.S. border patrol late Friday afternoon, shows that inflow of youths and children traveling without parents has doubled since 2013, to 57,525 in the nine months up to July 2014. 

"But the number of migrants who cross the border in so-called 'family units' has spiked five-fold to 55,420, according to the border patrol’s data, which came out amid a storm of news about the shoot-down of a Malaysian aircraft in Ukraine, delays in failed U.S. nuke talks with Iran, and on Hamas’ continued war against Israel. ... 

"The much-faster growth in 'family units' has been hidden by White House and agency officials, who have tried to portray the influx as a wave of children fleeing abuse and violence."

"To deliberately wage war so that your own people can be telegenically killed is indeed moral and tactical insanity. But it rests on a very rational premise: Given the Orwellian state of the world’s treatment of Israel (see: the U.N.’s grotesque Human Rights Council), fueled by a mix of classic anti-Semitism, near-total historical ignorance and reflexive sympathy for the ostensible Third World underdog, these eruptions featuring Palestinian casualties ultimately undermine support for Israel’s legitimacy and right to self-defense. 

"In a world of such Kafkaesque ethical inversions, the depravity of Hamas begins to make sense. ... 

"It’s to the Israelis’ credit that amid all this madness they haven’t lost their moral scruples. Or their nerve. Those outside the region have the minimum obligation, therefore, to expose the madness and speak the truth. Rarely has it been so blindingly clear."

"PRINCETON, NJ -- With thousands of undocumented immigrant minors crossing the nation's southern border in recent months, the percentage of Americans citing immigration as the top problem has surged to 17% this month, up from 5% in June, and the highest seen since 2006. As a result, immigration now virtually ties 'dissatisfaction with government,' at 16%, as the primary issue Americans think of when asked to name the country's top problem."

"In 2012, I alerted the federal government to the growing problem of unaccompanied minors making the treacherous journey across Mexico to reach the United States. At that point the minors could annually be numbered in the hundreds or thousands. 

"In recent months, tens of thousands of children have come across the border and are now housed in federal facilities across the U.S., the result of failed federal policies and Washington's indifference to securing the border. ... 

"President Obama last week proposed $3.7 billion in spending to deal with the continuing crisis. But only a small fraction of that money would go to the actual core of this problem: the lack of sufficient resources to secure the border. The majority of the billions he proposes to spend -- including on housing and transporting the minors around the country -- is treating the symptoms of the problem instead of addressing its root cause."