"Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio has signaled he may embrace a series of limited changes to the nation’s immigration laws in the coming months, giving advocates for change new hope that 2014 might be the year that a bitterly divided Congress reaches a political compromise to overhaul the sprawling system.  

"Mr. Boehner has in recent weeks hired Rebecca Tallent, a longtime immigration adviser to Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has long backed broad immigration changes. Advocates for an overhaul say the hiring, as well as angry comments by Mr. Boehner critical of Tea Party opposition to the recent budget deal in Congress, indicates that he is serious about revamping the immigration system despite deep reservations from conservative Republicans."

Very Best Wishes for a Most Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Filled with Holiday Cheer!

"It’s hard to come up with new ways to describe the Obama administration’s improvisational approach to the Affordable Care Act’s troubled health insurance exchanges. But last night, the White House made its most consequential announcement yet. The administration will grant a 'hardship exemption' from the law’s individual mandate, requiring the purchase of health insurance, to anyone who has had their prior coverage canceled and who 'believes' that Obamacare’s offerings 'are unaffordable.' These exemptions will substantially alter the architecture of the law’s insurance marketplaces. Insurers are at their wits’ end, trying to make sense of what to do next. ... 

"[T]his most recent announcement from the Obama administration is the first time it has publicly admitted that Obamacare is making health insurance less affordable, not more so, for millions of Americans."

"The apparent skepticism of most voters that government could competently administer the health care sector seems to have been justified—and then some. 

"Gallup reports that 72 percent of Americans see big government, not big business or big labor, as the biggest threat to the nation’s future—the highest number since the question was first asked in 1965. 

"The Obama Democrats assumed Americans would embrace big government policies. They seem to have proved the opposite."

"Congratulations to President Obama. He keeps racking up victories, and now has been named winner of the Lie of the Year award. ... 

"The White House lies go on and on — they haven’t stopped yet, because Jay Carney’s lips still are moving — but even a comprehensive list wouldn’t do justice to Obama’s singular achievement. Remember, he’s said these things repeatedly for years, so you’d need multiplication tables to get a real total.

"Even that wouldn’t tell the whole story. The sin isn’t just the sum of his various false claims. ObamaCare itself is the Big Lie. The whole thing is false. ... 

"It’s the Lie of Forever."

"President Obama is ending his fifth year in office matching the worst public approval ratings of his presidency, with record numbers of Americans saying they disapprove of his job performance and his once-hefty advantages over Republicans in Congress eroded in many areas, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. 

"His position is all the more striking when compared with his standing a year ago, as he was preparing for his second inauguration after a solid reelection victory. That high note proved fleeting as the president faced a series of setbacks, culminating in the botched rollout of his Affordable Care Act two months ago. ... 

"Obama’s standing is of particular concern to congressional Democrats as they look to next year’s midterm elections. Parties that control the White House suffer — sometimes significantly — in midterm campaigns when the president’s approval rating is below 50 percent."

"The 'sticker shock' that many buyers of new, ACA-compliant health plans have experienced—with premiums 30% higher, or more, than their previous coverage—has only begun. The costs borne by individuals will be even more obvious next year as more people start having to pay higher deductibles and copays. ... 

"The 'I can't keep my doctor' shock will also hit more and more people in coming months. To keep prices to consumers as low as possible—given cost pressures generated by the government's rules, controls and coverage mandates—insurance companies in many cases are offering plans that have very restrictive networks, with lower-cost providers that exclude some of the best physicians and hospitals. ... 

"The next shock will come when the scores of millions outside the individual market—people who are covered by employers, in union plans, or on Medicare and Medicaid—experience the downsides of ObamaCare. There will be longer waits for hospital visits, doctors' appointments and specialist treatment, as more people crowd fewer providers."

"Barack Obama is not just late to discover the most elementary workings of government. With alarming regularity, he professes obliviousness to the workings of his own government. He claims, for example, to have known nothing about the IRS targeting scandal, the AP phone records scandal, the NSA tapping of Angela Merkel. And had not a clue that the centerpiece of his signature legislative achievement — the online Obamacare exchange, three years in the making — would fail catastrophically upon launch. Or that Obamacare would cause millions of Americans to lose their private health plans. 

"Hence the odd spectacle of a president expressing surprise and disappointment in the federal government — as if he’s not the one running it. Hence the repeated no-one-is-more-upset-than-me posture upon deploring the nonfunctioning Web site, the IRS outrage, the AP intrusions and any number of scandals from which Obama tries to create safe distance by posing as an observer. He gives the impression of a man on a West Wing tour trying out the desk in the Oval Office, only to be told that he is president of the United States."

"In a letter sent late Wednesday, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa reminded Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that obstructing a congressional investigation is a crime. 

"Issa's Committee has been looking into the details of how Obamacare was implemented, along with the major problems with Healthcare.gov and has requested a number of documents from HHS, none of which he's received. The documents requested pertain to companies hired by HHS to build and operate Healthcare.gov. 

"'The Department [HHS] subsequently instructed those companies not to comply with the Committee's request. The Department's hostility toward questions from Congress and the media about the implementation of Obamcare is well known. The Department's most recent effort to stonewall, however, has morphed from mere obstinacy into criminal obstruction of a congressional investigation,' Issa wrote. ... 

"Thursday, the Oversight Committee will hold a hearing about Obamacare's impact on premiums and provider networks as millions continue to see skyrocketing insurance rates, loss of health insurance and a loss of preferred doctors."

"Conservatives had better start paying attention to the budget battle raging in Washington: If things go south — and they are poised to do just that — the tea party’s single greatest policy victory, the sequester, could be destroyed. And worse yet, it could be destroyed in exchange for nothing. ... 

'"The sequester is the only place where conservatives have gotten a victory,' Americans for Prosperity spokeswoman Nicole Kaebing told The Daily Caller. 'It’s the one place where we have gotten both parties and the president to agree to actually cut spending. It’s silly to walk that back. We have this victory, and Republicans should not be voting to increase government spending.'"