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George Will points out how the immigration issue is playing in key races like Pennsylvania and concludes that Republicans up for reelection are content to aim for short term gain at the price of a long term loss:

The cost of this, paid in the coin of lost support among Latinos, the nation's largest and fastest growing minority, may be reckoned later, for years. Remember this: Out West, feelings of all sorts about immigration policy are particularly intense, and if John Kerry had won a total of 127,014 more votes in New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, states with burgeoning Latino populations, he would have carried those states and won the election. But for now, the minds of Republican candidates are concentrated on a shorter time horizon -- the next four and a half months.

I am not so sure it has to be so cut and dry. I am also not convinced that this is a long-term calamity waiting to happen. 

According to Robert Novak, House Majority Leader John Boehner is telling people immigration reform is dead:

Boehner on Tuesday was upbeat in addressing a breakfast forum at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which supports a guest worker program. He indicated he would resolve differences between the restrictive House bill and the much more liberal Senate bill by the Fourth of July.

But at a closed luncheon Wednesday at Charlie Palmer's restaurant, attended by financial contributors to House Republicans, Boehner declared that the immigration bill was all but dead. That change followed Boehner's conversation late Tuesday with Hastert, who made clear he did not want to pursue the issue that splits the Republican Party.

Today the House of Representatives rejected troop withdrawal and announced further resolve to see it through in Iraq.

The AP:

The House on Friday handily rejected a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq, culminating a fiercely partisan debate between Republicans and Democrats feeling the public's apprehension about war and the onrushing midterm campaign season.

In a 256-153 vote, the GOP-led House approved a nonbinding resolution that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest.

"Retreat is not an option in Iraq," declared House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "Achieving victory is our only option, for the American people and our kids."

"Stay the course, I don't think so Mr. President. It's time to face the facts," House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California answered, as she called for a new direction in the conflict. "The war in Iraq has been a mistake. I say, a grotesque mistake."

Today's vote was the culmination of a week's worth of GOP efforts to make a renewed push on the Iraq war. On the Senate side, troop withdrawal supported by John Kerry was roundly rebuffed in bipartisan fashion.

Republicans on the Hill finally feel the wind at their backs on this issue after the killing of Zarqawi. Meanwhile, Democrats this week were treated to a vicious intra-party fight over strategy that in the end seems to have shattered their caucus for the short term.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt has a copy of the text of today's House Resolution that drew the ire of a majority of the Dems. 

Congressional Quarterly reports:

That proposal is one of several that Frist intends to shoehorn into the already crowded summer schedule.

“I am not leaving the U.S. Senate without finding a permanent fix,” said the Tennessee Republican, who intends to leave Congress at the end of his term this year.

The package Frist is pushing for will have to be compromised in order to make ith through the Senate. The full death tax repeal was defeated in the Senate last week.

Horatius at Red State goes after Tom Tancredo for his brutish tactics towarnd fellow Repblicans engaged in the immigration debate.

Tom Tancredo is becoming a political hack, and there is simply no way that he speaks for all of the 99 Members who are in his caucus just because they think that illegal immigration is out of control and needs “reform.” It is time for his colleagues to publicly reveal that he doesn’t speak for them.

I agree. Yesterday in my column I expressed disappointment with the tactics of the Tancredo crowd, especially in regard to Mike Pence and his immigration reform plan: 

They’re so adamant about the perceived wrong-headedness of his plan that they appear willing to dismiss the young conservative as a has-been. Indeed, rather than disagreement followed by dialogue, some appear ready to banish the Republican Study Committee’s Chairman to the hinterlands of the conservative movement. In the above mentioned column Buchanan insists that the adoption of the Pence plan will mark “the end of Mike Pence as a rising star of the GOP.”

That would be a shame.

The idea that some so-called conservatives would abandon an up-and-coming Reaganite because they disagree with his good-faith attempt to find a workable immigration solution is a measure of the temperature at which this debate is being conducted.

This new poll sounds about right:

When a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll asked which of four potential candidates for President "frightens you the most," 36% said the New York senator.

The House of Representatives is debating a resolution that declares, among other things, that "the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror, the struggle to protect freedom from the terrorist adversary."

To nobody's great surprise, Democrats have a problem with the resolution. Some held a press conference yesterday complaining that their hands were tied because they were unable to amend it.

The Influence Peddler asks:

Now what is so unfair about this resolution? Either you agree with it or you don't. The Democrats complain that this resolution politicizes the debate. Are you kidding me?

This complaint comes from the same folks who went to Baghdad before the war and said they believed Saddam over President Bush. The same folks that complained that the press can't film coffins arriving from Iraq. The same people who ran to the cameras breathlessly to excoriate the President over Abu Gharib and Haditha, and who say that regardless of what the facts may ultimately show about such events, senior military officials should be punished, and Rumsfeld forced to resign. The same folks who are trying to rewrite history on the questions of WMD in Iraq.

New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg flanked by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and other Republican Senators today introduced "Stop Over Spending" Legislation. The SOS package is a series of budget reform measures designed to slow the growth of federal spending and cut entitlements.

Perhaps the most high profile provision in the SOS Act is a Presidential line item veto that would give the President the power to pare back irresponsible spending and shine a spotlight on egregious pork projects. Of course, this only works if the President actually uses the power...but let's assume he will.

The SOS bill also seeks to address the growing problem of lawmakers designating non emergency funding as "emergencies" in order to expedite their projects. Railroad to Nowhere anyone?...

Another highlight of the SOS Act is a provision for biennial budgeting -- this provision would allow greater oversight of the expenditure of American taxpayer dollars.

On his blog, Bill Frist sounds optimistic:

We have a $9 trillion federal debt in America today, a debt fueled by out of control spending, a debt which places a mortgage on the future of our children.

If Washington is to live within its means – just as every American family must live within its means – bold, innovative and structural reforms are necessary...

As Majority Leader, it is my goal to see that we enact all or any part of the Stop Over-Spending Act this year – because we can no longer turn a blind eye to excessive spending and a broken budget process.

Indeed. Is this another sign that the GOP is beginning to see the light on the spending issue?

Expect Democrats to vigorously oppose these measures as they would directly impact their ability to promise the world to their constituents. 

In the extended section is a list of Republican cosponsors of the bill as well as a press release from GOP leadership today.

...and then reporting. Perfect:

The mini-controversy likely shows that in addition to facing a federal investigation into his relationship with a powerful lobbying firm, Lewis must also fend off a movement in the Republican Party's conservative wing, many of whom vehemently oppose the earmarking system.

Here are the aforementioned "handful".

Republicans in the Senate are circulating a document that tallies the numbers in regards to judicial nominations. Below are some of the numbers from that document:

• 46 — The number of current vacancies on Article III courts — 17 in the courts of appeals, and 29 in the district courts.

• 22 — The number of judicial nominations pending in the Senate, including 10 court of appeals nominees and 12 district court nominees. (Three of these nominations are to fill “future vacancies” anticipated in the future, but the judgeships are not currently vacant.)

• 27 — The number of vacancies for which the President has not submitted a nomination, including 9 vacancies on the courts of appeals and 18 vacancies on the district courts.

• 21 — The number of judicial emergencies in the federal court system.

• 43 — The number of judicial nominations confirmed during the 109th Congress, including 2 Supreme Court Justices, 10 court of appeals judges, 30 district court judges, and 1 Court of International Trade judge.

• 204 — The number of Article III judges who were confirmed in the 107th and 108th Congresses, including 35 court of appeals judges and 169 district court judges.

• 5.4% — Overall vacancy rate in the federal courts. (46/853) The vacancy rate for the courts of appeals is 9.5 percent (17/179), and, for the district courts, 4.3 percent (29/674).

The AP:

The $1,000 payment was just one example cited in an audit that concluded that up to $1.4 billion - perhaps as much as 16 percent of the billions of dollars in assistance expended after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita - was spent for bogus reasons.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also was hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and a sex change operation, the audit found. Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home address and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel all were able to get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation's disaster relief agency.

At least one Hawaiian Senator is waving the white flag in the effort to institute a race-based Hawaiian government -- for this year at least:

Inouye also said he believed it "would be unwise" to battle for a new vote this year on the Native Hawaiian federal recognition bill after the Senate rejected an effort last week to bring the bill to the floor for a debate and vote.

Instead, supporters are expected to offer a new version of the Native Hawaiian bill after the next Congress convenes in January.

Roll Call today runs an article noting a string of victories for the GOP:

Last week’s assassination of Iraqi terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the solidification of the Iraqi government, the GOP’s open-seat victory in California’s 50th district and Tuesday’s news that White House adviser Karl Rove will likely not be indicted in the CIA leak probe have combined to fuel a sense of cautious optimism among Republican Members and aides.

Congress Daily PM notes that conservatives in the House have some work to do before funding for Alaska's Bridge to Nowhere is officially denied. Basically, if conservative efforts are not successfull the bridge funding could be reinstated by the end of the week.

Congress Daily PM: 

Today Pat Buchanan skewers Republican Study Committee Chairman Mike Pence with a column that is critical of the conservative leader's immigration reform plan. Buchanan calls Pence's plan "stealth amnesty" and calls instead for among other things border security:

Nowhere in his column does Buchanan acknowledge that the Pence plan is a border security first proposal. Indeed, a key provision of the Pence plan puts a two year wait on implementing a guest worker program while the border is being securied, fence and all. After that waiting period, the Department of Homeland Security is required to certify the security of the border. Essentially, this provision is identical to the Isakson amendment that failed in the Senate. That amendment was lauded by conservatives of all stripes and its defeat signaled the end of any conservative support for the Senate McKennedy bill.

Buchanan gets nastier, sinking so low as to call Mike Pence a traitor to the conservative cause:

In "The Godfather," Don Corleone warns his son Michael that, after he dies, someone inside the family will come to Michael with an offer of peace from the Barzinis, who murdered Michael's brother. Whoever brings you the offer, Don Corleone warns his son, will have betrayed you. Tessio, lifetime friend and high-ranking captain of the Corleones, comes to Michael with Barzini's offer. A mistake.

Rep. Mike Pence appears to have accepted the Tessio role in the great immigration battle of 2006.

Buchanan says that the adoption of the Pence plan will mark "the end of Mike Pence as a rising star of the GOP."

Speaking of Godfathers, who made Pat Buchanan the Godfather of the conservative movement? Since when did he get to decide who was a rising star and who was not?

Perhaps somebody should inform Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich that they are no longer welcome in the conservative tent. After that, someone should tell Quin Hillyer over at the American Spectator that his service in the cause of the conservative movement is no longer needed as well. After all, how could a guy who thinks the Pence plan is "ingenious" be a real conservative? Hillyer writes:

"There are plenty of other details to the Pence plan, but suffice it to say that as conservatives study the plan, they continue to find that just about every question is answered and every base covered, and all according to principles conservatives hold dear. Read it for yourself to see...

"In short, the plan is ingenious. Not only should conservatives rally behind it, but so should the White House. It provides the president with a near-perfect escape from the rock-and-hard-place dilemma of trying to please, all at once, Hispanics, big business, and the mainstream Americans who insist that the first requirement of a guest is that the guest abide by our society's laws.

"Such insistence is absolutely the right thing. But it doesn't, by any means, require that Americans fail to exhibit our usual humaneness, nor does it require that we keep necessary jobs unfilled.

"In sum, the Pence bill offers security and prosperity in equal measure. You can't beat that."

Conservatives should be weary of the Buchananites who are methodically preparing to call any immigration reform agreement a betrayal. It seems to me that those who would cast overboard one of the conservative movements brightest hopes for the future over a disagreement about immigration policy care more about their own opinions and the forceful projection thereof than they do about conservatism.

It is not yet clear how Congress will settle this issue. As it looks right now, there is a chance that nothing at all will happen. Or perhaps an eventual compromise will emerge. And yes, maybe it will resemble the Pence plan. If it does, I can think of few other current members of Congress who have earned the consideration of conservatives.