“Soon”? Wait a sec. Didn’t the LA Times report just last week that he’d all but decided to postpone amnesty until after the election?

They sure did, but go back and read the fine print. Quote:

Fed up with congressional gridlock, the president has said he’ll use his executive power to make changes. One proposal under discussion would delay a decision on the more sweeping and controversial changes under consideration until after the November midterm election, according to a White House official familiar with the discussions.

Under that plan, the president would first announce measures aimed at tightening enforcement of current law, then put off until the end of the year a decision on a more sweeping program that could temporarily shield millions of immigrants from deportation.

It’s going to be a two-step process. The first step, which will happen before the midterms, will be to boost border security somehow. That’ll make it harder for Republicans like Tom Cotton to attack Democrats like Mark Pryor as being soft on enforcement, something Senate Democrats are suddenly very worried about. Then, once the people have been safely duped and the votes are in, Obama will announce his mega-amnesty in November or December. The point is to ensure that voters aren’t making a fully informed choice when they go to the polls this fall. That might turn out badly for the left, so the king is once again exercising his royal prerogative to shield them from political difficulty. Just like he did repeatedly in moving statutory deadlines around for ObamaCare.

A terrible thought from Jay Cost: What if Obama goes ahead with his amnesty before the midterms — inexplicably — and the GOP still underperforms on election night? What if everything, including O’s own dumb mistakes, breaks in the Republicans’ favor but somehow they still can’t muster a new wave in the Senate? What’s left to hope for in 2016 then?

While it is far too soon to say what will happen in November, we can already lay down a clear marker for evaluating the results. The Democrats’ position has unmistakably declined relative to this point in 2010. If Republicans cannot capitalize on that weakness, then they will have some serious soul-searching to do. If strong candidates like Joni Ernst and Cory Gardner cannot capture seats in purple states like Colorado and Iowa this year, how can the party hope to win the purple states in the presidential election of 2016? Moreover, if it cannot produce clear Republican majorities in states like Alaska and Louisiana, what will that say about the enthusiasm of conservative voters ahead of the showdown with Hillary Clinton?

The Republican party’s reputation has been dreadful for nearly a decade. No party can succeed for very long if three-fifths of the people dislike it. The GOP has been struggling for nearly a decade to hold together its historic alliance between business interests and grassroots conservatives, and to appeal to the swing voters who hold the balance of power. If it fails to win a strong victory this November, Republicans should take this as a sign that the health of the party is in critical condition.

This year, Republicans should do not only well, but very well. If they don’t, it will be the surest sign yet that something is very wrong with the Grand Old Party.

Gulp. Another horrible thought: What if Obama’s delaying the big amnesty announcement until the lame-duck session not just to spare Democrats from electoral blowback but because he thinks Boehner might be willing to pass some sort of comprehensive bill once his caucus is safely out of electoral harm’s way? Electing a Republican Senate majority and then having the Republican House turn around and sell out the base on immigration would be the ultimate political groin-punch, but if Boehner’s determined to pass something before 2016 to pander to Latinos, the lame-duck session is as good a time as any. That would give conservatives two full years to get over their anger before they go to the polls again. Would you put it past him?

I’ll leave you with this, from Jeff Sessions’s latest statement: “The only thing that is more shocking than Senate Democrats’ support for the President’s planned executive amnesty is the cravenness of asking him to proceed beginning the day after the midterms. Once again, powerful politicians are colluding with powerful interest groups to deny you, the American citizen, the protection of your laws and your voice in government. They don’t care what you want, or what you think—they scorn and mock our good and decent citizens for wishing their laws to be enforced.”