Newly published research suggests that’s a complete misreading of the facts. According to this analysis, politically engaged Mexicans who move to the U.S. fall all over the ideological spectrum, very much like native-born Americans.

What’s more, according to University of Nebraska-Lincoln political scientist Sergio Wals, those on the right are more inclined to participate in the American electoral process than those on the left.

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First, on "This Week": "TRAITOR OR HERO?" This is, what, a month into the Snowden saga, and these are still the first words to appear on a news show? "TRAITOR OR HERO?" You're on a troll, Stephanopoulos.

And here is Julian Assange, from his safe room in London, tie knot loosened. An ABC News correspondent gives us some background: "Who is Julian Assange?" Is he destroying the world? Or is he just a dude in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

What can you tell us about Edward Snowden, Assange? For example: where is the little shit hiding? "I wish I could answer your question in more detail." Red eyes and a cough, he sounds like he has a nasty cold, the poor guy. Now he is making Edward Snowden's story all about himself. The two face very similar investigations, he says, both from the same court in Alexandria, Virginia, where you've got a low chance of receiving "justice."

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You remember the Minutemen, right? Those noble citizen border watchers, out there braving the desert heat to try to stop brown people from crossing the desert illegally, who were the media darlings of 2005 but who seemed to drop off the radar afterward. The Minutemen changed the national conversation about immigration away from a debate about the state of immigration laws and trade policies and into a laser focus on those lawbreakers coming over our borders in large numbers.

They made “border security” the top priority for every politician in the country (including, it should be noted, President Obama, who has deported more immigrants found to be here illegally than any president in history). When you hear them debate immigration, inevitably you will hear some version of the following: “We need to secure the border first before we can pass comprehensive immigration reform.”

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The Wendy Davis filibuster in Texas? The Supreme Court decision on DOMA? The immigration bill passing in the Senate? All of them were achievements by ordinary citizens who got involved and affected elections. These things didn’t just happen. They were the real outcomes of citizens voting, in contests that could have gone the other way just as easily.

The United States is an enormous nation, with an enormously complex political system – one that puts no one in charge, but instead relies on separated institutions sharing powers, federalism, and all sorts of other complications. As a result, it’s very difficult, most of the time, to see obvious links between a specific election and a specific outcome. Yes, every once in a while there’s an obvious consequence: no 2008 Democratic landslide, no Affordable Care Act. But frustration is far more common in the Madisonian system.

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The bipartisan vote was 68-32 on a measure that sits atop President Barack Obama's second-term domestic agenda. But the bill's prospects are highly uncertain in the Republican-controlled House, where party leaders are jockeying for position in advance of expected action next month.

Spectators in galleries that overlook the Senate floor watched expectantly as senators voted one by one from their desks. Some onlookers erupted in chants of "Yes, we can" after Vice President Joe Biden announced the vote result.

After three weeks of debate, there was no doubt about the outcome. Fourteen Republicans joined all 52 Democrats and two independents to support the bill.

In a written statement, Obama coupled praise for the Senate's action with a plea for resolve by supporters as the House works on the issue. "Now is the time when opponents will try their hardest to pull this bipartisan effort apart so they can stop commonsense reform from becoming a reality. We cannot let that happen," said the president, who was traveling in Africa.

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First up, "This Week": Fast Eddie Snowden is hot on the move. How does he keep "bedeviling" US officials like this? It's a "cat-and-mouse game," and the U.S. "lost this round," says the breaking news correspondent.

Host George Stephanopoulos is now talking to Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the NSA. Mister General, Stephanopoulos asks, how did you let this guy out of Hawaii in the first place? Alexander is mentioning 9/11 and how Edward Snowden is making us vulnerable. "We are now putting in place systems" to track those with high-level security clearances. For example: "We've changed our passwords." Good luck, hackers.

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After CNN's Candy Crowley reminded Paul that the bill already includes $30 billion in additional border patrol spending and around the clock drone surveillance, the senator conceded that those measures "may" secure the border, but he would still vote against the bill:

To me what really tells me that they’re serious would be letting Congress vote on whether the border is secure. If the people in the country want to be assured that we will not get another ten million people to come here illegally over the next decade, they have to believe that they get a vote through their Congress. If this is a done deal once the bill is over … I don’t think we’ll really get a truly secure border.

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For the current coalition of mostly-Democratic-but-some-Republican backers as a whole, this is mixed news: The cost estimate checks out -- better than expected, even -- but the relatively small decrease in future illegal immigration raises some concerns about their claims that this will resolve the border issue conclusively, forever.

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“They’re just not wearing white cloaks, but this is exactly KKK type of intimidation,” Kobach told Glenn Beck.

Watch, via Right Wing Watch:

Here's how the Topeka Capital-Journal described the protest:

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“I would consider that a betrayal of the Republican members of the House, and a betrayal of the Republicans throughout the country," Rohrabacher told WorldNetDaily radio. "Just as legalizing the status of illegals and suffering consequences of fifty million new people heading in our direction is a betrayal of the interests of the American people."

He continued: "And if Spekaker Boehner moves forward and permits this to come to a vote, even though the majority of Republicans in the House - and that's if they do [call a vote] - oppose whatever it is that's coming to a vote, he should be removed as Speaker."

Here's the audio, via Right Wing Watch.

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The White House would prefer, if we are in a cutting mood, to cut direct subsidies to farmers and crop insurance, two longtime mainstays of the farm bill that have basically totally fucked up our entire food system for decades but that also have made a few giant food companies quite rich. Here is how House Republicans made their bill:

The bill, which costs nearly $100 billion a year, would save a total of about $4 billion annually, including the food stamp cuts. It would eliminate some subsidies while creating others, raising subsidy levels for several crops. It would expand the current crop insurance program and also create a new type of crop insurance that would kick in sooner than the paid insurance farmers have now.

Good one, guys. Good policy, good attempt at deficit reduction, good governing.

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Luckily or not, Rubio’s wimpy reply was overshadowed by reaction to a deeply reported New Yorker piece by Ryan Lizza that placed the Florida Republican at the center of the "Gang of Eight" negotiations. It featured a choice quote dissing American workers from an anonymous Rubio aide, explaining why his boss backed the Chamber of Commerce over the AFL-CIO when it came to a guest worker agreement (they eventually compromised): “There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly.”

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If the court strikes down the DOMA provision defining marriage as being between a man and a woman, gay spouses will become eligible for immigration benefits currently only available to straight married couples.

"For the first time in immigration equality's history, our legal team is now assisting couples in preparing their green card applications," Steve Ralls, the communications director at the advocacy group Immigration Equality, told NBC News. "We're definitely preparing couples. The court ruling and the backup plan of congressional legislation make us confident more so than at any other time."

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The comments were immediately explosive, ricocheting around the blogosphere and drawing strong fire from conservatives. That was entirely predictable. Bush is partly right on the facts, but wrong on strategy. He's trying to sell immigration reform to skeptical conservatives, but instead ends up playing right into some of their biggest fears.

“Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans,” Bush said. “Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity.”

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Less than 24 hours later, the Internet started speculating about what Beck's big revelation might be.

Here's a roundup of theories being floated about the news that will "change everything" -- and a few we came up with ourselves:

Immigration reform is really a ploy to implement a perpetual Democratic majority 

Conservative watchdog site Right Wing Watch speculated that a Beck radio segment about an "immigration revolt" among Congressional Republicans may have been the pundit's big news. That same day, the Blaze floated a theory -- echoing Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. -- that progressive Democrats were conspiring to sneak "perpetual amnesty" into the immigration reform package to ensure they stay in power forever, basically. "The bill is worse than universal healthcare. Listen to me, it is worse than universal healthcare, and in the coming days as we get closer, we will explain why it's worse than universal healthcare. It is the death knell of the country, there is no recovery from this one. None. No recovery," Beck said.

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Speaking Friday to religious conservatives, Bush said that immigrants are particularly important to help create more taxpayers to fund the safety net for the large, retiring baby boomer generation.

"Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans over the last 20 years," he said, adding that immigrants also have more "intact families."

"Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families," he said.

Bush, brother of President George W. Bush, is thought to be weighing a presidential bid. He is among several potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's annual conference in Washington.

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"We will never again have a Republican president," warned Bachmann on WorldNetDaily, because President Obama wants to give immigrants "perpetual amnesty" and change "the whole political system." If undocumented immigrants are ever granted legal standing or -- gasp -- citizenship, "you will never again be able to see our country return to its constitutional foundations," according to Bachmann.

This is, of course, a very plausible theory from a reliably levelheaded politician. But how, then, would Bachmann explain the historic number of deportations that occurred under Obama and his administration's otherwise dismal (made only slightly less dismal by recent pushes for reform) record on the issue? A clever ruse to distract us while he secretly pushed for "perpetual amnesty"? Presidential cognitive dissonance?

Perhaps Bachmann will let us know later.

h/t Right Wing Watch

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The best thing the bill has going for it is that Mitch McConnell is going to actually allow it to come to the floor. (Minority Leader McConnell has veto power over most Senate business, because many  senators have convinced themselves that the founders wanted him to.) The "Gang" has four Republican members, meaning only a few more are needed in order to reach 60 votes and beat a potential filibuster. Kelly Ayotte is one Republican who's publicly announced her support for the bill.

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