"He went out of his way to attack New York on the bill,” King, R-N.Y., added, the New York Daily News reports. "It's a little early to forgive and forget."

“It’s life and death,” King continued. “There were really false and phony charges made against the Sandy aid, and if Ted Cruz had prevailed, my constituents would be homeless."

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I batted 1.000 for that cycle, but it was easy. In 2016, Republicans won’t be facing a Democratic incumbent, so somebody has a shot. I recently wrote that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will never be president, due to his out-of-control anger issues, but candidly, I think that’s my riskiest one yet.

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The measure excludes a provision to allow American citizens to sponsor their same-sex partners for legal permanent residency. To do so, Republicans among the "Gang of Eight" allege, would be legislative suicide.

“There’s a reason this language wasn’t included in the Gang of Eight’s bill: It’s a deal-breaker for most Republicans,” Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) told the New York Times. “Finding consensus on immigration legislation is tough enough without opening the bill up to social issues.”

Flake's "social issues" refer, more directly, to the very existence of gay immigrants and their families, a reality that many Republicans and Democrats seem eager to overlook in the name of political expedience.

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As Stephen Colbert noted on "The Colbert Report," the president’s plan said it would treat “same-sex families as families.”

“What’s next, Mr. President,” Colbert jested, “treating gay people as people?”

But now that the Senate’s Gang of Eight has introduced its immigration bill and it notably excludes the provision that would allow U.S. citizens to sponsor their same-sex partners for residency, the White House appears to be wavering.

When asked last week whether the president was willing to “let that provision go” at a White House briefing, press secretary Jay Carney responded, “It is certainly the case, as the president said in his statement, that not everything in the bill reflects how he would write it, but it broadly is consistent with his principles.”

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From the Wall Street Journal:

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham wants more visas for the meat industry, a major employer in his state. Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) pushed for special treatment for Irish workers; his state is home to a large population with Irish ancestry.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio sought help for the cruise-ship industry, a big business in his home state of Florida. And Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado wove in a boost for ski areas.

UPDATE: This post has been updated to clarify that the provisions included in the bill are meant to benefit foreign workers in each state.

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"Linking something like that to other legislation I think is probably not appropriate at this time," Diaz-Balart told ThinkProgress. "In the first place, we don’t have the facts. What I will tell you is, what is indisputable, is that we have an immigration system that is broken."

He continued that, "If somebody is here today in the United States and commits a crime, it is under the current immigration system," so "what does that lead me to believe? That we have to fix the current immigration system, if in fact there is any connection between immigration at all."

Grassley kicked off the Senate's Friday hearing on immigration reform by saying: “We also appreciate the opportunity to talk about immigration. Particularly in light of all that’s happening in Massachusetts right now and over the last week."

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The first lawmaker to bring Boston into the immigration debate, which is currently going on in a Senate hearing, was Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa."We appreciate the ability to talk about immigration, particularly in light of the events in Boston," he said.

Sen. Marco Rubio's office put out a statement urging people to avoid politicizing Boston. "Boston is still developing and it's too soon to jump to conclusions, let alone use the tragedy to make political points."

But that didn't stop Twitter:

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In their desire to find a compromise acceptable to the chronically short-sighted and self-destructive Republican Party, Democrats have crafted an immigration bill that is for the most part as unobjectionable as it is uninspired. The bill cobbles together a series of pragmatic concessions that, while perhaps sufficient to overcome conservative objections, will likely prove wholly insufficient at actually addressing the problem it was designed to solve — that is, fixing our broken immigration system. The tangle of hurdles and exclusions, loopholes for businesses and pitfalls for immigrants, is precisely the mess we should be cleaning up, not making worse.

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Remember the "Obama phone" -- the completely ridiculous right-wing obsession on the idea that the Obama administration was handing out free phones to welfare recipients? Which turned out actually to be a Reagan-era program that provided discounts to low-income phone users?

Well, now there's a "Marco phone" -- as in Sen. Marco Rubio, proponent of a new immigration bill filed this week.

The Florida politics website the Shark Tank "reports":

According to the newly filed bill, immigrants who are allowed to enter the United States under a work visa, will be "granted" a taxpayer funded cellular phone. Move over “Obama phone,” we present the new ‘Hola, Como Estas?!’ MarcoPhone.

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The bill would put the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally on a 13-year path to U.S. citizenship that would cost each $2,000 in fines plus additional fees, and would begin only after steps have been taken to secure the border, according to an outline of the measure.

The sweeping legislation also would remake the nation's inefficient legal immigration system, creating new immigration opportunities for tens of thousands of high- and low-skilled workers, as well as a new "merit visa" aimed at bringing people with talents to the U.S. Senators had planned to formally introduce the bill Tuesday, but after Monday's bombing at the Boston Marathon a planned press event was delayed until later in the week.

Employers would face tough new requirements to check the legal status of all workers. Billions of dollars would be poured into border security, and millions of people who've been waiting overseas for years, sometimes decades, in legal immigration backlogs would see their cases speeded up.

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But Rubio did Ginsburg one better during his immigration reform-themed media blitz. Two better, actually.

In addition to appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press," CBS' "Face the Nation," ABC's "This Week," CNN's "State of the Union" and "Fox News Sunday," Rubio stopped by Univision and Telemundo to promote a bipartisan package and swear up and down that he was really, really not offering amnesty to more than 11 million undocumented immigrants.

A roundup of Rubio's tough talk on immigration.

Rubio boasts to "This Week" that his reform package still makes it pretty hard to be an undocumented immigrant in America 

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The bill expected to be unveiled next week would bar anyone who arrived in the U.S. after Dec. 31, 2011, from applying for legal status and ultimately citizenship, according to the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposals had not been announced.

It also would require applicants to document that they were in the country before Dec. 31, 2011, have a clean criminal record, and show enough employment or financial stability that they're likely to stay off welfare.

Those requirements could end up excluding hundreds of thousands of the 11 million immigrants in the U.S. illegally from the path to citizenship envisioned by the bill, the aide said.

Although illegal immigration to the U.S. has been dropping, many tens of thousands still arrive each year, so the cutoff date alone could exclude a large number of people. That may come as a disappointment to immigrant rights groups that had been hoping that anyone here as of the date of enactment of the bill could be able to become eligible for citizenship.

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Politico reports:

Aides said the legislative proposal could be released as soon as Thursday, but is more likely to be ready early next week. The schedule outlined by the aides is meant to satisfy Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has said repeatedly that he wants a full debate and amendment process, to maximize the chances that the final vote is an overwhelming majority.

The Wall Street Journal has some possible details on the framework, which, according to unnamed sources, would require strict border security measures to be enforced before undocumented immigrants can begin receiving green cards:

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Prompted by inquiries into the trip from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, sources have come forward to say that the US Treasury sanctioned the visit. From the Guardian:

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Rubio sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy in which he demanded more hearings. So, so many hearings. (Rubio's letter contained the word "hearings" six times.) And open amendments, which is basically asking permission for anti-reform senators to attempt to make a series of potentially toxic votes if they want their precious reform.

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Schumer went ahead and kvelled about being close to a deal, anyway. “With the agreement between business and labor, every major policy issue has been resolved on the ‘Gang of Eight,’” he told NBC’s Chuck Todd. A GOP Gang member, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, sounded more cautiously optimistic. "We're much closer with labor and business agreeing on this guest-worker plan," Flake told Todd. "But that doesn't mean we've crossed every 'I' or dotted every 'T' or vice versa." They were referring to a deal on the status of low-skilled immigrant workers brokered Friday night by AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka and U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue.

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“That filibuster was the best move by a politician I’ve ever seen,” a high school senior from Virginia with a swept bowl-cut (who has seen a lot of moves in his time) exclaimed when asked about his sticker.

When Paul himself took the stage inside, the audience roared in approbation and many stood for the duration of the speech to physically show their support. Paul played the hits right off the back, opening with a joke about his now iconic filibuster. “I was told I get 10 measly minutes, but I came prepared with 13 hours' worth of material!” he said while holding up a stack of black binders. “Don’t drone me, bro!” a young man yelled approvingly from the crowd.

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"Just because I want to define marriage in a traditional way does not make me a bigot," Rubio said, adding: "Just because I believe that life, all life, at all stages of development, deserves to be protected," does not make him closed-minded.

"The people who are closed-minded in our society are the ones who love to preach about climate science" but ignore that "science has proven that life begins at conception."

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From The Hill:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will speak to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference at 1:15 p.m. on the event’s opening day. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) will follow 15 minutes later.

The conference double-header gives the CPAC audience its first chance to directly compare and contrast two ambitious lawmakers who have found early-career success as favorites of Tea Party Republicans.

Each senator is fresh off giving another high-profile speech that set them up as a potential Republican candidate in the next presidential race: Rubio with his rebuttal to the President's State of the Union, and Paul with his filibuster of John Brennan's nomination to CIA chief.

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