But the attack does reveal a key weakness in today's Democratic Party that could haunt it for the next decade or more -- it has a relatively barren farm system of young up-and-comers. The party could easily survive 2016 with Clinton at the top of the ticket, but what about subsequent cycles?

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“It’s beyond disingenuous for anyone to claim that a vote for this bill is a vote for security,” she wrote on her Facebook page. “Look no further than the fact that Senator Rubio and amnesty supporters nixed Senator [John] Thune’s amendment that required the feds to finally build part of a needed security fence before moving forward on the status of illegal immigrants who’ve already broken the law to be here.” She added: "There are plenty of other commonsense solutions, but this bill isn’t about fixing problems; it’s about amnesty at all costs."

"As the Senate moves to pass amnesty, the only bright spot in this travesty is the rallying revolution we can look forward to," Palin continued. "For just as opposition to Obamacare became a rallying cry for the 2010 midterm elections, opposition to this fundamentally transforming amnesty bill will galvanize the grassroots in next year’s elections. And 2014 is just around the corner."

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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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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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“I think it's an excellent starting point, and I think 95, 96 percent of the bill is in perfect shape and ready to go.  But there are elements that need to be improved.  This is how the legislative process is supposed to work,” he said, speaking on ABC's "This Week."

Rubio continued that "the bottom line is a bill that does not have increased border security, which everyone now I think has conceded needs to happen -- I think the debate now is about what that border security provision looks like."

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So the question is not so much whether the GOP should change but, rather, how? Two options commonly proffered are as follows: Republicans could follow the lead of Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and push for even smaller government (I call this the “more cowbell” school of thought). Or they could look instead to the small but influential group of right-wing intellectuals claiming to offer a new path: the “conservative reformers.” The decision looks so simple. Either one step forward, or two steps back.

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Which is precisely what Scott Keyes from ThinkProgress did on Thursday after catching up with the senator at the Faith and Freedom Forum; Rubio's answer was predictably terrible:

SCOTT KEYES: The Senate this summer is going to be taking up the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which makes it illegal to fire someone for being gay. Do you know if you’ll be supporting that?

MARCO RUBIO: I haven’t read the legislation. By and large I think all Americans should be protected but I’m not for any special protections based on orientation.

KEYES: What about on race or gender?

RUBIO: Well that’s established law.

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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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But with the easing of scandal fever on the Potomac, Republicans are back to fighting one another, and the week-long Senate clash between freshman Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. John McCain over the budget is exposing the yawning gulf within the party once again.

Now that the GOP-dominated House and Democratic-led Senate have passed very different budgets, McCain has tried to argue for the formation of a conference committee that would try to reconcile the two. That might be a thankless, impossible task nowadays, but it’s nonetheless the way Congress has always worked. Democrats agree with McCain, and so do most Republicans.

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So was Chris Christie's lap band surgery; it’s obvious what that means. Joe Biden tells Rolling Stone he spends four to five hours a day with President Obama -- we all know why. The attempted rehabilitation of George W. Bush was all about the presidential ambitions of his brother Jeb. Sen. Marco Rubio’s immigration reform proposals are covered almost exclusively in terms of what they mean for his 2016 chances, not for U.S. immigration policy. And the White House schemes of freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, instead of being a laughable footnote in stories about his radicalism, are instead headline news everywhere.

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As reported by the New York Times, these countries and others have gotten in on the good-old American pastime of throwing money behind their interests, successfully lobbying to secure immigration benefits for their citizens that are denied to immigrants from other places around the world:

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From a pure political perspective, supporting inclusion of same-sex couples in the immigration reform bill should be a slam dunk for both Democrats and Republicans. Scuttling the package over this provision would alienate the growing Latino constituency by blocking a pathway to citizenship -- and denying rights to LGBT Americans would be ignoring the direction of the country on civil rights.

And yet, according to a flurry of news stories from the past couple of weeks, the die is apparently cast on the matter: Allowing some 30,000 same-sex couples the same access to green cards that opposite-sex couples enjoy will halt the bill for 11 million immigrants. Even before the provision has been debated or a vote count begun, Republicans are holding firm to a position that’s literally killing their party. Meanwhile, Democrats run scared, to the detriment of the overall bill.

In plain English: The Republicans need this bill because their party doesn’t have a future if they can’t appeal to Latino voters. On the flip side, Democrats shouldn’t be sacrificing any progressive priorities before the horse-trading even begins because the more they start with, the more they will be able to keep in the end.

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"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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