Essential Reads

The Simple Sequestration Rule

We are headed into the peak week of sequestration insanity. The across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration are set to take effect on March 1. Here's a simple rule for getting through the next few days: If you're talking about sequestration, you're doing it wrong. Sequestration was created to focus minds on the Big Thing. So if you’re talking obsessively about the sequestration, it means you aren’t thinking about the thing that you were supposed to be focused on.

The GOP's Uncomfortable Debate Over Gay Marriage

As Republicans rebound from the 2012 election and plot their future, an uncomfortable debate over gay rights is taking place.

Will the Border Ever Be Secure Enough for Immigration Hawks?

Border security could be the issue that kills immigration reform. And yet, by most measures, the U.S.-Mexico border has never been safer.
 
The bipartisan group of U.S. senators seeking comprehensive immigration reform have proposed a "trigger" mechanism, whereby a path to citizenship would be contingent on increased border security. President Obama and liberals have not endorsed the idea, although the president is "committed to increasing our border security further," according to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

For Obama and Team, Calm, Not Crisis, in Latest Fiscal Battle

President Obama is just seven days away from the first significant test of his second term as deep spending cuts loom, yet inside the White House a clear sense of confidence stands in contrast to the air of crisis that surrounded previous fiscal showdowns with Republicans.

White House adopts new strategy to safeguard intellectual property

Amid growing evidence that China and other countries are stealing U.S. trade secrets and technology through cyber attacks, the White House announced what it billed as a new strategy Wednesday to protect intellectual property.

A More Perfect Poll

In the 2012 presidential election, we all thought we were smarter than the pollsters. Conservatives flocked to a site called UnskewedPolls.com, whose proprietor reconstituted the polls of major media organizations in proportions better suited to his vision of the American electorate—that is, one with more Republicans in it. Liberals, for their part, elevated to demigod status the statistician and New York Times blogger Nate Silver, who poured those same polls into a meat grinder and produced a neatly encased pronouncement that Barack Obama was overwhelmingly likely to win.

Fed Uneasy About Fueling Credit Bubble

New Deficit Reduction Plan: Is it the Last Straw?

WSJ's David Wessel explains the likelihood that a new deficit-reduction plan from Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles will lead to a budget compromise in Washington.