CNN's GUT CHECK | for April 11, 2014 | 5 p.m.
– n. a pause to assess the state, progress or condition of the political news cycle

BREAKING: OBAMACARE ENROLLMENT HITS 8 MILLION … “The repeal debate is and should be over,” President Obama said while announcing the new figures at the White House. The Republicans are “wrong to try to keep trying to repeal a law that is working when they have no alternative answer.”

… BUT HILL REPUBLICANS REMAIN UNIMPRESSED: “This law has disrupted health care for millions of Americans, sent premiums skyrocketing, limited access to doctors, and cancelled plans, and even after all of that havoc, its ability to add to the insurance rolls is based largely on the fact that it forced Americans to purchase government-mandated coverage under the threat of costly penalties from the IRS,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Michigan. “The administration still has not answered basic questions about enrollment and why it will not support fairness for all.”

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CNN's GUT CHECK | for April 16, 2014 | 5 p.m.
– n. a pause to assess the state, progress or condition of the political news cycle

OBAMA SLAMS HOUSE GOP ON IMMIGRATION … Marking the one-year anniversary of the Senate’s passage of a comprehensive immigration reform plan, President Obama released a statement Wednesday ripping House Republicans for "repeatedly failing to take action” on the issue. The president said the House GOP seems to prefer “the status quo of a broken immigration system over meaningful reform.”

AS DIAZ-BALART URGES GOP NOT TO CEDE THE ISSUE: Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Florida, warned fellow Hill Republicans on Wednesday that if they do not take action on immigration reform, Obama will take the matter into his own hands.

“I’m convinced that if we don’t get it done by the August break, the president, who is feeling a lot of pressure from having not done anything on immigration reform, will feel that he has to act through executive action,” Diaz-Balart told the Washington Post. “If he does that, the window for Republicans and Democrats to negotiate on this issue is closed until the next president.

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