In 1790, the finest mind in the First Congress, and of his generation, addressed in the House of Representatives the immigration issue: "It is no doubt very desirable that we should hold out as many inducements as possible for the worthy part of mankind to come and settle amongst us." Perhaps today's 115th Congress will resume the Sisyphean task of continuing one of America's oldest debates, in which James Madison was an early participant: By what criteria should we decide who is worthy to come amongst us?

Is there anything more depressing than a cheerful liberal? The question is prompted by one such, historian David Goldfield, who has written a large-hearted book explaining that America's problems would yield to government's deft ameliorating touch if Americans would just rekindle their enthusiasm for it.

Frank Lloyd Wright purportedly said, "Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles." Today, however, Oregon is the state with the strangest state of mind, which has something to do with it being impeccably progressive: In the series "Portlandia," the mention of artisanal lightbulbs might be satirical, but given today's gas-pumping controversy, perhaps not.

It is almost a law of our political physics: Those who choose to leave Congress thereby demonstrate qualities that make one wish they would linger here longer. After seven terms in the House of Representatives, which followed eight years in Pennsylvania's House of Representatives and six in the state Senate, Republican Charlie Dent, 57, is moving on without knowing his destination.

Today's political discord is less durable and dangerous than a consensus, one that unites the political class more than ideology divides it.

Wisconsin's Supreme Court can soon right a flagrant wrong stemming from events set in motion in 2014 at Milwaukee's Marquette University by Cheryl Abbate. Although just a graduate student, she already had a precocious aptitude for academic nastiness.

Preaching morality while practicing cupidity can be tricky, but various American governments have done it for years regarding smoking. This mental contortion now has a new chapter. The four largest American tobacco companies (Altria, R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard, Philip Morris) are, under government compulsion, funding newspaper and television ads to tell -- actually, to remind -- people that their products are sickening:

It is protected by Washington state's lopsidedly Democratic political class, which knows who butters its bread. It has been provided with bespoke law, tailored for its comfort. Nevertheless, the Service Employees International Union has been so avaricious in its objectives and so thuggish in its methods that it has been bested by the Freedom Foundation.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) meant that intellectuals in his day tended not to be temperate. In our day, this defect -- moral overheating -- has been democratized: Anyone can have it. Now, everybody can be happily furious, delirious with hysteria and intoxicated with intimations of apocalypse, all day every day.

The first use of nuclear weapons occurred Aug. 6, 1945. The second occurred three days later. That there has not been a third is testimony to the skill and sobriety of 12 presidents and many other people, here and abroad. Today, however, North Korea's nuclear bellicosity coincides with the incontinent tweeting, rhetorical taunts and other evidence of the frivolity and instability of the 13th president of the nuclear era. His almost daily descents from the previous day's unprecedentedly bad behavior are prompting urgent thinking about the constitutional allocation of war responsibilities, and especially about authority to use U.S. nuclear weapons.