Comes news that House GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy has endorsed comprehensive legalization for persons unlawfully in this country, and predicts the entire House “leadership team” may follow suit.

Presumably, the leadership epiphany will be embodied in the “immigration principles” which House Speaker John Boehner will unveil at this year’s appropriately named “Republican retreat.”

Thus, this package is expected to include:

-a legalization “pathway to amnesty,” in which between 1.7 million and 11.5 million illegals will be brought out of the shadows and given every incentive to work day and night in order to destroy Republicans and elect Democrats;

-a GOP-backed “healthcare.gov for jobs,” in which every American will have to get the government’s go-ahead in order to work, even in menial jobs like babysitters and gardeners;

-a delusional notion that Barack Obama can be trusted to “secure the borders” when it’s no longer in his political interest to do so; and

-specialized visas which will be nothing more than enormous “amnesty loopholes.”

Boehner & co. have openly publicized that they intend to do this in late spring, right after most primary filings have closed and the supposedly stupid Tea people presumably can’t do anything about it.

Which raises this issue: Given that Boehner’s staff, on the front page of every major American newspaper, has already told us he intends to kick us in the groin, why not force GOP House members to openly embrace or reject this strategy now? If I were Senator Jeff Sessions (or an anti-amnesty leader in the House), I would circulate a letter — now — asking members top either repudiate this devious gambit or, by not signing, confess that this is exactly what they intend to do.

But two-step amnesty is only one of the four cornerstones of Boehner’s Tower of Babel. Here are the four:

PATHWAY TO AMNESTY: As bad as instant amnesty would be, it’s probably less bad than two-step amnesty.

Under the Boehner proposal, between 1.7 and 11.5 million illegals would be formally insulated from prosecution. And for these legalistas, the pathway to their future would become spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, working to elect Democrats and to maintain Harry Reid’s control of the Senate so that they can receive the badge of full amnesty — citizenship.

Once granted citizenship, according to one poll, 88% will vote for Democrats. That number will go even higher if, in the short term, promotion from “legalization” to “citizenship” rests on electing Democrats. But, either way, the country goes the way of California and the GOP dies an ignominious self-inflicted death.”

The Republican base is highly motivated to throw out Democrats and take the Senate in 2014 — particularly those who hate ObamaCare and love the Second Amendment.

But the legalistas would be an even more highly-motivated counterweight that could be the one thing to dislodge Republicans from the House and speed Barack Obama’s ascent to Mount Rushmore.

Remember the immigration advocates who descended on John Boehner during breakfast? Remember the chants of Obama’s campaign slogan (“Yes we can”) from the Senate galleries? Imagine these people, multiplied by a million, freed from all inhibitions and organized as a political force.

Bottom line: If GOP congressmen wish to eat breakfast in peace and hold town hall meetings without being ambushed, they will resist the “pathway to amnesty.”

“HEALTHCARE.GOV FOR JOBS”: The good news: Given the events of the last four months, only a moron would want to condition employment on logging onto and being approved by a federal computer website.

The bad news: There are plenty of morons around.

One additional observation: We have seen, with guns, that, over time, when you condition a constitutional right on getting the go-ahead from a government database, that go-ahead is eventually denied for political purposes.

In the wake of the IRS scandal, does anyone not see the potential harm which would come from requiring the government to give its assent before you can work?

‘VISAS WITH BENEFITS” (LOOPHOLES WAITING TO HAPPEN): There are various drafts dealing with agriculture and high-tech visas. Under some, if you can claim you were an agricultural worker over 26 weeks a year for a fixed number of years, you are on the pathway to citizenship.

‘TRUST-ME OBAMA”: Does anyone not understand why the Senate bill does not contain objective measurements of border security from an objective arbiter as a condition for amnesty? Enough said.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE? House and Senate Republicans opposed to amnesty — all of whom have read, on the front page of every American newspaper, that John Boehner intends to smother them in their sleep — should begin circulating a letter now opposing Boehner’s “principles.”

For those whose secret commitment to a post-filing ambush makes them unable to sign such a letter, well, we know what to do.