• If life seems better lately, it’s not just your imagination. “The public’s quality of life has improved sharply in the past two years,” Investor’s Business Daily reveals. The IBD/TIPP Quality of Life Index, which averaged 53.7 when Barack Obama was in the Oval Office, is now appreciably higher at 59.3. Trump isn’t just making America great again; he’s making life better again.

• Shutdown part II? On Friday, a spending deal was reportedly being finalized. But now, according to the Washington Examiner, “Negotiations on a spending accord needed to avert a government shutdown [this coming] Friday have nearly collapsed, and Republicans say it’s because House Democrats are pushing for new limits on how many illegal immigrants agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement can detain this fiscal year, including violent felons.”

• It’s almost as if we need a border barrier: “Illegal immigration across the southwest border is on pace for the worst year since 2007 — or the last time the country began a massive wall-building spree — according to new Homeland Security numbers. Four months into the fiscal year the Border Patrol nabbed nearly 201,500 people, compared to about 109,500 at the same point in the previous year. If that 84 percent surge holds, it works out to 733,000 immigrants crossing illegally for fiscal year 2019, which would be by far the highest numbers in more than a decade.” (The Washington Times)

• “On Sunday, after Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) displayed her blatant anti-Semitism by tweeting that GOP support for Israel was ‘all about the Benjamins,’ and followed by accusing AIPAC of paying American politicians to support Israel, bipartisan condemnation of her remarks erupted, although no leading Democrats said a word about their colleague’s vile rhetoric.” (The Daily Wire)

• It’s looking increasingly likely Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax will be purged from office. Fox News reports that “Fairfax was hit with a new allegation of sexual assault on Friday afternoon, just days after the embattled Democrat was accused of assaulting a separate woman in 2004.” Meanwhile, Townhall says the obstinate Gov. Ralph Northam “has been assigned reading about the case for reparations, among other things, as he prepares to retool his agenda to highlight race and equality.”

• “Supporters of Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar endured frigid temperatures to gather Sunday afternoon just outside downtown Minneapolis for her ‘big announcement’: that she is the latest to enter the increasingly crowded Democratic field for president. Klobuchar … has hinted for weeks that she would be entering the race, officially doing so after an onslaught of reports that her ‘Minnesota nice’ public image does not align with how she treats staff members behind closed doors.” (The Washington Free Beacon)

• The Washington Free Beacon also reports, “Democratic speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has appointed to the special committee on climate change members who have all received significant backing from the energy industry.” If it wasn’t for double standards…

• “Will Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’ even get a vote?” the Washington Examiner’s Susan Ferrechio wonders. Right now, it’s not etched in stone. “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., hasn’t promised it will get time on the floor, and as of last week, she hadn’t even read the ambitious resolution.”

• “Walter B. Jones Jr., a North Carolina congressman who so enthusiastically supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq … but who later underwent a dramatic change of heart and emerged as a prominent Republican critic of the war, died Feb. 10, on his 76th birthday.” (The Washington Post)

• On Friday, Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker sat down before the House Judiciary Committee, even though he “doesn’t expect to remain in the job for more than another week, as the Senate is expected to confirm nominee William Barr for the position,” The Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas reports. Here are “8 Takeaways From Acting AG Whitaker’s House Judiciary Committee Hearing.”

• Bracing for the worst: “U.S-backed Syrian forces say they launched a final push to defeat ISIS in the only remaining pocket of territory that the extremists still hold in the country. A large presence of American troops remain in Syria, but local forces fear what comes next if the U.S. completely pulls out.” (CBS News)

• A pointless endeavor: “On Wednesday, gun owners got to see what a Nancy Pelosi controlled Congress looks like as the House Judiciary Committee held its first gun control hearing in nearly a decade. Things went as one would expect.” (NRA-ILA)

• Disgusting — and predictable: “Prosecutors initially included a charge of abortion against the Queens man arrested Friday in his pregnant girlfriend’s murder — but rescinded it because of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new Reproductive Health Act.” (New York Post)

• Sanity is on the DL: “Major League Baseball will replace the ‘disabled list’ with the ‘injured list’ for the 2019 season amid concerns that the term ‘disabled’ was insensitive.” (The Daily Wire)

• Humor: Imaginary superhero Captain Planet criticizes Green New Deal for being unrealistic (The Babylon Bee)

• Policy: “Democrats unveiled their latest version of the Green New Deal on Thursday, but despite some concessions to reality, this version is still little more than socialism masked as environmental policy,” The Daily Signal’s Jarrett Stepman observes.

• Policy: The GOP’s “sabotage” approach to ObamaCare is paying off. At National Review, Robert VerBruggen explains how “the Republican party, however ineptly and inadvertently, might have stumbled into a health-care policy that actually works.”

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit In Our Sights.