Stephen Dinan

‘Swinecraft’: Feds funded experiment to teach hogs to play video game

Sen. Joni Ernst released a new list of dubious government spending Tuesday, questioning why federal taxpayers had to foot the bill for studies that trained pigs to play a video game or dolphins to use an underwater touchpad to try to tap out their thoughts.

March 14, 2023

Feds charge border officer with using excessive force

A federal grand jury has charged a Customs and Border Protection officer with using excessive force in two separate incidents at a border crossing in El Paso, Texas.

March 13, 2023

Biden’s border ‘parole’ program in peril as congressional GOP plans vote to overturn

Sen. John Cornyn announced plans Monday to force a vote in Congress to overturn President Biden's new "parole" program, which seeks to admit migrants outside of the usual process established under immigration law.

March 13, 2023

House Republicans’ unity, string of wins prove Washington pundits wrong

Chaos. Dysfunction. An abject disaster. Those were some of the more printable projections of the House GOP as it struggled to elect Speaker Kevin McCarthy in January. Two months on, however, Republicans have maintained a general sense of unity.

March 11, 2023

IRS audit finds 42,000 feds cheating on taxes

More than 42,000 federal employees repeatedly failed to file their taxes with the IRS, according to a new audit that said the government is limited in its ability to punish the cheats.

March 10, 2023

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas says he needs more money to handle border

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas unloaded on immigrant rights activists Thursday, rejecting their suggestions that he has embraced Trump-style get-tough policies and saying he is managing as best he can with a chaotic border, adversarial court rulings and a "dismantled" legal immigration system.

March 9, 2023

Biden’s budget calls for 350 more Border Patrol agents

President Biden's new budget calls for the hiring of 350 more Border Patrol agents, on top of the 350 that were in his last budget and that were approved by Congress in December.

March 9, 2023

Federal judge unloads on Biden border policies as ‘divorced from reality’

A federal judge delivered a severe spanking to President Biden over the southern border, ruling Wednesday that there is an illegal immigration "crisis" and accusing the administration of reducing the boundary to "a meaningless line in the sand."

March 8, 2023

Senator wants to send military to Mexico, declare war on cartels after Americans’ deaths

A leading senator on Wednesday called for the U.S. to declare a war on Mexican cartels, saying the killings of two Americans by gangs should earn a response by the full might of the U.S. military.

March 8, 2023

Afghan allies ‘hunted down systematically’ by Taliban, U.S. troops tell Congress

The U.S. must renew its efforts to rescue Afghan allies who fought alongside Americans and were left behind in the chaotic withdrawal, veterans told Congress on Wednesday, calling the abandonment a moral stain.

March 8, 2023

Majority of Americans believe COVID-19 came from Chinese lab: Poll

The majority of Americans now believe that COVID-19 sprang from a Chinese lab, according to a new poll that shows recent work by the FBI and the Energy Department has swayed the public.

March 8, 2023

Sobbing spring: Feds struggle to fill seats for ‘ecogrief’ training session

The Fish and Wildlife Service's "ecogrief" training is more widespread than originally thought, having already been conducted in "many" of the agency's regions, according to an internal email obtained by The Washington Times.

March 8, 2023

Immigration activists rip Biden over get-tough border proposal

Immigrant rights advocates blasted the Biden administration Tuesday after a report that Homeland Security is thinking of reviving detention of illegal alien families to stem an expected migrant surge at the border this spring.

March 7, 2023

Jordan subpoenas DHS’ ousted disinformation chief, school board officials who challenged parents

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan issued a subpoena Monday to Nina Jankowicz, the woman who first led then was ousted from the Homeland Security Department's disinformation board.

March 6, 2023

Biden loses footing with Republicans now in power

President Biden's reversal on a House GOP-led measure exposed a White House still struggling to figure out how to operate in a Washington where Republicans have partial control over the agenda.

March 5, 2023

ICE paid millions to leave detention beds empty: inspector general

Homeland Security's migrant detention agency paid more than $8 million for detention beds that went unused in a Louisiana facility, the department's inspector general said in a new report that also blasted the jail for filthy conditions and overly strict rules.

March 4, 2023

MS-13’s smuggling operations in Mexico help gang members reach U.S.: DOJ

MS-13 has expanded its operations into Mexico, running migrant smuggling routes in order to make money and be able to send reinforcements into the U.S. to replace gang members who get arrested or deported, according to federal prosecutors.

March 2, 2023

Biden gets tough on pandemic fraud; promises more money, time to prosecute scammers

President Biden is proposing more money to go after pandemic fraudsters, and calling on Congress to pass legislation giving investigators and prosecutors more time to bring criminal cases and new powers to recover money from those they can't prosecute.

March 2, 2023

Sen. Tom Cotton challenges U.S. asylum policy, says New Orleans more dangerous than Honduras

Sen. Tom Cotton challenged the Biden administration's more lenient asylum policies Wednesday, saying the U.S. is now allowing people to claim protection if they come from countries that are, on the whole, safer than some major American cities.

March 1, 2023

Scammer filed unemployment claim in name of feds’ top investigator

The government's top investigator was testifying to Congress when he made a startling revelation: Someone had used his identity to apply for pandemic unemployment benefits.

March 1, 2023