By Mark Mix
Home day care providers would be forced into unions
As Congress and the White House pasted together and passed the so-called Patriot Act in the aftermath of the 2001 attack on the New York World Trade Center, a few conservatives raised questions about the degree to which the nation seemed ready "to trade liberty for security."
Another hot summer week in Washington, another scandal for President Obama. And this one was a shocker: Turns out the president has been doing — Wait, what? Exactly what presidents have been doing since 1978? Stop the presses!
The Obama administration on Thursday defended its secret seizure of the phone records of millions of U.S. citizens as part of counterterrorism efforts, while privacy advocates blasted the move as illegal and a debate erupted in Congress over the intended scope of a key surveillance law.
A senior White House official defended the National Security Agency's top secret collection of telephone records from one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies and insisted the government was not allowed to eavesdrop on calls.
The Associated Press, the New York Times and CNN have turned their backs on one of President Obama's top Cabinet officials.
Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole has until the end of business Friday to tell a House committee how and when his boss, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., recused himself in the Justice Department's subpoena of two months of telephone records of at least 20 reporters and editors at The Associated Press.
The House Judiciary Committee opened an investigation Wednesday into whether Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. lied under oath in testimony about the Justice Department's surveillance of journalists, while the White House declared again that President Obama "absolutely" has confidence in Mr. Holder.
Aides for the House Judiciary Committee say members are investigating whether Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. lied under oath during congressional testimony May 15 about the Justice Department's probe into media leaks, according to several published reports.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday described the leak about a foiled terrorist plot in Yemen to The Associated Press as a "very, very serious" matter that "put the American people at risk," but he did not remember when he recused himself from the investigation into it, did not put his recusal in writing and never told the White House.
A House panel is hearing testimony Tuesday about the need to update legislation governing law enforcement access to electronic communications such as email.
Powered by the results of the November elections, a bipartisan group of top senators on Monday floated the latest proposal to overhaul the nation's shattered immigration system — but acknowledged they are at the earliest stages of what is a fragile balancing act.
When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded $3 million in smoking-cessation funds to Iowa clinics back in 2010, home state Sen. Tom Harkin crowed he helped secure the money using his position on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee.
The Obama administration on Thursday once again delayed the deadline for states to comply with stricter standards for driver's licenses, which were put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. and were designed to keep illegal immigrants from being able to get valid identification.
Don't get poll fatigue just yet: The Republican presidential primary season stretches ahead with eight more primaries until the big finale in Utah on June 26. In the more immediate future, the District of Columbia, Maryland and Wisconsin are next at bat, on Tuesday.
Congress is taking steps to reverse a Supreme Court decision that turned a thriving middle-class community into a waterfront wasteland. It's about time Kelo was knocked off-kilter.
"Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American," said Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., author of the excessive and un-American Patriot Act in 2001.
"How could the phone records of so many innocent Americans be relevant to an authorized investigation as required by the act?" he wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
Scope of phone records seizure causes alarm; data collection goes beyond Verizon →
