By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
From pro athletes who waste money at their charitable foundations to federal employees who don't pay their taxes, legislators have a few suggestions for whom the IRS should have been scrutinizing instead of going after partisan organizations.
President Obama's nomination of Ernest Moniz for secretary of energy seemed at first to offer some promise for the hapless department.
With the Environmental Protection Agency set to play the central role in President Obama's second-term climate change agenda, would-be agency chief Gina McCarthy on Thursday tried to calm Republican fears that she would continue the perceived "war on coal" and other harsh regulations under her predecessor.
A tax on everything from X-ray machines to oxygen tanks took effect at the beginning of this year — one of about 20 taxes and fees included in President Obama's health care law — and has emerged as the central battleground in the fight by the law's opponents to repeal parts of the president's overhaul.
Sally Jewell is one step closer to becoming the nation's next secretary of the interior.
President Obama's health care law passed Congress three years ago and remains almost entirely intact, but Republicans say they are still gathering support to dismantle it, betting that the overhaul will lose its political heft as Americans feel the brunt of its taxes and regulations.
Two of the most outspoken critics of Chuck Hagel's nomination as defense secretary indicated Sunday that the former senator from Nebraska likely will be confirmed when the Senate reconvenes next Monday.
Key Senators from both parties said Sunday that background checks on virtually all gun sales can win bipartisan support in the Senate, signaling progress on one of the key provisions of President Obama's gun control package.
Top congressional Republicans on Sunday predicted that deep, across-the-board spending cuts will take effect March 1, dismissing a Democratic proposal to avert them as dead on arrival and setting the stage for a high-stakes political game of chicken — just as Congress' weeklong recess gets under way.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Saturday night that President Obama has jeopardized U.S. national security by nominating substandard candidates for key Cabinet posts and by degrading the U.S. military.
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso brought forth a bill Wednesday to freeze or moot almost all National Labor Relations Board decisions from the past year.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton likely will face tough questions about the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya — including how the U.S. ambassador went missing for several hours during the assault — when she meets Wednesday with the House and Senate foreign affairs committees.
As the White House gears up to take its gun control plans on a public relations tour, at least one senator is out selling a different message: Don't worry. The Second Amendment will stay intact.
Republican senators Sunday indicated that little support exists on Capitol Hill — even among some Democrats — for the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips called for in President Obama's gun control initiative.
Sen. John Barrasso said Sunday that President Obama is "outsourcing" negotiations to avert the "fiscal cliff" — the automatic spending cuts and tax increases that will take effect in 2013 unless Republicans and Democrats can reach a deal.
"It required excessive use of very limited resources," said Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican.
Lawmakers see plenty of other places where IRS can find tax scofflaws →
He said the EPA is pushing coal miners through a "trap door to joblessness, poverty."
'War on coal' may burn EPA nominee; GOP senators question Gina McCarthy's record →
