Stephen Dinan

Federal pandemic assistance helped Americans pay off credit card debt

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Give him a stimulus check and he'll pay off some credit card debt.

October 30, 2023

Speaker Mike Johnson’s Christian faith: ‘We build walls because we love the people on the inside’

House Speaker Mike Johnson's faith in action would be familiar to many people in middle America, but it has shocked the Washington establishment.

October 29, 2023

IRS agents use fake names to ‘harass and intimidate’ taxpayers, report reveals

The IRS allows its agents to use fake names when they contact taxpayers, according to a congressional report Friday that found the pseudonyms can create a tense and potentially harassing system.

October 27, 2023

U.S. debt payments soar to $659 billion while Congress aims for fiscal commission

Rising interest rates aren't just socking it to consumers, they're also tearing a hole in the federal budget.

October 27, 2023

Ghost towns: Federal office buildings are 80% vacant, government audit finds

The Agriculture Department is headquartered at the gateway between Washington and Virginia in a building rich with history -- but on any given day, roughly 90% of it sits empty.

October 26, 2023

‘Political infection’: Senior senator says FBI tampered with Biden family probes

More than 40 confidential sources were providing information to the FBI about the Biden family and they produced credible evidence of corruption, the Senate's most senior lawmaker said Wednesday.

October 25, 2023

Feds forced to flee Nancy Pelosi’s namesake building in San Francisco over drugs, crime

Sen. Joni Ernst is calling for the government to pull the plug on the Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco after its public spaces turned into a crime-ravaged open-air drug market that is so unsafe government employees were ordered to work from home.

October 25, 2023

U.S. government’s Voice of America orders reporters not to call Hamas ‘terrorists’

Voice of America, the government's taxpayer-funded news media operation, instructed its reporters last week to stop calling Hamas terrorists.

October 25, 2023

Activists seethe as Democrats pivot on border, work to stem flow of migrants to overrun cities

New York Mayor Eric Adams, greeting the first busload of migrants from Texas, declared in the summer of 2022 that the city was ready with a helping hand for "every asylum-seeker that comes to New York," and his administration worked with immigration activists to get the newcomers settled. Today, Mr. Adams says his city is full.

October 24, 2023

House GOP launches probe into Homeland Security’s hiring of ex-PLO operative

The House Homeland Security Committee has opened an investigation into how the Department of Homeland Security came to hire a woman who previously worked for a terrorist organization and who espouses virulently anti-Israel views.

October 23, 2023

Biden bets on border money to entice Republicans on $105 billion spending bill

Biden requested nearly $14 billion as part of his new $105 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel, figuring it might win over some Republicans who are reluctant about deeper entanglements.

October 22, 2023

Biden shatters records for worst border with 3.2 million illegal immigrants, 169 terrorism suspects

The Biden administration just tallied the worst year in border security history, according to the Department of Homeland Security's final numbers for fiscal 2023, which showed record numbers of illegal immigrants, terrorism suspects and fentanyl detected.

October 21, 2023

Federal government notches $1.7 trillion deficit for fiscal year, third-worst on record

The federal deficit leaped to $1.7 trillion for the just-ended fiscal year 2023, the Treasury Department announced, with President Biden's team pinning blame on his predecessor's 2017 tax cut package.

October 20, 2023

Supreme Court blocks ruling in White House social media censorship case

The Supreme Court put a hold Friday on lower court rulings that had ordered the White House to stop pressuring social media companies to censor content the administration disagreed with.

October 20, 2023

$122 million windfall as IRS says it’s made 100 wealthy taxpayers pay what they owe

The IRS has already sweated $122 million out of 100 wealthy taxpayers, the agency announced Friday, celebrating early returns in the Biden administration's campaign to make the rich pay what they owe to Uncle Sam.

October 20, 2023

Homeland Security at a loss to explain hiring of former PLO official for work on asylum cases

Homeland Security lacked answers Thursday to piercing questions about how a woman who worked for a designated terrorist organization and espoused virulent anti-Israel rules was hired to decide sensitive asylum cases -- and senior former officials urged the department to review every case she handled to correct her bias.

October 19, 2023

DHS puts on leave a former PLO spokeswoman whom it had hired as asylum officer

Homeland Security's legal immigration agency put an employee on leave Wednesday after being confronted with her past history as an operative for the Palestine Liberation Organization and a more recent series of pro-Hamas social media posts.

October 18, 2023

IG to investigate federal offices left vacant by telework policies

An inspector general has opened an investigation into telework policies that have turned some government offices into ghost towns, raising big questions about how agencies deliver services.

October 18, 2023

House GOP threatens universities’ tax-exempt status after failure to decry Hamas

Congress' top lawmaker who oversees tax law on Wednesday suggested that colleges that have let pro-Hamas activities take place on their campuses could lose their tax-exempt status.

October 18, 2023

IRS will launch free file program in 13 states next year

The IRS is pushing ahead with plans for its own version of a free direct-file option, announcing on Tuesday it will run a 13-state pilot program for next year that will allow a limited number of taxpayers to fill out and submit their tax returns online without having to use a paid service.

October 17, 2023