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Articles by Stephen Dinan

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) ** FILE **

John Boehner: U.S. ‘losing ground’ to terrorists

House Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday that the U.S. and its allies are "losing ground" to the terrorists in Iraq and demanded President Obama come up with a better strategy for the fight.

June 4, 2015
Vice Adm. Peter Neffenger, Vice Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, salutes in front of other members of the Coast Guard during the presentation of the colors before a baseball game between the Washington Nationals and the New York Mets at Nationals Park in Washington on Aug. 6, 2014. (Associated Press) **FILE**

TSA chief nominee clears first hurdle

A key Senate panel cleared President Obama's pick to head the TSA on Thursday, moving quickly just days after a report that airport screeners missed most of the contraband weapons investigators tried to sneak by them in tests.

June 4, 2015
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican. (Associated Press)

Jason Chaffetz presses Mary Howard on IRS on transparency

The House's top investigator vowed Wednesday to bring the IRS to heel after he had to issue a subpoena to compel the agency's top transparency officer to appear before Congress to talk about transparency — a move Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said was embarrassing for the IRS.

June 3, 2015
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky. arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, June 1, 2015, before debate continues in the Senate on renewing the Patriot Act. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

NSA phone program doomed as Senate passes USA Freedom Act

The National Security Agency's phone-snooping program is on its last legs after senators approved the USA Freedom Act Tuesday, rewriting the sweeping Patriot Act to ban bulk collection of Americans' data and adding more transparency checks to the secret court that oversees intelligence gathering in the hopes of heading off future surprises.

June 2, 2015
A TSA officer checks a passenger's ticket, boarding pass and passport as part of security screening at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on Oct. 30, 2014. (Associated Press) **FILE**

TSA bragged about gun seizure success rate ahead of new failure report

This week's report that the Transportation Security Agency failed to spot 95 percent of contraband weapons snuck through in tests of airport screeners comes just a few months after the agency bragged about the good job it was doing in sniffing out guns and other weapons.

June 2, 2015
Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen (Associated Press) **FILE**

IRS missed chances to stop cyberattack: Auditor

The IRS ignored repeated warnings from its own inspector general that could have made it much harder for the cyberattackers who stole the private taxpayer information of 100,000 Americans earlier this year, the agency's inspector general testified to Congress on Tuesday.

June 2, 2015
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, will get one last chance to force votes on amendments Tuesday to try to give the NSA more spying time, and to weaken some of the transparency that the House imposed. (Associated Press)

Patriot Act backers scramble to save NSA phone snooping powers

Patriot Act defenders mounted a last-ditch effort Monday to try to preserve the NSA's phone-snooping, arguing -- against most evidence to the contrary -- that the program is useful in the fight against terrorists, and insisting it has been grossly distorted by opponents.

June 1, 2015
A U.S. flag with a swastika is seen during a protest against a visit by President Bush in Rome, Friday June 4, 2004. Bush, who met Pope John Paul II at the Vatican Friday, is in Italy to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Rome's liberation and will proceed to France Saturday. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini) **FILE**

Social Security paid $20M to Nazis

Social Security paid more than $20 million in benefits to alleged Nazis over the last five decades, according to a new internal audit completed late last week that found the last known or suspected Nazi finally stopped getting benefits only last month.

June 1, 2015
Hidden inside a load of green peppers, sealed in bales of coiled cable wire, stuffed inside the cups of women's bras — drug runners are finding increasingly innovative places to stash their illicit cargo as they try to sneak it by U.S. border guards. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

Drug smugglers get creative in bids to elude U.S. border guards

Hidden inside a load of green peppers, sealed in bales of coiled cable wire, stuffed inside the cups of women's bras -- drug runners are finding increasingly innovative places to stash their illicit cargo as they try to sneak it by U.S. border guards.

May 31, 2015
President Barack Obama speaks to media as he meets with Attorney General Loretta Lynch in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 29, 2015. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Obama, James Clapper plead Senate GOP to relent on Patriot Act standoff

President Obama and the government's chief intelligence official made a plea Friday for Senate Republican leaders to relent in their fight to preserve the NSA's phone-snooping program, saying that unless a deal is reached by Sunday, investigators will no longer be able to apply for new roving wiretaps come Monday.

May 29, 2015
President Barack Obama walks across the South Lawn of the White House from Marine One, Thursday, May 28, 2015, in Washington, as he arrives from Miami where the he visited the National Hurricane Center and the Shrine of Our Lady of Charity to pay his respects to the Cuban-American diaspora that worship there. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Homeland Security granted work visas despite injunction

The administration is fighting feverishly to try to keep a federal judge from riding herd on its deportation amnesty, saying in papers filed late Wednesday that while Homeland Security goofed in breaking a court injunction, it was an "isolated" incident and vowing it won't happen again.

May 28, 2015
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner John Koskinen testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 15, 2015, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing to examine IRS challenges in implementing the Affordable Care Act. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) ** FILE **

IRS bilked for billions in bogus refunds: audit

The IRS has gotten better at detecting fraud but still paid out $2.1 billion in potentially bogus refunds in 2012, according to a new audit Thursday that found the agency paid refunds on nearly 600 tax returns filed to the same address in Kilkenny, Ireland.

May 28, 2015
Lois Lerner is the former IRS official at the center of a controversy over how the agency treated conservative political groups. (Associated Press) **FILE**

House GOP demands criminal investigation into Lois Lerner

Insisting Lois G. Lerner is still a target, congressional Republicans sent a letter to new Attorney General Loretta Lynch Thursday asking her to follow through on their official request last year for a criminal investigation into Ms. Lerner's behavior at the IRS.

May 28, 2015