Stephen Dinan

Tea party favorite Ben Sasse wins bruising Nebraska GOP primary

Ben Sasse won the Republican nomination for Nebraska's open Senate seat Tuesday, besting a crowded, competitive field, leaving him well-positioned to win in November and delivering a win to insurgent conservative groups who said it served as a rebuke to GOP power brokers in Washington.

May 13, 2014

Questions on racism, drone attacks plague Obama judicial nominees

The White House is facing another tough battle over one of its judicial nominees — only this time President Obama faces opposition from his own party, with his former Senate colleagues accusing one of his picks for a federal judgeship in Georgia of turning a blind eye to racism in a debate over the Confederate symbol on the state's former flag.

May 13, 2014

IRS is still paying billions in bogus tax credits to the poor

The IRS is still paying more than $10 billion a year in bogus payments to the poor under the Earned Income Tax Credit, the agency's auditor said in a new report released Tuesday that says about a quarter of all payments are improper.

May 13, 2014

GOP filibuster blocks energy efficiency bill

Fed up with what they see as dictatorial behavior by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Republicans on Monday filibustered to block an energy efficiency bill, dooming it to defeat for a second time in less than a year and signaling just how bad relations have gotten in the upper chamber.

May 12, 2014

House Speaker John Boehner says he’ll still be speaker next year

House Speaker John A. Boehner said he expects to be speaker again next year, but declined Monday to say he would definitely serve out another full term in Congress.

May 12, 2014

Speaker John Boehner: ‘As long as I’m here, no earmarks’

House Speaker John A. Boehner has flatly ruled out a return to earmarks on Capitol Hill, putting himself squarely in the way of a growing number of his colleagues who say they want to reopen the debate over pork-barrel spending.

May 12, 2014

Feds released hundreds of immigrant murderers, drunken drivers, sex-crimes convicts

Immigration officials knowingly released dozens of murderers and thousands of drunken drivers back into the U.S. in 2013, according to Obama administration statistics that could undercut the president's argument that he is trying to focus on the most serious criminals in his immigration enforcement.

May 12, 2014

Fighting the nanny state: House panel snuffs out tobacco ban for military bases

Bristling at what they saw as the nanny state run awry, the House Armed Services Committee voted overwhelmingly this week to ensure that American troops serving overseas still can buy tobacco from base exchanges.

May 8, 2014

Conservative group wants Obamacare declared a tax

A conservative legal group asked a federal appeals court Thursday to break new legal ground and overturn Obamacare by declaring it a tax bill that originated in the Senate — a violation of the Constitution's demand that the House have exclusive right to initiate all revenue measures.

May 8, 2014

House Republicans find 10% of tea party donors audited by IRS

Despite assurances to the contrary, the IRS didn't destroy all of the donor lists scooped up in its tea party targeting — and a check of those lists reveals that the tax agency audited 10 percent of those donors, much higher than the audit rate for average Americans, House Republicans revealed Wednesday.

May 7, 2014

House votes to find IRS’s Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress

Nearly a year to the day after she revealed the IRS gave inappropriate scrutiny to some groups applying for tax-exempt status, the House voted Wednesday to declare Lois G. Lerner in contempt of Congress for blocking its investigation, sending her case to the legal system.

May 7, 2014

House nixes NSA bulk-collection of citizens’ data

The NSA's snooping program took its first major legislative hit Wednesday when the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill banning the government from bulk-collection of Americans' data.

May 7, 2014

Sequestration’s toll: One bureaucrat loses job

Only one employee in the entire federal government lost a job due to sequestration, according to a government audit that found the only permanent cut came at the U.S. Parole Commission, which eliminated one position.

May 7, 2014

John Boehner gives Benghazi committee broad powers

House Speaker John A. Boehner laid out details of his proposed Benghazi investigative committee Tuesday night, calling for a 7-5 split between Republicans and Democrats — drawing a stern response from Democrats who said that is unfair and taints the investigation from the start.

May 7, 2014

Where’s the pork? Durbin, Reid among lawmakers seeking to bring back earmarks

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that earmarks should be put back on the table as a tool for Congress, becoming the latest voice in a growing chorus to return to the days when pork-barrel spending dominated the annual appropriations process.

May 6, 2014

IRS employees deny tea party bias

The IRS employees involved in improperly targeting tea party groups vehemently denied political bias played a part in their actions, and specifically defended Lois G. Lerner, according to a report released by House Democrats on Tuesday.

May 6, 2014

Pelosi demands Benghazi panel be equally divided

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that the House's new investigative committee looking into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks must be equally divided between Democrats and Republicans — an aggressive demand that could dent the investigation before it even gets rolling.

May 6, 2014