Skip to content
Advertisement

Articles by Stephen Dinan

Midland University president and Republican Senate candidate Ben Sasse is pictured on campus in this photo from June 5, 2013, in Fremont, Neb. The Senate Conservatives Fund, a national conservative group, has endorsed Sasse in Nebraska's U.S. Senate race on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, setting him up as the race's tea party candidate. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)

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
** FILE ** Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. (Associated Press)

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
** FILE ** This March 22, 2013, file photo shows the exterior of the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

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
The refusal of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, to allow a freewheeling Senate floor debate on the energy efficiency bill resulted in a Republican filibuster that doomed the bill to defeat for the second time in less than a year. (Associated Press Photographs)

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
The HealthCare.gov website is shown on a laptop in Washington, Monday, March 31, 2014. Today is the deadline to sign up for private heath insurance in the online markets created by President Obama's heath care law or face a federal fines. (AP Photo/J. David Ake)

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
Witness: Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen tried to assure lawmakers that taxpayers would be treated in a fair manner. (Associated Press)

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
**FILE** Former IRS official Lois Lerner speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 5, 2014, during the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the the agency's targeting of tea party groups, where she invoked her constitutional right not to incriminate herself. (Associated Press)

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
** FILE ** In this Dec. 17, 2013, file photo, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

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
** FILE ** House Speaker John A. Boehner. (Associated Press)

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
** FILE ** Rep. Elijah Cummings, Maryland Democrat. (Associated Press)

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
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, April 1, 2014, following her lunch with President Barack Obama. Pelosi was asked several questions about the Affordable Care Act. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

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
Vice President Joe Biden addresses the Motion Picture Association of America's creativity conference at the Newseum in Washington, Friday, May 2, 2014.  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Biden retreats: Illegal immigrants aren’t ‘citizens’

Vice President Joseph R. Biden on Monday backed away from his claim earlier this year that illegal immigrants "are already American citizens," saying that while he acknowledges they aren't actually citizens, they are still Americans.

May 5, 2014