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Washington Times Editorial Board: Iran MOU is far from Trump’s promise of ‘unconditional surrender'

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Articles by Stephen Dinan

**FILE** Voters wait in line on Nov. 6, 2012, at a polling place located inside a shopping mall in Austin, Texas, on Election Day. Attorney General Eric Holder says Texas is the first place that he will intervene to defend against what he calls attacks on the voting rights of minorities, but it is also the only state where the federal government has a clear opportunity to get involved, experts say. (Associated Press)

Holder sues Texas to stop voter ID law, congressional maps

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. sued Texas on Thursday, escalating the battle over voting rights and saying the Legislature was intentionally trying to discriminate against Hispanics when it redrew its congressional district maps and passed a voter-ID law.

August 22, 2013
** FILE ** President Obama speaks Aug. 22, 2013, at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. (Associated Press)

Obama pitches federal plan to name and shame colleges over costs

Saying the rising costs of college are punishing students who have played by the rules, President Obama on Thursday announced that the federal government will take a broader role in pushing schools to lower costs by rating schools based on their educational value, and in trying to tie taxpayer money to school performance.

August 22, 2013
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat, said the IRS scandal shows an agency that doesn't have good rules for keeping political organizations from operating as tax-exempt social welfare organizations. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Suit says IRS behind the times

A top Democratic congressman and several campaign finance groups sued Wednesday to try to force the Internal Revenue Service to crack down on political groups, saying the reason the agency has encountered so many problems with tea party groups is that it is using 20th century rules to govern 21st century politics.

August 21, 2013
This image provided by Shaam News Network on Aug. 22, 2013, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, purports to show several bodies being buried in a suburb of Damascus, Syria, during a funeral on Aug. 21, 2013. Syrian government forces pressed their offensive in eastern Damascus on Thursday, bombing rebel-held suburbs where the opposition said the regime had killed more than 100 people the day before in a chemical weapons attack. The government has denied allegations it used chemical weapons in artillery barrages on the area known as eastern Ghouta on Wednesday as "absolutely baseless." (Associated Press/Shaam News Network)

Syria again challenges Obama’s ‘red line’ on chemical weapons

President Obama's "red line" for Syria is once again being tested after rebel forces said Wednesday that the regime of President Bashar Assad used poison gas to attack civilians near Damascus, killing potentially hundreds in what could turn out to be the deadliest deployment of chemical weapons yet.

August 21, 2013

Obama school tour focus: Doing something about high cost of college

President Obama will call for a major rethinking of how Americans and the government pay for the costs of a college education as he takes a bus tour of the Northeast later this week, the White House said Tuesday, as he tries to revive his second-term agenda.

August 20, 2013
**FILE** The exterior of the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington is seen on March 22, 2013. (Associated Press)

IRS may be breaking software copyright laws, audit finds

The IRS is using some computer software that it hasn't paid for, and is paying for other programs its employees aren't even using, according to a new audit released Tuesday that said the tax agency could be violating copyright laws.

August 20, 2013
A "step-by-step approach is the way to do it with enforcement coming first," said Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican, regarding immigration reform. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Illegals snared as immigration debate continues

A massive weekend raid netted several hundred illegal immigrants who were either car wash workers or customers in Phoenix, according to immigrant-rights groups who say the move highlights the ongoing tensions within President Obama's deportation policy.

August 18, 2013
** FILE ** Rep. Ron Barber, Arizona Democrat, speaks to the media in Tucson, Ariz., on Aug. 7, 2012. (Associated Press)

DHS spends $600,000 to buy $100,000 homes: Report

The Homeland Security Department spent $600,000 apiece to build houses in Arizona that would have gone for less than $100,000, according to a report in the Arizona Republic that's raising questions in Congress.

August 16, 2013
**FILE** Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (right), Vermont Democrat, and the committee's ranking Republican, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, arrive on Capitol Hill on July 31, 2013, as the panel questioned top Obama administration officials about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs for the first time since the House narrowly rejected a proposal last week to effectively shut down the NSA's secret collection of hundreds of millions of Americans' phone records. (Associated Press)

Senate to hold hearings on NSA privacy violations

The Senate's most senior lawmaker said Friday that the intelligence community is still not being truthful about its snooping activities and how they may be picking up communications from Americans, and vowed to hold hearings when Congress returns from its summer vacation.

August 16, 2013
**FILE** Former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson (Associated Press)

Investigators ask former EPA chief to turn over private emails

Top congressional Republicans sent a letter Thursday to Lisa P. Jackson asking her to justify an email she sent during her time as chief of the EPA in which she told a lobbyist to contact her using a private, personal email account rather than her government email — a move that appears to contravene open-records laws.

August 15, 2013
Egyptians mourn over the bodies of their relatives in the El-Iman mosque in Nasr City, Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2013. Egypt faced a new phase of uncertainty on Thursday after the bloodiest day since its Arab Spring began, with hundreds of people reported killed and thousands injured as police smashed two protest camps of supporters of the deposed Islamist president. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Obama cancels joint military exercises with Egypt

President Obama on Thursday canceled joint military maneuvers between U.S. and Egyptian troops scheduled for next month as he seeks to find levers the U.S. can use to quell deadly clashes in the North African nation and force both sides back into negotiations.

August 15, 2013
President Obama speaks at a news conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington on Aug. 9, 2013. (Associated Press)

Obama’s immigration test run raises cheers, alarm

President Obama's non-deportation policy for children turns a year old Thursday, and both sides agree it's a test run for a broader legalization — one that has thrilled immigrant rights groups who say it has broken stereotypes and changed the political calculus, but that has worried enforcement advocates who say illegal immigrants are being given blanket approval without enough attention to fraud.

August 14, 2013
Congress still has questions for Lisa P. Jackson, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who is under investigation for suspected violations of federal sunshine laws after she apparently used private email accounts to conduct government business. (Associated Press)

Sunshine law gets cloudy when federal officials take email home

Documents show that Lisa P. Jackson, as EPA chief, told a lobbyist to shift their conversations to her "home email" account rather than using official government accounts, in a move that appears to contravene the intent of federal sunshine laws.

August 13, 2013
**FILE** A statue of former Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin stands outside the Treasury Building in Washington on Aug. 8, 2011. (Associated Press)

Budget battle ends up with slashed deficit, no recession

The federal deficit is down 37.6 percent so far this fiscal year, according to Treasury Department statistics released Monday, showing the government has made progress in stanching the spread of red ink while managing to avoid a double-dip recession.

August 12, 2013