Stephen Dinan

House GOP offers last-minute shutdown reprieve

Seeking to buy more time for spending negotiations to bear fruit, House Republican leaders announced another one-week stop-gap spending bill late Monday night that would cut $12 billion more from 2010 spending levels.

April 5, 2011

Left seeks foe for Obama in primary

With President Obama officially running for re-election, the call from the left for a primary challenge was gaining steam - though no challenger so far is stepping forward.

April 4, 2011

GOP vows to stand ground on next major fiscal debates

Congress hasn't even settled the 2011 spending fight and many lawmakers already are looking ahead to the next big battles over raising the country's debt ceiling and the 2012 budget — with top Republicans beginning to draw lines in the sand.

April 3, 2011

Republicans ask for troops to remain at border

Stepping up the immigration enforcement bidding war, House Republicans last week asked President Obama to extend the deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops on the U.S.-Mexico border past June 30, when their mission is slated to end.

April 3, 2011

Obama rejoins spending fight

Wading directly into the spending negotiations on Capitol Hill for the first time in weeks, President Obama on Saturday afternoon called the top Republican and top Democrat in Congress, telling them he supports a deal cutting another $23 billion from last year's spending levels.

April 2, 2011

DHS: Illegal immigrant students not a target for deportation

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday that illegal immigrant students and young adults who meet the criteria in last year's failed legalization bill in Congress are not a "priority" for her department's law enforcement efforts.

April 1, 2011

Activists fight immigrant roundups

With deportations up under President Obama, immigration rights advocates on Thursday called on him to use executive authority to reduce the number of illegal immigrants being deported, and vowed a city-by-city campaign to press the issue.

March 31, 2011

Boehner denies spending deal is done

House Speaker John A. Boehner told reporters Thursday that there is no final deal on a spending-cuts number, countering claims by Democrats that all sides have settled on about $33 billion in cuts.

March 31, 2011

Feds’ praise for medical pot goes up in smoke

For a brief time earlier this month the National Cancer Institute, a branch of the federal government's National Institutes of Health, had posted a webpage touting the possible benefits of marijuana in fighting cancer tumors. But less than two weeks after it went up, the webpage was altered and the approving words stricken.

March 30, 2011

Spending fight in Senate turns to GOP riders

Democrats said Tuesday that in an effort to find a spending compromise that would keep the government from shutting down April 8, they are willing to look at some of the legislative add-ons House Republicans tacked onto their spending-cuts bill.

March 29, 2011

White House: ‘No mercy’ is not a doctrine

As President Obama addressed the country Monday to explain his decision 10 days ago to attack Libya, the White House insisted there are no broader axioms to draw from it, and his top advisers said it is not a precedent for what he might do in Syria, Sudan or other situations.

March 28, 2011

Obama rules out back-door legalization of immigrants

President Obama said Monday that he does not have the power to suspend deportations, putting the nail in a plan some administration officials had explored that could have granted de-facto legal status to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

March 28, 2011

Little progress as shutdown deadline looms

Congress gave itself a three-week reprieve on a government shutdown, then spent the first 10 days on vacation. Now, lawmakers return with the shutdown deadline once again looming, and a deal seemingly as far away as ever.

March 27, 2011

Obama wins F-35 engine battle with Congress

The F-35 fighter jet's alternate engine has survived White House veto threats and knock-down congressional budget battles, but on Thursday the Pentagon finally said it is halting spending — delivering a major, albeit short-term, victory to President Obama.

March 24, 2011

Boehner seeks clarification of goals for Libya mission

With some members of Congress already staging a minor rebellion against President Obama's decision to attack Libya, House Speaker John A. Boehner on Wednesday blasted the administration for "contradictory" statements and told the president to lay out concrete goals for U.S. action.

March 23, 2011

Capitol Hill falls silent as Libya war rages

The world is at war, but Washington is eerily empty, devoid of all the power players who normally foster a soul-searching debate when the country goes on the attack.

March 21, 2011

CBO: Obama’s budget doesn’t reach primary balance

Congress' chief scorekeeper says President Obama's budget never achieves primary balance, the key measure the White House said would show the country is living within its means.

March 18, 2011

Hill extends temporary funding, OKs a vacation

Congress on Thursday pushed a government shutdown back another three weeks then approved taking a vacation next week, leaving the hard work of striking a long-term deal for another day.

March 17, 2011

Budget-busting station named for Biden

As a thank-you to its most famous customer, Amtrak is renaming the train station in Wilmington, Del., after stimulus "sheriff" Vice President Joseph R. Biden — after the project received $20 million in stimulus money and came in $5.7 million over the initial announced budget.

March 17, 2011

House votes to strip funding for NPR

The Republican-dominated House on Thursday voted to block taxpayer funding for National Public Radio programming, dealing another blow to the broadcasting network that already is reeling from a yearlong series of missteps.

March 17, 2011