Stephen Dinan

Obama signs anti-smoking bill

Citing his own smoking addiction he picked up as a youth, President Obama signed legislation Monday to give the Food and Drug Administration broad powers in stopping the way tobacco companies sell their products.

June 22, 2009

Obama finds no stimulus waste

It's been four months, and still President Obama has yet to criticize publicly a single project from the $787 billion economic stimulus spending package, despite his Feb. 20 pledge that if federal or state agencies tried to slip any bad spending through, he would "call them out."

June 22, 2009

Dem. strategy memo: Stop global warming talk

A new strategy memo by a top party pollster is telling Democrats that when talking about fighting global warming, they should play down the actual global warming part — and drop the talk of "cap-and-trade" altogether.

June 18, 2009

Bachmann fears ACORN role in census

Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will not fill out anything more than the number of people in her household.

June 18, 2009

EXCLUSIVE: Minn. lawmaker vows not to complete Census

Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will refuse to fill out anything more than the number of people in her household.

June 17, 2009

Paging through Sotomayor’s open-book life

Judge Sonia Sotomayor's open-book life has been a story of overcoming challenges, from an underprivileged upbringing in the Bronx to struggles against perceived discrimination to a mammoth battle against a mischievous cricket outside her Princeton dorm-room window.

June 16, 2009

Senator says billions wasted on stimulus

Self-appointed waste-watcher Sen. Tom Coburn says he's already identified as much as $5.5 billion in wasteful or bad projects among the economic-stimulus expenditures on tap.

June 16, 2009

Pay-go’s promise routinely broken by Washington

The pay-as-you-go rules President Obama is resurrecting as a solution to runaway federal spending have been repeatedly violated by Congress and the White House, allowing hundreds of billions of dollars to be spent without the required spending cuts or tax increases.

June 11, 2009

Justices decline ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ case

In refusing to hear a challenge to the military's restriction on gay troops, the Supreme Court has put the issue back into President Obama's lap - and gay rights advocates are starting to get angry over his slow pace in terminating "don't ask, don't tell."

June 9, 2009

Groups raise ante on immigration reform

President Obama's nomination of a Hispanic woman to the Supreme Court does not give him extra breathing space to put off a contentious fight on immigration, Hispanic groups and immigrant-rights advocates said Wednesday.

June 4, 2009

Obama boosts Reagan legacy

With former first lady Nancy Reagan's hand on his shoulder, President Obama on Tuesday signed into law a commission to commemorate the 100th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan's birth in 2011, and heaped praise on the man he said lifted the country out of a troubling time.

June 3, 2009

Republican picked to be Army secretary

President Obama on Tuesday nominated Rep. John M. McHugh, New York Republican, to be secretary of the Army, citing the congressman as proof that his administration wants input from across the political spectrum.

June 3, 2009

N.Y. Republican tapped as Army Secretary

UPDATED: President Obama on Tuesday nominated Rep. John M. McHugh, New York Republican, to be secretary of the Army, a White House official confirmed.

June 2, 2009

GOP eyes GM takeover as election tool

Republicans plan to use the government takeover of General Motors Corp. as ammunition in their bid to defeat congressional Democrats next year, saying its a glaring example of big government intrusion into the marketplace that will rankle average voters.

June 2, 2009

Sotomayor cleared prior Senate hurdles

To those who followed Judge Sonia Sotomayor through her 1991 and 1997 appearances before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she did not appear very controversial, nor even particularly a judicial activist.

May 31, 2009

Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court

With Judge Sonia Sotomayor already facing questions over her 60 percent reversal rate, the Supreme Court could dump another problem into her lap next month if, as many legal analysts predict, the court overturns one of her rulings upholding a race-based employment decision.

May 27, 2009

Obama ducks promise to delay bill signings

It seemed among the easiest of his transparency pledges and is entirely under his control, but President Obama is finagling his promise to post bills on the White House Web site for comment for five days before he signs them.

May 26, 2009

Liberty drops Democrats as official club

Liberty University says the school's College Democrats chapter can no longer be recognized as an official club because its principles are anathema to the Lynchburg, Va., school's Christian doctrine and because club officials misled the school.

May 23, 2009

Obama, Cheney clash over terrorism

President Obama vigorously defended his decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention site but said some terrorist suspects would be held indefinitely, setting up a possible fight with Congress over their relocation.

May 22, 2009

GOP call for Pelosi probe stymied

House Democrats on Thursday blocked a Republican attempt to force Speaker Nancy Pelosi to document her charge that the CIA lied to Congress about interrogation methods used by the Bush administration against terror suspects and other matters.

May 22, 2009