Stephen Dinan

House votes to overturn D.C.’s illegal immigrant voting plan

A bipartisan House voted Thursday to block the District of Columbia's new plan to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, with lawmakers saying the city was crossing dangerous lines in trying to expand its pool of voters.

February 9, 2023

Democrats discount pandemic fraud, fear it will taint government programs

As Republicans work to expose massive amounts of fraud in pandemic assistance programs, Democrats are responding with a feverish rearguard defense, saying that whatever the level of waste, millions of people were saved by the government's money.

February 8, 2023

Biden slams ‘Big Lie’ politics for endangering Paul Pelosi

President Biden on Tuesday blamed what he called the "Big Lie" for last year's attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and pleaded for bipartisan condemnation of political extremism.

February 7, 2023

Biden breezes by border crisis, pleads for bipartisanship on immigration

President Biden gave only the briefest of mentions Tuesday to the chaos at the southern border, acknowledging "problems" but saying his policies have finally begun to eat into record numbers of migrants coming from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela.

February 7, 2023

Border Patrol leaders say they need more border wall, gaps leave the country vulnerable

Two senior Border Patrol chiefs told Congress on Tuesday that they need more border barriers because they help shape and control the flow of illegal immigration and drug smuggling into the U.S.

February 7, 2023

Black Republican unloads after Democrats say border security is ‘white nationalist conspiracy’

Rep. Byron Donalds, a Black Republican, unloaded on Democrats on Tuesday after they tweeted that worrying about border security was a "white nationalist conspiracy," challenging them to say that to his face.

February 7, 2023

10,000 cartel drones detected crossing U.S. border last year

One single sector of the southern border saw more than 10,000 illegal drone incursions from Mexico last year, a senior Border Patrol agent told Congress on Tuesday.

February 7, 2023

Homeland Security Dept. confirms soaring migrant deaths at border

Homeland Security released its most comprehensive data yet Monday on southwestern border deaths, confirming a massive surge in 2021 that coincided with the start of the chaos that erupted on President Biden's watch.

February 6, 2023

Debt crunch looms, but nobody knows how much is too much

As another debt fight looms on Capitol Hill, some experts say the fretting over the size of the government's credit card is premature.

February 2, 2023

U.S. must weigh Taliban funds vs. Afghan misery

The money the U.S. is sending to avert a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan is also propping up the oppressive Taliban regime, and it has become so bad that an inspector general says federal officials need to rethink whether the U.S. support programs are worth it.

February 2, 2023

Vast majority of billions in pandemic-aid fraud will never be recovered, watchdogs tell Congress

A single Social Security number was used to apply for pandemic benefits in at least 29 different states, investigators revealed to Congress on Wednesday, illustrating the size of the fraud that the government faced in doling out trillions of dollars in benefits.

February 1, 2023

Hackers linked to Russia, China stole U.S. pandemic relief money, Secret Service confirms

Criminal organizations backed by the Chinese and Russian governments have been linked to pandemic fraud, the U.S. Secret Service confirmed to Congress on Wednesday.

February 1, 2023

GOP wins showdown with Mayorkas as DHS allows agents to testify

Homeland Security will allow senior Border Patrol agents to testify to Congress, after Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas backed down from his earlier refusal, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer said Tuesday.

January 31, 2023

IRS subjects Black taxpayers to more audits, study finds

Black taxpayers are far more likely to face audits than others, according to a new study released Tuesday.

January 31, 2023

Biden’s end of COVID emergency undermines his Supreme Court case on student debt forgiveness

President Biden has decided the coronavirus emergency will be over in early May -- which is a problem for his lawyers, who are about to go to the Supreme Court and argue that the pandemic gives him the legal leeway to forgive student debt.

January 31, 2023

Drones and water slides: How cities spent Uncle Sam’s pandemic money

When the coronavirus pandemic struck, someone in the Mississippi government thought of drones.

January 31, 2023

$5.4 billion in pandemic loans were paid to suspicious Social Security numbers

The government doled out nearly 100,000 pandemic loans to people whose applications were filed using suspect Social Security numbers, government investigators revealed Monday.

January 30, 2023

Illegal immigrant ‘crushed’ to death in vehicle packed with 30 people

A smuggler forced 30 illegal immigrants into a vehicle, crushing one of them to death.

January 30, 2023

Tens of thousands of federal employees bilked government of pandemic cash

Tens of thousands of federal employees stole taxpayers' money by filing bogus pandemic loan requests.

January 30, 2023

DHS blocks Border Patrol chiefs from testifying to Congress

The Department of Homeland Security has told Congress it will not allow four senior Border Patrol officials to testify next month about the chaos at the border.

January 27, 2023