Stephen Dinan

40% of guns traced from crimes in Central America came from U.S.

Thousands of firearms manufactured or bought in the U.S. end up being used in crimes in Central America, according to an audit released last week that found about half of the weapons are smuggled into the region and the others are exported legally and "diverted" into criminals' hands.

January 17, 2022

Republicans prepare their wish list for filibuster-free Senate

Democrats may be paving an eventual path to stiffer ballot standards if they trigger the "nuclear option" to carve out a special exception to Senate filibuster rules to approve voting rights legislation.

January 14, 2022

Supreme Court blocks Biden’s vaccine mandate on big businesses

The Supreme Court put President Biden's coronavirus vaccine mandate for large companies on hold Thursday, shutting down the policy just days after it began to take effect.

January 13, 2022

Soaring tax revenue helping constrain federal deficit

The first three months of fiscal 2022 are in the books, and the numbers show the federal government's deficit has gone from the catastrophic levels of last year back to the merely grave situation pre-pandemic.

January 12, 2022

EXCLUSIVE: House GOP probes historically low ICE arrests after Biden policy changes

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are probing the "historically low" rate of arrests of illegal immigrants by ICE, saying it appears the Biden administration, unwilling to abolish ICE outright, is instead paring down the agency through policy memos.

January 12, 2022

Dems have voted for more filibusters than Republicans as power devolves into divisive partisan tool

If Sen. Charles E. Schumer were still the minority leader, it's a good bet he'd be enthusiastically using the filibuster to stop Republicans' priorities, not fighting to eliminate it. He's voted more than 500 times during his tenure in the Senate to sustain a filibuster, data from GovTrack shows.

January 11, 2022

Visa program for illegal immigrant crime victims riddled with fraud, audit finds

Homeland Security's special visa program to grant legal status to victims of crime is plagued by fraud and mismanagement, according to an inspector general's audit released this week that found the department doesn't even know how many of the visas are issued.

January 11, 2022

OSHA vaccine mandate takes hold as Supreme Court justices deliberate legality

America's bigger businesses are now required to know their employees' coronavirus vaccination status and should be demanding mandatory mask-wearing on those who haven't received the shots, after the Biden administration's most expansive vaccine mandate took effect Monday.

January 10, 2022

Supreme Court justices dip into politics of COVID-19 vaccine mandates

It seems even the Supreme Court isn't immune from COVID-19 politics.

January 10, 2022

Supreme Court justices challenge Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on businesses

With a fervent eye on omicron and the surging number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations, the Supreme Court struggled Friday with whether the Biden administration can try to slow the virus through an unprecedented set of workplace vaccine mandates.

January 7, 2022

Outgoing Virginia AG rules state can’t revoke Equal Rights Amendment ratification

Virginia's legislature cannot rescind its ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring said in an opinion this week, acting just days before he leaves office.

January 7, 2022

New DHS data reveals border jumpers no longer predominantly Mexicans

The old model of illegal immigration along the southern border was shattered in 2021, according to data released by the Department of Homeland Security this week that shows the demographics of the typical border jumper have been completely rewritten.

January 5, 2022

Illegal immigrants test limits of Second Amendment in case now pending at Supreme Court

Even as the Biden administration moves toward leniency toward illegal immigrants on so many fronts, there's a line the government hasn't crossed: Possessing a firearm is still a serious offense.

January 3, 2022

Russell building named for segregationist senator remains; decision to change falls to Schumer

While Robert E. Lee's statue has been pulled down from the U.S. Capitol and lawmakers voted to expunge Confederate generals' names from military bases, the Senate still honors Richard B. Russell, a segregationist senator, with his name on its most prestigious office building.

January 3, 2022

52,000 Afghan evacuees released into U.S. in 2021

More than 50,000 Afghan evacuees have been processed and released into American communities over the last four months, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday as it announced the closure of another of the camps that had been erected at military bases to house the Afghans.

December 31, 2021

ERA Now becomes ERA Later as drive to add constitutional amendment for women’s rights falters

Virginia's incoming Republican attorney general expects the courts to toss the state's lawsuit trying to add an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution -- but if judges don't kill it, he may do it himself.

December 30, 2021

Critical race theory takes aim at immigration law; courts wrestle with Hispanic disparity in cases

Forget drugs or fraud. The most common type of case federal prosecutors bring is against illegal immigrants who try to reenter the country after having been ousted -- and almost all of those charged are Hispanic.

December 28, 2021

Fight to clean voter lists gains ground after 2020 election

The Public Interest Legal Foundation went to Pennsylvania with a list of tens of thousands of people who were likely dead, but still on the state's voter rolls in the weeks before the 2020 election.

December 26, 2021

Trump asks justices to prevent Jan. 6 committee from getting his documents

Former President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to step in and block the House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 from gaining access to some of his presidential documents.

December 23, 2021

Nearly 50,000 Afghans resettled in U.S., 25,000 remain at military bases

All Afghan evacuees have been processed and released from the Marine Corps base at Quantico, the Biden administration announced Thursday, shutting down the second of eight bases that had been housing the refugees who were rescued as part of the August airlift.

December 23, 2021