Stephen Dinan

Obama lawyers seek dismissal of House Republicans’ Obamacare lawsuit

The administration asked the federal court late Monday to dismiss the House lawsuit against President Obama, saying he is faithfully carrying out his health law and the GOP lawmakers who filed the legal challenge have no right to sue.

January 26, 2015

Federal budget shows short-term rebound, long-term deficits

The U.S. economy will rebound strongly over the next two years then settle into a more normal economic cycle with steady but slow growth, albeit significantly less than in the 1980s and 1990s, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday.

January 26, 2015

Democrats filibuster Keystone, force Republicans to rethink strategy, amendments

Democrats successfully blocked the Keystone XL pipeline Monday, launching a filibuster in the Senate that keeps the long-delayed project on ice for at least the near term while Republicans try to figure out whether they can revive the bill.

January 26, 2015

GOP nixes vote on border and abortion bills

Facing a rebellion in their own ranks, House Republican leaders scrapped their plans to vote this week on their first border security bill of the new Congress, blaming the weather for the delay but buying themselves time to try to stiffen the bill and make it more palatable to conservatives.

January 26, 2015

Feds’ unemployment benefits made job recession worse: Study

If you pay people not to work, they won't work — and cutting off their payments sends them scurrying back into the job market, according to new research by three academics who looked at the federal government's extended unemployment benefit program and concluded that it actually deepened, rather than helped, the jobs recession.

January 26, 2015

Climate change is real and caused by humans, majority of senators believe

Forced to finally vote on climate change, a majority of senators have signaled that they believe the phenomenon is real and that humans have at least some role to play. But how much, and what to do about it, remains murky.

January 25, 2015

Border Patrol agents say GOP’s border security bill is weak ‘window dressing’

Border Patrol agents' labor union announced their opposition Friday to the House GOP's new border security bill, calling it "window dressing" that doesn't add any new agents or updated their firepower to get the job done in sealing off the U.S.-Mexico border.

January 24, 2015

TSA cites secrecy in deleting airport security breaches from report

The TSA has a number of security problems at John F. Kennedy airport in New York, but it declared many of the details classified to try to hide the embarrassing information from the public, the agency's internal auditor charged in a report released Friday.

January 23, 2015

Sen. Dean Heller tells NFL to punish cheaters before Super Bowl betting

Nevada Sen. Dean Heller said Thursday that NFL cheating could be a problem for his state, where sports betting is legal, and he called on the football league to punish cheaters after reports surfaced that the New England Patriots may have doctored footballs in last weekend's game.

January 22, 2015

GOP border bill faces opposition from conservatives

Republicans are about to face another immigration fight within their own ranks after conservatives rebelled this week against a border security bill, saying it's a fig leaf that doesn't tackle any of the issues surrounding President Obama's lax enforcement of immigration laws.

January 22, 2015

Nancy Pelosi accuses John Boehner of ‘hubris’ in running Congress

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi accused Speaker John A. Boehner of "hubris" Thursday, saying his invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to a joint session of Congress broke with custom, and his decision to cut the size of House committees was dictatorial.

January 22, 2015

House nixes fetal-pain abortion vote, substitutes anti-Obamacare bill instead

Facing yet another internal division, Republican leaders scratched a planned Thursday vote on a bill banning abortions at 20 weeks and said they would replace it with a bill designed to eliminate taxpayer funding for abortions.

January 21, 2015

John Boehner invites Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress

Democrats and Republicans alike brushed off President Obama's threat to veto stiffer Iran sanctions, insisting Wednesday that the White House is being bamboozled by the ayatollahs, and it's up to Congress to stiffen the administration's spine as it negotiates over Tehran's nuclear program.

January 21, 2015

Obama sets record for veto threats in State of the Union address

President Obama's State of the Union speech Tuesday set a record for most veto threats as he promised to nix legislation to tweak Obamacare, change the Dodd-Frank Wall Street legislation, undo his deportation amnesty, and approve stronger sanctions to punish Iran for its nuclear program.

January 20, 2015

Obama calls for civility, then immediately taunts Republicans

President Obama spent much of Tuesday's State of the Union calling for civility in politics — then taunted Republicans over his two election victories, after many of them applauded the looming end of his political career.

January 20, 2015

Joni Ernst, Republicans say Obama struck wrong tone in State of the Union

Now in control of both chambers of Congress, Republicans said President Obama's combative State of the Union address Tuesday night struck all the wrong notes, saying their election victories last year gave them a mandate to veer from his course — but they haven't given up finding bipartisan bills to challenge his veto pen.

January 20, 2015