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Articles by Stephen Dinan

President Obama speaks June 4, 2013, in the Rose Garden of the White House while announcing the nominations of (from left) Robert Wilkins, Cornelia Pillard and Patricia Ann Millet to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. (Associated Press)

Obama challenges Senate with judicial picks

A combative President Obama declared open warfare Tuesday on Senate Republicans over judicial nominations, naming three candidates to the influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and blasting GOP lawmakers for delaying and blocking previous nominees.

June 4, 2013
**FILE** Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican (Associated Press)

Sen. Marco Rubio: Immigration bill does not have votes to pass

Sen. Marco Rubio said Tuesday that there aren't 60 votes to pass the immigration bill he wrote and that the Senate will have to embrace even stiffer enforcement in order to win voters' confidence and sway lawmakers reluctant to repeat the mistakes of the 1986 amnesty.

June 4, 2013
Danny Werfel (left), the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and J. Russell George, Treasury Inspector General, appear before the House Appropriations Oversight Committee on the IRS in Washington on June 3, 2013. (Andrew S Geraci/The Washington Times)

IRS acting chief Danny Werfel vows to fix ‘trust’ in agency

The new Internal Revenue Service chief said Monday that his agency broke trust with the American people, and he vowed a speedy investigation to expose who approved the program that led to conservative groups being subjected to unwarranted questions while finding out if any other offices have engaged in similar political targeting.

June 3, 2013
Rep. Darrell E. Issa said uneven scrutiny by the IRS was "a problem that was coordinated in all likelihood right out of Washington headquarters." (Associated Press photographs)

IRS audits moderate group with GOP ties; Issa says scrutiny known in D.C.

Two weeks before news broke that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny of their tax-exempt applications, a moderate GOP organization received word it was being audited — a move its organizers said suggests the tax agency's scrutiny included non-tea party political groups.

June 2, 2013
**FILE** Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat and ranking member on the House Budget Committee, speaks about the budget at the 2013 Fiscal Summit in Washington on May 7, 2013. (Associated Press)

Feds dole out $900 billion in big tax breaks in 2013

The federal government will dole out more than $900 billion in the top 10 tax breaks this year, according to a report Wednesday from the Congressional Budget Office that found the benefits go disproportionately to the poor and the rich.

May 29, 2013
Associated Press

Republican senators join court case against Obama’s recess picks

Senate Republicans on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to hear the case involving President Obama's recess appointments, saying the administration is trying "to confuse and mislead" the justices by downplaying the weighty constitutional issues at stake

May 28, 2013
**FILE** Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents take a suspect into custody on March 30, 2012, as part of a nationwide immigration sweep in Chula Vista, Calif. (Associated Press)

GOP lawmakers want Obama to hear out head of ICE union

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a top Republican senator on Thursday told President Obama that he and his aides must meet with immigration law enforcement "whistleblowers" who can expose the flaws in the Senate immigration bill.

May 24, 2013
“I am not going to get into the details of our negotiating, publicly, but I can tell you we’ve both made progress and have a ways to go” before an agreement on background checks, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, says. (Associated Press)

Senate OKs judge for D.C. circuit on 97-0 vote

Senators voted 97-0 Thursday to confirm Srikanth Srinivasan to a judgeship on the vitally important U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia after Republicans relented and allowed the vote to go forward this week.

May 23, 2013
**FILE** Sens. Carl Levin (left), Michigan Democrat and Chairman for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent subcommittee on Investigations, and John McCain of Arizona, the subcommittee's ranking Republican, arrive on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 21, 2013, for the subcommittee's hearing to examine the methods employed by multinational corporations to shift profits offshore and how such activities are affected by the Internal Revenue Code. (Associated Press)

Top Senate investigators: Lerner misled Congress

Sens. Carl Levin and John McCain, who together run the Senate's permanent investigative subcommittee, sent a letter to the IRS on Thursday calling for Lois Lerner, the woman at the center of the agency's conservative-targeting scandal, to be suspended for dereliction of duty.

May 23, 2013
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, speaks with reporters as he leaves the weekly Democratic Caucus Lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 14, 2013. (Associated Press)

Reid: Immigration comes before Perez nomination

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he won't start to pick any big fights with Republicans because he's afraid of upsetting the momentum to pass an immigration bill — and that includes delaying President Obama's Labor Department nominee.

May 23, 2013
President Obama answers questions during his new conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington on April 30, 2013. (Associated Press)

Obama defends drone strikes, reignites Gitmo debate in crucial speech

U.S. drone strikes have killed four Americans, including one who was "specifically targeted" and three others who were not targets, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a letter to Congress on Wednesday, publicly confirming the strikes for the first time.

May 22, 2013
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, speaks May 21, 2013, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington following the Democratic policy luncheon. (Associated Press)

Reid: D.C. court needs Obama nominees for ideological balance

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday that he will push to confirm more judges to the federal appeals court in Washington after that court ruled this year that President Obama's broad use of recess appointment powers was unconstitutional.

May 22, 2013
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., right, confers with Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, left, the ranking member, as the Senate Judiciary Committee assembles to work on a landmark immigration bill to secure the border and offer citizenship to millions, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, May 20, 2013. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., stands at center. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

House Republicans find holes in immigration bill

Less than 24 hours after senators powered their immigration bill through committee, the legislation came under fire in the House, where the former head of immigration enforcement testified that it has too many loopholes that could delay enforcement, let dangerous people in, and hamstring agents from fighting illegal immigration in the future.

May 22, 2013