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Articles by Stephen Dinan

President Obama boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington's Maryland suburbs on Tuesday, May 10, 2011, as he travels to the U.S.-Mexico border at El Paso, Texas, to speak about immigration reform. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Obama to keep National Guard on border

President Obama will keep the National Guard on the U.S.-Mexico border past their current June deadline, agreeing to the demand by a number of border lawmakers who say having the military there deters illegal activity.

May 10, 2011

Democrats hit Obama with gap on illegals

President Obama is pledging border security and pleading for help from Republicans as he steps up his campaign to pass an immigration reform bill, but new polling suggests the rift within his own party is actually deeper than within the GOP on the issue.

May 9, 2011
**FILE** House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio gestures May 5 during his weekly news briefing on Capitol Hill. (Associated Press)

Boehner: Spending cuts must outweigh debt increase

Drawing a line on how far Republicans are willing to go in raising the nation's debt limit, House Speaker John A. Boehner said Monday that any increase must be accompanied by an even bigger cut in spending.

May 9, 2011

Arizona takes immigration law to Supreme Court

Gov. Jan Brewer has asked the Supreme Court to overturn lower courts and reinstate Arizona's tough immigration law, saying the federal government continues to neglect the U.S.-Mexico border and states have to fill the gap.

May 9, 2011
President Obama addresses military personnel who recently returned from Afghanistan on Friday, May 6, 2011, at Fort Campbell, Ky. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Obama: Bin Laden raid is evidence Afghan strategy is working

President Obama capped off a week that began with him announcing the death of Osama bin Laden with a trip Friday to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to thank the Navy SEALs whose daring nighttime raid on a compound in Pakistan Sunday ended the decade-long hunt for the world's top terrorist.

May 6, 2011
**FILE** Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf (Associated Press)

Higher taxes keep federal deficit in check

The federal government notched its 31st straight month in the red in April, though individual income tax receipts are "significantly" higher than expected and made the deficit smaller than it otherwise would have been, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday.

May 6, 2011
Associated Press House Speaker John A. Boehner said Thursday, "The sooner we begin to create more American energy, the sooner we'll be able to lower the prices."

House calls on Obama to issue drilling permits

With gas prices topping $4 a gallon, the House passed a bill Thursday that would order the Obama administration to issue offshore-drilling permits for leases it delayed or canceled in the wake of last year's Deep Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

May 5, 2011

DHS wants new yardstick for improvements

Saying the measure of "operational control" of U.S. borders is obsolete, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress on Wednesday that the Obama administration is trying to come up with a new yardstick to better reflect the improvements it says it has made.

May 4, 2011

Holder eyes Utah guest-worker law

A year after suing Arizona over its tough immigration law, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told Congress on Tuesday that his department is prepared to sue Utah for going the other way and creating its own guest-worker program - though he is giving the state some time to change its law.

May 3, 2011

Obama gets praise for bold action

When news of Osama bin Laden's killing broke late Sunday, thousands of people thronged Pennsylvania Avenue to celebrate near the White House, while just 16 blocks away the streets near the Capitol were deserted — a stark reminder of how the responsibility for the daring assassination raid rested squarely on one man's shoulders.

May 2, 2011
**FILE** Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (Associated Press)

Brewer leads charge against feds

Before there was Scott Walker, Rick Scott, Nathan Deal or Nikki Haley, there was Arizona's Jan Brewer — the original Republican protest governor, going toe-to-toe with the Obama administration over immigration, fighting the White House in the courtroom and becoming an early symbol of states' frustration with the White House.

May 1, 2011

Feds sting Amish farmer selling raw milk locally

A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.

April 28, 2011
ASSOCIATED PRESS Ann Kirkpatrick campaigned successfully for Congress in 2008, but lost in the Republican tide last year. She plans to seek a rematch to take back the seat from Rep. Paul A. Gosar.

Spurned Democrats ready for second try

The House GOP's agenda has tilted so far right that it's creating opportunities for Democrats to try to reclaim seats they lost just a few months ago, said Ann Kirkpatrick, the first former member of Congress to announce that she would seek a rematch in 2012.

April 26, 2011
ASSOCIATED PRESS Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus defends real estate mogul Donald Trump as a possible GOP presidential candidate who should be allowed to speak his mind about any issue, even the “birther” one.

Chairman speaks for Trump in ‘birther’ flap

New Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Tuesday that the GOP's potential presidential candidates such as Donald Trump have a right to make claims about President Obama's birth certificate, and he is not going to play referee as the party struggles to settle on a 2012 nominee.

April 26, 2011

A year later, Ariz. immigration fight rages

It spawned myriad court challenges, calls to boycott this year's Major League Baseball All-Star Game and more than a dozen copycat proposals in other states — but the one thing Arizona's tough immigration law has not done is put anyone behind bars.

April 21, 2011

2011 spending bill clears Congress

Crossing the finish line more than six months late, Congress on Thursday finally cleared a spending bill to fund government through the rest of the fiscal year, approving a hard-fought compromise that left neither side happy and that presaged more bruising fights ahead on deficit reduction.

April 14, 2011

CBO: Spending deal cuts only $20 billion to $25 billion

Congress' chief scorekeeper said Thursday that the deal President Obama reached with Congress actually will lead to only $20 billion to $25 billion less in spending over the next five years — far short of the $37.7 billion leaders had claimed.

April 14, 2011
DEALER: Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said, "You can't balance the budget by cutting domestic discretionary spending alone." (Bloomberg)

Spending bill bears Democratic stamp

The final 2011 spending deal that Congress released Tuesday bears the fingerprints of Democrats far more than Republicans, whose effort to slash the federal deficit was swamped by President Obama's tenacious defense of spending programs.

April 12, 2011

Appeals court stops Ariz. immigration law

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Arizona overstepped its bounds with last year's immigration enforcement law, handing the Obama administration another victory as it tries to squelch states' efforts on immigration enforcement.

April 11, 2011
**FILE** David Plouffe, former White House senior adviser. (Associated Press)

Obama administration plans budget blitz

Seeking to regain the initiative on spending cuts from House Republicans before Congress begins the 2012 budget and the debt-ceiling fights, President Obama later this week will lay out a plan to make real dents in the federal deficit, the White House said Sunday.

April 10, 2011