Daily news coverage of politics, policy, and issues shaping the nation.
Four years after Senate Democrats deployed the so-called nuclear option, Senate Republicans triggered it Thursday by a party-line vote of 52-48 to move President Donald Trump’s nominee closer to joining the Supreme Court. The successful bid by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to invoke the nuclear option means waiver of the 60-vote threshold to end debate on…
Political opponents have been quick to suggest that Susan Rice committed a crime in her waning days as national security adviser to President Barack Obama in the way she handled intelligence reports related to those close to the incoming president, Donald Trump. But to have broken federal law, national security experts told The Daily Signal,…
Department of the Interior officials were paid $6 million while on extended administrative leave—often while under investigation for misconduct—without documented approval, a government watchdog reported Wednesday. The $6 million went to 242 department employees on administrative leave for at least 45 days between January 2013 and July 2016, the agency’s inspector general reported. “[The Department…
Before heading home to their districts for a two-week recess, Republican leaders and conservatives are proposing changes to the GOP’s health care bill they say will bring lawmakers closer to dismantling Obamacare. Reps. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., and David Schweikert, R-Ariz., members of the House Freedom Caucus, introduced an amendment to the American Health Care Act…
A coalition of states filed a legal challenge Wednesday against the Trump administration’s decision to roll back a slew of Obama-era climate regulations. The legal motion comes after President Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting climate change regulations ushered in by former President Barack Obama. The New York-led group of states argue Trump’s Environmental Protection…
This past week saw two major reforms for Arizona’s occupational licensing regime, which could kick off a lightening of the regulatory burden in the state. On March 29, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey issued an executive order requiring all state licensing boards to report on their minimum requirements for obtaining an occupational license. Should those requirements exceed national…
As Congress continues to debate the future of Obamacare, efforts to repeal the health care law and make changes to the health insurance landscape are opening the door for private health insurance exchanges that serve as private sector alternatives to HealthCare.gov. Over the past three years, web brokers like eHealthInsurance, GetInsured, and HealthSherpa have effectively…
North Korea will be the top agenda item for President Donald Trump when he meets Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “We have somebody that is not doing the right thing and that’s going to be my responsibility,” @POTUS says. “As you know, I’ll be meeting with the president of China very soon in Florida,…
Susan Rice, national security adviser to President Barack Obama, likely will figure in congressional investigations of Russia’s interference in the presidential election. That prospect arose after news reports that Rice sought the identities of persons close to President Donald Trump whose communications were captured after the election in surveillance of foreigners by U.S. spy agencies….
KYIV, Ukraine—On April 2, 1917, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson stood before a joint session of Congress, asking for a declaration of war against Germany so that the world would “be made safe for democracy.” “Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved,” Wilson said. Four days later, on…
The Department of Homeland Security rejected calls Tuesday for its agents to stop making immigration arrests at courthouses, a tactic that has pitted state judicial officers against the Trump administration in recent weeks. A spokesman for the agency said immigration enforcement agents will continue to have authority to seize illegal immigrants at courthouses, if they believe…
A federal attorney said Tuesday that officials at the Department of State and other agencies can’t make the remaining 100,000 unreleased Hillary Clinton emails public for 42 months, or until October 2020. Justice Department attorney Jennie Kneedler told U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg Tuesday that “processing takes time.” She also told Boasberg during…
“For seven long years, we have been suffering from the rising costs of Obamacare.” That’s the opening sentence of the letter a Texas grassroots coalition has sent to President Donald Trump this week, in the wake of the House health care bill’s failure to pass and Trump’s criticisms of the House Freedom Caucus, which was…
Veterans groups are backing a Republican bill to make it easier to fire bad employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, but the legislation faces an uphill battle in the Senate despite cases of employees who kept their jobs after misconduct, including a worker who committed armed robbery and a nurse who was intoxicated during a surgical…
Less than two weeks since the collapse of Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, lawmakers and White House officials have revived talks aimed at crafting a health care bill that can make it through Congress. But a new pitch from the White House designed to get conservative lawmakers on board, though in its early…
Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court choice, came under fire from Democrats Monday because of his involvement with the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization. “I don’t know what Donald Trump’s judicial philosophy [is] as president, but we sure do know the judicial philosophy of the Federalist Society, which was given the responsibility…
After Bloomberg reported that Susan Rice attempted to unmask identities of President Donald Trump’s associates for their involvement with foreign states, several Republican lawmakers were quick to speak out against the former Obama national security adviser. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said, according to The Daily Caller News Foundation, that Rice should “testify under oath” for her involvement…
The battles over how to pay for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall are just getting started, but the administration is already calling for proposals from companies who would build it. The wall is just one part of the White House plan to stop illegal immigrants crossing the southern border. There’s also going to be…
A retiring Environmental Protection Agency employee said career staff were “frankly insulted” when President Donald Trump visited agency headquarters to sign an executive order rolling back global warming policies. Michael Cox, a retiring EPA staffer who worked on global warming programs, wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt that it “was beyond comprehension…
The two teenagers accused of raping a ninth-grader at Maryland’s Rockville High School last month were among more than 150,000 unaccompanied minors who entered the U.S. illegally over the past three years, mostly from Central America. Like most other Central Americans who are under 18 years old and travel alone illegally to the U.S., the…