Daily news coverage of politics, policy, and issues shaping the nation.
With women’s labor force participation at its lowest rate since 1988, the Obama administration held its White House United State of Women conference in the District of Columbia on Tuesday, pushing policies that some experts say will not help—and could economically hurt—women. “A lot of women are leaving the workforce and there is a lot…
The Senate voted 85-13 Tuesday to advance an annual defense policy bill that would require women to register for the draft. But that doesn’t mean the provision is guaranteed to become law. Opponents of the draft measure will have an opportunity to kill it when the House and Senate reconcile the differences between their versions…
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is now the latest state prosecutor to start investigating conservative groups with supposed ties to Exxon Mobil Corp., after she issued a subpoena for 40 years of internal company documents and communications with a handful of think tanks. Healey’s office subpoenaed Exxon as part of a multistate effort among liberal…
Over the last two years, the shortfalls of the civil forfeiture system have garnered attention from both the media and state and federal lawmakers as more and more people who had property seized by police have come forward—the vast majority of whom were never charged with a crime. In that time, state legislatures, in particular,…
President Barack Obama and administration officials made a strong push for gun control Tuesday in the wake of the terrorist attack in Orlando. Speaking about the attack after a meeting with his national security team, the president asserted gun control is needed if Congress is serious about being tough on terrorism. “People with possible ties…
Standing in former Speaker John Boehner’s empty and cavernous Longworth office, Ohio’s newest congressman seems out of place. Maybe that’s because Warren Davidson is more of a business and military man than a politician. Before being sworn in last week, Davidson made a career parachuting from airplanes as an Army Ranger, then filing patents as…
Being on the FBI’s terrorist watch list doesn’t necessarily have a direct impact on an individual, experts say. This is why the Islamist-inspired gunman who murdered 49 people in Orlando was still able to purchase a firearm and work for one of the nation’s largest security firms. The FBI twice investigated Omar Mateen, the Orlando…
In a victory for lawmakers working to make it harder for the government to take property from innocent Americans, the Internal Revenue Service plans to give people who have had money seized over the last six years the chance to petition to get their money back, The Daily Signal has learned. According to a GOP…
Before he made his first million, before he did business on six continents, and before he became a Fortune 500 CEO, David Perdue got his start picking peaches for about 40 cents an hour while growing up in Macon, Georgia. There his father taught him always “to add value,” Perdue says while recalling the stifling…
Her cell phone rang while Judge Ruth Neely was hanging Christmas lights outside her home in Pinedale, Wyoming. She didn’t notice that she had missed a call until she went inside to untangle a string of lights. When Neely called back, the young man who answered identified himself as a reporter from the local newspaper….
Lawmakers tore into the Internal Revenue Service days after new revelations surfaced about the tax collecting agency’s targeting of conservative groups. The House Judiciary Committee is considering articles of impeachment against IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. “We are going to stay on this case until he finds something else to do or he’s in a cell he…
A potential San Francisco ballot proposal could give illegal immigrants a voice in Bay Area schools. A charter amendment by San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar is intended to grant illegal immigrants with children in school the right to vote in San Francisco Unified School District school board elections. Two similar measures were presented in the…
Mical Caterina is addicted. When the Minnesota man turned 56, he headed to Brainerd International Raceway and raced his Mini Cooper on its road course. With GoPro cameras fastened to the front and back bumpers of his car, he created a video and posted it to YouTube. That got the attention of GoPro, which invited…
An LGBT measure threatening the House appropriations process has exposed old fault lines inside the Republican conference while also forging a pragmatic alliance between leadership and conservatives. The amendment introduced by Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., doomed an energy and water spending bill before Memorial Day—but only after 43 Republicans bucked the party line to…
Top Senate Republicans doubled down on opposition to President Barack Obama’s recent Supreme Court nomination, meaning the next justice could be indirectly picked in the November election. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was adamant in opposition to the nomination of Merrick Garland, speaking Friday at the Road to Majority Conference, a gathering of conservative…
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad is encouraging citizens of his state to spend more time reading the Bible, by calling for a Bible-reading marathon. However, a couple of organizations are threatening to sue over what they believe is a violation of the separation between church and state. Branstad, a Republican, signed a proclamation encouraging Iowans to…
A bill establishing a legal framework for Puerto Rico to restructure its $72 billion debt load passed the House by a 297-127 vote after months of haggling among the Obama administration, Democrats, bondholders, unions, Puerto Rico officials—and conservatives. About the only thing conservatives agree on about legislation the House passed Thursday night providing rescue to Puerto Rico’s debt crisis is that…
The Senate may take steps to end a Justice Department slush fund that has channeled millions of dollars in banking settlements to outside organizations, including left-wing groups such as La Raza and NeighborWorks America. Four Republican senators—James Lankford of Oklahoma, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Utah’s Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee—said they would introduce legislation…
A California state bill its sponsors say will prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity at private universities is threatening to expose faith-based schools to enormous legal threats, school officials warn. SB 1146, introduced in February by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, which passed the state Senate May 26, is designed to close “a…
A majority of Americans continue to support the congressional ban on earmarks instituted by former House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, a new Economist Group/YouGov poll shows. The ban was supported by 63 percent of those polled, while 12 percent disapproved of the ban and 26 percent were not sure whether they approved or disapproved of…