Daily news coverage of politics, policy, and issues shaping the nation.
SANTA FE, N.M. — It’s called ride-sharing, a way to catch a ride using 21st century technology, embraced by millenials and free-market advocates as efficient and entrepreneurial. Regulators in New Mexico aren’t jumping on board. On Wednesday, the state Public Regulation Commission voted 3-2 to deny a request from a company connected to one of the largest…
Some 6.9 million Americans are registered to vote in two or more states, according to a report from an election-watch group. “Our nation’s voter rolls are a mess,” says Catherine Engelbrecht, True The Vote president. “Sensible approaches to roll maintenance are fought tooth and nail by radical special interests who can use the duplicity in…
Sen. Marco Rubio served up a dose of optimism during his remarks at Hillsdale College’s Kirby Center yesterday. A potential candidate for president in 2016, the Florida Republican outlined an economic vision he billed as “a new policy agenda designed specifically for the 21st century.” Poor leadership and failed policies have led to the “erosion…
The Supreme Court is expected to decide as early as today whether the government can force two family businesses, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, to provide employee health plans that cover abortion-inducing drugs and devices. Countless other faith-based family businesses face devastating fines under Obamacare if they don't break their moral and religious convictions and comply with the same…
Republicans and Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee faced off today at a hearing on the future of the Export-Import Bank and its role in subsidizing companies such as Boeing, Caterpillar and General Electric. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, chairman of the committee, established the narrative early into the hearing that although the 80-year-old federal agency is a boon…
SANTA FE, N.M. — Trying to deal with a tide of thousands of undocumented immigrants, as many of 50,000 of them children, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is about to convert a training center for the U.S. Border Patrol in the southern New Mexico town of Artesia into a detention center. But Gov. Susana…
Americans are running out of faith in the Internal Revenue Service. Seventy-six percent believe that the “lost” Lois Lerner emails were deliberately destroyed, according to a Fox News poll. Only 12 percent believe the destruction resulted as an accident. This skepticism crossed party lines. A whopping 90 percent of Republicans doubt the IRS’s most recent…
Who do you trust—a government agency justifying its existence or a private business trying to compete? That’s the question Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., posed at today’s Financial Service Committee hearing on the Export-Import Bank. In just 32 seconds, Mulvaney explains why he’s siding with the free market.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., today joined the growing list of conservatives speaking out against reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank. On CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Rubio said it was time for the bank—which provides taxpayer-backed loans to foreign companies and governments to buy U.S. products—to end. Unless Congress acts to save it, the bank’s charter expires Sept….
Members of Congress want to know more about whether America’s adversaries possess the capability to shut down the nation’s power grid. The intelligence authorization bill passed by the House of Representatives on May 30 includes a provision mandating the director of national intelligence submit to Congress within six months of the bill’s passage “a report…
IRS officials broke federal law by failing to report the loss of two years’ worth of emails sent and received by Lois Lerner, the former official accused of being behind the agency’s targeting of conservative groups, the government’s top archivist testified yesterday. The Internal Revenue Service violated the Federal Records Act by not telling the U.S. National Archives and Records…
House speaker John Boehner said today the House will file a lawsuit against President Barack Obama regarding his use of executive actions, according to a report from Roll Call. “This is about defending the institution in which we serve,” Boehner said. “What we’ve seen clearly over the last five years is an effort to erode…
If you live in D.C., your fitness plan just got more expensive. The D.C. Council passed a 5.75 percent sales tax on gym memberships and fitness classes Tuesday, despite protest from fitness devotees who dubbed it the “yoga tax.” The tax is supposed to partially offset the cost of D.C.’s income tax cuts. Some are…
Wesley Edens and Marc Lasry, the new owners of the Milwaukee Bucks, have a combined net worth of $2.9 billion. The two New York investment firm executives so far have committed $100 million of it to build an arena for their team. Former Sen. Herb Kohl, who sold the team after almost 30 years to…
Rep. Jeb Hensarling today convenes the House Financial Services Committee for a much-anticipated hearing on the fate of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that the Texas Republican says has a well-deserved reputation for corporate welfare and cronyism. The Export-Import Bank, which provides taxpayer-backed loans to foreign companies and governments to buy U.S. products, turned…
With the deadly Benghazi attacks providing impetus and momentum, the State Department announced this spring that it will build a $461 million training center for diplomatic security personnel in rural Virginia. The move, however, comes after congressmen with oversight responsibility asked unanswered questions about the project and suggested the Obama administration could accomplish the goals…
It was another long and uncertain day for Meriam Ibrahim Ishag, the 27-year-old Christian mom sentenced to death in Sudan for refusing to renounce her faith. After being released from prison and having her death sentence lifted yesterday, she and her family were arrested by Sudanese officials earlier today at the Khartoum airport. But a…
As news of Meriam Ibrahim Ishag’s temporary release attracted international attention, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., championed religious liberty and women’s rights. Paul spoke today during a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing about the plight of young women, like Ishag, facing religious persecution around the world. Ishag, who is Sudanese, was sentenced to death in May for…
Thousands of political representatives, business lobbyists, and technical experts from around the world have congregated in London to discuss the future of the internet. At issue is international regulation of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers and the internet access it channels. In conjunction with the U.S. government, ICANN has long-served as the non-profit…
The recent fallout in Iraq has hit President Barack Obama’s foreign policy ratings, knocking them to a steep low in the past month. A striking 58 percent of Americans, including nearly a third of Democrats, are dissatisfied with the president’s foreign policy decisions, an all-time high for the New York Times/CBS News Poll since Obama…