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Stephen Dinan

Stephen Dinan

Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.

Articles by Stephen Dinan

The Capitol will be bustling again as House and Senate members return from a five-week recess. Before heading back home for last-minute campaigning, lawmakers must get to work on several key bills — including a continuing resolution to extend funding for government agencies — improving on what has proved to be a decent year of progress, according to The Washington Times' Legislative Futility Index. (Associated Press)

Do-something Congress keeps on going

Despite a terrible reputation as a do-nothing Congress, Capitol Hill has actually been pretty productive, with lawmakers notching an average year for debating and passing bills, according to The Washington Times' Legislative Futility Index. Published September 8, 2014

Supporters stand behind Democratic members of Congress during a rally in support of a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to contributions and expenditures intended to affect elections. (Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times)

Senate debates limiting campaign cash by altering First Amendment

Senators opened a historic debate Monday on whether to alter the First Amendment to give Congress the power to squelch free speech in the form of campaign spending, setting up a showdown vote later this week on the first alterations to the founding document in decades. Published September 8, 2014

FILE – In this April 9, 2013 file photo Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., left, talks with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. on Capitol Hill in Washington. After investigating the IRS for more than a year, two key senators, a Democrat, Levin, and a Republican, McCain, disagree on whether the tax agency treated conservative groups worse than their liberal counterparts when they applied for tax-exempt status. The Senate’s subcommittee on investigations released competing reports Friday on how the IRS handled applications from political groups during the 2010 and 2012 elections. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Senate investigators find no IRS bias against conservatives

The Senate's chief investigative panel has concluded that there was no political bias in the agency's targeting of nonprofit groups for special scrutiny, saying that while the questions were intrusive, the IRS inspector general blew the matter out of proportion. Published September 7, 2014

** FILE ** President Obama speaks in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Aug. 1, 2014. (Associated Press)

Obama shelves immigration action; Hispanic activists enraged

Immigrant-rights groups reacted furiously Saturday after the White House made clear President Obama will not take unilateral action on immigration before November's elections, nodding at the political realities of the issue as he punted on the key policy questions. Published September 6, 2014

The exterior of the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington is seen here on March 22, 2013. (Associated Press) **FILE**

Dems’ report clears IRS of political bias, blames IG for botching probe

The IRS's internal auditor distorted the facts surrounding the IRS tea party targeting scandal, leaving Americans with the impression that the tax agency went after conservative groups without also targeting liberal groups, the Senate's top investigative panel said Friday. Published September 5, 2014

In this June 20, 2014, file photo, immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally stand in line for tickets at the bus station after they were released from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in McAllen, Texas. The immigrants entered the country through an area referred to as zone nine. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) ** FILE **

Influx of illegal immigrant children presents challenges for U.S. schools

Central American children may be surging across the southwest border, but their effect is felt in school districts across the country — and nowhere more than in Alexandria, Virginia, where federal authorities this year placed 205 in a city of fewer than 150,000 people. Published September 3, 2014

From left, Raul Amador Sanchez, 7, from Georgia, Alexandra Diaz, 9, and her brother Andy Diaz, 7, both from Baltimore, Md., hold up signs as they join their parent during a news conference of immigrant families and children’s advocates responding to the President Barack Obama’s response to the crisis of unaccompanied children and families illegally entering the US, Monday, July 7, 2014, on the steps of St. John's Church in Washington. A top Obama administration official says no one, not even children trying to escape violent countries, can illegally enter the United States without eventually facing deportation proceedings. But Homeland Security Sec Jeh Johnson basically acknowledged Sunday that such proceedings might be long delayed, and he said that coping with floods of unaccompanied minors crossing the border is a legal and humanitarian dilemma for the US. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Surge of illegal immigrant children wanes

The number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. held steady at about 11.3 million last year, according to a new Pew Research Center estimate released Wednesday that suggests the problem has reached a sort of dubious equilibrium. Published September 3, 2014

defender: Some Republicans — most notably Sen. Jeff Sessions — have long argued an immigration deal leaves American workers worse off. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Republicans may shift immigration debate to protecting jobs

An effort is underway to push the Republican Party to rethink its close ties to business groups on immigration, with conservatives arguing that the way to fight immigration-reform proposals is to focus on how they would force Americans into a tougher competition for jobs. Published August 31, 2014

Horner (CEI)

New York legal brief may be blueprint for Obama climate change deal

Two years ago, the New York attorney general's office prepared a legal brief laying out a potential case for asking courts to make the U.S. cut greenhouse gas emissions based on international treaties, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Times. Published August 28, 2014

A SWAT team unloads from armored vehicles as they go door to door while searching for a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Police saddled with unwanted equipment amid militarization scrutiny

The sheriff's department in Chelan County, east of Seattle, figured it could use an armored vehicle to transport its SWAT team's response to thorny situations, thereby erasing the fear of taking fire as they sped into active shooter or barricade incidents. Published August 28, 2014

President Barack Obama speaks the economy, Iraq, and Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014, in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, before convening a meeting with his national security team on the militant threat in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Obama says immigration action still to come

President Obama said Thursday his plans to take unilateral action on immigration were affected by the surge of illegal immigrant children on the southwest border, but he still vowed to move ahead where he can later this year. Published August 28, 2014

President Obama is nearing a self-imposed deadline for taking unilateral action to try to halt deportations, and is facing pressure from immigrant-rights groups to go as broadly as possible. (Associated Press)

Legal settlement likely to slow deportation of illegal immigrants

Federal agents will have to read a Miranda rights-style list of protections to immigrants before sticking them in fast-track deportation proceedings, according to the terms of a legal settlement announced Wednesday that will make it tougher for the Obama administration to quickly deport illegal immigrants. Published August 27, 2014

President Obama is poised to notch the lowest deficit of his six-year tenure at just more than a half-trillion dollars, but more financial pain lies ahead. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Federal deficit to drop this year, but financial pain will return: budget office

President Obama is poised to notch the lowest deficit of his six-year tenure at just more than a half-trillion dollars, reflecting slow but steady progress he and Congress have made on cutting annual spending. But the Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that the long-term problems remain with entitlements such as Social Security and the major health care programs, which will send deficits soaring back toward $1 trillion within a decade. Published August 27, 2014

Alonzo Cushing photo provided by the Wisconsin Historical Society shows First Lt. Alonzo Cushing. A Civil War soldier is to be honored with the nation's highest military decoration 151 years after his death.The White House announced Wednesday that President Barack Obama will give the Medal of Honor to Alonzo H. Cushing. His descendants and Civil War buffs have been pushing for the Union Army lieutenant killed at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to receive the award. (AP Photo/Wisconsin Historical Society)

Obama to award belated Medal of Honor to Union Civil War officer

President Obama will award the Medal of Honor to 1st Lt. Alonzo Cushing, who gave his life at Gettysburg leading the effort to repel Pickett's Charge, the White House said Tuesday in an announcement historians say corrects a glaring omission in the rolls of the nation's top military honor. Published August 26, 2014