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Stephen Dinan

Stephen Dinan

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

Articles by Stephen Dinan

President Barack Obama speaks about the economy, Wednesday, July 30, 2014, at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

House votes to sue President Obama over claims of presidential power

President Obama mocked Republicans for "just hatin' all the time" as the House voted to authorize an unprecedented lawsuit against the commander in chief, escalating a battle between Congress and the White House that is heavily tinged with election-year politics. Published July 30, 2014

President Barack Obama speaks about the economy, Wednesday, July 30, 2014, at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Obama vows veto of House border bill

President Obama threatened Wednesday to veto the House's border-spending bill, saying it doesn't give him enough money, cancels key environmental protections and removes key judicial checks for the illegal immigrant children surging into the U.S. Published July 30, 2014

** FILE ** In this July 12, 2014, photo, Central American migrants ride a freight train during their journey toward the U.S.-Mexico border in Ixtepec, Mexico. The number of family units and unaccompanied children arrested by Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley has doubled in the first nine months of this fiscal year compared to the same period last year. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo)

Chicken pox outbreak puts illegal immigrant facility on lockdown

The federal government's new facility to house illegal immigrant families surging across the border has been put on lockdown because of chicken pox, with no immigrants allowed to be transferred in or out, a congressman said this week. Published July 30, 2014

FILE - This Jan. 14, 2013 file photo shows House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky. on Capitol Hill in Washington. On the face of it, one of the most powerful pairings in Washington is a hopeless mismatch _ a former social worker and liberal Democrat from Baltimore’s working-class Fells Point neighborhood and an old-school, cigar-chomping GOP conservative raised in a dry county in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky. But in a bitterly divided Congress, the odd couple of Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Harold Rogers is a rare bipartisan success story. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

House unveils bill to speed deportations of illegal immigrant children

House Republicans introduced a bill Tuesday to make it easier to deport the surge of children crossing the border illegally and included just enough money to house and care for the children through September — far less than what President Obama wanted. Published July 29, 2014

** FILE ** Volunteer Stella Chambers, center, explains some of the Affordable Health Care Act to visitors to a health care coverage registration site hosted by Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers, Monday, March 31, 2014, in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Appeals court upholds Obamacare tax as constitutional

A key appeals court on Tuesday ruled that despite including a tax, Obamacare doesn't violate the Constitution's requirement that all tax bills originate in the House of Representatives, giving the Obama administration another health care win. Published July 29, 2014

Speaker of the House John Boehner of Ohio, arrives for a meeting of the Republican Conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 29, 2014. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Boehner rules out impeachment: ‘Scam started by Democrats’

Talk of impeachment was cooked up by a White House desperate for something to rally Democrats ahead of November's elections, House Speaker John A. Boehner said Tuesday, flatly ruling out any action on the controversial suggestion. Published July 29, 2014

Various immigrant rights groups held separate demonstrations and carried different messages outside the White House on Monday, indicating splintering within the movement. (Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times)

Border surge puts Obama legacy on immigration at stake

Immigrant rights groups suddenly find themselves playing political defense, pushing back against proposals to speed up deportations of people surging across the border illegally even while advocates plead with the White House to take politically risky executive action to halt deportations in the interior. Published July 28, 2014

A border patrol vehicle stands guard at a section of collapsed fence just west of the Mariposa Port of Entry in Nogales, Ariz., Sunday, July 27, 2014, after severe storms in southern Arizona over the weekend knocked down a chunk of the metal border fence that divides Mexico and the U.S. Rain runoff from the storms destroyed about 60 feet worth of fence and caused damage to homes just north of it. (AP Photo/Nogales International, Jonathan Clark)

Smugglers, rainstorm combine to poke holes in border fence

A rainstorm knocked over part of the border fence in Arizona this weekend, even as smugglers were cutting their way through another part of the fence less than a few miles away — leaving a hole big enough to drive a vehicle through, according to the Nogales International. Published July 28, 2014

U.S. Air Force Capt. Philip Gunn participates in a flyover during the internment ceremony of Brig. Gen. Robinson Risner, Jan. 23, 2014, at Arlington National Cemetery. Risner was the Air Force's 20th ace and survived more than seven years of captivity as a prisoner during the Vietnam War. Gunn is a 336th Fighter Squadron weapons system officer assigned to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. (Courtesy photo)

Thousands of Defense Dept. employees behind on taxes: GAO

It turns out that even having high security clearance doesn't mean you are up to date on paying your taxes: the government's chief watchdog said Monday that 26,000 Defense Department workers and contractors with high clearances are in arrears. Published July 28, 2014

Undocumented immigrant leaders protest along Pennsylvania Avenue near the entrance to White House on July 28, 2014. (Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times)

Illegal immigrants demand representation in White House meetings

Illegal immigrants plan to picketed the White House Monday afternoon, calling on fellow immigrant-rights advocacy groups to refuse to meet with the Obama administration until President Obama specifically includes illegal immigrants in any future meetings. Published July 28, 2014

Lois Lerner emails reveal gaping open-records loophole

The Lois G. Lerner emails released this month revealed a potentially huge loophole in federal open-records practices when an IRS tech staffer acknowledged that the agency doesn't regularly store — and never checks — instant message chats as official government records. Published July 20, 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)

Two-thirds of illegal immigrant children approved for asylum: report

Nearly two-thirds of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children requesting asylum this year have had their initial applications approved, the House Judiciary Committee reported Friday in data that suggests those kids surging across the border who ask to stay will likely be able to gain admission to the U.S. Published July 18, 2014

Speaker of the House John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said he can't envision a U.S. response to the border crisis that doesn't involving speeding up the process of returning unaccompanied Central American children home. (Associated Press)

Boehner: No bill on border surge

House Speaker John A. Boehner was pessimistic Thursday that Congress will pass a bill to address the surge of illegal immigrant children before lawmakers head home for a monthlong August vacation, as the gap between Democrats and Republicans grows wider. Published July 17, 2014

Deputy Attorney General James Cole testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, July 17, 2014, before the House Economic Growth, Job Creation, and Regulatory Affairs subcommittee hearing on how the Justice Department is investigating allegations that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeted conservative political groups for extra scrutiny. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Top Justice official denies conspiring with IRS on tea party targeting

The Justice Department is looking into former IRS employee Lois G. Lerner's lost emails and why it took her agency so long to report the missing messages to Congress and other federal authorities, Deputy Attorney General James Cole told the House on Thursday. Published July 17, 2014

FILE - This June 18, 2014, file photo, detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection, processing facility in Brownsville,Texas. Immigration courts backlogged by years of staffing shortages and tougher enforcement face an even more daunting challenge since tens of thousands of Central Americans began arriving on the U.S. border fleeing violence back home. For years, children from Central America traveling alone and immigrants who prove they have a credible fear of returning home have been entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, Pool, File)

Overwhelmed feds putting illegal immigrant children at risk

While much of the focus in the illegal immigrant surge has been on border security, the federal government does a poor job of ensuring relatives who claim children who enter the U.S. illegally are giving them the care they need, according to internal audits that suggest problems remain despite years of warnings. Published July 16, 2014

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said the agency is considering a ban on certain hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), used in many industrial and consumer products, as part of the Obama administration's climate change efforts. The Clean Air Act allows the agency to restrict certain pollutants if there are available alternatives, though no HFC alternatives have been suggested. (Associated Press)

EPA showed no bias in records-request decisions: IG

The EPA's inspector general concluded that the agency did not show bias in denying fee waivers on open-records requests from conservative-leaning groups while approving those from liberal-leaning groups, according to an audit released Wednesday. Published July 16, 2014