Mayors Against Illegal Guns targets first Democrat

The Michael Bloomberg-backed group Mayors Against Illegal Guns is following up on its promise to hound Senate Democrats who voted against gun control legislation in April.

At Naval Academy commencement, Obama condemns military sexual assaults

WASHINGTON -- President Obama condemned sexual misconduct in the military and told Naval Academy graduates to try to restore Americans’ faith in institutions in a commencement speech that hinted at the scandals swirling around the president.

WASHINGTON -- Differences over whether immigrants should be deported for fail

IRS replaces head of division that targeted conservative groups

WASHINGTON -- Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS office under fire for improperly targeting conservative groups, was replaced by the agency's acting commissioner on Thursday, a day after she insisted she had done nothing wrong and refused to answer questions before a congressional committee.

Senate confirms Obama's first D.C. Circuit Court nominee

WASHINGTON -- Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan, a rising star in legal circles, won an easy and unanimous Senate confirmation Thursday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, giving President Obama his first appointee to a conservative-leaning court that decides major regulatory disputes.

Obama restricts drone strikes overseas

WASHINGTON -- Under pressure from Congress and international allies, President Obama announced a change in what has been a central piece of his counter-terrorism strategy, saying he will place new restrictions on the targeting of terrorists with missiles fired from drones.

Conservative economists endorse immigration reform bill

WASHINGTON -- More than 100 conservative economists will call on Congress to approve an immigration overhaul, highlighting the potential economic benefits.

Top IRS official pleads the 5th Amendment at testy House hearing

WASHINGTON — A top Internal Revenue Service official invoked the 5th Amendment and declined to testify Wednesday before a House committee investigating the agency’s mishandling of applications by some conservative groups for tax-exempt status.

Immigration reform bill heads to full Senate

WASHINGTON — A sweeping bipartisan plan to overhaul the nation’s immigration system headed to the Senate floor after a key committee approved it Tuesday, but not before tilting the bill to the political right with amendments designed to attract more Republican support.

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that he will delay votes on several of President Obama’s nominees for key posts until July, a decision raising the prospect that he’ll seek further changes to Senate rules that would allow executive appointments to be confirmed by a simple majority.

Majority thinks global warming, clean energy should be priorities

WASHINGTON – Global warming and clean energy should be priorities for Congress and the president, a majority of Americans said in a recent survey.

WASHINGTON — A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the 5th Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama met Tuesday with young immigrants and others who expressed their fear that family members will be deported and their hope that Congress will pass new immigration laws to keep families intact.

WASHINGTON – The outgoing head of the IRS said the agency still doesn’t know which staff members were responsible for using politically loaded language to screen out nonprofit groups, as senators pressed them to explain how certain conservative organizations applying for tax-exempt status received extra scrutiny.

WASHINGTON – When Sen. Orrin Hatch takes his seat on the dais in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, the 79-year-old slides into his status as the most sought-after vote for immigration reform.

WASHINGTON — The outlines of a possible agreement emerged Tuesday on the criteria for high-skilled visas in the immigration overhaul, potentially paving the way for a key Republican senator to support the sweeping legislation and give it a boost when it comes to a committee vote.

WASHINGTON -- The former top official of the Internal Revenue Service told senators Tuesday he was “dismayed and saddened” by an inspector general’s report detailing how, during his tenure as IRS commissioner, the agency inappropriately scrutinized targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama on Tuesday assured the survivors of Oklahoma’s deadly tornado that the nation is “there for them” and that the government will keep its focus on the rescue effort as long as is needed.

WASHINGTON – Top conservative leaders, along with tea party activists from across the nation, have crafted a letter of opposition to the Senate’s bipartisan immigration overhaul.

WASHINGTON — Top officials in the White House learned in April that an investigation of the IRS would probably end up showing that the agency targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny, the White House spokesman conceded Monday, contrary to earlier Obama administration statements.

WASHINGTON – Senators are pushing forward on changes to a sweeping immigration overhaul, preparing to vote the bill out of the Judiciary Committee before Congress adjourns for the Memorial Day recess.

WASHINGTON -- The former top federal prosecutor in Arizona retaliated against the lead whistle blower in the Fast and Furious controversy by leaking an internal report that suggested he too once favored “walking guns” along the Southwest border and would be accessible to U.S. criminals and drug cartels in Mexico, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s office determined Monday.

WASHINGTON — Crossroads GPS, the behemoth conservative advocacy group behind some of the most robust attacks against President Obama’s administration, said Monday that it believes it is among the organizations subjected to special scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service.

WASHINGTON – A labor union that represents federal officers who vet immigration applications has decided to oppose the immigration overhaul winding through the Senate, saying provisions in the bill could lead to fraud.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will revisit the issue of church-state separation and decide whether a town council can begin its monthly meetings with a prayer from a Christian pastor.

WASHINGTON — A senior White House aide insisted Sunday that President Obama learned only from news reports that an IRS office had singled out dozens of tea party organizations and other conservative groups for questionable scrutiny, while Republicans vowed to investigate any White House involvement in the growing scandal.

WASHINGTON — President Obama urged graduates of a celebrated historically black college Sunday to use their education to help others and to work for "something larger than yourself," citing the example of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama’s proposed mix of tax hikes and spending cuts would reduce future budget deficits more quickly than under current laws, according to a report issued Friday that could rekindle the dormant budget wars in Washington.

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans back to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects.

Across-the-board cuts in the federal budget will force the Department of Housing and Urban Development to close its offices on May 24 and possibly six other days.

WASHINGTON – The acting head of the IRS insisted Friday that he and other agency officials did not mislead Congress by failing to disclose that applications by conservative groups for tax-exempt status were mishandled, and he said to call it "targeting" incorrectly implied political motivations.

WASHINGTON – The ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday morning for the agency's "foolish mistakes" in its handling of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status and attributed the IRS' actions to a misguided pursuit of efficiency instead of partisan targeting.

WASHINGTON -- The ousted top official of the Internal Revenue Service will appear before a House committee Friday morning, his first public appearance since controversy erupted last week over how the agency mishandled applications for tax-exempt status for conservative advocacy groups.

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of House lawmakers has reached an "agreement in principle" on a sweeping immigration bill that would parallel work underway in the Senate, sources said Thursday.

WASHINGTON – House Republicans voted for the 37th time Thursday evening to repeal all or part of President Obama’s healthcare law, underscoring once again the deep partisan divide over the landmark 2010 legislation.

WASHINGTON – Continuing to move quickly to try to put the IRS controversy behind him, President Obama named a new acting commissioner Thursday to replace the one he ousted the day before.

WASHINGTON – President Obama on Thursday called on Congress to beef up security at U.S. diplomatic facilities, saying the country owes it to the four Americans who died at the Benghazi, Libya, mission last year to protect other personnel serving around the world.

WASHINGTON – Two of President Obama’s second-term Cabinet nominees inched forward Thursday, while another was poised to win final confirmation by the Senate.

WASHINGTON -- The unauthorized disclosure of a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen last year compromised an exceedingly rare and valuable espionage achievement: an informant who had earned the trust of hardened terrorists, according to U.S. officials.

WASHINGTON – President Obama announced the resignation Wednesday evening of Steven Miller, acting commissioner of the embattled Internal Revenue Service, a move the president said was essential to restore the public’s faith following revelations that the agency inappropriately singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny.

WASHINGTON – In an unusual break in the partisan warring over healthcare, the Senate on Wednesday confirmed President Obama's choice to oversee the mammoth Medicare and Medicaid health programs.

WASHINGTON – Testifying on Capitol Hill, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. promised a thorough criminal investigation of the targeting of conservative organizations by the IRS that will look at potential civil rights violations and false statements that may have broken the law.

WASHINGTON -- Republican congressional leaders, faced with an array of crises threatening to overwhelm the White House, appear to have singled out the targeting of conservative political groups by the IRS as the most fertile -- and politically advantageous -- to focus on.

WASHINGTON -- The growing scandal at the IRS stemmed from a confused staff and lax oversight, according to an eagerly awaited inspector general’s report released Tuesday shortly after federal authorities began a criminal investigation into overzealous scrutiny of conservative groups that had applied for tax exemptions.

WASHINGTON -- Lax management oversight at the IRS led the tax-collection agency to target conservative groups for extra scrutiny for more than 18 months, causing some of their applications for nonprofit status to languish for more than three years, according to an inspector general’s report.

WASHINGTON – Concerned that border surveillance drones might fly over much of Southern California, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) successfully amended the proposed Senate immigration overhaul bill Tuesday to limit such flights to within three miles of the Mexican border.

WASHINGTON -- Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said Tuesday that he had ordered a criminal investigation into allegations that top IRS officials targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department will furlough most of its 800,000 civilian employees for 11 days, a decision that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called “difficult” but necessary to meet mandatory federal spending cuts this year without harming national security.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama’s spokesman says he is “confident” that no one at the White House knew the IRS was targeting conservative groups until White House lawyers were told of an internal review several weeks ago.

WASHINGTON — Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. strongly defended the far-reaching probe in the disclosure of security information by the Associated Press and said American lives were jeopardized when the wire service revealed details of a foiled plot to detonate a bomb on a U.S.-bound airplane last year.

WASHINGTON — Attorney Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. recused himself from the leak investigation in which federal prosecutors seized records from 20 telephone lines used by reporters and editors at the Associated Press, and the matter is instead being coordinated by the FBI and the local U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, a top Justice Department official said.

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors secretly obtained records of telephone calls from more than 20 telephone lines belonging to the Associated Press and its journalists over a two-month period in an apparent investigation of a leak of sensitive information about a terrorist plot in Yemen.

WASHINGTON — Public interest in the investigation of the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya last fall has dropped sharply from its high point in October and has taken on a strongly partisan cast, polling data released Monday shows.

WASHINGTON — President Obama tried to dismiss a brewing controversy over the White House handling of the terrorist attack on Benghazi as a “sideshow” and accused critics of using an attack that killed four Americans for political gain.

WASHINGTON – President Obama on Monday condemned the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service and vowed to punish anyone who may have taken part in it, as senators called for top IRS officials to resign and congressional committees prepared to investigate.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court gave a victory to Monsanto and other makers of patented seeds Monday, ruling they can prohibit farmers from growing a second crop from their genetically engineered seeds.

WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) pressed Sunday for a special congressional committee to investigate the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, last year, insisting that questions about former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s role remain unanswered.

WASHINGTON -- Climate change could lead to the widespread loss of common plants and animals around the world, according to a new study released Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- Sen. Rand Paul sharply attacked former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, declaring that her actions in the months leading up to the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya last year were "inexcusable, it was a dereliction of duty, and it should preclude her from holding higher office."

WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service improperly screened applications from conservative groups that sought tax-exempt status, a senior IRS official said Friday.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama said Thursday that the United States was “poised for progress,” but accused Congress of thwarting his efforts to get new economic initiatives off the ground.

WASHINGTON -- Senators on Thursday began the arduous task of going through some 300 proposed amendments to the delicately constructed bipartisan immigration bill. By lunch, they had disposed of 17.

WASHINGTON -- Five days before two bombs tore through crowds at the Boston Marathon, an intelligence report identified the finish line of the race as an "area of increased vulnerability" and warned Boston police that extremists may use "small scale bombings" to attack spectators and runners at the event.

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans boycotted a committee vote Thursday morning on President Obama’s nomination of Gina McCarthy to head the Environmental Protection Agency, prompting accusations of obstructionism from Democrats and calls to reform Senate rules.

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration announced Thursday that it would provide millions of dollars to community health centers to help them enroll Americans in health insurance programs next year under the president’s health law.

WASHINGTON -- The bipartisan Senate immigration proposal would provide a boost to the Social Security fund, its chief actuary said Wednesday, as more immigrants come out of the underground economy and begin paying taxes.