The number of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) apprehended at the northern border in the first six months of fiscal 2024 continue to outpace those apprehended at the southwest border.
There have been 143 KSTs apprehended at the northern border through the first six months of this fiscal year compared to 92 at the southwest border, according to the most recent CBP data.
Read More
Two reports released Monday show that the U.S. combined Social Security trust fund is projected to deplete its reserves by 2035.
The Trustees for Social Security and Medicare released annual reports on Monday. The Trustees projected the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will exhaust its reserves in 2036. The Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund was projected to be insolvent by 2033.
Read More
Nearly two years after Nina Jankowicz briefly led the Disinformation Governance Board at the Department of Homeland Security, she’s launched an organization demanding transparency and the public release of documents about the public debate on disinformation. An interesting move, likely without true transparency in mind.
My organization, Americans for Prosperity Foundation, has spent the same two years fighting DHS for documents on the federal board Jankowicz managed. We’re filing a second lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act to fight continued government stonewalling of our requests. Thus far, DHS has refused to provide unredacted versions of documents that outline its purported authorities to regulate disinformation. Nor will the agency release more information about its work on misinformation related to “irregular migration” and “Ukraine” before the board was disbanded in August 2022.
Read More
The House of Representatives finally acted Wednesday to remedy an injustice that has been getting worse as the number of illegal aliens coming into the United States has skyrocketed: the distortion caused by including noncitizens when determining how many House members each state gets.
The House passed HR 7109, the Equal Representation Act, to mandate a citizenship question on the census form and use of only the citizen population in the apportionment formula for representation applied after every census.
Read More
The federal government loses up to $521 billion a year to fraud, according to a first-of-its-kind estimate from a Congressional watchdog.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, which serves as the research arm of Congress, estimated annual fraud losses cost taxpayers between $233 billion and $521 billion annually, according to a new report published Tuesday. The fraud estimate’s range represents 3% to 7% of average federal obligations.
Read More
The sad reality is that the Republicans in the House after a narrow victory in the 2022 Congressional midterms do not have enough of a majority to be able to accomplish many big things.
This is not the fault of anyone in leadership, but instead is just the reality of what is at this time a one-vote majority with wildly divergent priorities amongst the GOP members in the House.
Read More
The Biden administration has just supercharged the electric vehicle (EV) revolution. With its finalized tailpipe emissions rule, the administration expects that by 2032 70% of new U.S. car sales will be electric.
This lightning-fast transformation of the nation’s car fleet faces myriad challenges but perhaps none are greater than sourcing the minerals needed for millions of EVs and addressing the nation’s alarming reliance on Chinese-controlled mineral supply chains.
Read More
Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., announced Friday that he would be resigning from Congress early, leaving the House GOP with a slim one-vote majority.
Read More
Donald Trump filed his brief Tuesday at the U.S. Supreme Court to defend his argument that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution. Noting the lack of historical precedent and dire ramifications for the future, Trump’s attorneys warned that “a denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.”
Oral arguments on the groundbreaking question are set for April 25; a final opinion, which could be announced in late May or sometime in June before the current SCOTUS term ends, represents a do-or-die situation for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment against the former president for the events of January 6 and his alleged attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election. The case is now on hold awaiting a decision by SCOTUS.
Read More
Though windmills and solar panels get the headlines, the big energy topic in Washington is electric transmission. Whether it is Congress’s newfound interest in permitting reform, the U.S. Department of Energy’s new Grid Deployment Office, or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) upcoming final rule on transmission planning and cost allocation, how to build and pay for long-range transmission to connect generators to customers is considered the final piece in the quest to meet net-zero goals.
Like so many issues in Washington, the need for more transmission lines is accepted without question and the costs are not considered. But for American consumers, especially low-income and elderly, as well as small businesses and energy intense manufacturers, building new transmission lines could result in much higher monthly bills and leave them on the hook for stranded assets.
Read More