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The federal government recorded a budget surplus in January. But so far for this fiscal year starting Oct. 1, the total deficit is 77 percent higher than it was for the same period a year ago. The Treasury Department said Tuesday the deficit for the first four months of fiscal 2019 totaled $310.3 billion. That's up from $175.7 billion in the same period a year ago -- and that includes the January surplus of $8.7 billion.

After President Donald Trump agreed on Friday to open the government for three weeks, Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) should just give the State of the Union address “since she’s obviously the one running the country.” Congressmember Bass ✔ @RepKarenBass .@SpeakerPelosi should give the State of the Union since she's obviously the one running the country. Pelosi cancelled Tuesday’s State of the Union address and said on Friday, after Trump decided to open the government on Democrats’ terms, that she and Trump still have to “discuss a...

Nearly 11 million Americans nationwide would have been capped from deducting more than $323 billion in state and local taxes in 2017 because of changes enacted in the GOP's tax reform legislation, according to an audit released Tuesday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration — and expect similar results for the 2018 tax year. The 28-page report offers a new window into the full scope of the $10,000 cap on SALT deductions, which is supported by the White House and top congressional Republicans but has been heavily criticized by the leaders of many high-tax Democratic states, including New...

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, told state lawmakers Friday that he hasn’t made a decision on joining a Congressional resolution opposing President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the nation’s southern border. Lee objected to Trump’s use of executive authority to divert funding for the construction of a border wall. But he said he’s less concerned with that particular declaration than the underlying question of whether and when a president can sidestep Congress on government spending. “It’s probably not a good idea to give presidents that much power,” Lee said. Lee said while he supports the president’s goal of...

ANKARA - White House adviser Jared Kushner discussed his Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, and the two also discussed increasing US-Turkish cooperation and ways to boost economic conditions in the region. Kushner, who has responsibility for Washington's Israel-Palestinian policy, has said the peace plan will address final-status issues of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including establishing borders. Photo: AFP Kushner and Erdogan Photo: AFP facebook print send to friend comment Kushner meets Erdogan on Israel-Palestinian peace plan After saying the US had forfeited its role as mediator in the Middle East by moving its embassy to Jerusalem,...

Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Kamala Harris (Calif.) have doubled down on their extreme stance on abortion, and Warren in particular has outright defended her vote against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which was defeated in the Senate on Monday in a 53-44 vote. The bill, sponsored by Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), needed 60 votes to pass. “I think it’s up to a woman to make that decision, and I will always stand by that,” Harris told the Daily Caller on Wednesday, when asked if she believes abortion is immoral. “I think she needs to make that...

To those who backed any candidate besides Trump, why are those candidates not fighting as hard as Trump for the policies conservatives support? They have microphones, cable news access, and twitter. They do not fight. Would you still support them?

Trump has already tweeted encouragement for it, making the 391-page book an Amazon presale best-seller. They have fought him for three years, establishment conservatives dubbed Never Trumpers who view President Trump with disdain and disgust. But in a new book that pulls no punches on Trump, the wilting Never Trump movement is declared dead, marginalized by GOP supporters who see the president as needed medicine “to deal with lethal tumors of the status quo.” What’s more, in " The Case for Trump," out March 5, author Victor Davis Hanson concluded that Trump has united the Republican Party like few before...

President Trump's speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference started out as a relatively tame performance touting signature accomplishments such as tax cuts and judicial nominations, but it took an ugly turn as he moved to the topic of immigration, broadly painting those who come here as a result of the lottery system as "horrendous." The context was that Trump was lambasting Democrats for not agreeing to his terms as part of an immigration deal. Though they're willing to give him funding for the wall, he said, they won't budge on other issues, such as chain migration and ending the...

The testimony Wednesday by former Trump attorney and convicted perjurer Michael Cohen before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform did not produce the smoking guns that Democrats were hoping for, but it did produce a prodigious amount of fake news.Several members of the committee noted beforehand and during the hearing the oddity of Cohen testifying before a congressional committee as he's headed to prison for lying to Congress: As Michael Cohen speaks, think about how remarkable it is: a man convicted of LYING to Congress is now appearing before Congress again... just weeks later. Invited by the Democrats...

Former Weekly Standard editor-in-chief Steve Hayes and National Review's Jonah Goldberg will be joining forces to launch a new conservative media company, according to a Thursday report. The Axios report comes just three months after The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine that was critical of President Trump that has been printing since 1995, announced it would be ceasing publication. The report says Goldberg and Hayes, who are currently seeking investors, plan "a reporting-driven, Trump-skeptical company that will begin with newsletters as soon as this summer, then add a website in September, and perhaps ultimately a print magazine." It adds that...

There are moments within investigative research when your jaw can stand agape as you recognize the scope of what you are reading or hearing. A brutally down-played audio of Secretary John Kerry is just such an occasion.(snip) This evidence within this single story would/should forever remove any credibility toward the U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. It also destroys the credibility of a large number of well known republicans. What the recording reveals is substantive: ♦ First, only regime change, the removal of Bashir Assad, in Syria was the goal for President Obama. This is admitted and outlined by Secretary...

Kim Jong Un was not responsible for the horrific injuries sustained by American student Otto Warmbier, who died shortly after being released from 17 months of detention in North Korea, President Donald Trump said Thursday. "Some really bad things happened to Otto - some really, really bad things. But he tells me that he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word," Trump said, referring to the North Korean dictator. The president added that Kim told him that he "felt very badly about it."

Jonah Goldberg is leaving National Review in the coming months to start a new conservative media company with Steve Hayes, who was editor-in-chief of The Weekly Standard when its owner shut it down in December. Details: Goldberg and Hayes tell me they plan a reporting-driven, Trump-skeptical company that will begin with newsletters as soon as this summer, then add a website in September, and perhaps ultimately a print magazine. •Hayes, the likely CEO, and Goldberg, likely the editor-in-chief, are the founders. •Hayes tells me about the startup, which doesn’t have a name now: "We believe there’s a great appetite on...

A former Trump campaign adviser said on MSNBC that he believes Special Counsel Robert Mueller will give the House of Representatives a "roadmap" for impeaching President Trump. “I can’t imagine that the special counsel is not going to release something that shows a roadmap for the House to investigate a conspiracy,” Sam Nunberg said Thursday. When host Katy Tur asked if he meant a roadmap for impeachment, Nunberg answered affirmatively. "Correct, for articles of impeachment,” he said.

“Has Republican Resistance to Trump Collapsed?” The familiar question, offered up many times and in many variations since 2016, appeared in The New York Times. This time, it served as the headline for an opinion piece by GOP strategist (and Trump critic) Liz Mair. Writing from “inside the belly of the beast,” she stated that President Donald Trump is the king of all he surveys, pointing out that “the NeverTrump movement has disintegrated” and that the president can boast of a “near 90 percent approval rating among Republicans.” It’s true, Republicans love Trump. They love him as much or more...

The twisted case of Jussie Smollett is depressing, infuriating — and should end with the maximum prison sentence. But I predict he’ll skate. The reprehensible alleged actions of the gay, black fabulist who cried “MAGA” will be forgiven, excused and ultimately encouraged by sympathetic progressives — deemed justifiable Trumpicide. And it will happen again. And again. Smollett, who claimed he was attacked outdoors by a pair of racist, homophobic white Trumpsters on a frigid Jan. 29 in Chicago, transformed Wednesday from the purported target of a vicious hate crime to a lying, alleged felonious hoaxster. But the fact that the...

The Democrats swept to power in Congress by campaigning in a way that has been successful for Democrats for generations. “Republicans will take away your health care,” they said, after having focus-grouped it. Now we are preparing for a 2020 campaign in which Donald Trump and Republicans can as easily advertise to the public: “Democrats will take away cows, and your car.” What happened to Democrats? Back in November, it looked like Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic House caucus had found the perfect plan for their party in the era of Trump: Avoid talking about impeachment and stick to simple...

Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, speaking to "Fox News Sunday," charged that the compromise spending bill recently signed by President Trump to avert another partial government shutdown was little more than a disguised effort by some Republicans to torpedo his 2020 presidential candidacy. "Both parties have people that are still trying to get rid of Donald Trump," Limbaugh said, asserting that Democrats are also working to guarantee a "permanent underclass of voters" who are "uneducated" and "don't even speak" English. He continued: "I read this bill -- this spending bill, this bill is outrageous. [It includes] welcoming centers for...

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert withdrew her name from consideration for the U.N. ambassador nomination, the department said Saturday. “I am grateful to President Trump and Secretary Pompeo for the trust... Developing story