6,628. That’s the number of earmarks bipartisan House and Senate lawmakers tucked into the $467 billion minibus spending bill which just passed last week. The funding plan covers six areas of federal spending – averting a partial government shutdown through Sept. 30. Earmarks totaled $12.7 billion of that spending package, a little less than 3%.  Is this pork barrel spending? Government waste? Or are lawmakers simply doing the...

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog charged that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership is “unhelpful” as the Jewish state continues its war against Hamas in response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks that left over 1,200 dead and hundreds more taken hostage.  “Israel is a sovereign democracy. It is unhelpful, all the more so as Israel is at...

House Republican leaders are blasting Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and demanding he apologize for urging Israel to hold new elections while criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The top four GOP lawmakers held an impromptu press conference during their annual retreat this year at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia, immediately after Schumer’s statement. “As we were in a work session here within the last half hour,...