federal government

The Washington Post's Craig Whitlock reports the White House is preparing a policy to require federal agencies to publicly disclose where they fly drones domestically and what they do with the "torrents of data collected from aerial surveillance": "The presidential executive order would force the Pentagon, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to reveal more details about the size and surveillance capabilities of their growing drone fleets — information that until now has been largely kept under wraps." Whitlock notes that little is known about the scope of domestic drone use by the federal government.

The U.S. Supreme Court has 25 pending cases to decide before recessing for the summer, including a case on the president's power to appoint officials during Congressional pro forma recesses, The New American's Joe Wolverton II reports. The D.C. Circuit held that recess appointments violate the constitutional requirement that officials be appointed with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate, but Attorney General Eric Holder argues that the Senate was unavailable to receive communications from the president when engaged in pro forma sessions in which no real action was being taken by senators. Wolverton, writing from a conservative point of view, argues that the Founding Father Alexander Hamilton thought the Constitution required that cooperation of the Senate and that recess appointments were only meant to be temporary.

The federal government shutdown will affect the housing market in several ways, The Washington Post reports:

1. Buyers won't be able to get approvals for their mortgages, including those backed by the Federal Housing Administration;

2. Lenders will be less willing to make loans or even unable to make loans without paperwork from the IRS, FHA and the Social Security Administration.

"The approval of mortgage applications requires several interactions with the federal government that many home buyers may not know about. Lenders have become much more meticulous about following federal rules after the housing crisis that began in 2007, and are now more thorough in verifying the information on loan applications. These concerns were far less common when the government last shut down in 1995," The Washington Post also reports.