State vs. Bill O'Reilly: Spokeswoman attacks Fox News host as ISIS threat grows

Marie Harf, whose career has alternated between government jobs and campaign jobs, is the deputy spokesman for the State Department, and if her recent communications are any indication, the face of the most acute foreign-policy crisis facing these United States is Bill O’Reilly’s — an admittedly self-satisfied visage, to be sure, out of which pours a stream of apparently inexhaustible glibness. But he’s never beheaded anybody, so far as I know.
Mr. O’Reilly became an enemy of State when he conducted an interview with Fox News reporter James Rosen, who had some mildly unflattering things to say about Ms. Harf’s superior, Jen Psaki, the witless off-brand Pippi Longstocking who is the current media face of the American diplomatic project. The Obama administration is, to be charitable, currently unsure of how to go about dealing with the Islamic State, and Ms. Psaki was something less than convincing in trying to explain what exactly the administration has been up to between that group’s beheadings. Ms. Harf proclaimed (here I’ll translate from the Twitterese): “Jen Psaki explains foreign policy with intelligence and class. Too bad we can’t say the same about Bill O’Reilly.”
This is not a new thing for the Obama administration, for Democrats, and for the Left. White House communications director Anita Dunn denounced Fox News in the early days of the Obama administration, and Megyn Kelly has recently been elevated to the status of sacred hate totem for Democrats.
To begin with the specific case of Ms. Harf, it is unseemly for an official of the State Department to publicly denounce Bill O’Reilly or any other critic in the media. The State Department has more important things on its agenda, its business is foreign rather than domestic, and there should be at least some decent pretense of separation between the functioning of the American diplomatic apparatus and the Democratic campaign apparatus. That is sometimes difficult to do: Ms. Psaki is literally in bed with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, being married to its deputy finance director. (You can read all about it in Greenwich magazine — because of course she’s a Greenwich girl.) The State Department is not the high-school-prom decorating committee, and Ms. Psaki is, despite her demeanor, a grown woman who works in a media-oriented job. She can take her lumps, having signed up for them.
No doubt the queen-bee tweener impersonation is putting absolute mortal terror into the Islamic State, whose members surely are checking her Twitter feed as they whet their blades.

IRS says it has lost emails from 5 other employees related to probes

The IRS said Friday that it has lost emails from five other employees involved in congressional probes into the agency's targeting of conservative groups, leading one top Republican to declare "this pattern must stop."
The announcement comes after the agency said in June that it could not locate an untold number of emails to and from Lois Lerner, who headed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. The revelation set off a new round of investigations and congressional hearings.
On Friday, the IRS issued a report to Congress saying the agency also lost emails from five other employees related to the probe, including two agents who worked in a Cincinnati office processing applications for tax-exempt status.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, whose committee has been investigating the scandal, said the disclosure is yet another example of the Obama administration changing its story on the scandal.
"The IRS’s ever-changing story is practically impossible to follow at this point, as they modify it each time to accommodate new facts," Issa, R-Calif., said. "This pattern must stop."
The disclosure came on the same day the Senate's subcommittee on investigations released competing reports on how the IRS handled applications from political groups during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The Democratic report, released by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, said both liberal and conservative groups were mistreated, revealing no political bias by the IRS. The Republican report, issued by Sen. John McCain of Arizona, said conservative groups were clearly treated worse.
The IRS inspector general set off a firestorm last year with an audit that said IRS agents singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for inappropriate scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.
Lerner's lost emails prompted a new round of scrutiny by Congress, the Justice Department, the inspector general and at least two federal judges.
The IRS blamed computer crashes for all the lost emails. In a statement, the IRS said all the crashes happened well before Congress launched the investigations.
"Throughout this review, the IRS has found no evidence that any IRS personnel deliberately destroyed any evidence," said the IRS statement. "To the contrary, the computer issues identified appear to be the same sorts of issues routinely experienced by employees within the IRS, in other government agencies and in the private sector."
When Congress started investigating the IRS last year, the agency identified 82 employees who might have documents related to the inquiries. The IRS said 18 of those people had computer problems between September 2009 and February 2014. Of those employees, five probably lost emails -- in addition to Lerner -- the agency said Friday.
Lerner, who was placed on leave and has since retired, has emerged as a central figure in congressional investigations. The other five employees appear to be more junior than she.
In addition to the Cincinnati workers, they include a technical adviser to Lerner, a tax law specialist and a group manager in the tax-exempt division.
In general, the IRS said the workers archived emails on their computer hard drives when their email accounts became too full. When those computers crashed, the emails were lost.
"By all accounts, in each instance the user contacted IT staff and attempted to recover his or her data," said the IRS statement.
The IRS has said it stored emails on backup tapes but those tapes were re-used every six months. The inspector general's office is reviewing those tapes to see if any old emails can be retrieved.
Friday's reports by the Senate subcommittee on investigations mark the conclusion of just one investigation. The Justice Department and three other congressional committees are continuing their probes.
Levin is chairman of the investigations subcommittee and McCain is the ranking Republican. Their staffs routinely work together on investigations, and while they don't always agree on the results, it is highly unusual for them to issue such diverging reports.
"The investigation found that the IRS used inappropriate selection criteria, burdensome questions and lengthy delays in processing applications for 501(c)(4) tax exempt status from both conservative and liberal groups," Levin said in a statement.
The Democratic report slams last year's audit by the IRS inspector general. It says the IG report was incomplete because it focused only on the treatment of conservative groups. The IG's report "produced distorted audit results that continue to be misinterpreted," the Democratic report said.
The inspector general's office declined to comment Friday. A spokeswoman said they were reviewing the report.
The Republican report says far more conservative groups were singled out for extra scrutiny. They were also asked more questions and were more likely to have their applications rejected or withdrawn.
"The IRS selected conservative groups out of normal processing, placed them on a separate list, stopped work on their applications completely, forced them to answer intrusive questions about their behavior and demeanor at meetings and delayed their applications for multiple years," the Republican report said. "Our investigation has uncovered no evidence that liberal groups received the same expansive inappropriate treatment that conservative groups received."
The Democratic report said investigators reviewed 800,000 pages of documents and conducted 22 interviews with current and former workers at the IRS and the inspector general's office. The investigators, however, were not allowed to see confidential taxpayer information, so many of the documents were blacked out.
Only two committees in Congress have the authority to see confidential taxpayer information: the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. Those two committees are continuing their probes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Cartoon

ISIS threat scrambles candidates’ 2014 playbook, brings out Dems’ hawkish side

The rise of the Islamic State threat has, in a matter of weeks, turned the 2014 midterm election on its head, leaving Democrats and Republicans alike scrambling to show their hawkish side on national security and terrorism -- shelving for now the partisan sparring over ObamaCare, and the multiple scandals that dominated headlines and threatened to define the Obama administration. 
With just nine weeks to go before voters decide the makeup of the next Congress, ISIS, Ukraine, Gaza and Boko Haram have supplanted the IRS, Benghazi, NSA data-gathering and the VA on the lips of candidates -- and the minds of voters. 
The result is a race that's looking much different than the last off-year midterm cycle. Four years ago, Fox News polled voters on their top issues at the ballot box -- the economy was at the top, and Iraq was at the bottom. 
While the economy still matters, recent polling shows voters want a tougher approach to foreign policy, as Islamic State militants ravage northern Iraq and Syria and threaten western interests. 
Candidates are giving it to them. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who faces a Republican challenge from former GOP chairman Ed Gillespie in November, on Wednesday urged the Obama administration to present a "clear strategy" for "eliminating" the Islamic State threat. 
"The United States should not take any military options off the table, because stopping ISIL is in the national security and foreign policy interests of the U.S. and our European allies," Warner said in a statement. 
The sudden focus on foreign policy poses a challenge for both parties. 
Republicans, who have been pulled in an isolationist direction by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and budget-minded Tea Party groups, are adjusting their tone. Even Paul, while saying President Obama must make his case for military action to Congress, told Fox News on Wednesday that the terror group has "absolutely" declared war on America. (And for the record, Paul says he is not an "isolationist".) 
For Democrats, the focus on the Middle East allows candidates to -- at least briefly -- get off the defensive on ObamaCare and administration controversies ranging from Benghazi to IRS targeting. 
But the furor over terror threats means there's less room for Democratic candidates to tout modest domestic gains like job creation or the rebound of the stock market. And new polls show that the president suffers in public opinion on foreign affairs, leaving Democrats once again putting distance between themselves and the commander-in-chief. 
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who's in a race against former GOP Sen. Scott Brown, did exactly that when she issued a Twitter rebuke of the president on Wednesday after he said the goal is to make the terror group "manageable." 
"Do not believe ISIL is 'manageable,' agree these terrorists must be chased to the 'gates of hell,'" she tweeted. The comment was a reference to Vice President Biden's vow, at an event on Wednesday with Shaheen, to pursue the militants "to the gates of Hell." 
Lara Brown, associate professor of political management with George Washington University, said the economy -- and the "languishing recovery" -- likely will remain a top issue in the fall. 
But she described voter perceptions of Obama's leadership abroad as a factor. 
"I think that puts Democrats, especially those that are more moderate ... in a more difficult position, because they need the president to take a strong stand so they can say they are standing behind the president," she said. 
Brown said the president could still "get back on top" of the narrative. "To a certain extent, the jury's out on where we are on this," she said. 
A fresh GWU poll underscored the president's vulnerability on the subject. The poll of 1,000 likely voters, taken Aug. 24-28, showed 58 percent disapprove of his handling of foreign affairs. A Pew Research Center and USA Today survey also showed 54 percent see Obama as "not tough enough" on security issues. That's a turnaround from when Obama ran in 2012 in part on the successful mission to take out Usama bin Laden. 
The same Pew poll showed dramatically changing attitudes toward America's role in the world, after years where fatigue from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars appeared to be setting in. The share of Americans who now say the U.S. does "too little" to address world problems roughly doubled since November 2013, to 31 percent. The share who say the opposite fell sharply, from 51 to 39 percent. The survey of 1,501 adults was taken Aug. 20-24. 
As Democrats try and toughen their tone, Republicans are doing the same -- and going after the president for a strategy they say is in shambles. 
Brown, Shaheen's opponent, said this week that America's enemies have been "emboldened by the Obama administration's incoherent foreign policy. " 
He released a scathing web video juxtaposing Biden's 2012 claims about Obama's "strength" with ominous footage of Islamic militants and the president's recent gaffe where he said "we don't have a strategy" yet to address ISIS in Syria. 
The ad ends with the text "Obama Biden -- a foreign policy failure."

GOP lawmaker accuses DOJ of hiding former employee linked to IRS scandal

WASHINGTON –  A top House Republican is demanding the Department of Justice hand over contact information on a former employee accused of having a conflict of interest in the IRS targeting scandal investigation.
In a Sept. 3 letter, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, once again asked Attorney General Eric Holder for information on Andrew Strelka’s whereabouts. 
“Despite notifying [Oversight and Government Reform] Committee staff that the [Justice] Department no longer employs Mr. Strelka, the department has refused to assist the committee in speaking to Mr. Strelka directly,” Jordan wrote. “The department’s efforts to prevent the committee from learning Mr. Strelka’s whereabouts suggest the department has cause for keeping him from speaking with the committee.”
Jordan says he wants Strelka’s contact information so the Oversight Committee can conduct a transcribed interview. The letter gives Holder a Friday deadline for the information.
The DOJ has addressed the Strelka issue in the past, saying he is no longer an employee. They have also said that the department is “already conducting an active investigation” into the IRS matter.
In August, Jordan along with House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., pressed the DOJ for information on Strelka.
The lawmakers claimed in that letter that Strelka, who was employed as an attorney at the Justice Department’s tax division, until recently represented the IRS in civil lawsuits filed over the targeting. However, Strelka used to work under IRS official Lois Lerner in the exempt organizations division of the IRS.
Lerner was the IRS’s exempt organizations director when Tea Party and other conservative groups were scrutinized when applying for tax-exempt status.
The lawmakers claim that Strelka’s relationship with Lerner should have prevented him from being involved in the investigation.
They also say they have emails that show that during his tenure Strelka was directly involved in the targeting of conservative groups. In one case, they point out, Strelka was informed by a manager to be on the “lookout” for a Tea Party case.

ISIS Disappear Cartoon

Chechen leader, Putin pal vows to crush ISIS after threat against Russia

The latest recipients of an Islamic State threat are responding in kind, with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov vowing that "these bastards" will be "destroyed."
Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, went on an Instagram rant after Islamic State posted a video threatening Putin over his support for Syria's Bashar al-Assad and vowing to liberate Chechnya. The Muslim strongman, who has fought Islamic militants in his backyard for years, seemed to take special umbrage at a threat aimed at his patron in Moscow.
"I state with full responsibility that the one who had the idea to express a threat to Russia and say the name of the president of the country Vladimir Putin, will be destroyed, where he did it," Kadyrov seethed. "I emphasize that they finish their days under the hot sun in Syria and Iraq, and in the first instant of death meet their eternal flames of Hell. Allahu Akbar!"

"I emphasize that they finish their days under the hot sun in Syria and Iraq, and in the first instant of death meet their eternal flames of Hell. Allahu Akbar!"- Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov

The video that incensed Kadyrov showed Islamic State fighters cavorting around Russian fighter planes sent to Assad by the Kremlin but seized when Islamic State overran Syria's Tabqa airport.
In the video, which was posted and translated by Middle East Media Research Institute, a fighter refers to Kadyrov as a Putin puppet. Kadyrov responded on Instagram by saying "these bastards have no relation to Islam," and vowing if they try to threaten Russia or Chechnya "you will be destroyed."
"I want to remind everyone who is planning something against our country, that Russia has worthy sons, ready to fulfill any order, wring the neck of any enemy in his own lair, wherever he may be," Kadyrov wrote. "And we find ourselves with happiness ridding the world of these scum."
The threat against Russia and Chechnya came as an Israel-based intelligence news service claimed that the Saudi, British and Australian governments have "credible information" that Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have plans to launch a coordinated attack around the time of the Sept. 11 anniversary. 
DEBKAfile reported that unnamed "counterterrorism sources" say the groups are preparing to hit in the Middle East and somewhere in western Europe. According to the site, the militants are holding off on planning an attack on the U.S. for now. ISIS operates in Iraq and Syria, while AQAP is based in Yemen. 
The report comes after a second American journalist was executed by the Islamic State. 
So far, U.S. officials have said they are not aware of any plots against the U.S. at this stage, though they have the potential to target the U.S. and Europe using western passport holders. 
Matt Olsen, outgoing director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said Wednesday there is no indication of any Islamic State cells in the U.S., "full stop." 
But he said the group poses a "multi-faceted threat to the United States."

Hearing for Marine jailed in Mexico to feature surveillance video

Next week’s court appearance by a U.S. Marine imprisoned in Mexico could turn into a video viewing marathon.
Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi, who has been held since March 31, when he says he mistakenly crossed into Mexico with three legally-purchased and registered guns in his truck, will be in a Tijuana courtroom on Tuesday, where a judge, prosecutors and his lawyer will view surveillance video made at the border the night he was arrested.
With 90-minute footage from 18 different cameras in evidence, the session could prove lengthy, Tahmooressi’s attorney, Fernando Benitez, told Fox News. What has Benitez most curious is the fact that Mexican Customs officials dragged their feet in turning over the video, to the point that Judge Victor Octavio Luna Escobedo had to order them to comply.
“He set forth an order whereby basically he told Customs, ‘I’m not asking.I’m telling you to deliver the tapes,’” Benitez told Fox.
Benitez said it is likely the judge will fast-forward through irrelevant portions of the video, none of which has audio. And despite Mexican customs officials reluctance to produce it, Benitez doubts there will be a bombshell on the tape.
“It in no way is it a case-maker or a case-breaker,” Benitez said. “I’m willing to accept the possibility that it doesn’t show that much.”
But, Benitez said, “We can assume that what’s in the tape will not support their story.”
The attorney, who once successfully represented former Tijuana mayor and current owner of the Xolos soccer team Jorge Hank Rhon on weapons charges, is working the case on several other fronts. He plans to file a motion to suppress evidence gathered against Tahmooressi on the basis that his detention was illegal from the beginning.
Benitez will also eventually present a report from a psychiatric expert who will focus on Tahmooressi’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a result of two combat tours in Afghanistan. Benitez believes that Tahmooressi cannot receive PTSD treatment in Mexico and an eventual prison sentence would be inconsistent with the country’s policy of providing rehabilitation to prisoners.
Tahmooressi’s team is also working on a video which will show how easy it was to accidentally cross into Mexico on the night of March 31, when the signage was not clear. It’s since been replaced, making future incidents like Tahmooressi’s less likely.
If Tahmooressi is convicted, he faces six to 21 years in prison. Tahmooressi served four years in the Marines before being honorably discharged in November 2012.