Breitbart News says IRS targeted company for audit

Your Tax Dollars at Work!

The company that runs the conservative Breitbart.com news site says the IRS has selected the network for an audit, in a move company executives suggest is politically motivated.
Breitbart News Network, a California-based company which runs several conservative websites, says the IRS recently audited its 2012 financial information.
"The Obama administration's timing on this is exquisite, but try as they might through various methods to silence us, we will only get more emboldened,” Stephen K. Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News Network, said in a written statement.
The audit comes as the agency faces sustained complaints that it targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny as they sought nonprofit status, before the agency ended the practice last year.
Since the practice was made public – by the IRS itself and the inspector general’s office – other conservative groups have come forward claiming they were subjected to unwarranted scrutiny by the agency.
In this case, it remains unclear whether the apparent audit of Breitbart News is anything out of the ordinary. The IRS conducts audits of tens of thousands of businesses every year.
The agency said in a statement: "Federal privacy laws prohibit the IRS from commenting on specific taxpayer situations. The IRS stresses that audits are based on the information related to tax returns and the underlying tax law -- nothing else. Audits are handled by career, non-partisan civil servants, and the IRS has safeguards in place to protect the exam process."
A copy of the IRS notice to Breitbart News, obtained by FoxNews.com, asked about the company’s financial information for calendar year 2012.
The IRS asked for a litany of documents, including logs of its receipts and expenses, but also its partnership agreement and a “written narrative” of the business.
Larry Solov, president and CEO of Breitbart News Network said: "We stand ready to cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service on its audit of our company, but this will not deter us in the least from continuing our aggressive coverage of this president or his administration.” 
The company was founded by the late media entrepreneur and conservative activist Andrew Breitbart.
The main website, Breitbart.com, houses a number of offshoot sites including Big Hollywood and Big Journalism. The website played a key role in breaking the scandal over former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner sharing sexually explicit photos on Twitter.

Obama reportedly willing to authorize airstrikes against ISIS in Syria

President Obama reportedly is prepared to expand airstrikes against the Islamic State into Syria and broaden the campaign against the group in Iraq, according to published reports ahead of a prime-time address to the nation in which the president will be expected to lay out an expanded military and political strategy to confront the militants who seized large swathes of territory over the summer.
The New York Times, citing a senior administration official, reported that the president was willing to order airstrikes against the militants, also known as ISIS, inside Syrian territory. The Associated Press also reported that it was likely that Obama would order the expanded airstrikes, in apparent defiance of a warning from Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's government not to do so without their permission. 
Obama had pushed for airstrikes against the Damascus government last year over the apparent use of chemical weapons by Assad's forces, but opposition in Congress forced him to drop the idea.
Obama is also expected to seek authorization from Congress to arm more moderate elements of the Syrian opposition that has been fighting Assad in a bloody civil war since 2011. The president asked lawmakers earlier this year for a $500 million train-and-equip program, but the plan stalled on Capitol Hill. The U.S. already has been running a smaller CIA program to train the rebels, but Obama is seeking approval for a more overt military effort that could involve staging training locations in countries near Syria.
Administration officials told the Associated Press Obama also sees a congressional authorization for a Syrian train-and-equip message as sending a strong signal to allies who are considering similar efforts. Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to the Middle East on Wednesday for discussions in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
The Times reported that Obama will send a delegation to brief senators prior to his speech Wednesday. The group will be led by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey and include National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen and Deputy National Security Adviser Anthony Blinken. 
The president huddled for nearly two hours Tuesday with the top four Congressional leaders at the White House -- House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. -- to build support for his planned campaign. A White House statement released after the session made it clear the president would not be asking for a congressional vote to authorize military force. 
"The president told the leaders that he has the authority he needs to take action against ISIL in accordance with the mission he will lay out in his address tomorrow night," the statement said in part. It added that Obama would "welcome" congressional support.
A Boehner aide said that the Speaker told Obama that he would he would support the president if he chose to deploy the military to help train and play an advisory role for the Iraqi Security Forces and assist with lethal targeting of ISIS leadership.
With Obama ruling out sending U.S. ground troops into combat in Iraq or Syria, bolstering the capacity of the Iraqi security forces and Syrian opposition will be crucial to efforts to root out the Islamic State militant group, which has moved freely across the blurred border between the two countries. U.S. airstrikes could help give the forces in both countries the space to make gains against the extremists.
The U.S. has already launched approximately 150 airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, a mission undertaken at the invitation of the Iraqi government and without formal authorization from Congress. But the scope of the mission has been relatively limited to strikes that help protect American interests in the region and prevent humanitarian crises. U.S. officials said Obama was expected to loosen those limitations in his speech Wednesday. 
At a private dinner Monday with foreign policy experts, Obama emphasized the importance of viewing the Islamic State as one organization, not two groups separated by a border. 
Obama would still have to contend with the notion that American airstrikes against the Islamic State militants were actually helping Assad, who has overseen Syria's bloody civil war. The U.S. has long called for Assad to leave power, and the Islamic State group is one of the groups inside Syria that is seeking to oust him.
However, Jane Harman of the Woodrow Wilson Center, who attended Monday night's dinner, told The New York Times that the president that he could order action in Syria without necessarily helping Assad, since ISIS currently holds ungoverned territory in the northeast of Syria that Assad's forces are unlikely to recover. 

Weiner Cartoon

Dems throw millions behind Clinton ally in search of House win

In a midterm cycle where the best Democrats can hope for is Republicans not taking complete control of Congress, the party has found something to lift its spirits: a race for a House seat in Colorado that could actually flip to blue in November. 
The race between incumbent GOP Rep. Mike Coffman and former Democratic state House speaker Andrew Romanoff is competitive in large part because the once-solidly Republican district was redrawn after the 2010 Census -- it's now evenly split among Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated voters. 
Coffman, who easily won in 2008 with more than 60 percent of the vote, now finds himself in a scramble to hold onto his seat, as an unprecedented amount of money pours in for his Democratic opponent. 
Romanoff, a well-known Colorado politician and longtime Clinton family ally, has attracted a flood of donations as Democrats see the 6th District race as perhaps their best chance of picking up a House seat this fall from Republicans. According to the latest financial filings, Romanoff had raised $3.4 million as of the end of June, with nearly $2.7 million on hand (similar to Coffman's numbers). 
The figure reportedly is more than any House challenger has raised this year. 
The circumstances have Coffman fighting for his seat, and rewriting his playbook -- as he noticeably softens his tone on immigration. 
The 2010 redistricting changed the makeup of his district from 8 percent Hispanic to 20 percent Hispanic overnight. Coffman had been seen as especially vulnerable on border issues because of his past votes against comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act. 
"His opponent is hitting him really hard on that issue," Colorado-based political analyst Abraham Morales said. "Immigration has become the issue where Romanoff hopes to set himself apart from Coffman." 
In a debate last month, Coffman explained his immigration stance as a "step-by-step" approach, with the first step being security. "We've got to secure our border and enforce our laws. But I think we also need to be compassionate in keeping families together." 
Romanoff wasted no time zeroing in on the congressman's comments. "The congressman has mentioned a step-by-step approach," he said. "That would be fine if Congress were willing to take a single step." 
Coffman is even learning to speak Spanish so he can talk directly to Hispanic voters. 
"Last week he was at a popular Latino supermarket in Aurora talking to Latino voters," said Morales, adding: "If he is able to connect [on a personal level] he may be able to get Latino voters to see him as more than just this one issue." 
As Morales points out, in a district so evenly divided in terms of party affiliation, "The Hispanic vote becomes more important than ever. It will probably win the district." 
Coffman told Fox31 KDVR that the competition and changes in the district have made him a "better congressman," but downplayed the notion that he's modified his positions. 
"It wasn't so much I had to change, it was listening to people," he said, discussing the re-drawing of the district. 
The demographics in the re-drawn district now closely mirror the state as a whole, which itself has become a battleground in presidential elections. This has drastically changed the dynamic in the district where Coffman originally took over for anti-illegal immigration firebrand Tom Tancredo in 2009. 
"You just don't survive in Colorado politics if you can't find the middle ground," Colorado pollster and political analyst Floyd Ciruli said. 
Coffman already faced a tough re-election in 2012, winning by a mere 7,000 votes. Romanoff, though, is a formidable opponent. 
In 2010, Romanoff scared the daylights out of the national Democratic establishment by offering incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet a far stiffer primary challenge than expected. In that race, Bill Clinton endorsed Romanoff over the incumbent; Romanoff had backed Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential primaries. 
Bennet went on to squeak out a victory against Republican challenger Ken Buck in the general election, winning by fewer than 30,000 votes. He did so in part by portraying Buck as an anti-woman, anti-immigration extremist. 
Ciruli says Romanoff's campaign has not hesitated to adopt the same formula. "They are using the playbook of focusing on women's issues and Hispanic issues." 
The new voter breakdown -- mirroring that of the nation -- has also turned the race into somewhat of a bellwether, and national parties and political pundits everywhere are watching it closely. 
"It's a metaphor for the Republicans," Ciruli said. "If they can't win here, that says a lot about their ability to win these kinds of close competitive races in other parts of the country."

How Obama spun the press on immigration delay — and sort of got away with it

The White House engaged in some truly masterful spinning of the decision to delay action on immigration, and the press half-bought it.
President Obama, for his part, was half-candid.
The upshot was coverage that was about half as tough as it should have been.
Obama was, after all, breaking a fairly recent promise. It was a few short months ago, when immigration reform died yet again in John Boehner’s House, that the president said he would get recommendations on acting unilaterally by the end of the summer and would act without delay.
And now he’s delayed.
This was duly noted in news accounts, of course—Politico called it a “sudden reversal”—but it wasn’t rendered as a “Read My Lips” moment. Think of all the times that Mitt Romney was depicted in the press as a flip-flopper. But I didn’t see anyone use the F-word in describing what Obama did. (Yes, he says he’ll act on immigration after the election, but he still broke his word.)
The dilemma for the administration was that any mealy-mouthed explanation—we need more time to study the issue, blah blah blah—would be immediately dismissed by the press. So the strategy was to leak the decision and admit it was political--but with an unnamed source that allowed journalists to write insidery reports. Rather than contest the obvious, that this was raw politics, the message mavens abetted the natural media instinct to depict such decisions as politically driven, but with the administration’s preferred spin.
Usually these things are done with a top official whispering to journalists for a couple of key print and television outlets. But the anonymous White House official actually put out a statement, on background, so everyone could quote the spin.
So when the story was leaked Saturday, Mr. Unnamed Official was quoted everywhere as saying: “Because of the Republicans’ extreme politicization of this issue, the president believes it would be harmful to the policy itself and to the long-term prospects for comprehensive immigration reform to announce administrative action before the elections.”
Get that? It was the Republicans’ fault! And acting now would be “harmful to the policy.”
Now most reporters were savvy enough to point out that what Obama was doing was trying to protect red-state Democratic senators who could lose their seats if they had to defend a sweeping executive order on immigration. And the angry reaction of immigration advocates, who felt betrayed, also made clear that the president was in retreat.
But since journalists also had to quote Boehner and other Republicans as ripping the decision, the stories devolved into spin and counterspin—taking the focus off the president doing a 180 off the high board.
The second phase of the strategy was Obama’s “Meet the Press” interview. The president didn’t deny to Chuck Todd that politics was involved, but only went so far--and like his unnamed aide, used the word “sustainable”:
“But here's the other thing, Chuck, and I'm being honest now, about the politics of it. This problem with unaccompanied children that we saw a couple weeks ago, where you had from Central America a surge of kids who are showing up at the border, got a lot of attention. And a lot of Americans started thinking, 'We've got this immigration crisis on our hands.' And what I want to do is when I take executive action, I want to make sure that it's sustainable.”
Obama followed that with “I'm going to act because it's the right thing for the country.”
Todd, to his credit, said it still sounded like election-year politics.
Obama basically copped to needing more time to sell the executive order because public support has been undermined by the border crisis. And that is true.
But he didn’t admit the other part, that he is trying to save the likes of Mark Pryor and Mary Landrieu from losing their Senate seats and guaranteeing a GOP takeover.
Obama and his team knew they would take a hit and managed the media about as well as could be expected. The press got the gist of the story right but allowed the impact to be blunted. Now the question is whether immigration will fade as an issue in the midterms, since Obama still insists he’ll act once Election Day is safely behind him.

US efforts to track Islamic extremists reportedly hampered by disputes with Europe

Efforts by U.S. intelligence officials to track American and European-born fighters who travel to the Middle East to join Islamic extremist groups like ISIS have been complicated by different approaches to sharing information and homeland security from their European counterparts, according to a published report. 
The Wall Street Journal reports that U.S. officials are struggling to ascertain the movements of suspected extremists once they enter certain European countries. The gaps are occurring despite the fact that the U.S. and several European security services have developed close intelligence links, with intelligence from both sides of the Atlantic buttressing terror watch lists kept by U.S. officials, such as the no-fly list. 
According to the Journal, a particular cause for concern among U.S. intelligence officials is a series of anti-terror proposals made last week by British Prime Minister David Cameron, most notably to revoke the passports of British nationals who have traveled to fight for ISIS. The British proposal reportedly has been greeted warily by U.S. counter-terrorism officials, who say that any move to confiscate passports could prevent people who have traveled to Syria and Iraq from speaking to authorities and providing intelligence about what is happening there. 
Apparently buttressing the U.S. officials' concerns, a report in The Times of London last week suggested that up to 30 British-born ISIS fighters have been disgusted by the militants' brutal tactics and wish to return home, but are fearful of doing so due to the punitive measures advocated by Cameron. 
Meanwhile, President Obama is scheduled to meet with congressional leaders Tuesday afternoon to discuss his plan to combat the ISIS threat. Few details of Obama's plan have been revealed ahead of a scheduled Wednesday address to the nation, though the New York Times reported Monday that the White House was in the process of planning a three-phase campaign that some Pentagon officials believe would take at least three years to fully execute. 
The U.S. has already launched close to 150 airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq, and The Times reported that the final phase of the campaign would call for the extension of airstrikes into Syria, where ISIS has its home base. 
The Obama administration is also bringing pressure on allies to swing firmly behind action against ISIS. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to travel to to Saudi Arabia and Jordan to meet with Mideast leaders and gauge their level of commitment to a growing worldwide coalition. The Associated Press reported that Kerry pressed a core group of 10 countries  to form a loose coalition to go after last week's NATO summit. Along with the United States, the coalition comprises the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Italy, Poland and Denmark.
As he weighs his next move, Obama was soliciting advice Monday from prominent foreign policy experts from across the political spectrum over dinner at the White House. Among the guests invited to join Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were former national security advisers from the Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton and Carter administrations, as well as Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass and former Acting CIA Director Michael Morrell.
In a call Monday evening, Obama congratulated new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi for the approval of a new government. The White House said al-Abadi "expressed his commitment to work with all communities in Iraq as well as regional and international partners to strengthen Iraq's capabilities" to fight the Islamic State militants.
Obama also spoke with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on the need to keep addressing the ongoing threat from the Islamic State and to thank Australia for its contributions to humanitarian air drops in northern Iraq, the White House said.

Obama says he has the authority, and US will 'go on offensive’ against Islamic State

President Obama said Sunday that the United States will “go on the offensive” against Islamic State militants in the Middle East and that he will further outline his plans Wednesday in a speech.
“The next phase is us going on the offensive,” Obama said in an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The president said that on Wednesday he will not announce the use of U.S. ground troops or a campaign equal to the war in Iraq, and that his goal is to make clear the mission is to deal with terror threats like those over the past several years. A senior Obama administration official told Fox News imminent, new military action in either Iraq or Syria was not expected to be announced in the speech.
Obama said he has the “authority he needs” to increase attacks on Islamic State targets without congressional approval, but he did not answer repeated questions about whether he will order air strikes on Islamic State targets in Syria.
A senior White House official told Fox News that Obama's primary aim in the Wednesday speech will be to update the American public on what the strategy is to deal with the militant group, saying the administration wants "people to understand how he's approaching this." 
When Congress was on summer break, the president ordered strikes on the group’s military targets in Iraq, saying they were to protect U.S. personnel and requested by the Iraq government as part of a humanitarian effort to preserve infrastructure and save Iraqi minorities.
Obama said Sunday the upcoming effort is part of three-step plan that started with intelligence gathering and will include helping install a new Iraqi government.
“I’m confident we can get this done,” he said.
Obama acknowledged on "Meet the Press" that the Islamic State is unique because of its “territorial ambitions” in the Middle East.
"Over the course of months, we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of ISIL," he said, using an alternate name for the group. "We are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control. And ultimately we're going to defeat them."
Reps. Peter King, D-N.Y., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., each told ABC’s “This Week” that the president should take swift action instead of trying to get congressional approval and getting bogged down in a prolonged debate.
“Getting the exact language through Congress would be extremely difficult,” Smith said, “though I think that’s what we ought to do.”
Obama will outline his plan after meeting Tuesday in the Oval Office with Capitol Hill leaders -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio; and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
“What I'm going to ask the American people to understand is that this is a serious threat,” Obama told NBC. “We have the capacity to deal with it, and here's how we'll deal with it. This will require some resources above what's already in there.”
Obama also said that he has not seen any immediate intelligence of threats to the U.S. homeland.
The interview was conducted Saturday at the White House shortly after Obama returned from a NATO summit in Wales, where the Islamic State threat was a key topic of discussion. The speech will come one day before the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Obama restated his opposition to sending U.S. ground troops to engage in direct combat with the militants, who have laid claim to large swaths of territory in Iraq, targeted religious and ethnic minority groups, and threatened U.S. personnel and interests in the region.
At Obama's direction, the U.S. military has conducted more than 130 air strikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq in the past month. In retaliation, the group recently beheaded two American journalists it had been holding hostage in Syria, where the organization also operates.
Lawmakers have pressed Obama to expand the air strikes into Syria. He has resisted so far, but said he has asked his military advisers for options for pursuing the group there.
In the interview, Obama said the U.S. would not go after the Islamic State group alone, but would operate as part of an international coalition and continue air strikes to support ground efforts that would be carried out by Iraqi and Kurdish troops.
At the NATO summit, the U.S. and nine allies agreed to take on the militants because of the threat they pose to member countries.
Obama's emerging strategy depends on cooperation and contributions from regional partners, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey, in addition to the formation of a new government in Iraq.
Obama said he expected the Iraqi government to be formed this week.
Last month, while vacationing on the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard, Obama was criticized for heading to the golf course minutes after he appeared in public to angrily denounce the Islamic State militants for the videotaped killing of American journalist James Foley.
 Asked whether he wanted a do-over by new "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd, Obama said that, while there will always be tough news somewhere, he "should've anticipated the optics" of immediately going to play golf after delivering that statement in which he said he had just gotten off the phone with Foley's parents.
But Obama said the more important question is whether he is getting the policies right and whether he is protecting the American people and, on that score, he said, "I think I've done a very good job during the course of these last, close to six years."

White House reportedly planning years-long campaign to destroy ISIS

The Obama administration is reportedly preparing a campaign to destroy the Islamic State militant group that could outlast the president's remaining time in office, according to a published report. 
The New York Times, citing U.S. officials, reported late Sunday that the White House plan involves three phases that some Pentagon officials believe will require at least three years of sustained effort.
The first phase, airstrikes against Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is already underway in Iraq, where U.S. aircraft have launched 143 attacks since August 8. The second phase involves an intensified effort to train, advise, and equip the Iraqi army, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, and any Sunni tribesmen willing to fight their ISIS co-religionists. The Times reports that this second phase will begin sometime after Iraq forms a new government, which could happen sometime this week. 
The third, and most politically fraught phase of the campaign, according to The Times, would require airstrikes against ISIS inside Syria. Last month, the government of Bashar al-Assad in Damascus warned the Obama administration not to launch airstrikes against ISIS in Syria without its permission. 
Obama was scheduled to outline his plan in a meeting Tuesday with House and Senate leaders before addressing the nation in a speech Wednesday, the eve of the 13th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. A senior Obama administration official told Fox News imminent, new military action in either Iraq or Syria was not expected to be announced in Wednesday's speech. A senior White House official told Fox News that Obama's primary aim will be to update the American public on what the strategy is to deal with the militant group, saying the administration wants "people to understand how he's approaching this."
In an interview that aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet The Press," Obama vowed that the United States would go "on the offensive" against the militants, who have seized broad swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq over the summer. 
The interview was conducted over the weekend after the president returned from a two-day NATO summit in Wales, where the U.S. and nine of its European allies agreed to take on the militants due to the terror threat they pose. Secretary of State John Kerry is due to travel to the Middle East later this month in an effort to secure the backing of Arab states for an anti-ISIS campaign, while Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was due to arrive in Turkey on Monday to press that country's leadership for support. Among the issues discussed will be the possibility of closing the country's border with Syria, which has been a popular route for Western-born fighters looking to join ISIS. 
On Sunday, the head of the 22-member Arab League urged the group's members to make a "clear and firm decision for a comprehensive confrontation" with "cancerous and terrorist" groups. Nabil Elaraby called ISIS a threat to the existence of Iraq and its neighbors and "one of the examples of the challenges that are violently shaking the Arab world, and one the Arab League, regrettably, has not been able to confront."
It wasn't immediately clear what steps the Arab League would take in supporting the West's campaign against ISIS, and reaching a consensus on how to move could be complicated by Arab world rivalries and member countries' different spheres of influence. A draft resolution obtained by The Associated Press offered only routine condemnation of terrorist groups operating in the region. It also called on its member states, which include Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to improve information-sharing and legal expertise in combating terrorism, and to prevent the paying of ransom to militants.
The Times reported that White House officials acknowledge that even if European and Arab countries offer their support for operations in Iraq, getting them to assent to possible operations in Syria would be much more difficult. U.S. officials have said repeatedly that the Obama administration is weighing all options for pursuing ISIS in that country.