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Documents also Reveal Unusual Pressure from Key Democrat Senator to Target Conservatives (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released a new batch of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents revealing that its handling of Tea Party applications was directed out of the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC. The documents also show extensive pressure on the IRS by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) to shut down conservative-leaning tax-exempt organizations. The IRS’ emails by Lois Lerner detail her misleading explanations to investigators about the targeting of Tea Party organizations. The documents came in response to an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act...

The Internal Revenue Service audits fewer than 1 percent of large business partnerships, according to a government report released Tuesday. That means some of Wall Street’s largest hedge funds and private equity firms are largely escaping close scrutiny by the IRS, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. The Government Accountability Office says the number of large businesses organized as partnerships has more than tripled since 2002, yet hardly any get audited. In 2012, only 0.8 percent were subjected to field exams in which agents do a thorough review of books and records. …

LANSING, MI – The debate on how to make sure men and women are paid the same was highlighted in Michigan this week when President Barack Obama called out GOP Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land over equal pay and comments used in a web video. The ad Speaking to Reporters in Houston on Thursday, Obama mentioned Land, not by name but as a Republican running for Senate in Michigan. “Very rarely do you meet people who make the choice to be paid less for doing the same job,” Obama said, according to poll reports. Obama's statements were based on a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Caterpillar Inc. executives defended a tax strategy Tuesday that has saved the manufacturing giant billions in U.S. taxes. They got support from Republican senators, including one who said the company deserves an award. Caterpillar has avoided paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes since 2000 by shifting profits to a wholly-controlled affiliate in Switzerland, according to a report released by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. Levin chairs the Senate investigations subcommittee. On Tuesday, Levin grilled Caterpillar executives and their accountants at a hearing on the company's tax strategy. "Caterpillar is an American success story that produces iconic industrial machines,"...

The Dingell dynasty dates back to the era of FDR and there’s very little that can stop it from rolling on. Rep. John Dingell announced Monday he’s leaving the seat he took over from his father nearly six decades ago. And now his wife, Debbie Dingell, is planning to announce in the district Friday her candidacy for the open seat, according to a source close to Dingell. Dingell wasted no time putting together a campaign apparatus Monday, holding a conference call last night with her husband’s former aides. She also may sever ties with the American Automotive Policy Council where...

**SNIP** Midterm elections are often a reflection of the approval rating of the incumbent president and now President Obama stands at 42.8%. And elections in the 6th year of a PresidentÂ’s term are usually not good for the incumbentÂ’s party. To make things even worse for Democrats, the issues of a weak economy and Obamacare make November look bleak for Harry Reid and his Senate Democratic cohorts. â—¾Alaska, Mark Begich â—¾Arkansas, Mark Pryor â—¾Louisiana, Mary Landrieu â—¾Michigan, Open Seat (liberal Democrat Carl Levin retiring) â—¾Montana, John Walsh â—¾North Carolina, Kay Hagan â—¾South Dakota, being vacated by retiring Democrat Tim Johnson...

While Julie Boonstra of Dexter, Mich., struggles to survive leukemia, she now also has to cope with being called a liar by the Democrat who wants to be her next senator. And the campaign of Rep. Gary Peters is also going after television stations airing ads in which her story is featured, threatening their licenses. The ad by Americans for Prosperity features Boonstra talking about how her insurance was canceled under Obamacare and saying that Peters' decision to vote for the law "jeopardized my health." The ads are airing in Michigan as Peters seeks the Democratic nomination to replace Sen....

The race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan is still rated "Democratic Favored" by some Washington prognosticators, but the contest is starting to look like a toss-up.

The Michigan Senate race was supposed to be an easy win for Democratic Rep. Gary Peters, but former Republican Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land has taken a commanding lead in the latest poll released Monday over her Democratic counterpart. Land has an 8 point lead in the Conservative Intel/Harper Poll of Michigan conducted Jan. 7-8 of 1,004 likely voters, with 44 percent of Michigan voters saying they would vote for Land over 36 percent who said they would vote for Peters. Land also lead by 2 percentage points in the survey from liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling in December by...

EDITED TO AVOID BORING FREEPERS TO DEATH.....several stalwarts of the Democratic caucus write the final chapter in their Senate careers.....among the last connections to the “Old Bulls” w/ some 150 years of combined service. Five top Democratic chairmen are now in their final year as senators. Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin of Michigan Levin, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia are set to depart when their terms expire. Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., is expected to resign early to become the U.S. ambassador to China. ,.....the new Old Bulls are...

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said Tuesday that he cannot support Sen. Kelly Ayotte's (R-N.H.) bill to repeal $6 billion in cuts to military pensions because of the way it offsets the costs. Levin initially told reporters Tuesday that he would back Ayotte's bill, providing a big boost to the effort to reverse the military retiree cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) reduction included in the last month’s budget deal. But a Levin aide said that the Armed Services chairman endorsed Ayotte's bill before realizing that it restored the cuts by preventing illegal immigrants from claiming a child tax credit....

......Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.), one of just three Democrats who opposed his colleagues’ naked power grab, read those words on the Senate floor Thursday after Reid invoked the nuclear option. The rumpled Levin is not known for his oratory. But he is retiring next year and free to speak his mind — and his words were potent. “We need to change the rules, but to change it in the way we changed it today means there are no rules except as the majority wants them,” Levin said. “This precedent is going to be used, I fear, to change the rules...

A new poll shows Democratic U.S. Rep Gary Peters and Republican Terri Lynn Land with the same amount of support in a potential matchup for a seat representing Michigan in the U.S. Senate. According to the results released Thursday, 39 percent of likely voters polled said they would support Peters and 39 percent said they would back Land if they were matched up in Michigan's 2014 U.S. Senate general election. Twenty-two percent said they were undecided. The poll was commissioned and released by Lambert, Edwards & Associates. It was conducted by Denno Research. Candidates will be competing to replace long-term...

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander (R) Montana Senator Max Baucus (D) Alaska Senator Mark Begich (D) Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss (R) Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran (R) Maine Senator Susan Collins (R) Texas Senator John Cornyn (R) Massachusetts Senator William "Mo" Cowan (D) Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi (R) Minnesota Senator Al Franken (DFL) South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R) North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan (D) Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (D) Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe (R) Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns (R) South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson (D) Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) Michigan Senator Carl Levin (D) Kentucky...

A House-passed bill to ensure the military gets paid under any government shutdown was approved without dissent in the Senate on Monday — a rare bipartisan agreement as Congress stumbled toward midnight when the fiscal year ends and current appropriations expire. The measure, now on its way to President Barack Obama’s desk, would also ensure continued pay for civilian employees of the Defense Department and Pentagon contractors whom Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel determines “are providing support to members of the Armed Forces.” Put forward by House Republicans, the bill is considered good politics for the GOP, since analysts suggest the...

The recent military coup in Egypt has prompted a renewed debate about American aid to the country. Sens. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, have both called for cutting off aid, while the White House has said it’s in no hurry to end the aid. We've taken a step back and tried to answer some basic questions, including how much the U.S. is giving Egypt, what's changed in the two years since the Arab Spring and who is benefiting from all the money. How much does the U.S. spend on Egypt? Egypt receives more U.S....

The junior senator has the support of Republican colleagues Rand Paul and Sen. Ted Cruz on a measure to overhaul how the military handles sexual assault allegations. Her work has garnered praise from GOP members as a Democrat they’d like to work with and is helping her own set of issues in Washington.,/i> WASHINGTON — It was a head-turning sight on Capitol Hill. There was Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, standing with firebrand Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to showcase their support of her measure to overhaul how the military handles sexual assault allegations....

On 19 July 2013, Martin E. Dempsey, the Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered an unclassified letter to Senator Carl Levin concerning the risks of US military intervention in Syria. While the letter is was ostensibly delivered to the Senate, it actually delivered the equivalent to ten American thermonuclear bombs hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem simultaneously. While the letter was supposedly written by Dempsey, it was surely approved and intensely vetted by President Obama himself. So while the letter had Dempsey’s signature, it was Obama’s policy. The Dempsey/Obama letter outlined all the catastrophic effects which would...

Rep. David Camp (R-Mich.) will decide whether or not to run for Senate by next January. “I always knew I was going to be on the ballot. We run every two years in the House. “I just don’t know where I’m going to be on the ballot at this point,” he told Bloomberg TV in an interview airing Friday evening. “I think certainly by January, I’ll be able to know whether I’m going to do one or the other.” He said he was being encouraged to look at the race for the seat being vacated by Sen. Carl Levin (D)....

A day ago, Senator John McCain told Newsmax that the US needs to impose a no-fly zone in Syria to “negate Bashar Assad’s power” and force the regime to the negotiating table. Hours later, after McCain and Carl Levin demanded answers from the Joint Chiefs on why the military has not recommended this option, Joint Chiefs chair Martin Dempsey responded that a no-fly zone would cost between $500 million and $1 billion a month — and would largely be a non-sequitur anyway: "The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has told the Senate Armed Services Committee that establishing a...