for her. and she passed away in 22 days. i do not think mitt romney realizes what he's done to anyone. and i, furthermore, do not think mitt romney is concerned. shannon: critics are calling the attack ad despicable, deplorable and blatantly false, but so far the obama campaign is refusing to denounce it or ask that it be withdrawn. earlier today governor romney took to the radio accusing president obama of overstepping the bounds of acceptable campaign speech while also alluding to the president's 2008 campaign. >> whatever happened to a campaign of hope and change -- >> yeah. >> i thought he was a new kind of politician. shannon: chief white house correspondent ed henry is traveling with the president live in pueblo, colorado. hello, ed. >> reporter: good to see you, shannon. you can hear the president right behind me making his case to people here in pueblo, and he is hitting mitt romney hard on the issue of taxes and what not. but as you say, he has not yet spokessen out against this democratic super pac ad that supports him. allies of his led by a former white house aide, he has not denounced it, the obama campaign has not denounced it. what the campaign has insisted is that they knew nothing about the details of this man's story even though we now know that the obama campaign, in fact, in may hosted a conference call with him, enabling him to tell his story about his wife dying of cancer, etc. so they at least knew some details of the story even though they've been insisting otherwise. and the bottom line is last night the president here in colorado was denouncing super pacs. take a listen. >> now, over the last, over the next three months, 89 days to be precise -- [laughter] [cheers and applause] the other side will be spending more money than we've ever seen. you've got these guys writing $10 million checks, you've got these super pacs that are just, just going crazy. no! >> reporter: now, you mentioned mitt romney today on the radio blasting the president, basically saying that he does not want to talk about the economy and jobs because it's not a good narrative for him. mitt romney saying instead the president's allies are in attack mode. take a listen. >> his campaign and the people working with him have focused almost exclusively on personal attacks. you know, in the past when people pointed out that something was inaccurate, why, campaigns either pulled the ad, they were embarrassed. today they just blast ahead. you know, the various fact checkers look at some of these charges in the obama ads, and they say that they're wrong and inaccurate, and yet he keeps on just running them. >> reporter: now, another interesting detail is the democratic super pac priorities usa has had financial issues, they've not been able to raise as much as some of the republican super pacs. it's not been a paid ad, instead it's gotten all this media attention. usually people like to get attention for their ads, but has this been all negative publicity that could end up backfiring on some of the president's allies, shannon? shannon: ed henry, live with the president in colorado, thank you so much. and the negative campaigning isn't limited to tv, the president's re-election team is using social media to dig up dirt on the opposition, most recently sending an e-mail to supporters asking for info on potential vice presidential picks. supporters in ohio got a message directing them to a web site asking for their thoughts on senator rob portman. floridians got a similar message asking for dirt on senator marco rubio. it's a form people can fill out with damaging stories or opinions they may have. it isn't the first time the administration or the obama campaign has asked americans to report back, essentially, with information on political opponents. chris stirewalt is the fox news digital politics editor and host of "power play" on foxnews.com. we talked a little bit about these vp e-mails the other day, but we mentioned this isn't the first time the administration's reached out. you know, they had previous campaigns, if you see something that's not true about the health care laws or other issues, we want to know. is this just standard practice? >> well, it's certainly standard practice for team obama, and in this case something you get out of it is a sense of participation for the grassroots, the people feel like they're involved in the process. but this is something they started doing in 2008. they called it stop the smears. and when president obama was a senator and he was an underdog against hillary clinton and then maybe against john mccain, it was one thing to say, hey, look, we need your help, we're running this political insurgency to change washington and clean up politics, so help us out, stop the smears. now when you do this kind of stuff, and we certainly saw this reaction when it came to the white house asking for people to forward on e-mails to, essentially, report their neighbors who were spreading what democrats said were untruths about the president's 2010 health law, it gets a little creepy. there's a slight whiff of big brother in it in the sense that they're asking people to crowd source opposition research here, that they're saying tell us what you know, and then we will put it into the collective, and we'll use it against this person. there's nothing wrong with it, but it's hard for president obama always to understand the difference, it seems, between being an outsider looking for the help of your supporters to being the most powerful man in the world. and it's a fine line. shannon: well, and this campaign, though, seems to have done well with trying to personalize things. we've seen many, many ads dealing with bain, and this gentleman talking about losing his wife and after losing his job and eventually no health insurance and her passing away, um, these vp e-mails sound very similar and they're saying if you have a story about something that's gone wrong with one of these individuals who could be on the vp short list, we want to know. is that a different angle, making sure they can have personal stories, people they can put in front of the camera to say you don't want to vote for this person because this is how they hurt me? >> oh, absolutely. and the goal would be there that somebody would say when rob portman voted for xyz, it caused this to happen, it hurt my life, it devastated me, and it's something the president likes to do, to personalize things. if we think back to 2008, one of the strongest moments of the night obama accepted the democratic nomination, they emphasized the stories, the personal narratives of people who said they had been hurt by republican policies and were looking for help from democrats. and so it's -- that's very good politics, and it's very good politics to engage people in this sort of participation. but, again, the danger is that it has a slight whiff of it when you have the president doing which is, please, report on what somebody else has done, it was worse when it was your neighbor in the health care law, but in this case there's still some of that there. shannon: all right. chs stirewalt, 11:30 a.m. eastern every day on the interweb. thank you, sir. >> thank you, ma'am. shannon: it was only a few months ago that the president said it doesn't have to be this way. >> finally, none of this can happen unless we also lower the temperature in this town. we need to end the notion that the two parties must be locked in a perpetual campaign of mutual destruction, that politics is about clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas. shannon: all right, so what happened? where did we change course? at the bottom of the hour, we're going to talk to our panel about what happens next or if what we're seeing this year is simply the new standard for presidential campaigning. developing story on capitol hill where members of congress are demanding answers after new report details widespread fraud at the irs. they want to know why so many applications for taxpayer id numbers were filed using the same addresses. in one case nearly 24,000 tax refunds totaling more than $46 million went to a single address in atlanta. now irs employees say their bosses discouraged them from investigating. steve centanni is live in washington with this bizarre story. hello, steve. >> reporter: hi, shannon. that report from the treasury department found 154 mailing addresses that were each used a thousand times or more in filing applications for these individual taxpayer identification numbers. these are the id numbers that usually go to nonresident workers. the result, millions in fraudulent refunds were sent out. for example, the case you mentioned, from one single address in atlanta, georgia, 23,994 returns were filed, and refunds were issued totaling more than $46.3 million. in another case, an address in oxnard, california, was used and more than 2500 returns were mailed for refunds totaling $10.4 million. now, this all came to light because of complaints to congress by irs employees. the report says the irs has not established adequate controls over questionable applications for these itins, and it says the agency needs better training, better documentation so they can spot these problems and prevent fraud that could cost taxpayers billions of dollars. the agency itself responded to the report by saying, quote: the irs has moved quickly and aggressively to address issues that were identified. we've already taken major steps to strengthen our documentation standards required in order to maintain an itin, and we have -- obtain an itin, and we've significantly increased our scrutiny of applications. now, congress, of course, looking into this. one key member of a house committee saying this kind of red flag ought to draw more scrutiny. congressman charles boustany saying we need to know why the irs is not catching this fraud, shannon? shannon: good question. thank you, steve. >> reporter: you bet. shannon: we've got some breaking news, big news from overseas right now. a very high-level report that iran could be a whole lot closer to having a nuclear bomb than the u.s. previously thought. ambassador john bolton is on his way to our washington bureau to help us sort through this brand new report. into and a serious new controversy in one of the most important senate races of the year. a group, led in part by one candidate's daughter, gets voter registration sent to a specific group of targeted voters. the state's paying for it, and we're going to show you why the political questions get worse from there. plus, kleenex alert. the amazing story of just how far one man is willing to go to show how much he loves his sick dog. ♪ lean on me when you're not strong, and i'll be your friend, i'll help you carry on ♪ shannon: u.s. gymnast aly raisman paid tribute to the 11 israeli athletes massacred during the 1972 munich games. following her error-free floor exercises, she made a point of telling reporters how much it meant to her. she is jewish, even used the traditional hebrew folk song as the music accompanying her routine. congrats to her. troubling new questions in the neck and neck senate race in massachusetts. is liz warren's daughter using taxpayer money to help her mom beat scott brown? that's the question. amelia warren is the chair of the board of trustees for a group called denos. last week it was connect today a lawsuit claiming massachusetts violated federal laws by not offering people on welfare the chance to register to vote when they went and signed up for public assistance. as part of the settlement reached last month, the state is now sending voter registration forms to nearly half a million welfare recipients, and it is the taxpayers picking up the tab. listen to a local reporter asking warren about the controversy. >> do you think these are dirty tricks at all, or, i mean, what about charges that, you know, this is just an attempt to get more democratic voters to support you? >> you know, this is about compliance with the law so that the laws are currently, the law should be enforced, and i think that's exactly -- >> no dirty tricks or anything? >> look, you know, no one likes to see a tax on their family. um, but this is about a law that's been in place for 20 years. and this organization was working on enforcement of this law before amelia ever even joined it. shannon: michael graham is with wtkk-fm and a columnist for the boston herald. what do you make of this? what's the reaction like there? >> first of all, thank you for shouting out to aly, our local hero, the gymnast who did her routine on the 40th anniversary of the palestinian terror. my listeners love her, and they just saw that piece -- i apologize for taking up time. shannon: no, she was flawless. >> oh, she's terrific, and we love aly in massachusetts. i don't want to preview my column too much, but the rest of the country naive people, wild-eyed and innocent believe in the tooth fairy and unicorns n. massachusetts people believe in coincidence. the sheer coincidence that these welfare recipients had never seen a stack of registration forms nearby, and she just by coincidence gets found by elizabeth warren's daughter's group just in time, by coincidence, for a may lawsuit before the election, that by coincidence the deval patrick administration immediately settles, they don't fight it, he settles it and says by coincidence our solution's going to be to mail registration forms to 478,000 welfare recipients. what a coincidence for the democrats on the eve of a tight election. shannon: well, you mentioned, you know, the governor there did not challenge this. these suits are going on in a number of different states, but my understanding is this is costing roughly $275,000 of taxpayer money, they've also got to run tv and radio ads, and the secretary of state has to go out and do some public appearances where he explains the law in person to those who may be affected. do you think it'll sway folks at all? confusion for them about whether these voter registrations are connected to their benefits in any way? >> you mentioned the governor, the law firm that brought the lawsuit against the patrick administration, one of the partners is the governor's wife. so once again, oh, what a coincidence that the governor got a lawsuit that he loved right when he wanted it that gave him permission to send out these voter registrations. secondly, who sent them out? our secretary of state, as you pointed out, is the election official. but these 478,000 welfare recipients got registrations from the welfare department. so, yeah, maybe they don't follow politics, maybe they've never voted before, they get a letter that usually has their check in it, but all of a sudden instead there's a thing that says fill out this voter registration form, it's important. do you think they're going to wonder or say, hey, this is from the welfare office for some reason, i'd better send it in. shannon: well, as elizabeth warren, to be fair, mentioned the law does require this in a number of states, that authorities have to be sure people know these forms are available, they have to reach out to them, so isn't this merely just the state doing what it's supposed to be doing anyway, enforcing the law? >> no, the settlement is not necessary. in other words, it's kind of like a player who doesn't like the basketball team he's on, and he wants the hem to kick him off -- them to kick him off? i used to work for the secretary of state in south carolina in my days as a political consultant. you can put the stacks of forms in. our voter registration doesn't close until october 17th. if they just went around with stacks of forms, that lady at the welfare office who complained would have one in front of her the next time she went in. they chose a solution that they didn't need for a problem that didn't exist to help elizabeth warren win an election, and her daughter led the effort, and almost everyone on the panel of this group, the demos group is a democrat. many of them have given money to elizabeth warren. this is how massachusetts plans to steal this seat from scott brown. that's the plan. shannon: it's going to be close. we'll be watching it, we know you will too. michael graham, thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. shannon: we're just moments away from an important report on an obama super pac advertisement that's been called misleading, false and despicable. what are the real facts behind a steel company that had to close plants to save jobs at three other facilities? we'll look at what it's doing to the 2012 presidential race. you can see the facts for yourself. and as new and troubling details emerge on what happened the night randy travis was found drunk, naked and threatening to hurt other people, we talk to stormy warren, a country music insider who has interviewed the superstar many times. he can hopefully shed some light on what went so badly, badly wrong here. >> did you almost hit him? >> i don't know. it looked like it was a deer at first, but as i came by, it looks -- questions. when you're caring for a loved one with alzheimer's, not a day goes by that you don't have them. questions about treatment where to go for extra help, how to live better with the disease. so many questions, where do you start? alzheimers.gov. the answers start here. his morning starts with arthritis pain. and two pills. afternoon's overhaul starts with more pain. more pills. triple checking hydraulics. the evening brgs more pain. so, back to more pills. almost done, when... hang on. stan's doctor recommended aleve. it can keep pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is rudy. who switched to aleve. and two pills for a day free of pain. ♪ [ female announcer ] and try aleve for relief from tough headaches. shannon: this is a fox news alert, we have roughly 90 minutes away from what could become a key hearing in the colorado movie theater massacre. media organizations, including fox news, are asking a judge to loosen a gag order and allow access to documents that could shed light on who knew james holmes was a threat ahead of the attack that killed a dozen people and injured many, many more. casey steegal is standing by in centennial, colorado, with the latest. hey, casey. >> reporter: hi, shannon. 21 different media organizations including the fox news channel fighting this because, as you know, typically, most court documents are a matter of public record. that's how members of the press are able to get information out to the public. but because this case is so heinous and because of the national attention it received, judge william sylvester not only sealed the files, but also the court docket which means we cannot even see what records or documents have been filed, and that is rare. the motion, filed by the press, states that this violates the public's constitutional right of access, but the prosecution and defense see it a whole different way. >> there is a tension between the right of the public to know what's going on and the right of of the defendant to a fair trial. the judge needs to protect the defendant's right to a fair trial, and i expect the press not to get everything that they want. >> reporter: now, a lot of key components here, but one of the big items that would be revealed if these documents were unsealed, how the responding police officers identified james holmes as the shooter, and that would be included in the arrest affidavits, and it would also allow us to see public records from the university of colorado giving us some potential insight into his record there as a ph.d. student and treatment he was receiving from a university psychiatrist. so a lot is at stake here. we will in terms of moving forward on coverage of this story, also the notion of allowing cameras inside the court