“Nevada state authorities seized records and computers Tuesday from the Las Vegas office of an organization that tries to get low-income people registered to vote, after fielding complaints of voter fraud.

Bob Walsh, spokesman for the Nevada secretary of state’s office, told FOXNews.com the raid was prompted by ongoing complaints about “erroneous” registration information being submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN.

The group was submitting the information through a voter sign-up drive known as Project Vote.

“Some of them used nonexistent names, some of them used false addresses and some of them were duplicates of previously filed applications,” Walsh said, describing the complaints, which largely came from the registrar in Clark County, Nev.

Secretary of State Ross Miller said the fraudulent registrations included forms for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team.

“Tony Romo is not registered to vote in the state of Nevada, and anybody trying to pose as Terrell Owens won’t be able to cast a ballot on Nov. 4,” Miller said.

Walsh said agents from both the secretary of state’s office and Nevada attorney general’s office conducted the raid at 9:30 a.m. local time, and “took a bunch of stuff.”

ACORN spokesman Charles Jackson confirmed the group’s Nevada office was raided. He would not comment further to FOXNews.com. “

“The Senate voted on Wednesday against considering a measure to give Guantanamo detainees and other foreigners the right to challenge their detention in the U.S. courts.

The legislation needed 60 votes to be considered by lawmakers in the Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats; it received only 56, with 43 voting against the effort to roll back a key element of President George W. Bush’s war on terrorism.

The measure would have granted foreign terrorism suspects the right of habeas corpus, Latin for “you have the body,” which prevents the government from locking people up without review by a court.

Congress last year eliminated this right for non-U.S. citizens labeled “enemy combatants” by the government. The Bush administration said this was necessary to prevent them from being set free and attacking Americans.

The move affected about 340 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban captives held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. It also affects millions of permanent legal residents of the United States who are not U.S. citizens, said one of the sponsors of the bipartisan measure, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

“Any of these people could be detained forever without the ability to challenge their detention in federal court” under the changes in law Congress made last year, Leahy said on the Senate floor. This was true “even if they (authorities) made a mistake and picked up the wrong person.”

“This was a mistake the last Congress and the (Bush) administration made, based on fear,” Leahy said.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican opposing the measure, said lawmakers should not allow “some of the most brutal vicious people in the world to bring lawsuits against their own (U.S.) troops” who had picked up the detainees on the battlefield.

Giving habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees would “really intrude into the military’s ability to manage this war,” Graham said, adding that it was “something that has never been granted to any other prisoner in any other war.”

I don’t know if I said it this week yet, but Leahy’s an ass. If you ever wanted to the see the liberal personification of hate towards the US, national security or the troops, Senator Leaky Pants is your man.

As I posted yesterday terrorist have no rights under habeas corpus, which is found in the US Constitution and applies only to citizens of the US.

A good and significant victory for the War on Terror.

“CONGRESS IS once again poised to consider legislation to give those held as enemy combatants the right to challenge their detention in U.S. federal court. As a matter of law and conscience, lawmakers should act quickly to pass it.

It’s one of the sad and confounding legacies of the administration’s war on terrorism that the United States has imprisoned for years people who have had no real chance to challenge their imprisonment. This failure falls primarily on the shoulders of the Bush administration. From the earliest days after the terrorist strikes of Sept. 11, 2001, the administration resisted extending even a modicum of due process to those whose freedom it unilaterally stripped away. That was not only un-American but unwise. Rather than fortifying its position, the administration’s intransigence has been counterproductive and has led to reversals in the Supreme Court — reversals that may prove more significant than the modest concessions the administration could have made to fend off critics. The president’s own pick for attorney general, former New York federal judge Michael B. Mukasey, rapped the administration for denying legal representation even to Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen.”

Administration allies in Congress also bear responsibility for failing to craft an alternative legal system that could have served the interests of national security while bestowing on detainees meaningful legal protections. The tribunals and commissions at Guantanamo Bay concocted for such purposes were laughable in their ineffectiveness and deplorably lacking in fundamental fairness. When federal courts began to shoot down the tribunals and commissions as legally insufficient, what did Congress do? It passed a law to strip judges of jurisdiction over these cases.”

Nowhere does our constitution give rights to those who would destroy our life and liberty. The writer of this so-called editorial (must be from one of the lefty blogs), makes assertions that are not factual nor even close to such. This stupid argument to grant habeas-corpus rights to alien terrorists needs quelched an it most likely will be.

Andy McCarthy wrote last year:

“First, Congress cannot ‚Äúsuspend‚Äù habeas corpus by denying it to people who have no right to it in the first place. The right against suspension of habeas corpus is found in the Constitution (art. I, 9). Constitutional rights belong only to Americans ‚Äî that is, according to the Supreme Court, U.S. citizens and those aliens who, by lawfully weaving themselves into the fabric of our society, have become part of our national community (which is to say, lawful permanent resident aliens). To the contrary, aliens with no immigration status who are captured and held outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and whose only connection to our country is to wage a barbaric war against it, do not have any rights, much less ‚Äúbasic rights,‚Äù under our Constitution.”

Additionally terrorist have no “treaty right”. Even more the argument that they should have the right to challange their detention is based on inaccurate information as they already have that ability thought the Detainee Treatment Act, which requires that the military grant each detainee a Combatant Status Review Tribunal.

In essense this is nothing more than the left doing what it does best in the approach to terrorism – coddle and cuddle, which brought us nothing more than 9/11 in the first place.

I’ve spoken with both Senators and House Representatives from the GOP in the State of Florida and all have told me that while this is being pushed hard it’s simply not going to pass, and even if it did it’s a veto via the President.

There is a hugh misconception that “this is it”, that after this report if there is not significant progress (according the Democrat’s expectations) then we’re pulling out and coming home.

This of course is false. The Report is a progress report but as to whether or not troops will head home is under the sole command of the President as advised by his military leaders on the ground.

In case you missed it the the report won’t make any minds change on the Democrat side – they’ve made them up already. That’s why they done all those “side order” reports such as from the GAO and others to show that nothing is working out and that all is lost. It’s a familiar script and tactic of the Democrats to nuke that which they do not like.

Again, it makes little difference what report they believe or even if they believe Patraeus and Crocker. The only way Democrats and RINOS stop the war is by pulling the funding – period. That is something they are not going to do for one simple reason.

Again, Vietnam. No matter how much they protest the use of the comparison between 1975 and today the pure and simple fact is that they do not want a repeat of the after-effects that they experienced after Saigon fell and they were forced to the back end of the political wilderness.

The other reason is that according to US News and World Report, is that over the recess Republicans have actually seized an advantage in the debate:

“Rank-and-file Democrats in Congress are criticizing the party’s leaders for allowing the White House to sap momentum from the antiwar movement during the August recess. ‘The White House is taking great advantage of the Democrats not pushing back,’ said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, California Democrat and co-founder of the antiwar Out of Iraq Caucus.” The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, reports the new approach could expose the Democrats in particular to potentially harsh criticism from the party’s left wing that they have abandoned the real fight to end the war now.”

The reason they are not “pushing back” is because the moderate – and so far controlling – group of the Democrats aren’t relishing a return to the wilderness and deciding to “retreat” themselves and let things play out. This has basically neutralized Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi’s moves to end the war.

The Patraeus report is going to show significant military gains and subsequent improvements in security and will only receed if we exit Irag or even reduce troops past a “token” level. The “political situation” argument is stupid because no one at the beginning fo the surge believe that the Iraq government would be hitting on all eight cylinders by now. Yet thats exactly what the democrats are now focused on.

Not withstanding that the rememergence of a sickly and fake bearded Bin Laden who says himself that the fight is now in Iraq. The Democrats cannot afford be recalled again as the party that pulled troops from the fight against the mastermind of 9/11.

The Patraeus/Crocker report is a milestone by it’s not the end of the road for the right to secure Iraq.

“Federal counterterrorism officials are analyzing a posting on an Islamic forum Web site that warns of “a special gift” to be given on the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11, FOX News has learned.

The warning was posted Sept. 2 on a site frequented by radical groups and said in part that “there will be a special gift coming on the day of the blessed invasion of Manhattan.”

Federal officials told FOX News they are trying to determine if it might be a specific warning or just part of broad chatter that has been heard during the last few months.

Postings talking about “gifts” have been seen before in the days leading up to the anniversary of Sept. 11.”

According to Dr. Rusty “John Doe” Shackleford, the “surprise” is a apparently an audio tape possibly another “Bin Laden” type.

“I can reveal that the website of interest is that of Inshallahshaheed’s The Ignored Puzzle of Knowledge’. The particular post in question is simply a preview of an audio set to be released on Sept. 11.

The post says:

Soon …. Soon … Soon … Soon… the blessed invasion of Manhattan

September 2, 2007

Posted by inshallahshaheed in United States of Losers, Jihad, America

ÿ®ÿ?ŸÄŸÄŸÄŸÄŸÖ ÿߟџџá ÿߟÑÿ±ÿ?ŸÖŸÜ ÿߟÑÿ±ÿ?ŸÄŸÄŸÄŸÄŸäŸÖ [In the name of God, the Merciful]“

The blog has actually been deleted but Rusty has the screen captures.

By the way yours truly is actually traveling on 9/11, flying……phew. But I’m a dedicated blogger so if the airport wifi is up I’ll be living blogging the whole experience!

UPDATE: Hot Air has the news that the “gift” is a video of Bin Laden to be released in the next 72 hours. Here is the screen shot.

Only one frame but after blowing it up a bit, if indeed Bin Laden IS alive he’s half dead by the looks of it. Note the droop of the right eye and the jaundice (could be lighting), but we know that he reportedly has diabetes and these signs show a definite progression.

All in all not so much a “surprise” and a bit of an anticlimax considering all the scurrying of the MSM.

In the last two weeks we’ve been reading about all these “qasi” reports from the GAO, and other democrat fueled sources that the surge isn’t working, that Iraq is a mess and we should get out while we can. I’ve told you that there is no reason for them to have commissioned these so-called reports unless they flat off don’t trust Patreaus and Crocker. Yet instead of having the intestinal fortitude to say so they’ve been playing this game of “just to be sure”. Well now it looks like they’ve finally decided to come clean.

The Washington Times today tells us:

“Congressional Democrats are trying to undermine U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus’ credibility before he delivers a report on the Iraq war next week, saying the general is a mouthpiece for President Bush and his findings can’t be trusted.

“The Bush report?” Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin said when asked about the upcoming report from Gen. Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq.

“We know what is going to be in it. It’s clear. I think the president’s trip over to Iraq makes it very obvious,” the Illinois Democrat said. “I expect the Bush report to say, ‘The surge is working. Let’s have more of the same.’ ”

The top Democrats ‚Äî Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California ‚Äî also referred to the general’s briefing as the “Bush report.”

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Gen. Petraeus’ report was potentially compromised by the White House’s involvement in drafting it.

“If the same people who were so wrong about this war from the start are writing substantial portions of this report, that raises credibility questions,” he said.”

The only “credibility problem” is with the democrats themselves. Just four months ago they were saying wait until after the Patraus/Crocker report. Then when it appeared that significant progress had been made they began to change gears and attack the messenger.

But you know, I’m actually welcoming the upcoming “show their ass” circus. I want them to begin to belittle General Patraus and Crocker before the American people, calling them in effect “liars”, because they won’t be able to do so without slandering the very troops in combat that they say they support.

We’ve already seen this with Senator Chucky Cheese Schumer when on the Senate floor he basically told the American people that the troops in Anbar had nothing to do with the success there.

All this is going to backfire bad, just as it did in Vietnam and the aftermath. The “soft on defense” “weak on terror” lable will simply continue sticking and in fact may become bronzed after September.

“VENICE (Reuters) – A new film about the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers who also murdered her family stunned the Venice festival, with shocking images that left some viewers in tears.

“Redacted”, by U.S. director Brian De Palma, is one of at least eight American films on the war in Iraq due for release in the next few months and the first of two movies on the conflict screening in Venice’s main competition.

Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, it is a harrowing indictment of the conflict and spares the audience no brutality to get its message across.

De Palma, 66, whose “Casualties of War” in 1989 told a similar tale of abuse by American soldiers in Vietnam, makes no secret of the goal he is hoping to achieve with the film’s images, all based on real material he found on the Internet.

“The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people,” he told reporters after a press screening.

“The pictures are what will stop the war. One only hopes that these images will get the public incensed enough to motivate their Congressmen to vote against this war,” he said.”

Causalities of War you’ll remember was the movie staring *snort* Sean (Spicoli) Penn and Michael J. Fox. It was along the genre of “Platoon” showing leftwing stereotypical pictures of crazed out of control troops razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan….blah, blah. What De Palma did with Causualties was to take basically John Kerry’s lies and unconfirmed acusations and create a film that made people think that Penn and Fox were every soldier that ever fought in Vietnam.

The rape of this young girl happened, but it didn’t happen everwhere, and it was a few – like Abu Grab – out of hundreds of throusand of troops that served honorably and gave the ulimate sacrifice.

The Reuters (an antiwar rag in it’s own right) continues of “Redacted”:

“Halfway between documentary and fiction, “Redacted” draws on soldiers’ home-made war videos, blogs and journals and footage posted on YouTube, reflecting changes in the way the media cover the war.”

“Halfway between documentary and fiction”…

In otherwords, just like Casualties it’s bullshit.

I agree with Lieberman that it’s long past the time that we dealt with pressuring Syria to stop harboring and aiding terrorists.¬† President Bush long ago said that we would deal with any country who does so and while we are now beginning to address Iran through a reclassification of the the Revolutionary Guard, we should also show Syria that we will not tolerate their complicity any longer.

“WASHINGTON – The government must answer a watchdog group’s demands to release records about the nation’s classified terrorist spying program, the chief judge of a secretive national security court has ruled.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which announced the order Friday, said it was the first time the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had responded to a request filed by the public.

In her 2-page order, dated Aug. 16, Presiding Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly called the ACLU’s demand “an unprecedented request that warrants further briefing…

“It remains unclear whether the court records will ever be unsealed. Kollar-Kotelly ordered the Justice Department to respond to the ACLU’s request by Aug. 31. If Justice officials want to seal parts of their response, the government must explain why to the court, which will have the final say.

In turn, the ACLU must answer the government’s response by Sept. 14.”

You’ll remember that Kollar-Kotelly prompted the WSJ in a 2006 editorial to ask, “Who elected her to run national security? “. Here’s a snippet:

“We’d like to thank the Washington Post for publishing a story yesterday that so quickly proved our editorial point of the same day about the folly of putting judges in control of national security decisions. That’s what we call service.

The front-page story reported that on rare occasion the Bush Administration has used information from the NSA’s warrantless foreign-linked wiretaps to seek domestic wiretapping authority from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This was said to have upset chief FISA judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, and the tenor of the story is that this is one more example of how the warrantless wiretaps are an abuse of power. But the better question is, Who elected Ms. Kollar-Kotelly?

The story’s real news is that Judge Kollar-Kotelly, and her predecessor, Judge Royce Lamberth, took it upon themselves to erect a new “wall” concerning how intelligence is to be used to protect America. They decided that pertinent information gleaned from a warrantless wiretap should never be used later to justify a domestic warrant. But why not? If a tip gathered from an email from Pakistan leads to suspicion about an American-based contact, what’s wrong with using that news to get a legal warrant to track that suspect in the U.S.? It might even prevent a domestic attack.

In any event, why is an unelected judge such as Ms. Kollar-Kotelly making these decisions? Under the Constitution, those calls ought to be made by the President, who swears to defend the U.S. and can be held accountable by the voters if he fails. Under the current FISA court process, Judge Kollar-Kotelly answers essentially to no one.”

Kollar-Kottelly is a Clinton appointee so it’s no surprise that she would be of the mindset that the judiciary would have powers over the executive the excution of war policy.

The DOJ should appeal this ruling and if so it will be overturned as it’s obvious a matter of national security. Yet I believe that McCarthy is absolutely right that now more than ever we should end the reign of these elite judges abolish FISA.

UPDATE: Via the Washington Post:

“David B. Rivkin Jr., a partner at Baker Hostetler and a Justice Department official in the Reagan administration, said he is skeptical that the ACLU can pry loose the orders. Rivkin also argued that it is unclear whether the secret court, which meets inside the Justice Department building, has the authority to release such documents over objections from the executive branch.

“The order is unusual, and the request is also unusual,” Rivkin said. “But I would be amazed if that request were granted in the end.”

The only previous ruling to be made public from the secret court came in 2002, when the panel rejected new surveillance guidelines proposed by the Justice Department. A special appeals court overturned the ruling later that year.”

Again, the Judicial Branch does not have authority over the Executive in the execution of war policy or implementation of National Security, I agree that it’s highly unlikely the ACLU wins this one.

Jim Geraghty at NRO notes:

“Take a look at these striking comments from five-term Congressman Brian Baird, D-Wash., who voted against the invasion in 2002, after recently returning from Iraq:

U.S. Rep. Brian Baird said Thursday that his recent trip to Iraq convinced him the military needs more time in the region, and that a hasty pullout would cause chaos that helps Iran and harms U.S. security…

With Congress poised next month to look at U.S. progress in Iraq and a vote looming on U.S. funding for the war, Baird said he’s inclined to seek a continued U.S. presence in Iraq beyond what many impatient Americans want. He also expects Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees U.S. troops in Iraq, to seek a redeployment of forces. “People may be upset. I wish I didn’t have to say this,” Baird said. He added that the United States needs to continue with its military troops surge “at least into early next year, then engage in a gradual redeployment. ‚Ķ I know it’s going to cost hundreds of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.”

It was Baird’s fifth trip to the Middle East, and he conceded that what he has learned has put him again in an unpopular position with some voters. He no longer thinks partitioning Iraq into Sunni, Shiite and Kurd sections is possible, for instance; no one he spoke to in Israel, Jordan, Palestinian cities or Iraq liked the idea, he added.

Baird said he would not say this if he didn’t believe two things:

‚Ä¢ “One, I think we’re making real progress.”

‚Ä¢ “Secondly, I think the consequences of pulling back precipitously would be potentially catastrophic for the Iraqi people themselves, to whom we have a tremendous responsibility ‚Ķ and in the long run chaotic for the region as a whole and for our own security.”

Smart man that Baird, but he is as other have been who have actually visited the situtation seeing only that are the facts. The surge is working. It’s a little late – yes – we should have done it two years ago. But the fact is that Al Qaeda is hurting and getting their can kicked all over Iraq.

This also shows the danger that exists when a war is going on during election years (for Democrats every year is election year). To most Democrats the only reason they have for opposing the war is that George Bush is the Commander and Chief. Talk to any Democrat and ask for specific reasons – based on facts – why they don’t support the surge, or even the war and they can’t give you an honest answer. They only know that they can’t because George Bush ordered it.

Instead they attack General Patraeus’s character when they aren’t worthy enough to stand in his presence.

Fact is that the outcome in Iraq will determine the destiny of the Middle East for many years after most of these dead-weight Democrats are dead and gone. While they’re out talking to the cameras about cutting and running and calling our marines murderers and village bombers they are doing nothing but showing that a vote for them would be disastrous for this nation.

Thankfully there are a few honest men and women who have actually gone to Iraq and viewed the success and have the guts to come back to tell the truth.