Just 39% Believe Iraq Report Will Honestly Present Petraeus Views; 35% Say It Will Not
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
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General David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, will be issuing a formal progress report on the situation in Iraq next week. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 45% of American voters expect a positive report while 24% expect the opposite. Thirty-one percent (31%) are not sure.

However, just 39% believe the report will honestly and accurately reflect the General’s true assessment of the situation in Iraq. Thirty-five percent (35%) say it will not while 26% are not sure.

As with all polling questions on the topic of Iraq, there is a sharp divide along partisan lines. Republicans, by a 62% to 14% margin, expect a positive report. Democrats are evenly divided with 34% anticipating a positive report and 31% with the opposite view. Forty-two percent (42%) of those not affiliated with either major party say the report will be positive and 25% of unaffiliateds say negative.
By a 58% to 22% margin, Republicans expect the report to honestly reflect the views of Petraeus. Just 25% of Democrats share that assessment while 43% say the report will not accurately reflect what Petraeus thinks. Unaffiliateds are evenly divided.

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Judge strikes down part of Patriot Act

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A provision of the Patriot Act that requires people who are formally contacted by the FBI for information to keep it a secret is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled on Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero sided with the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit and argued that an FBI letter requesting information -- called a National Security Letter -- is effectively a gag order but without the authorization of a judge.

The FBI tells people who receive the letters to keep them secret, but recipients can challenge the secrecy order in court under a 2006 congressional amendment to the NSL law.

The law says judges must defer to the FBI's view that secrecy is necessary, undermining the judiciary's check on the power of the executive branch, the ACLU said.

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Conservative ‘Club’ Clipped by Big FEC Fine

Citizens Club for Growth Inc., a highly visible conservative activist organization, agreed to pay a $350,000 penalty to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for failing to register with the agency as a political committee and report its contributions and expenditures.

The group, which has recently undergone a reorganization, is one of a number of groups that organized with the Internal Revenue Service under Section 527 of the tax code primarily to conduct “issues advocacy,” but have drawn loud criticisms for running independent advertising during political campaigns that appeared clearly aimed at persuading viewers to vote for or (more often) against a candidate — a form of electioneering communication that comes under the regulatory purview of the FEC and the fundraising limitations under federal campaign finance laws.

The Club for Growth has been involved in dozens of congressional campaigns, and received considerable attention during the 2004 Republican Senate primary contest in Pennsylvania when the group sought to discredit the incumbent, GOP moderate Arlen Specter, as insufficiently conservative. Then-Rep. Patrick J. Toomey, the Club-backed candidate who came within 2 percentage points of upsetting Specter, is now the president of Club for Growth.

The agreement announced Wednesday would end a pending court case between the two parties, and if the deal is approved, it would be the largest civil penalty the FEC ever collected after an enforcement case has moved to litigation.

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