Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

As anyone who has given electronic voting more than a cursory look knows, the "flexibility" of these computer systems is also their weakest and most dangerous link. This weakness was underscored in Houston earlier this week when Johnnie German, the Harris County administrator of elections --- with proper witnesses looking on, including representatives of the two major parties --- accessed the county's eSlate system and altered the tally of votes on a tax referendum from the Nov. 6 ballot, according to the Houston Chronicle:

One witness, John R. Berman, a computer expert representing the Democrats, was unpleasantly surprised at how easily the votes could be changed:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Howard Krongard, the inspector general (IG) for the Bush State Dept., has recused himself from a second major probe under his purview. The new recusal was announced yesterday and came at the "request" of House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA).

This new development follows a dramatic moment during a hearing before Waxman's committee on Wednesday when Kronberg was forced to recuse himself from an investigation into Blackwater after it was revealed that, despite his earlier denials, his brother sits on an advisory board for the controversial paramilitary government security contractor. Making matters potentially worse for Krongard, his brother, Buzzy Krongard, issued a statement after the hearing contradicting Howard's testimony regarding the timing of when Howard learned that Buzzy had accepted a seat on the Blackwater board.

It is unclear at the moment whether Democrats on the committee will pursue perjury charges against the State Dept. IG.

Krongard's latest recusal stems from what appears to be obstruction of justice and witness tampering in a criminal probe by the Dept. of Justice into the way billions of dollars in contracts for the construction of the U.S. embassy complex in Baghdad were let by the State Dept.:

James L. Golden, an embassy project overseer who works on a contract basis for the State Dept. in Washington, and who is also said to be a subject of the DoJ probe, may be the other person of interest Krongard met with.

Sean McCormack, a State Dept. spokesman, said Krongard recused himself from the embassy contracts investigation at Chairman Waxman's request:

Despite Krongard's removal from the two highest profile investigations by his office, McCormack says he still has the confidence of Sec. of State Condoleeza Rice.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

I happened to catch the end of Tucker Carlson's show on MSNBC a couple of Fridays ago, and heard him sign off with this:

All eight of you? It's not often you hear a cable host admit his ratings suck.

I knew someone at TVNewser would pick this up, and, sure enough:

In the background, of course, is the ratings success of "Countdown," Keith Olbermann's groundbreaking show at 5 p.m. Olbermann has surprised nearly everyone in the cable news business by creating a rating success with news slanted to the left and commentary that often excoriates George Bush and his regime.

"Countdown" has been on for more than four years so it was just a matter of time before the executives at MSNBC noticed (or could no longer deny) that Olbermann's show is the most successful live show in their line-up. Now it seems they're ready to copy Olbermann's success by bringing on another liberal host (which would make a grand total of two in all of TV land).

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

The White House is probably busy right now dusting off a Medal of Freedom --- as well as complete and full pardon --- for Howard "Cookie" Krongard, their inspector general (IG) at the State Dept. It appears that in Krongard's testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform yesterday, he made false statements under oath about the membership of his brother, Buzzy Krongard, on an advisory board for Blackwater, the controversial paramilitary security contractor based in North Carolina's Dismal Swamp.

Blackwater has close ties with Howard Krongard's bosses in the Bush administration, who have awarded over $100 million in contracts to the company since the invasion and occupation of Iraq began. The fact that the brother of the Bush State Dept.'s chief investigator into Blackwater's activities in Iraq is on Blackwater's payroll would appear to be a conflict of interest, to put it mildly.

Early in the hearings, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) laid out a series of allegations from officials in the State and Justice departments that Krongard has been stonewalling investigations into corruption and illegal activities by Blackwater and other U.S. personnel and companies in Iraq.

Here is video of Waxman's questioning and Krongard's evasive responses:

Laters, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) asked Krongard if his brother was a member of the Blackwater advisory board:

Howard Krongard responded, under oath, with a flat denial:

But during the break, Howard Krongard called his brother and found out that Buzzy did, indeed, sit on a Blackwater board:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Judith Regan, the tough-talking former book publisher and editor and television producer, has accused an executive at Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation of encouraging her to lie about her affair with Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, in order to protect the presidential aspirations of Kerik's friend, Rudolph Giuliani:

This story quashes any doubt which candidate the folks at NewsCorp are rooting for in the next election. Not that the revelation is particularly surprising. Giuliani is a close friend of Roger Ailes, the CEO of Fox News, NewsCorp's loss-leading marquee cable channel. With Rudy in the Oval Office, FNC's conduit into and out of the White House propaganda shop would be assured for four more years.

On a much more salacious level, even in the continuum of recent revelations of GOP adulteries --- think Sens. Larry Craig and David Vitter, Rev. Ted Haggard and publisher Richard Mellon Scaife, who funded the Arkansas Project to dig up dirt on the Clintons' marriage --- Regan's affair with Kerik was particularly sordid. While Kerik was hooking up with Regan, he was simultaneously having an affair with another woman, all while his wife was pregnant:

New from the American Research Group:
Bush:

Of all voters, 34 percent believe Bush should be impeached and removed from office, while another 21 percent believe Bush is guilty of impeachment-worthy offenses but nonetheless prefer to give him a pass. Thus 55 percent of all voters in the poll believe Bush is impeachable and yet, bizarre as it seems, a sizable minority (21 percent) of the folks who think Bush has committed high crimes and misdemeanors do not want the Congress to pursue impeachment.

Cheney:

Among all voters, 52 percent believe Cheney has committed impeachable offenses, and 43 percent believe he should be impeached and removed from office while only 9 percent believe he's guilty but should be allowed to complete his term.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Just when you think you have inured yourself to Bush-era outrage fatigue comes news that U.S. veterans were denied their free-speech rights to protest the U.S. occupation of Iraq on Veterans Day.

First, the organizers of the 11th Veterans Day Parade in Long Beach, CA, prohibited anti-war veterans groups from participating in the event on Saturday:

And in Boston on Sunday, 18 veterans were arrested after they peacefully protested the war at the Veterans Day parade:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Shorter George Bush: All Guns. No Butter:

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-WI) responded:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

In a ruling pursuant to lawsuits from two public interest groups in Washington, U.S. District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. issued a temporary restraining order against the Bush White House today, ordering it to preserve backups of millions of emails the administration claims to have deleted:

The lawsuits were brought separately by the National Security Archive, which is affiliated with George Washington University, and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and have since been combined. The groups sued the White House after it claimed in April that 5 million emails that were generated between March 2003 and October 2005 were "missing." Topics of intra-office communication during that period would likely have included Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 presidential campaign.

In reality, email can require quite a bit of effort to destroy. Copies of individual emails --- even emails that users believe they have deleted --- are saved on the hard drives of the sender, the recipient and often on the various servers in the relay. On the other hand, in the ensuing seven months since it announced that the emails were missing, Bush operatives have had time to wipe clean hundreds of back-up drives and servers.

This fact was apparently contemplated in Judge Kennedy's ruling, in which he agreed with the recommendation of U.S. Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola last month that a restraining order should be issued. "Without such an order," Facciola wrote, "destruction of the backup media would be without consequence."

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he is ruling out running for the U.S. Senate against Barbara Boxer in 2010. The governor was asked about his post-Sacramento plans after a Field poll showed him with a 1 percentage point lead over Boxer in an imaginary Senate match-up.

Boxer's dip in popularity probably reflects the general unhappiness among California liberals with the failure of Congress to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for lying in the run-up to the Iraq occupation and their systematic shredding of both the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, just for starters.

But Boxer has arguably done as much as she could to hold the Bushies accountable. And in her 2004 reelection bid she received the third highest number of votes of any candidate in the country, next to Bush and John Kerry, respectively. She will likely bounce back. (On the other hand, rebounding is less certain for our other senator, Dianne Feinstein, who outraged her constituents last week by voting to confirm Michael Mukasey as Bush's new attorney general, even after Mukasey indirectly acknowledged that he will continue to greenlight and give cover to Bush's torture policies. Feinstein is not up for reelection until 2012.)

Mainly, though, it's hard to imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger as just one of 100 big fish in the Senate pond.

Schwarzenegger also ruled out running for mayor of Los Angeles. This is a no-brainer. There is very little glory in being L.A.'s mayor. For one thing, the balance of power here tilts more toward the city council, and less toward the mayor, than in most big cities.

For another, despite the city's propensity for earthquakes, riots, and wildfires, no Los Angeles chief executive has ever been dubbed "America's Mayor" because he stayed on the job during a crisis. Unless there was a chance Arnold could become another America's Mayor, it is unlikely he'd be interested.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Today in war news:

• AP: 2007 Bloodiest Year for U.S. Troops in Iraq:
  
  The U.S. command announced six new deaths Tuesday, making 2007 the bloodiest year for American troops in Iraq despite a recent decline in casualties and a sharp drop in roadside bombings. With nearly two months left in the year, the annual toll is now 853 --- three more than the previous worst of 850 in 2004.
• AP: 2007 Deadliest for US in Afghanistan:
  
  Six U.S. troops were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in the high mountains of eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. The attack, the most lethal against American forces this year, made 2007 the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
• AFP: Bush Plays Video Games with Recovering War Veterans:
  
  US President George W. Bush had a shoot-out with the "bad guys" in Iraq on Thursday, playing a computer game with war veterans that simulates a firefight in Baghdad, the White House said. Bush tried his hand at the game with two soldiers during a visit to a rehabilitation center in Texas that treats veterans wounded in Iraq... Apart from the computer game session, Bush's visit with badly wounded soldiers was often emotional as he spoke with patients who had lost limbs or suffered severe burns in the Iraq war.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Here's a great photo of your host, Brad Friedman, and our mutual friend, Pam Spaulding, the inimitable blogmistress of Pam's House Blend, taken at BlogWorld in Las Vegas.

Brad and Pam spoke on a panel titled, "The Power of the Political Blogosphere."

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Until last night, the criminal responsibility for the torturing of terror suspects by the U.S. government was entirely on the heads of George Bush, Dick Cheney, their senior aides and the civilian and uniformed military leadership who approved and implemented "advanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding.

Late in the evening yesterday, however, the U.S. Senate, including all Republicans who were present, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CN) and six senior Democrats, willingly assumed responsibly for Bush's torture policies by rubberstamping his nominee, Michael Mukasey, to be the next U.S. attorney general.

Mukasey --- a crony of Rudy Giuliani, the Republican presidential candidate who, during his tenure as New York City mayor, revealed fascistic tendencies that are alarmingly similar to those of George Bush and Dick Cheney --- indicated during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he will continue to greenlight Bush's torture policies.

Now the question is, will Mukasey also assist Bush, Cheney and the rest in trying to avoid war-crimes charges after they leave office.

The six senior Democratic senators who voted to confirm Mukasey and thus condone torture were:

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

Turns out there really is a first time for everything:

My colleague Trish at Pensito Review suggested earlier this week that this veto override could signal a change in the wind for Bush's political fortunes:

We can only hope.

Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.

We'll believe it when we see it:

CREW contends that the educational programs distributed by Ignite!, Neil Bush's company, are worthless, and that school districts who spend federal dollars on the programs are wasting taxpayers' money.

Ignite! president Ken Leonard said that that his company had not been contacted by anyone from the Education Dept. about the matter:

The program in question is "Curriculum on Wheels," which includes software for teaching math, social studies and science. Each program costs $3,800 each, not including subscription fees, according to the Associated Press.