In a ruling handed down today, a Florida judge denied access to voting machines' source code by experts for Democrat Christine Jennings and others.

Jennings, along with the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, People for the American Way Foundation and others, had asked the court to allow them access to the source code on voting machines used in Sarasota County, where they allege 18,000 votes were not counted.

Judge William L. Gary called their request "nothing more than conjecture and not supported by credible evidence," and said that making the secret code available for scrutiny "would result in destroying or at least gutting the protections afforded those who own the trade secrets."

A senior attorney on Jennings' side of the suit called Gary's ruling "an order without any legal basis whatsoever."

The judge "denied the voters of Sarasota County the ability to look inside the ballot boxes, essentially, that they're using to cast their ballot," David Becker, attorney for the People for the American Way Foundation, told me. "We're going to use every available avenue to see that this order is overturned."

Update: Here's the ruling.

Florida Democrat Christine Jennings said today she won't try to block Republican Vern Buchanan from being sworn in to represent the state's 13th District, despite her efforts to have that election declared unconstitutional.

In November's elections, Buchanan beat out Jennings by fewer than 400 votes to win the seat, but Jennings has contested the election both in Florida courts and before Congress.

"Christine is not conceding," her deputy campaign manager Robert Kellar explained to me by phone. After consulting with constituents, her staff and Democratic leadership, she "decided it would be best for the district to allow [Buchanan] to be seated temporarily," until the election disputes are sorted out.

Kellar said Jennings had the option of filing an official challenge to seating Buchanan in the 110th Congress, but opted not to. "If a constituent has a problem with Social Security or something, they need someone to go to," Kellar explained. She has, however, "contested" the election with Congress, which is a different process.

Kellar said that staffers for the House Administration Committee have received Jennings' formal contest and are currently investigating the matter. More on that soon.

Update: An earlier version of this post reported that election results showed Buchanan beat Jennings by 18,000 votes. That was incorrect; results showed Buchanan won by 369 votes. At issue in the dispute are an estimated 18,000 votes that may not have been properly registered.

Testimony from Iraq warblogger Benjamin Runkle, together with other photographs posted by Michelle Malkin, bolster the argument that the photo of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) eating amid empty chairs posted on several right-wing Web sites

is authentic. That likely won't quell the torrent of opinions on both sides, though. Hoping to answer the question conclusively, I've called Kerry's offices in D.C. and Boston. No one answers, thought I left a message at the Boston office. We'll see if someone calls back.

The issue of interpretation lingers, however. Can one reasonably conclude on the basis of the photograph (and accompanying testimony) that troops snubbed Kerry during his Iraq visit? Here's another picture of Kerry eating, this from Malkin's Web site:

Perhaps snubbing, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Update: A Kerry staffer now says that Kerry was giving a media interview in the picture, hence the empty chairs surrounding him.

Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) is set to announce he will back a challenge to the FL-13 election lodged by Democratic candidate Christine Jennings.

According to a press release from Holt's office, the congressman will announce at noon today that "he intends to take steps to put the House on record that no action taken on January 4, 2007 regarding the disputed election in Florida will prejudice the legal case or any investigation of the House Administration Committee."

Jennings, who is contesting her November loss to Republican Vern Buchanan, has already won the support of Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has so far remained silent on the issue, other than to say she is "monitoring" the situation.

Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden is still at large -- but that's not a failure of White House policy, says Frances Fragos Townsend. As she explained to CNN's White House correspondent Ed Henry last night:

HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.

TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.

(Thanks to Reader RT for the tip.)

After I wrote yesterday about questions surrounding a photo making the rounds on right-wing blogs, the originator of the picture has written to say it's for real.

North Dakota radio host Scott Hannen, Michelle Malkin, the Powerline blog and other online conservatives featured the picture, which alleged to portray Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) eating breakfast alone at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.

Shortly after I posted on the topic, Reader BL wrote me with a suggestion.

"The Kerry photo originated from the following blog by Ben Of Mesopotamia," BL wrote. "Maybe someone should drop him a line about the photo." "Ben" is CPT Benjamin G. Runkle, former speechwriter to president Bush and staff assistant to Defense undersecretary Douglas Feith, according to the 2004 Plum Book of presidential appointments.

So I dropped Runkle a line, and last night he wrote back. The photo is authentic, he said. "Although I did not personally take the pictures, I saw the person who did immediately after they took them and asked for a copy."

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FEC Imposed Record $6.2 Million In Fines — Over Half Against One Company
"The Federal Election Commission more than doubled its civil penalties in 2006, imposing $6.2 million in fines for campaign-law violations.

"More than half — $3.8 million — came from penalties against Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage corporation accused of making illegal contributions to political committees, according to year-end numbers released Thursday. Even without the record Freddie Mac fine, the FEC issued 12 penalties of more than $100,000, or almost a quarter of all six-figure fines in the agency's 31-year history." (AP)

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Rep. Jim Ryun (R-KS) lost his re-election bid this November -- but he won't leave Congress empty-handed.

Back in April, Paul broke the story of the strange house deal between Ryun and the DeLay/Abramoff-connected sham charity, U.S. Family Network.

In 2000, Ryun bought the Capitol Hill property from USFN for $100,000 below market -- odd, because the D.C. housing market was booming then, and houses were selling for above-market prices. The good deal has gotten even better, according to FECInfo.com: the house has recently been assessed at $920,870, up 125% from when he bought it in 2000.

Update: A belated but heartfelt tip of the hat to Reader GY, who alerted me to this.

Over at the National Review's blog, The Corner, Cliff May apologizes for posting a year-old anonyous forwarded email as news. May, let's note, was an adviser to the James Baker-led Iraq Study Group.

In his defense, May says it was shared with him by another adviser to the ISG, a U.S. ambassador. All the ISG experts, May explains, "[are] on a list-serve where we circulate what we view as significant articles and argue over them." May says the ambassador had forwarded the year-old anonymous e-mail to the list.

That's right. An expert advising the ISG shared a year-old anonymous chain e-mail with the group. And the group apparently argued over it.

Anyone feel like forwarding the conversation thread that followed that one? Might be instructive.

If wishes were e-mails, the Iraq war would be won. And John Kerry would be friendless.

Yesterday we learned via the National Review Online that, at least according to year-old spam, ground troops think the United States is winning the war in Iraq.

Now, Michelle Malkin, Powerline and a guy named Scott Hennen, host of "HotTalk" on North Dakota's AM 970, bring us news that troops in Iraq recently shunned Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), making him eat alone at an inexplicably festive breakfast at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, as some kind of petulant junior-high form of retaliation for his botched "joke" that dumb kids get sent to war.

"A friend of mine serving in Iraq sent me this photo and note," is the dubious introduction that Hennen gives the picture on his blog. (Hennen appears to have been first to post the picture.) "Priceless story it tells...."

"This is a true story," Hennen quotes the email as saying. "Check out this photo from our mess hall at the US Embassy yesterday morning. Sen. Kerry found himself all alone while he was over here. He cancelled his press conference because no one came, he worked out alone in the gym w/o any soldiers even going up to say hi or ask for an autograph (I was one of those who was in the gym at the same time), and he found himself eating breakfast with only a couple of folks who are obviously not troops."

Ah, but with such an unquestioning post, can trouble be far behind? No.

At Hennen's site, commenter "Anthony" noted that the picture's embedded data, just a right-click away, shows the picture was taken on January 9, 2006 -- several months before Kerry botched his joke:

News accounts at the time put Kerry in England around that time -- which might explain the giant Union Jack hanging on the far wall.

At PowerLine, another problem surfaced: As commenter "Angus" noted, the flag hanging to the right of the Union Jack belongs to Portugal, which withdrew its mighty 120-man coalition force from Iraq nearly two years ago.

Update: There may be reason to question the image data. In addition to giving the date of Jan. 9th for the picture, it says it was taken by a Vivitar Vivicam 8400 camera. According to this article dated Feb. 27, that model was not yet released. Can anyone verify this?

The holiday must-read for Abramoff scandal aficianados: Legal Times' Emma Schwartz sheds light on the decade-long friendship with Jack Abramoff and a former Interior Department official taken down for accepting gifts from the disgraced lobbyist, as described by the official's lawyers.

Good stuff.

The AP reports:

LEONARDTOWN, Md. -- An Army Reservist despondent about being sent to Iraq was killed by police during a 14-hour standoff that began Christmas night when family members told authorities he was armed and threatening to kill himself. . . .

Around noon Tuesday, while police were preparing to use tear gas to force Dean out of the home, Dean came to the front door and pointed his weapon at an officer, St. Mary's County Sheriff Tim Cameron said. Another deputy shot Dean once, killing him.

Dean had already served 18 months in Afghanistan and was despondent after learning recently that he would be deployed to Iraq, family members told police. . . .

Wanda Matthews, who lives next door to Dean's father, told the Washington Post she knew the young man was depressed about heading to Iraq.

"His dad told me that he didn't want to go to war," Matthews said. "He had already been out there and didn't want to go again."

Here's a morbidly quirky anecdote to the Baltimore Sun article I posted yesterday, which noted how the FDA is charged with ensuring the nation's food safety, yet doesn't have the funding to research proper regulations -- the sort which might have prevented the deadly bacteria outbreaks that contaminated spinach and lettuce earlier this year.

Reader DG points me to a September article from McClatchy Newspapers that tells an interesting tale:

Last year, for instance, California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein secured a $1 million earmark in a Senate funding bill to establish a Western Center for Food Safety and Defense at UC-Davis. It would have been the first FDA-affiliated center of its kind on the West Coast.

"(It) will play an important role in identifying potential threats and finding solutions to ensure the security of our food supply," Feinstein said at the time.

But when congressional negotiators met to craft a final spending bill, according to sources familiar with the sessions, the proposed UC-Davis food safety center lacked the support of Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., a conservative member of the House GOP leadership. The money was dropped.

A spokesperson for Doolittle's office could not be reached to comment.

It's not that Doolittle hates earmarks. After all, he used them to help steer $37 million to an accused felon, and another $400,000 to the Abramoff-friendly government of the Marianas Islands. (One or both of those favors likely drew the attention of the Feds, who now have Doolittle under investigation.)

Oh -- are you wondering the real cost of lax food regulation? "Overall, 76 million U.S. residents become sick annually from food-borne illness, more than 325,000 people are hospitalized and 5,000 people die," McClatchy reported.

Former Interior Sec. Norton Now Adviser For Shell
"Gale Norton is back providing oversight of energy development issues on public lands in the American West, this time as a key legal advisor for a major global oil company.

"Months after she resigned her cabinet post as President Bush's Interior Secretary—and then seemed to disappear from public view—the Coloradan apparently has accepted an offer to serve as counsel for Royal Dutch Shell PLC." (NewWest)

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Ah, the cover-up is worse than the (alleged) crime.

A local district attorney announced today he won't seek to indict the Nevada governor-elect for drunkenly assaulting a cocktail waitress in a parking garage in the middle of the night, AP reports. But the DA and his staff will investigate the woman's claims that those around the governor attempted to keep Mazzeo from telling her story to police.

Former Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) won his state's governorship just weeks after 32-year-old Chrissy Mazzeo accused him of assaulting her in a parking garage after drinking with her and friends for most of the evening. The local police had earlier declined to pursue the matter, and passed the investigation to the DA.

Reader SB points us to an entry today at The Corner, a blog belonging to National Review magazine, entitled "FROM IRAQ: A MARINE’S NOTES."

Among other things, the unnamed Marine tells the National Review that:

[M]orale among our guys is very high. They not only believe that they are winning, but that they are winning decisively. They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American press, whom they almost universally view as against them.

That sentiment seems a bit out of place, given that the president himself admitted last week the United States isn't winning the war. Granted, his words were widely reported by the media -- but that's hardly a reason to hate on the messenger.

Turns out the post is out of place, as SB discovered: the "MARINE'S NOTES" are actually an excerpt from an e-mail that circulated widely around November 2005, perhaps earlier.

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Misleading automated calls designed to turn North Carolina voters against Democrat Heath Shuler may have come from a GOP campaign firm controlled by the D.C. lobbying giant, Dutko Worldwide.

The calls, whose impact favored the (doomed) re-election campaign of Rep. Charles Taylor (R-NC), pretended to come from the Shuler camp, and came as late as 2:30 a.m., according to one report.

Taylor's campaign paid Direct Strategies over $113,000 for "phone calls" and "calling" services, according to filings at FECInfo.com.

Despite the calls Shuler beat Taylor 54 percent to 46 percent, and will represent North Carolina's 11th District when Congress convenes next month.

The race is the third known to have been hit with misleading robo calls that are circumstantially tied to the Tallahassee, Fla.-based firm Direct Strategies. Similar calls against Democrats in Nebraska and Pennsylvania coincide with payments to the firm from the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC).

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Readers keep finding examples, so we keep growing our list of information products "disappeared" by the Bush administration which appear to have contradicted its policy preferences. We're up to 28. You can see the complete list here. The latest:

* For more than a year, the Interior Department refused to release a 2005 study showing a government subsidy for oil companies was not effective.

* The White House Office of National Drug Policy paid for a 5-year, $43 million study which concluded their anti-drug ad campaigns did not work -- but it refused to release those findings to Congress. (Thanks to skeptic)

* In 2006, the Federal Communications Commission ordered destroyed all copies of an unreleased 2004 draft report concluding that media consolidation hurt local TV news coverage, which runs counter to the administration's pro-consolidation stance. (Thanks to Jim Tobias)

* After Bush assumed power in 2001, the Department of Labor removed from its Web site "Don't Work in the Dark -- Know Your Rights," a publication informing women of their workplace rights. (via the National Council for Research on Women)

* The Department of Labor also removed from its Web site roughly two dozen fact sheets on women's workplace issues such as women in management, earning differences between men and women, child care concerns, and minority women in the workplace. (via the National Council for Research on Women)

* In February 2004, the appointed head of the Office of Special Counsel -- created to protect government employees' rights -- ordered removed from a government Web site information on the rights of gay men, lesbians and bisexuals in the public workplace. (via the National Council for Research on Women)

Contaminated spinach, suspicious green onions, E. coli-laden lettuce -- it seems like green vegetables are the newest threat to America.

Turns out there may be a reason: the Food and Drug Administration, charged with ensuring the country's food safety, hasn't gotten the funding to do the basic studies it needs to draft appropriate regulations. From today's Baltimore Sun:

Recurring outbreaks of food-borne illness from contaminated produce are "unacceptable" in today's society, the government says. But the Food and Drug Administration hasn't done much of the basic research that would let it write regulations to fix the problem.

Six years after the FDA first issued general guidance to the produce industry on how it might prevent contamination from microbes such as E. coli 0157:H7, experts say federal regulators still can't answer key questions. . . .

Without such specifics, FDA talk of regulations to protect consumers from more outbreaks like the recent ones involving fresh spinach and Taco Bell restaurants could be little more than bureaucratic saber-rattling. . . .

In a business-friendly administration, many new regulatory efforts advance slowly, if at all. But the FDA's predicament is more acute because an agencywide budget squeeze is putting disproportionate pressure on its foods program. . . .

An internal budget analysis prepared this summer, "FDA Financial Realities," concluded that the FDA's food program budget would need $176 million more in 2007 to provide roughly the same level of service as it did in 2003.

Pentagon Moving Forward on Gitmo Courthouse
"Although the Pentagon estimates that no more than 80 of the 400 or so terrorism detainees here will ever be tried, it is moving forward with plans for a $125-million legal complex.

"Air Force Col. Morris Davis, chief prosecutor of the suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban supporters, says he expects to file charges against 10 to 20 prisoners soon after new trial rules are presented to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates next month.

"The Supreme Court in June found the Bush administration's military tribunal system unconstitutional, and Congress passed the Military Commission Act in September to replace it. But less than 20% of the prisoners held here are expected to face charges under the new commissions. 'At the end of the day, I think the total will be about 75, give or take a few,' Davis says.

"Much of the legal work is done in Washington or in other U.S.-based offices of the military's judicial network — not at Guantanamo Bay.

"Still, Davis says, there is just one courtroom here, in a converted air terminal that also houses legal staff and a high-security lockup. The new compound would have three courtrooms, restaurants, parking and accommodations for at least 800 people." (LATimes)

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A Florida-based Republican political firm with circumstantial ties to at least two nasty robocalling efforts this year isn't quite as obscure as we thought.

In the last days of the 2006 elections, Direct Strategies, Inc. of Tallahassee saw its name connected to dirty-tricks robo calls in Nebraska and Pennsylvania. Run by two state-level GOP operatives, the firm did not appear to cut a swaggering figure in national politics.

Here's the thing: according to filings with the state of Florida, "Direct Strategies, Inc." doesn't exist. It voluntarily dissolved in April 2005. In its place rose a new company, "Dutko Direct Strategies, Inc.," which appears to be controlled by one of Washington's largest lobby firms.

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The Chicago Sun-Times has steadily efforted to chip away at the pedestal on which supporters and the media have placed Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), the perch from which he happily mulls a run for the White House.

In its latest piece, the paper seems to have knocked away some plaster: last year, Obama gave an internship in his office to the kid of a big-money donor who's alleged to have taken a $250,000 kickback as part of a state-level graft scheme.

Worse, the paper says Obama did the favor on the advice of Illinois Democratic moneyman Antoin "Tony" Rezko, currently indicted for his role in the aforementioned graft scheme.

Now, Obama gave the internship to the young man -- John Aramanda, son of Joseph Aramanda, whom the paper ID's as an unindicted co-conspirator in Rezko's scheme -- in the summer of 2005, before news of the Rezko investigation came out.

But some might say that the alleged crimes aren't what make the story so disheartening. Rather, it's that Obama, who is seen by many as a modern-day Horatio Alger -- "proof that this country affords equal opportunities to anyone who works hard enough," as New York magazine described him in October -- would apparently give a such a coveted position to a kid on the basis of how much his rich dad ponied up for the senator's election.

Perhaps young Mr. Aramanda is bright and talented. Perhaps he demonstrates the "audacity of hope." Still, was he really the most deserving candidate for such a beneficial gig?

A new investigation into harassing robo calls from November´s election may lead to the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC).

The Nebraska Public Service Commission has launched an investigation into one of one of the more egregious examples of attempted voter suppression this year. In the 3rd District there, voters reported receiving repeated (often back-to-back) calls featuring a recorded voice that seemed to belong to Democrat Scott Kleeb. The calls, which went out to an unknown number of Nebraskans, prompted a flood of complaints to Kleeb´s campaign office.

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As more details come out about the federal raids on six meatpacking plants two weeks ago, union officials continue to voice concerns about the agents' methods.

In particular, the Feds' habit of detaining legal workers, and denying detainees access to lawyers, are drawing closer scrutiny. In their defense, a spokesman for the bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement say they followed the law to the letter.

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The Baltimore Sun reports:

President Bush is bracing for what could be an onslaught of investigations by the new Democratic-led Congress by hiring lawyers to fill key White House posts and preparing to play defense on countless document requests and possible subpoenas.

Bush is moving quickly to fill vacancies within his stable of lawyers, though White House officials say there are no plans to drastically expand the legal staff to deal with a flood of oversight. . . .

in the days after the elections, the White House announced that Bush had hired two replacements to plug holes in his counsel's office, including one lawyer, Christopher G. Oprison, who is a specialist in handling white-collar investigations. A third hire was securities law specialist Paul R. Eckert, whose duties include dealing with the Office of the Special Counsel. Bush is in the process of hiring a fourth associate counsel, said Emily A. Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman.

The Sun quotes Lawrimore saying "it's nothing special." But my favorite quote, particularly in light of this and this and this -- is:

"They just think it's inevitable that there will be some investigations that will tie up some time and attention," said Charles Black, a strategist with close ties to the White House. But there's no panic in the ranks of Bush's team, he added. "They don't think they have anything to hide."

Fraud, Katrina Contracts Could Waste $2 Billion
"The tally for Hurricane Katrina waste could top $2 billion next year because half of the lucrative government contracts valued at $500,000 or greater for cleanup work are being awarded without little competition.

"Federal investigators have already determined the Bush administration squandered $1 billion on fraudulent disaster aid to individuals after the 2005 storm. Now they are shifting their attention to the multimillion dollar contracts to politically connected firms that critics have long said are a prime area for abuse.

"In January, investigators will release the first of several audits examining more than $12 billion in Katrina contracts. The charges range from political favoritism to limited opportunities for small and minority-owned firms, which initially got only 1.5 percent of the total work." (AP)

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Christmas may be saved.

On ABC's This Week, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) took issue with Rep. Virgil Goode's (R-VA) recent comments urging a curtailment of immigration to the United States by Muslims from Middle Eastern countries.

Graham said he didn't think Goode's comments, prompted by the furor over whether newly-elected Muslim congressman Keith Ellison (R-MN) would use a Koran in a private swearing-in ceremony, were "the appropriate line for a congressman to take," according to a transcript by Raw Story.

"We need immigration reform, but not for the reasons that Mr. Goode cited," Graham added later.

Update: Josh has the transcript of the exchange here.