Katherine Harris (R-FL) outsources sock puppets?

Swift Boat 2.0 group violating federal rules by spoofing caller IDs with robocalls?

Okay, major muck coming down the pike in the state of New York. More in a moment.

Okay, this one’s a beaut.

Jeanine Pirro was originally running for senate against Hillary. But her campaign roll out was such a disaster she had to bail out of that race. Then she decided to run for New York AG. Or at least she was until today. It’s now been revealed that after Bernie Kerik’s ties to the mob had been revealed during his abortive nomination to head DHS, Pirro decided that Kerik was the one to go to for help to make covert recordings of her husband’s activities by planting a bug on their boat. Pirro believed her husband was cheating on her. See all the details here. Not a good resume addition for an AG candidate, is it?

Late Update: An earlier version of this post said that Pirro had solicited Kerik to plant an “illegal wiretap” on her husband. That was incorrect. They conspired to plant a hidden recording device. Pirro claims that her plan for secret surveillance on the family boat would have broken no laws. The Feds don’t seem to agree.

From our pal Shaun Waterman at UPI …

Two key must-pass defense and homeland security bills are being blocked in a row between Republican lawmakers over border and immigration security measures.

The homeland security appropriation bill and the defense authorization bill are among the handful of pieces of legislation that lawmakers had hoped to complete this week before heading home for the elections. Now both are stalled because GOP House leaders want to include a series of measures passed in their chamber designed to strengthen border security and toughen immigration enforcement.

Read the rest here.

Here’s one of those signs of which way the wind is blowing. CQ is one of the insider sheets that keeps tabs and ratings on the various competitive seats around the country. They’ve just changed the Tennessee senate race — where Harold Ford (D) is up against Bob Corker (R) to replace Bill Frist — to “no clear favorite.”

All the stars are going to have to be in alignment for Harold Ford to pull this off. He’s got to run a kick-ass campaign, which he seems to be doing. Corker’s got to run a feeble campaign. And you can check that box off. And the national tide’s got to run in Harold’s direction. But it may just happen.

For those of you who missed our report today, let me return to that second NIE on Iraq that we discussed yesterday. This is a different report than the one President Bush partly declassified on Tuesday. This one deals solely with Iraq and the state of things on the ground today.

After Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) pressed the administration to release the report Tuesday morning, President Bush’s Homeland Security Advisor Frances Townsend told a press briefing that the report was scheduled to be released in January 2007 and that the timing had nothing to do with this fall’s political calendar.

I asked Justin Rood to look into the question of whether the administration is slow-rolling the report. And while there is no way to know directly, Justin found out that there is pretty strong evidence that that is just what’s happening.

Democrats asked for the new NIE in July. John Negroponte, the DNI, announced on August 4th that one would be prepared. It’s true that NIEs take a long time to compile. But according to a senate intel committee report last year they take between two weeks and two months to compile, depending on the urgency. So even if it were on the outside edge of that range, it should be done sometime next week.

So, what’s the delay?

Here’s what Rep. Harman said today

The president says the election is supposed to be about national security. So where’s the report? What’s the delay? What are they afraid of?

This deserves pressure.

No, you can’t have it.

The White House refused Wednesday to release the rest of a secret intelligence assessment that depicts a growing terrorist threat, as the Bush administration tried to quell election-season criticism that its anti-terror policies are seriously off track.

Press secretary Tony Snow said releasing the full report, portions of which President Bush declassified on Tuesday, would jeopardize the lives of agents who gathered the information.

It would also risk the nation’s ability to work with foreign governments and to keep secret its U.S. intelligence-gathering methods, Snow said, and “compromise the independence of people doing intelligence analysis.”

No …

House nixes wireless deal made as a favor to Abramoff. Maybe a Friends and Family plan is cheaper? (“I yield the remainder of my monthly minutes to the gentleman from Alabama.”) That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.

Anybody in the White House press corps want to ask Tony Snow why he lied to you guys yesterday?

Frances Townsend did the same thing the day before. But let’s stick with Snow. When asked why the White House is holding up that Iraq-only NIE until after the November election, Snow said the following (emphasis added) …

They’re just flat wrong. What happened is, about a month ago Director Negroponte informed the committees that he was, in fact, going to do an exhaustive review on Iraq. That’s a month ago. These reviews take about a year to do, so the idea that it is in “draft” form — they’re just beginning to do their work on it. And Intelligence Committee members if they don’t know it, should. But there is not a waiting Iraq document that reflects a national intelligence estimate that’s sitting around gathering dust, waiting until after the election.

Well, that’s just a crock. Justin Rood looked into this yesterday. And according to the 2004 Senate intel committee report, most NIEs take between two weeks (for a rush job) and two months to complete. And how long did it take to complete the Iraq WMD NIE. Less than three weeks. (Amazing what you can accomplish when your heart is really in it, isn’t it?)

According to the Council on Foreign Relations, “NIE drafting guidelines included in the July 9 Senate report describe three rough timeframes: a “fast track” of two to three weeks, a “normal track” of four to eight weeks, and a “long track” of two months or more.”

And what did Snow say when trying to deny the politics behind this NIE’s delay? “These reviews take about a year to do …”

Am I wrong to say he lied to you guys? I don’t think I am.

Can we get this question asked again?