Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Life is good! That is, if you work for Big Oil or had "a bang-up year" like investment banking firm Goldman Sachs. Goldman, which was helmed by Henry Paulson until his May appointment by President Bush to Treasury Secretary, announced year end bonuses for its 26,500 employees averaging $623,418.

Alas, if you don't work in "high finance" you need not be "green with envy" because a good stock market translates to a good economy and, according to Forbes Senior Editor Neil Weinberg, "a trickle down effect where the people who are making this kind of money are also going to be spending a lot of money."

Hopefully someone remembers to tell the 35 million Americans living with "low food security" (hunger), the 37 million Americans living under the poverty line and the 46 million uninsured Americans that the trickle is coming. This might prove a difficult sell to the newly minted 5.4 million who moved into the poverty neighborhood since President Bush took office.

Elderly Americans, 2 in 5 of whom are living on less than $18,000 a year including Social Security benefits, are not likely to do cartwheels upon hearing that the trickle is on its way either. And the low-income Americans with disabilities who experienced 50% cuts in their housing programs, might wonder if they will receive additional trickle. It would be unfair, however, to say that the poor have not made some gains under President Bush. For example, now the IRS makes sure that half of all audits are conducted on Americans making less than $25,000 per year...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan have at each other debating President Bush's stay the course policy in Iraq in this entertaining clip (10:00) from yesterday's Scarborough Country. Buchanan actually defends Bush despite calling the war a "horrible mistake" and suggesting that the President may be acting with his legacy in mind.

Scarborough finds Buchanan's stance perplexing since he knows that "there are not ten Republicans on Capitol Hill that agree with this President" and that the "President stands alone in the world in his view on Iraq".

The clip begins about 3 minutes into the segment while the real fireworks start at approximately the 7 minute mark. Finally, despite all appearances, the clip is not cut off at the end as Scarborough only goes on to thank his guests.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Neil Cavuto was outraged by the scuffle that took place in the Mexican National Congress on Tuesday in continuing spillover from the highly controversial presidential election. Earlier reports here, here and here, suggest there is a great deal of evidence that Vicente Fox's ruling party was only able to retain the presidency through massive election fraud. Yet, Cavuto's concern is not for the 41 million likely disenfranchised voters but that order was not maintained. Al Gore's graceful concession in the hotly contested 2000 election, by contrast, is an example of a working democracy and a working Constitution.

Unfortunately, the end of the clip (1:35) was cut off by Tivo and the late night replay was cut off by Fox as it switched to a live broadcast. My apologies.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Gore Vidal was typically funny and outspoken during an appearance yesterday on Late Night on PBS with Tavis Smiley. This clip (5:08) includes Vidal's views on Bush and Iraq as well as the following descriptive quote:

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Bob Schieffer's commentary this morning on CBS' Face the Nation is highly critical of Fox, Judith Regan and Rupert Murdoch for publishing OJ's new "if I did it" book and for giving the former football star two hours of prime time television to promote the fictional confession. Throw in the millions of dollars being funneled to OJ and one hardly remembers the similarly disgusting congressional page scandal.

Schieffer: "Someone, I think it was William F. Buckley, once said, something doesn't have to be against the law to be wrong. This one is more than wrong. It is just awful."

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Christine Romans reports for Lou Dobbs Tonight that more than 35 million Americans were struggling with hunger until the USDA relabeled the tracking category "low food security." Thus, close to 12% of Americans now live with "food insecurity" issues. The report is unclear on whether or not more than a tenth of the country is still having problems with hunger.

In addition to the name change, however, the Bush administration also has plans to cut in half the number of Americans living with "low food security" by 2010. Considering that poverty and food insecurity levels have risen throughout Bush's presidency, we assume the administration expects the bulk of the plan to kick in over the latter two years.

Lou Dobbs summed up the situation better than one would think possible: "That is disgusting...These are just abject idiots."

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

At the end of the joint Olbermann - Matthews election coverage Chris Matthews, a bit condescendingly, opines about Olbermann's show which he finds "bracing" and "provocative" and...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Bob Shrum stops Norah O'Donnell from waxing stupid before giving way to some talk about the Republican Senate offering the world to Joe Lieberman in order to prevent Democrat control. Finally, the clip ends with some pretty hearty laughter from Chris Matthews and the gang.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Earlier today, on Lou Dobbs Tonight, Kitty Pilgrim reported on a number of E-Voting problems.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum concedes to Senator elect Bob Casey.

UPDATE FROM BRAD 11/8/06 7:56pm: Please note, his concession came only after he succeeded in getting the PA Republican Party to send a letter to Secretary of the Commonwealth demanding that voting machines in 27 counties be impounded after reports that Republican votes were flipping to Democratic on touch-screen machines. Ya don't hear that very often. We support the impounding of those machines...though we received late-night reports that Santorum and the GOP had withdrawn their request. More soon...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Charlie Cook tells Chris Matthews that if he is wrong in predicting Democratic House gains in the 20 to 35 range, that he'd now guess he was on the low end.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Joe Scarborough, Bob Shrum and Pat Buchanan all go off on e-voting machines earlier today. Scarborough and Shrum also wonder what Republican's have against paper trails. All three pundits look for Democrats to retake the House.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Kitty Pilgrim covers a myriad of e-voting problems pouring in from across the country during early voting. Sequoia gets the lion's share of the coverage with the newly discovered large yellow button that, when pressed, allows voters to vote as many times as they want. Dobbs: "I keep expecting the country to just sort of go into a group scream over these e-voting machines."

The text-transcript of Thursday's segment on Lou Dobbs Tonight follows in full...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

For what it is worth, gamblers are giving Democrats about a 75% chance of winning back the House on Tuesday. The top chart shows the one-year downward sloping trend line for the GOP keeping the House. The bottom chart evidences the significant (more than 5%) gain the Democrats made today which is, perhaps, attributable to the breaking Ted Haggard scandal. You can see the odds on specific House and Senate races here.

UPDATE FROM BRAD: Please note that it was the oddsmakers in Vegas, who had given odds showing Kerry would win in 2004, which originally spurred our friend Jim Lampley of HBO and NBC to declare that election was "biggest crime in the history of the nation" shortly after it was announced that Bush would be the victor. As Lampley knows, Vegas doesn't like to lose money, so they tend to get these things right.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Who would have thought it was possible for Tucker Carlson to top his Wednesday "moral blackmail" segment on the Michael J Fox stem cell research ad controversy (seen here on BRAD BLOG)? Arguably he succeeds the next day with this clip which begins with the GOP celebrity response ad and then moves on to guest pundit Mark Williams. According to Wikipedia, Williams was a conservative radio talk show host from Sacramento until he was fired in May. Perhaps missing his job Williams felt compelled to impersonate Rush Limbaugh during the segment. Not only does he accuse Fox of playing "theatrical games" but also states that the actor misleads the public because the debate is not about stem cells or Parkinson's but a debate about whether or not "Missouri should create an entire race of itty bitty people so that they can be destroyed and used for medical research." There are plenty more jaw dropping lines and dumbfounding moments including Tucker praising Williams for explaining the issue better than most Republicans.