• Comedian Tom Kenny calls in at 6:30am Pacific to talk about Spongebob Squarepants’ new Christmas song.

• Hilary Rosen, Editor at Large of the Huffington Post, calls in at 7:05am Pacific to talk about Afghanistan, health care reform, and today’s Jobs Summit.

• Obama administration officials are hoping that today’s Jobs Summit, where he will talk job creation with business and labor leaders at the White House, will let President Obama defend his administration’s handling of the economy. No major policy announcements are expected.

• Amid soaring budget deficits, President Obama is running into congressional qualms over how to pay for his troop buildup in Afghanistan. The $30 billion cost is causing concern on both sides of the aisle. Still, leaders in Congress predicted yesterday that Obama would prevail in winning funding for the surge.

• The politically potent AARP announced yesterday that they are supporting the Democrats’ $460 billion in Medicare cuts to help pay for landmark health insurance legislation.

• White House party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi last night declined an invitation to testify before Congress about their caper last week at the president’s first state dinner.

• Ted Massinello, President of the USA Coffee Company, calls in at 7:05am Pacific to talk about the pro-union and made-in-the-USA aspects of his company.

• Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform, the economy, and jobs.

• Lamar Waldron, JFK conspiracy expert and author of “Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination,” calls in at 8:05am Pacific to talk about his book.

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled long-awaited legislation last night to extend health care coverage to all but 6% of eligible Americans and bar private industry from denying insurance because of pre-existing medical conditions. The bill would reduce deficits by $127 billion over a decade.

• A federal judge ruled yesterday that the Army Corps of Engineers’ failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina in 2005, a decision that could make the federal government vulnerable to billions of dollars in claims.

• Disappointing forecasts from technology companies and an unexpected drop in home construction added to worries about the economy and sent stocks modestly lower yesterday. The Dow fell 11 points at close yesterday.

• Charlie Pierce, author of “Idiot America,” calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about Election Day, health care reform, Afghanistan, and the economy.

• Today is Election Day in many states. Polls are close in the New Jersey governor’s race, Dem Creigh Deeds trails GOP-er Bob McDonnell in the polls by double digits in the Virginia gubernatorial race, Conservative Doug Hoffman leads Dem Bill Owens in NY’s 23rd Congressional District race, Maine voters are being asked if gay marriage should remain legal, and Washington State voters are deciding on a domestic partnerships law.

• While House leaders are moving toward a vote on health care legislation by the end of the week, enough Dems are threatening to oppose the measure over the issue of abortion to create a question about its passage. A bloc of Dems are worried that the bill could lead to public funding of the procedure.

• President Obama called Afghan President Hamid Karzai to congratulate him on being named the winner of that country’s election, and urged him to work to improve governance and end corruption there.

• The Philadelphia Phillies beat the New York Yankees 8-6 in Game 5 of the World Series last night, forcing a Game 6 at Yankee Stadium tomorrow night.

• Karl Frisch, Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, calls in at 7:05am Pacific to co-host Right Wing World.

• Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform.

• Hal Sparks joins us in studio at 8:05am Pacific for another edition of “Humpdays With Hal.”

• Comedian Margaret Cho calls in at 8:30am Pacific to talk about her upcoming shows and the release of her new concert DVD, “Beautiful.”

• President Obama has sought to spend no more than $900 billion over a 10-year period on health care reform. Yesterday, however, House Dem leaders received a new cost estimate of $871 billion from congressional budget umpires who measured a bill with a a robust public option.

• President Obama spoke with Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday and congratulated him for accepting the report of the UN-backed Election Complaint Commission which ruled that he garnered under 50% of the vote in the August election after vote fraud had been factored in, mandating a recount.

• Oprah Winfrey announced yesterday that Sarah Palin will appear on her show on Monday, November 16th.

• Charlie Pierce, author of “Idiot America” calls in at 7:33am Pacific to riff on the news of the day.

• Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) calls in at 8:05am Pacific to talk about health care reform.

• Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) calls in at 8:33am Pacific to talk about health care reform.

• President Obama yesterday filled the White House Rose Garden with doctors supportive of his health care overhaul, saying “nobody has more credibility with the American people on this issue than you do.” The Senate Finance Committee is expected to approve its long-debated bill this week.

• President Obama will not walk away from the flagging war in Afghanistan, the White House declared yesterday amid intense administration debate over choices that could help define his presidency in the first year as commander in chief.

• David Letterman, days after revealing on air that he’d been sexually involved with women from his show, apologized to his wife on last night’s “Late Show,” saying she had been “horribly hurt by my behavior” and flat-out stating those affairs “are in the past.”

• Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) calls in at 6:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform.

• Karl Frisch, Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, calls in at 7:05am Pacific for a live edition of Right Wing World.

• Comedian Hal Sparks joins us in studio at 8:05am Pacific for another edition of “Humpdays with Hal.”

• Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus yesterday unveiled changes to his compromise health care proposal intended to alleviate the concerns of fellow Dems as the panel began debating more than 560 proposed amendments to the measure. Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) both introduced amendments to include a public option in the Baucus plan.

• World leaders, including President Obama, converged yesterday in New York to focus on climate change, with the clock ticking down toward a summit this year in Denmark, where a global climate change pact is to be signed. Negotiations for the global pact have stalled and yesterday’s gathering was aimed at jump-starting those talks.

• Prodding Israel and the Palestinian Authority to restart talks aimed at a permanent resolution of their conflict, President Obama dropped a demand for an Israeli settlement freeze.

• Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) calls in at 7:05am Pacific to talk about health care reform and Afghanistan.

• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform and his town hall meetings.

• Comedian John Fugelsang joins Steph in studio in NYC at 8:05am Pacific for more discussions of everything politics and pop culture.

• President Obama took his health care message to talk radio yesterday, telling listeners of a Philadelphia host that he wants to overhaul the nation’s health care system out of necessity rather than politics.

• Senate health care negotiators agreed late last night to ignore the increasingly strident rhetoric from GOP and Dem leaders and to keep working toward a bill that can win broad support from the rank-and-file in both parties, according to sources familiar with the talks.

• Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge says he successfully countered an effort by Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to raise the nation’s terror alert level in the days before the 2004 presidential vote.

• Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA), Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will all be calling in TOMORROW to talk about health care reform.

• Comedian John Fugelsang joins us in studio at 11:05am TOMORROW to hang and talk about all things politics and pop culture.

• Under the menacing threat of violence from the Taliban, Afghans headed to the polls today in the war-ravaged nation’s second-ever national election. Thousands of NATO and Afghan soldiers provided security at the polls and more than 30 observer groups were on hand to monitor the voting.

• President Obama appealed yesterday to faith-based groups to help garner support for his plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Obama urged the listeners to reject information about his plans, noting, “There are some folks out there who are, frankly, bearing false witness.”

• A cancer-stricken Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) has written a poignant letter to Massachusetts leaders asking that they change state law to allow a speedy replacement of him in Congress, instead of the special election now required. Kennedy wrote, “It is vital for this commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate.”

• Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform.

• At a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire yesterday, President Obama complained about opposition scare tactics against a proposed health care overhaul, but said failing to fix the problems in the current system would be the scariest outcome of all.

• A hostile crowd shouted questions and made angry statements yesterday at a town hall meeting on health care in Pennsylvania led by Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA). At one point, Specter shouted into his microphone that demonstrators disrupting the proceedings would be thrown out.

• Under criticism for appearing extravagant, the House of Representatives is dropping a plan to make the Pentagon buy more civilian-style jets than it requested. The jets would have been used to transport D.C. officials, including members of Congress.

• Former White House adviser Karl Rove was deeply involved in the firing of a U.S. attorney in New Mexico, according to White House e-mails and transcripts of closed-door testimony released yesterday.

• Rep. Joe Courtney (D-CT) calls in at 6:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform.

• The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) President Gerald McEntee calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about their grassroots effort to get health care reform passed.

• Comedian Hal Sparks joins us in studio at 8:05am Pacific to talk about all things politics and pop culture.

• The White House shot down concerns yesterday that middle-class families may face a tax increase in order to combat rising deficits and a struggling economy. The concern came after the Obama administration’s two top money men floated the idea that tax increases to fund the nation’s economic recovery could extend into the middle class.

• Frustrated with the pace of bipartisan talks, Dem leaders yesterday promised to push a sweeping health care bill through the Senate whether they get GOP support or not.

• Former President Bill Clinton made an unannounced visit to North Korea this morning on a trip seen as a mission to win the release of two jailed American reporters and to ease tensions over Pyongyang’s recent nuclear defiance.

• Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform.

• Comedian Hal Sparks joins us in studio at 8:05am Pacific to talk about all things politics and pop culture, and to give Steph some backrubs.

• House Dems put their divisions on display over the details and timing of health care legislation yesterday despite fresh attempts by President Obama to hasten a compromise on the issue that looms increasingly as a major test of his clout. President Obama will hold a news conference on the issue tonight at 8pm Eastern.

• An Associated Press poll shows that a majority of Americans are back to thinking that the country is headed in the wrong direction. While President Obama still has a solid 55% approval rating, 54% think the country is going in the wrong direction, up from 46% in June.

• The Senate Judiciary Committee put off its vote yesterday on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor for one week amid objections from the panel’s conservative GOP-ers, even as Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) became the latest GOP-er to publicly commit to voting for Sotomayor.

• Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), the longest serving senator in history, returned to the chamber yesterday after being absent for more than two months due to illness.

• Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about health care reform, Obama in Russia and at the G-8, and the possibility of another stimulus package.

• Carol Leifer joins us in studio at 8:06am Pacific to promote her upcoming gigs, and to talk about her book, “When You Lie About Your Age, The Terrorists Win.”

• President Obama is embarking on three days of multinational talks at the G-8 summit in Rome on climate change, the global economy, and world hunger in the second and most policy-laden stop of his three-nation, weeklong trip.

• Al Franken became a senator yesterday, being sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden and drawing thunderous applause in the Senate chamber. Former Vice President Walter Mondale, a Minnesota native, accompanied Franken. Franken was introduced by fellow Minnesotan and Democrat Sen. Amy Klobuchar.

• It was not spectacular, extravagant, or bizarre. There were songs and tears but little dancing. Instead, Michael Jackson’s memorial was a somber, spiritual ceremony that reached back for the essence of the man. If there was a shocking moment, it came from Jackson’s daughter, Paris-Michael, who made the first public statement of her 11 years, dissolving into tears, and saying she loved her daddy very much.

• Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) calls in at 8:05am Pacific to talk about helping families save their homes, the economy, the Lakers, and other news of the day.

• Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) calls in at 8:30am Pacific to talk about the stimulus plan and health care reform.

• Eager to show action on the ailing economy, President Obama promised yesterday to speed federal money into hundreds of public works projects this summer, vowing that 600,000 jobs will be created or saved.

• House Dems said yesterday that their emerging health care reform legislation will include a government-run insurance option as well as plans offered by private companies. The government would require all plans to contain a minimum benefit and no applicant could be rejected for pre-existing conditions, now could they be charged a higher premium.

• The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down a challenge to the Defense Department policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration.

• Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin appeared at a GOP congressional fundraiser last night, ending a will-she-or-won’t-she mystery that overshadowed the event and frustrated the GOP.

• Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) calls in at 6:30am Pacific to talk about the economy.

• Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) calls in at 7:30am Pacific to talk about the torture memo debate.

• The World Health Organization raised its pandemic alert level yesterday in response to the outbreak of swine flu that originated in Mexico. The number of cases confirmed by health officials worldwide totaled 82, most of them in the U.S. and Mexico, but hundreds more cases are under examination and Mexico has said 149 deaths may have resulted. The virus has now been confirmed to have spread to Asia and the Middle East.

• Morning debate and an afternoon vote are scheduled in the Senate today to confirm Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services, giving the agency a leader in the midst of the swine flu outbreak. She is expected to get the 60 votes needed, though perhaps with little margin to spare.

• House and Senate Dems reached an agreement late last night on a budget resolution for 2010, which includes key spending priorities for the young Obama administration. The agreement came as lawmakers were reconciling the House and Senate versions of the budget package. The House and Senate will likely vote on it this week.

• The Obama administration will release guidelines today to help lending institutions figure out which homeowners are most in need of help to stave off foreclosure. The guidelines will include tests to help banks figure out whether individual homeowners who are “underwater” can be saved by Obama’s $75 billion loan modification program.

• President Obama said yesterday that the country already is “seeing shovels hit the ground” on the first infrastructure repair project funded through the Transportation Department’s share of the $787 billion stimulus bill. Work began in Montgomery County, Maryland on resurfacing Maryland State Highway 650.

• President Obama yesterday overturned a last-minute Bush administration regulation that many environmentalists claim weakened the Endangered Species Act. The regulation made it easier for federal agencies to skip consultations with government scientists before launching projects that could affect endangered wildlife.

• Democrats plan to launch a website today that mocks GOP leaders for apologizing to radio host Rush Limbaugh for criticizing or publicly disagreeing with him. It will allow visitors to mockingly create an apology on behalf of people who have crossed Rush. You can find the website here!!!