Harry Reid gambles that his online poker bill can slip through with Obama's controversial tax cut measure

Wow, what are the odds of catching Nevada Sen. Harry Reid with a smile on?

About as good as anyone's chances of winning big playing online poker.

The new 71-year-old Harry is happy because he won a fifth Senate term last month in his bid to outlast the late Robert Byrd and become the longest-serving member of Congress in American history.

That is scheduled to occur in about 29 years when Harry turns 100, barring an election defeat.

And the way the current leader of the slightly smaller Democratic Senate majority treats his major backers over the years, why even bother pondering a loss?

As part of his election celebration with Harrah's and MGM et al, the Nevadan has a plan to legalize online poker, which he opposed before discovering how much he supports it.

Amazing how a successful campaign fundraising operation can alter a person's thinking. Reid had the bill hastily drafted last weekend when he saw the opportunity opening.

You probably didn't see anything developing. That's the difference between five terms and 0 terms.

Here's the deal: Harry wants to get this done during the current lame-duck session because....

Veterans Day traditions evolve on Twitter

 

At Arlington National Cemetery, rocks are placed on headstones to symbolize a visit.

As families across America remembered the fallen, politicians paid tribute to veterans in person and also by using Twitter to send messages to their followers on Veterans Day. 

Traditions may be evolving but the messages of....

Sharron Angle gives Joy Behar flowers, 'The View' co-host calls the candidate that name again

When word got out that Joy Behar of the daytime talk show "The View" called Nevada Senate hopeful Sharron Angle a "bitch", the Angle campaign received $150,000 of online support. To thank her for her indirect inspiration, the Republican sent Behar a lovely bouquet of flowers.

After reading the note Angle wrote that accompanied the roses, lilies and other flowers, Behar looked into the camera Wednesday morning and snipped, "I'd like to point out that those flowers were picked by illegal immigrants, and they're not voting for you, bitch!"

Host and creator of "The View", Barbara Walters, posed to Behar that the spike in fundraising might be looked as a reaction from those who felt offended by Behar's statements. "You criticize them, they raise money," Walters said to Behar.

Sharron Angle ad spurs a ... colorful ... outburst by 'The View's' Joy Behar

 

What a way to start your day.

Early Tuesday morning on ABC's female-centric chat show, "The View," longtime co-host Joy Behar gave her view about the Nevada Republican nominee for Senate, Sharron Angle. It was enough to make some spit out their cornflakes.

After Barbara Walters presented Angle's controversial TV ad, "Thanks Pal," showing ominous-looking men illegally crossing the border while innocent white children attend grade school, Behar went off on the candidate comparing it with something Adolf Hitler would use to recruit kids. This is the same ad that MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on Sunday's "Meet the Press" called the "most overtly racist ad of this campaign season."

"I’d like to see her do this ad in the South Bronx," Behar yelled at the end of the segment. "Come here bitch, come to New York! I’m not praying for her! She’s going to hell! She’s going to hell, this bitch!"

Although Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the conservative on the panel, didn't resort to name-calling she agreed that the ad was in poor taste.

This isn't the first time that Behar has flown off the handle regarding Republican candidates. In 2007 she...

Touch-screen voting machine issues pop up in Nevada to the benefit of Reid (and Angle)

Electronic voting machines are being blamed for anxiety in Nevada as several early voters are complaining that when they began to cast their ballot Majority Leader Harry Reid's name was already selected.

Boulder City resident Joyce Ferrara, who wanted to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, told her local Fox news station that she could understand if such an aberration happened just for her, but her husband and several others at a polling place also experienced the malfunction.

"Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five-minute period of time, that's wrong."

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax assured the news station that there was no monkey business with the machines and explained that the screens are simply extremely sensitive. With cameras rolling, he showed that if anyone had an advantage it would be Angle, whose name gets checked off if a voter clicks the English option too many times or if his or her finger lingers too long on the opening screen.

Lomax thinks that voters should rest easy, but after the jump, there's some video from around the country and around the world that shows how easy it is to hack electronic voting machines.

Report: Harry Reid aide Diana Tejada lied to FBI, ICE agents over sham marriage to Lebanese. No charges

Wow, here's one that flew in under the radar on Monday:

"An aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repeatedly lied to federal immigration and FBI agents and submitted false federal documents to the Department of Homeland Security to cover up her illegal seven-year marriage to a Lebanese national who was the subject of an Oklahoma City Joint Terror Task Force investigation."

The story was broken by Fox News and involves Diana Tejada, the Latina press secretary for the embattled Nevada senator who is seeking a fifth term in a tight reelection battle with Republican Sharron Angle.

According to details, seven years ago Tejada fraudulently married a Lebanese national, Bassam Mahmoud Tarhini, to enable him to stay in the United States and avoid military service back home. She admitted to receiving money for doing so.

Court documents show that Tejada, who has worked for Reid for the past two years, knowingly filed false documents with Homeland Security, lied on multiple occasions to FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and submitted false marriage and immigration documents.

Earlier this year the Lebanese, who was being investigated by a joint terrorism task force, was deported. But for her part, Tejada was not charged with anything. A Justice Department official declined to explain how the aide to the top senator in Congress went uncharged for perjury, among other crimes.

A spokesman for the 70-year-old Reid told Fox News' Jana Winter on Monday evening that the senator's office was unaware of the investigation and referred to the aide as a junior staffer, although she was paid $52,451 by Reid last year.

The aide said Tejada, 28, no longer worked for the powerful senator but declined to specify when her employment was terminated. Fox found her appearing on a Spanish-language program on Reid's behalf as recently as Sept. 21, ironically discussing the do's and don't's of immigration rules.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Sunday shows: Kaine, Shelton, Biden, Rove, Steele

ABC This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Gen. Hugh Shelton, author and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee; George Will; Ed Gillespie; Anita Hill and Amy Walter.

Bloomberg Political Capital with Al Hunt: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Vice President Joe Biden.

CBS Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Former senior adviser to the president, Karl Rove and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

CNN  Fareed Zakaria GPS: Richard Holbrooke, Peter Bergen, Kishore Mahbubani and Shashi Tharoor.

CNN State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Florida U.S. Senate debate among former state Speaker and Rep. Marco Rubio, Republican; U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, Democrat; and Gov. Charlie Crist, independent.

Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace: Two candidates for the U.S. Senate -- Republican former Rep. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin of West Virginia -- with panelists Brit Hume, Bill Kristol, Juan Williams and Nina Easton.

NBC Meet the Press with David Gregory: Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, with Rick Santelli, Rachel Maddow and Harold Ford Jr.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Why wait until Sunday for politics? Click here now to follow The Ticket via Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. Our Facebook Like page is over here. We're also available on Kindle now. Use the ReTweet buttons below to share this item with friends.

Photo: Pentagon

How low will he go? Obama approval hits yet another bottom and 54% now say, 'No second term'

It's too late to back out now because President Obama is already racking up frequent flier miles on his Western campaign swing, allegedly to help out embattled Democratic senators.

But a new Gallup Poll out this morning puts the top Democrat himself at his lowest approval rating ever and finds most Americans do not want the Real Good Talker to have a second term.

Other than that, Obama should be a real help to Washington's embattled Patty Murray today and Nevada's embattled Harry Reid and California's embattled Barbara Boxer later, trying to salvage the large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress.

The new survey reveals that the more Americans get to know this guy, the less they like him. His ...

No Obama steam, Gallup's generic congressional poll finds; Republican lead holding strong 15 days out

Despite optimistic talk and  President Obama's nearly constant transcontinental campaign carbon footprint, a new Gallup Poll today finds Republicans holding a strong lead in the generic congressional poll among registered voters or likely voters, in big ballot turnouts and lesser ones for the Nov. 2 voting.

With but two weeks left before Obama's first midterm verdict, for the third straight week the Gallup Poll finds registered voters choosing the GOP over the Democrats, 48% to 43%. Among the now more important category of likely voters, Republicans have built a lead ranging from 11 points to 17 points.

According to Gallup, the wide disparity in the findings indicates Nancy Pelosi's days as House speaker are numbered, indicating a likely turnover of control to Republicans, at....

Sarah Palin can see 2010 from her house; daughter Bristol may soon see her dance steps on her hand

Got to hand it to the Palin women, they sure think alike.

While gushing over her daughter Bristol's performances on "Dancing with the Stars," former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin revealed some of her offspring's boot-scootin' secrets.

Before hopping on a plane in Sacramento Friday, Sarah Palin called in to Zap2It and explained how Bristol got the dancing gig.

"She had told us just a couple of weeks before the show started," the hockey mom said. "She said, 'Mom, "Dancing With the Stars" just called me and asked if I wanted to be on the show.' I said, 'What did you tell them?' 'I told them I'm not a star, and I don't dance. Sure, I'll join the show.'"

Remind you of someone else who joined up for a national engagement without much star power or much experience?

That's not where the similarities end. Check out the advice Bristol, who turned 20 today, was given from her 9-year-old sister:

"As Piper was listening to Bristol explain to me," says Sarah, "how difficult the steps were -- because a lot of these dances, we had never heard the name of the dances, much less knowing the steps of them -- Piper said, 'I know how you can learn those steps -- just write them on the palm of your hand.'

"I'm like, 'That's exactly what I would do!' I told Bristol she should do that for one of the songs."

Good to see that maverick spirit runs through the family tree. Bristol has already survived the first few rounds of the dance competition, most recently to the chagrin of Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino from MTV's "Jersey Shore".