As transcribed from my DVR,  here’s FOX News’ Neil Cavuto this afternoon on the continuing stock market increases we witnessed yet again today:

I want you to take a look at this, because if Wall Street’s worried about all the crosscurrents in Washington right now, it has a funny way of showing it: the Dow up better than 214 points, 8,426. We are very close to being even on the year, when for a while we down 20 more than percent on the year, the Dow storming back to levels we’ve not seen since early January.

So on the year now we are effectively at a wash, a year that had us cascading better than 20 percent, well, well, well into bear territory. Like I said, Wall Street climbed a wall of worry. Whatever it is, it’s climbing through this.

Whatever it is? Yes, Mr. Cavuto, because politics and the stock market are totally unrelated . . . except, of course, when the market is tanking and a Democrat is in the White House and Fox News is shouting like a barn full of Chicken Littles.

How can Cavuto even look himself in the face while getting made up for this show? Why doesn’t he just offer a commentary explaining how the color blue—you know, the Democrats’ color—is responsible for all bear markets and Ronald Reagan’s haircut style is responsible for all bull markets. It would be about as sensical and serious as the junk they pass off as analysis on FOX. Many of the network's viewers would be persuaded.

Cavuto cut the story short -- no segments dedicated to interviewing economists about how President Obama is responsible for the bullish trends of late, though of course there was plenty of FOX air time dedicated to "Obama's bear market" storylines and conversations just seven weeks ago.

Instead, he pivoted quickly to a segment -- you can’t make this up -- about how George W. Bush can’t really be unpopular because it only took him 100 days to raise $100 million for his presidential library. Yes, Neil, because those donations derive randomly from all Americans and in even amounts, thereby serving as a proxy for popularity and proving once and for all that the left-wing media manufactured almost three years’ polling showing Bush hovering around 30 percent approval.

Man, I’d hate to end up on trial for my life and find out Neil Cavuto were my court-appointed attorney. I’d have a better chance with Lionel Hutz representing me.

WASHINGTON -- The government is starting to ratchet down the frenzy over swine flu -- er, H1N1 flu -- amid signs the virus may not be the horrible deadly outbreak it seems to be if you watch too much cable news.

"We have started to see encouraging signs that this virus may be mild and that its spread may be limited," Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said this afternoon at a briefing on the flu. "We are cautiously optimistic that this particular strain will not be more severe than a normal seasonal flu outbreak."

Of course, that doesn't exactly make the flu something to, er, sneeze at; the normal seasonal flu kills more than 30,000 people every year just in the United States. But with Mexican authorities saying the virus has peaked there, Napolitano indicated that the flu may be less of a threat than feared at first.

"The severity of the flu -- how sick you get -- it's not stronger than regular seasonal flu," she said. There is still some concern within the administration that the virus will reappear in a worse form when the fall flu season starts up, but epidemiologists aren't sure how likely that is.

The World Health Organization will still probably raise the pandemic threat level to 6, the highest on the organization's scale. But Napolitano tried to head off a panic about that before it happened. The WHO level "does not mean has become any more severe, it means it has spread to a number of countries," she said. "The level is about geography, not severity."

The administration has been trying to walk a line between getting out ahead of the flu and keeping people from freaking out about it (sometimes without much help from Vice President Biden). President Obama opened his primetime press conference last week, originally scheduled to mark his 100th day in office, with a reminder to wash your hands and cover your mouth when you cough. The Centers for Disease Control and DHS have been doing daily press briefings on the virus.

But if the flu isn't any more dangerous than the annual seasonal variety, there's no reason for anybody -- including the government -- to live in terror about it. So look for the administration to keep trying to send reassuring messages. Even Biden -- who had gone way off-message on Thursday and warned people not to take public transit or fly -- was back on track. Literally. Both before and after an event in Wilmington, Del., this morning, Biden rode Amtrak between his old hometown and his new one.

A new bill to pay for ongoing efforts Iraq and Afghanistan has one notable omission: $50 million that the administration requested in order to pay for the planned closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

House Democrats announced the bill on Monday; overall, it provides for roughly $10 billion more in funding than President Obama had proposed. But that $50 million is nowhere to be found.

The most likely explanation for the omission is a political one. As the Associated Press notes, the money could potentially be diverted from other funds later on. Keeping it out of this bill means that in 2010 vulnerable Democrats won't be faced with GOP ads attacking them for having voted to close Guantanamo.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., certainly knows how to put the happiest face on things. In a piece he contributed to a New York Times roundtable on the possible repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Inhofe went off-topic a little bit to discuss Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's decision to bolt the Republican Party, and offered this take:

This week we marked the first 100 days of the Obama administration. In a YouTube statement, I warned Democrats that, in addition to their unprecedented spending spree, pushing for liberal causes like abortion rights, gun control, gutting the defense budget and universal health care, will put the president on track for a repeat performance of 1993 -- when a young Bill Clinton entered the Oval Office under the banner of “change.” He had everything. He had the House and the Senate, and the far-left had their hooks in him.

There is no evidence more visible that the American people are already rebelling against the far-left agenda than Senator Arlen Specter switching parties to become a Democrat. He did this for one reason, and that is his advisers told him he couldn’t retain his Senate seat as a Republican. In other words, the same people who supported Senator Specter six years ago have soundly rejected him today.

That, my friends, sounds like 1994. The extreme liberal agenda is not sellable to the American people. Just wait and see.

There is, to put it mildly, some faulty logic here. Specter couldn't win in a Republican primary -- that's not the same thing as a general election. And it's no surprise to see that Republicans don't like what President Obama has done so far. Moreover, the fact that Specter would have lost the primary is in some ways actually a reflection of voters moving away from the GOP. The moderates who supported Specter have switched their party registration, leaving behind a state party that's more conservative than ever and hence more inclined to vote against Specter in a primary.

Besides, Specter is poised to win reelection as a Democrat. Inhofe wrote what he did before the release of a new Quinnipiac University poll showing the senator with a 20-point lead over former Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., a conservative favorite, but the result of that survey wasn't all that shocking.

(Hat-tip to Steve Benen.)

It's not official yet, but it appears that Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., will be taking over as the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, replacing Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who vacated the post when he switched parties. It's a temporary move, just until the next Congress convenes in 2011, but it's still one that could have a significant effect, especially on one issue currerntly in the news: The confirmation of a replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

Where Specter might have at least moderated the opposition to President Obama's eventual nominee, or perhaps even supported the choice outright, Sessions is likely to take a hardline stance in opposition. He's a staunch conservative who was, for that reason, the favorite of conservative activists to take over the job.

Sessions has his own experience with the Judiciary Committee rejecting a nominee. In 1986, President Reagan chose him for a spot on the federal bench, but the committee stopped his nomination from going to the Senate floor over concerns about his attitudes on race.

Once again, former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., has been forced to acknowledge that the National Enquirer broke a big story about him. Last year, he admitted to having had an affair with Rielle Hunter. This year, he acknowledged that federal authorities are investigating him to determine whether he illegally diverted political contributions in order to provide Hunter with money for personal reasons.

“I am confident that no funds from my campaign were used improperly,” Edwards said in a statement given to the News & Observer, a paper in his home state.

“However, I know that it is the role of government to ensure that this is true. We have made available to the United States both the people and the information necessary to help them get the issue resolved efficiently and in a timely matter. We appreciate the diligence and professionalism of those involved and look forward to a conclusion.”

There are several things the feds are reportedly looking at, including one transaction that looks suspicious, if only circumstantially. In 2007, at a time when Edwards' political action committee reported having only about $7,000 in cash on hand, it paid Hunter's firm roughly $14,000. At the same time, the Associated Press reports, Edwards' presidential campaign made a $14,000 donation to the PAC.

Once upon a time, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was a social liberal, or at least a moderate. He quite happily -- and now, notoriously -- dressed in drag, he moved in with two gay men when he separated from his wife and even reportedly promised those two men that, if same-sex marriage were to become legal in his state, he'd marry them himself. But as he's gotten deeper into Republican politics outside of the Big Apple, his attitude has changed.

Over the weekend, those two men Giuliani roomed with at the beginning of this decade were married in a ceremony in Connecticut. The former mayor was a no-show, the New York Post reports. One of the men, Howard Koeppel, told the Post, "His secretary called Thursday and said he was not able to come to the wedding and wished us all the best."

Giuliani hinted recently that, if he were to run for governor, opposition to current Gov. David Paterson's proposal to legalize same-sex marriage in New York could be a big part of his campaign.

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., has reason to be very happy this morning. At the end of March, when he was still a Republican, a Quinnipiac University poll showed him traiing 14 points behind his rival for the GOP nomination, former Rep. Pat Toomey. Today, a new Quinnipiac poll, now pairing the two in a general election matchup, has Specter ahead of Toomey by 20 points.

There are still two things that might put a damper on the good news for Specter, however. First, there's still the possibility that he'll face a Democratic primary challenger. It seems unlikely that such a challenger would be able to get real momentum going, as the Democratic establishment -- from President Obama and Vice President Biden to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell -- will throw its weight behind the incumbent. But there is still that possibility, and there is precedent for a Democratic primary challenger to come out on top even when opposed by the party machine (see Lamont, Ned).

Then there's the prospect that former Gov. Tom Ridge will jump in the race for the Republican nomination. There have been rumors that the GOP will encourage him to do just that, and though conservative activists would oppose any attempt to give Toomey a challenger, a little strategic thinking would show them that's the wrong way to go about this. The Quinnipiac poll has Specter ahead of Ridge, but only barely -- Specter gets 46 percent of respondents' votes, compared to Ridge's 43 percent.

Former Rep. Jack Kemp, R-N.Y., Bob Dole's running mate in 1996, died Saturday evening. He was 73.

Kemp first came to prominence as a football player, quarterbacking the Los Angeles (later San Diego) Chargers and, most famously, the Buffalo Bills.

Elected to Congress in 1970, he remained in the House of Representatives for nine terms, leaving his seat after opting not to run for it at the same time he was mounting an ultimately unsuccessful campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988. He served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President George H.W. Bush before ending his political career as the number-two man on Dole's ticket in 1996. Kemp's influence on the GOP persists today, however, as he was instrumental in persuading the party and its elected officials to embrace supply-side tax policies, and he continued to advocate for that philosophy even after he was finished running for elected office.

Kemp's office disclosed in January of this year that the former congressman had been diagnosed with cancer, but provided no further details at the time. In a statement released Saturday, his family said, "Jack Kemp passed peacefully into the presence of the Lord shortly after 6 o’clock this evening, surrounded by the love of his family and pastor, and believing with Isaiah, 'My strength and my courage is the Lord.' During the treatment of his cancer, Jack expressed his gratitude for the thoughts and prayers of so many friends, a gratitude which the Kemp family shares.”

Even before President Obama has settled on his choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter -- indeed, even before he spoke on Friday afternoon about the qualities he'd like to see in a nominee -- battle lines are being drawn and groups from all over the political spectrum are girding themselves to do battle over the eventual nominee.

A fight does seem inevitable, even if the nomination might normally have been relatively uncontroversial: Partisans on both sides will demand it. Plus, Supreme Court nominations are the best political theater available between elections. Media coverage will thus tend to play up (and encourage) any rancor -- and various senators, who can practically smell television cameras, will be more than happy to provide it as long as they get some time in the spotlight in exchange.

Moreover, there are several factions that could see this as a time to make a statement and demonstrate the power they wield within their respective parties.

The left, certainly, will want to pressure Obama to pick someone who could end up being the liberal equivalent of Justices Samuel Alito or Antonin Scalia. If that's ever going to happen during this administration, this may be the best time to do it: There's the Democrats' powerful majority in the Senate, of course, and though that conceivably could persist for some time, it might not always be combined with approval ratings as high as Obama's are right now. The left hasn't won many of these battles during the administration's time in office thus far, so that will provide even further incentive.

And on the right, various pressure groups -- especially in the social conservative base -- are likely to see both a battle worth joining and an opportunity to score some points and potentially raise some money in the process as well. The current political situation within the Republican Party will be another factor there. As new organizations push "rebranding" efforts that could end with a turn, at least to some degree, away from steadfast social conservatism, activists will want to demonstrate their continued relevance, and on the other side the reformers may be pushing a different strategy and message.

Even if there is a pitched battle, though, the confirmation vote itself might still go fairly smoothly; certainly, on paper, the Democrats can easily confirm anyone Obama chooses. That's no guarantee, however -- if Republicans opt to break with the precedent they set under the Bush adminstration and attempt a filibuster, several Democratic senators could very well defect and deny their party the 60 votes needed to overcome the maneuver. Recent convert Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., has already demonstrated a willingness to buck the administration despite his party switch, for instance, plus Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is always a question mark and so are a few others. (And there's the question of whether Minnesota's Al Franken will have been seated by the time the vote happens -- this may provide even more incentive for former Sen. Norm Coleman to continue his legal battle.)

That's if the nominee can even make it to the Senate floor. Specter's defection might actually hurt Democrats in this sense, as they need at least one Republican on the Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of the nomination in order for it to go to the full body. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has been the focus of speculation as the committee member besides Specter most likely to provide that lone vote. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, could be a dark horse -- he backed Attorney General Eric Holder. But if it comes down to that, both would face intense pressure from within their party.