memeorandum: It's the first Monday in October, time for people like Barry Friedman … (Ann Althouse/Althouse)

7:35 PM ET, October 4, 2010

Top Items:

Rahm Emanuel: Experts say not a legal resident of Chicago, cannot run for mayor — BY ABDON M. PALLASCH — CHICAGO—The first question isn't: Can Rahm win? It's: Can Rahm run? — Sunday, Rahm Emanuel announced in a video posted on a website that he is preparing to run for mayor of Chicago.

Discussion: Chicago Tribune, HillBuzz, Hot Air, The Politico, The Nation, New York Magazine, Right Wing News and Politics Daily

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:

Emanuel's ‘Glad to be home’ video filmed in Washington — Rahm Emanuel kicked off his campaign for mayor of Chicago with a homecoming video, filmed in front of a bookshelf with a vase and a family photograph. — “I was born here, and my wife Amy and I raised our three children here,” he says.

Discussion: MyFox DC, Sister Toldjah, Pajamas Media, The Capitol Fax Blog, Weasel Zippers, Mediaite, Politics Daily, WLS-AM 890, MyDD and Wonkette

Zaid Jilani / Think Progress:

Tennessee County's Subscription-Based Firefighters Watch As Family Home Burns Down — As ThinkProgress has noted, there are currently two competing visions of governance in the United States. One, the conservative vision, believes in the on-your-own society, and informs a policy agenda …

Discussion: The KRMG Morning News Blog, The Huffington Post, The Sundries Shack, National Review, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Climate Progress, Daily Kos and The Poor Man Institute

Daniel Foster / National Review:

Pay-to-Spray Firefighters Watch as Home Burns — Oy, this is bad for the libertarians: … That bolded paragraph is what really gets to me. I have no problem with this kind of opt-in government in principle — especially in rural areas where individual need for government services and available infrastructure vary so widely.

Discussion: Think Progress, ECHIDNE of the snakes, JustOneMinute, Salon, The Volokh Conspiracy and Matthew Yglesias

Slate:

How the Roberts Court disguises its conservatism. — It's dark and silent. Reporters trickle into the grand ceremonial room from a door on the left; like everyone, they've been instructed that no recording devices of any sort are allowed. A clutch of spectators, some of whom have been waiting for hours, enters at the rear.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Hit & Run, The Volokh Conspiracy, Ezra Klein, SCOTUSblog, PointOfLaw Forum, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Washington Post

Robert Barnes / Washington Post:

Kagan's recusals take her out of action in many of the Supreme Court's cases — Elena Kagan begins hearing cases as the Supreme Court's 112th justice Monday morning. But anyone who wants to see her in action needs to be sharp. — Kagan will hear the first case argued before the court …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, Don Surber, Politics Daily, iOwnTheWorld.com, CNN, The Caucus, USA Today and Associated Press

Ann Althouse / Althouse:
It's the first Monday in October, time for people like Barry Friedman …

Discussion: Lawyers, Guns & Money

Slate:
Trick 2: Misdirection — Every great illusionist masters …

Discussion: Josh Blackman's Blog, The Plum Line and National Review

Wall Street Journal:
Leahy's Supreme Tie-Breakers

Discussion: Betsy's Page

Ben Evans / Associated Press:

O'Donnell said China plotting to take over US — WASHINGTON — Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell of Delaware said in a 2006 debate that China was plotting to take over America and claimed to have classified information about the country that she couldn't divulge.

Discussion: Politics Daily, Little Green Footballs, The Atlantic Online, CNN, Washington Monthly, Raw Story, New York Magazine, msnbc.com and Outside the Beltway

Gallup:

GOP Well Positioned Among Likely Midterm Voters — Voting preferences remain close among registered voters — PRINCETON, NJ — Gallup's generic ballot for Congress among registered voters currently shows Republicans with 46% of the vote and Democrats with 43%, similar to the 46% to 46% tie reported a week ago.

Discussion: Weekly Standard, The Hill, Hot Air, USA Today, RedState, Conservatives4Palin.com, Real Clear Politics, AmSpecBlog and Ruby Slippers

Shira Toeplitz / The Politico:

Tales of the Sharron Angle tape — Nevada Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian admitted Sunday that he secretly recorded a conversation with Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle, at a meeting in which she asks him to get out of the race, and that he leaked the tape to a journalist.

Discussion: Howard Kurtz, CNN, Hot Air, Mediaite, Ben Smith's Blog, New York Magazine and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Kevin Grandia / The Huffington Post:
Filmmaker Goes Undercover to Expose the Corporate Links to the Tea Party [video]

Discussion: Wonk Room

Sara Jerome / Hillicon Valley:
Guide arms Tea Party members with anti-net-neutrality talking points

Discussion: Prairie Weather

Brian Alexander / msnbc.com:

Pretzel nation: Americans have sex in 41 combinations — We aren't as bland as we might think, new study shows — Americans are often portrayed as being bland sexual mopes, compared to say, the French. But according to a new study, we actually routinely choose from more spicy combinations …

Discussion: Runnin' Scared, The Daily Weekly and The Awl

aolnews.com:
Survey on America's Sexual Habits: We're Getting Friskier

Discussion: The Daily Dish, New York Times, Rough Sketch, culturekitchen and Unfogged

The Note:

Joe Miller: End Federal Minimum Wage, ‘Defund Certain Components’ of EPA — ABC News' Rick Klein reports: — Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller was in Washington last week to raise money and meet with some of the same establishment Republicans who supported his opponent in his primary.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, The Moderate Voice and Joe. My. God.

Jonathan Karl / ABCNEWS:
Alaska's Joe Miller Wants to Abolish Federal Minimum Wage

Discussion: Hotline On Call, Think Progress, The DSCC, AFL-CIO NOW BLOG, The Note, msnbc.com, Washington Monthly, The Plum Line, Washington Post and Daily Kos

Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:

Ominous new Gallup findings for Democrats: Blacks still love Obama, others not so much — The good news for President Obama is his popular support among blacks is holding steady at 91%. — The bad news is no other group of potential voters likes him that much.

Discussion: theblogprof, Gateway Pundit, National Review and HillBuzz

Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:
Obama Approval Averages 45% in September

Discussion: The Plum Line, Beltway Confidential, Politics Daily, Liberty Pundits Blog, YID With LID, Ezra Klein and Weasel Zippers

Twitter Blog:

newtwitterceo — By all accounts Twitter is on a roll. We've redesigned our web site to great user feedback. Our user and usage numbers are growing at a rapid clip all around the world. We've launched an early, but successful, monetization effort. And, many top engineers …

Discussion: Hillicon Valley, TechCrunch, Guardian, New York Times, Scripting News, Fortune, Gawker, BlogPost, New York Magazine, Mashable!, Daring Fireball and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Michael Georgy / Reuters:

Drone strike kills 8 Germans in northwest Pakistan — (Reuters) - A suspected U.S. drone strike killed eight militants of German nationality in northwest Pakistan on Monday, Pakistani intelligence officials said. — They died when two missiles from a suspected CIA pilotless aircraft struck …

Discussion: The Jawa Report

BBC:
‘German militants’ killed in Pakistan drone attack

Discussion: Gateway Pundit

Project Veritas:

Statement regarding CNN — Now that I've had a chance to watch CNN's “Right on the Edge” documentary, I'm happy to comment. I apologize for not saying anything sooner, but don't want to comment until I have all the facts at my disposal. — As you can imagine in our line of work …

Discussion: The Politico, Wonkette, Talking Points Memo, TPMMuckraker and Weigel

Kieran Crowley / New York Post:

Gay skydive teach axed for ‘gal grope’ — Tweet — A skydiving instructor who joked with a female student that he couldn't be falling for her because he's gay has filed a discrimination suit, claiming he was cut loose from his job because of the quip. — Donald Zarda was strapped tightly …

Discussion: MyFox DC, Left Coast Rebel, The Other McCain, JammieWearingFool, Gawker, New York Magazine and The Awl

DownWithTyranny!:

Could Congressional Progressives Come Out Of The Midterms In A Stronger Position? — There's the roll-up-your-sleaves-and-get-to- work way to win elections and then there's the Inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom about what candidates are supposed to do. Inside the Beltway it's …

Discussion: TalkLeft and Open Left

Bruno Waterfield / Telegraph:

Geert Wilders trial suspended after he attacks judge — Geert Wilders, the anti-Islam politician, told a Dutch court that he stood by his opinions that the Koran is a “fascist book” and Islam is as dangerous as Nazism, as he went on trial for inciting racial hatred.

Discussion: Jihad Watch, Right Pundits and Weasel Zippers

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:

Mondale to Obama: Ditch the ‘idiot boards’ — Former Vice President Walter Mondale suggested in an interview today President Obama stop relying on “idiot boards” — teleprompters, that is — to deliver his message to the American people. — “He uses these idiot boards to read speeches in television …

Discussion: CNN, Hot Air, MyFox DC and Pajamas Media

The Huffington Post:

West Virginia Conservative Foundation's New Ad Warns Of Rep. Nick Rahall's Outreach To Arab-Americans (VIDEO) — What's Your Reaction: … Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) is the target of a well-funded attack campaign by a conservative nonprofit called the West Virginia Conservative Foundation …

Discussion: Weigel, TPMDC, New York Magazine and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Ambarish Kenghe / Google TV Blog:

Here comes Google TV — It's been almost five months since we introduced Google TV to the world at Google I/O, and today we're happy to give you an update on our progress. For those who haven't yet heard of it, Google TV is a new way to think about TV: it's a platform that combines …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch, New York Times, Hillicon Valley, Twitter Blog, The Consumerist and Engadget, more at Techmeme »

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Chasing Fox — The loud, cartoonish blood sport that's engorged MSNBC, exhausted CNN—and is making our body politic delirious. — In the spring of 2006, a year and a half after he was hired to run CNN/U.S., Jonathan Klein went to his boss Jim Walton with an idea. CNN was in trouble.

Discussion: Washington Post, Runnin' Scared, Mediaite, NewsBusters.org and JustOneMinute

Alex Seitz-Wald / Think Progress:

Pence's Priorities: Stopping Marriage Equality Is As Important As Fixing The Economy — Rep. Mike Pence's (R-IN) surprise win of the presidential straw poll at the Values Voters summit last month has generated speculation that he is positioning himself for a White House bid as a champion …

Discussion: Iowa Independent, msnbc.com, O.KayHenderson.com and Shakesville

Jack Dolan / Los Angeles Times:

$69 million in California welfare money drawn out of state — Las Vegas tops the list with $11.8 million spent at casinos or taken from ATMs, but transactions in Hawaii, Miami, Guam and elsewhere also raise questions. Officials say budget cuts hinder investigations. — Reporting from Sacramento —

Discussion: MyFox DC, ParaPundit and Gateway Pundit

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Fear and Favor — A note to Tea Party activists: This is not the movie you think it is. You probably imagine that you're starring in “The Birth of a Nation,” but you're actually just extras in a remake of “Citizen Kane.” — True, there have been some changes in the plot.