memeorandum: Tom Friedman Hates Democracy. (Jamelle Bouie/American Prospect)

1:20 PM ET, October 4, 2010

Top Items:

Angle: “I'm not sure I can win” if Ashjian's in, nat'l GOPers “have lost their principles,” need to “leave me alone” — Team Angle on tape: Shows she is ‘blunt, plain spoken’ leader: Team Reid: ‘supreme hypocrisy’ by trying to make deal — That's just some of what GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle …

Shira Toeplitz / The Politico:
Tales of the Sharron Angle tape

Discussion: CNN and Hot Air

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Tell us what you really think, Ms. Angle

Discussion: iOwnTheWorld.com, The Note, TPMDC, The Blaze, Wonkette and Las Vegas Sun Blogs

Bridget Johnson / The Hill:
Brown: Tea Partiers ‘do not seem to much like America the way we are’

Discussion: Scared Monkeys and Weasel Zippers

T.W. Farnamand Dan Eggen / Washington Post:

Interest-group spending for midterm up fivefold from 2006; many sources secret — Interest groups are spending five times as much on the 2010 congressional elections as they did on the last midterms, and they are more secretive than ever about where that money is coming from.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Ballot Box, The Plum Line, Politics Daily, Pirate's Cove, The Washington Independent and Mother Jones

Chris Cillizza / The Fix:

DNC rakes in $16 million in September — 1. The Democratic National Committee raised $16 million in September alone, a startlingly strong month of fundraising that party operatives insist is a sign of momentum for their side with roughly one month remaining before the November midterms.

Discussion: The Caucus, Washington Monthly, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, CNN and Anchorage Daily News

Michael O'Brien / The Hill:
DNC boasts best fundraising month in 2010 cycle with $16M

Discussion: The Politico, The Political Carnival and Prairie Weather

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.

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Sideshow, Creative Minority Report, Guardian, The Confluence, Balloon Juice, Daily Kos and Prairie Weather

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: JustOneMinute, NewsBusters.org and Mediaite

Howard Kurtz / Washington Post:
Kathleen Parker and Eliot Spitzer, CNN's duo of civil dispute

Discussion: NY Daily News, NewsBusters.org, Commentary and JammieWearingFool

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: Althouse, SCOTUSblog, Lawyers, Guns & Money, PointOfLaw Forum and Washington Post

Robert Barnes / Washington Post:
Kagan's recusals take her out of action in many of the Supreme Court's cases

Discussion: Politics Daily, The Caucus, USA Today and Associated Press

New York Times:
First Monday — The Supreme Court enjoys all but free rein …

Discussion: New York Magazine, Prairie Weather and Althouse

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: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, The KRMG Morning News Blog, National Review, Daily Kos and Matthew Yglesias

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: HillBuzz

Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:

Obama Approval Averages 45% in September — Blacks, Democrats, liberals show greatest support for Obama — PRINCETON, NJ — President Barack Obama's job approval ratings remain below 50%, with an average 45% job approval score for the president in September. That is a slight improvement from his term-low 44% average in August.

Discussion: Politics Daily, Liberty Pundits Blog and Weasel Zippers

Ryan Lizza / New Yorker:

AS THE WORLD BURNS — How the Senate and the White House missed their best chance to deal with climate change. — On April 20, 2010, Senators John Kerry, Lindsey Graham, and Joseph Lieberman, along with three aides, visited Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, at the White House.

Discussion: The Huffington Post, Questions and Observations, Open Congress, The Reality-Based Community, The Washington Independent and Climate Progress

Jonathan Weisman / Wall Street Journal:
Obama Likely to Scale Back Legislative Plans

Discussion: Think Progress, And So it Goes in Shreveport and Wonk Room

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: Taegan Goddard's … and WLS-AM 890

Lynn Sweet:
Rahm Emanuel: Experts say not a legal resident of Chicago, cannot run for mayor

Discussion: The Politico

Michelle Malkin:
Rahm's first meet and greet

Discussion: MyFox DC and theblogprof

Jim Hoft / Gateway Pundit:

Busted- High School Students Admit They're Getting Class Credit to Attend Leftist One Nation Rally (Video) — How sad. This leftist rally was a complete astroturfed sham. — No justice. No Peace. — Not only were thousands of supporters given free rides by unions and the NAACP to the rally …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Scared Monkeys, theblogprof, Weasel Zippers, Pundit & Pundette and American Power

Jason Mattera / Human Events:
HUMAN EVENTS Reporter Assaulted at Leftist Rally

Discussion: theblogprof, The Moderate Voice, The Blaze, FishbowlDC, Gateway Pundit, Pajamas Media, Mediaite, American Power, The Sundries Shack, Doug Ross, The Other McCain, NewsBusters.org, Nice Deb, iOwnTheWorld.com, Moe Lane and HotAirPundit

Aharding / CNN:

Trump says he's not behind mysterious NH poll — (CNN) - Business mogul Donald Trump is making clear he had nothing to do with a mysterious poll in New Hampshire that, accordant to TIME Magazine, asked Granite State voters about a potential Trump presidential bid.

Discussion: The Politico, Gawker and Wonkette

thepage.time.com:
TRUMP CARD — PAGE EXCLUSIVE: New Hampshire voters polled …

Discussion: New York Magazine, CNN, The Washington Independent and MyDD

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, Gawker, JammieWearingFool, New York Magazine and The Awl

Jonathan Martin / The Politico:

Democrats seize on signs of hope — Once-despondent Democrats now believe that they may be able to avert a total midterm wipeout, as a series of important states now appears to be trending in their direction or growing more competitive. — The bad news: In a sign of how hostile …

Discussion: CNN, Washington Monthly and Hot Air

Jonathan Karl / ABCNEWS:

No More Minumum Wage?: Alaska Republican Says Feds Overstep Constitution — GOP Senate Candidate Hopes to Scale Back Federal Government's Power — Alaska's Joe Miller now has the solid support of the Republican establishment, but in an exclusive interview with ABC News …

Discussion: Think Progress, The Note, Washington Monthly, Hotline On Call, The Plum Line, Washington Post and Daily Kos

Jamelle Bouie / American Prospect:

Tom Friedman Hates Democracy. — I thought Atrios had the right take on Tom Friedman's latest, “Tom Triedman wants a third party with no constituency to enact his preferred agenda. [I] have only seen that column written 3 trillion times before:” … That Friedman believes the “far left” …

Discussion: Weigel, Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Salon, The New Republic and Brendan Nyhan