memeorandum: Obama Weighs Options to Close Guantanamo (Wall Street Journal)

5:20 PM ET, October 10, 2014

Top Items:

Obama Weighs Options to Close Guantanamo — Any Move to Override Congressional Ban on Bringing Detainees to U.S. Would Spark Fight — The White House is drafting options that would allow President Barack Obama to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by overriding …

Discussion: Roll Call, TalkLeft, Talking Points Memo, The PJ Tatler, No More Mister Nice Blog, National Review, PoliticusUSA, RedState, Gawker, Pat Dollard, The Daily Caller, TheBlaze.com, White House Dossier and Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

Roberts vows to ‘shut down the Senate’ if Obama empties Gitmo — TOPEKA, Kansas — Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) on Friday vowed to block all legislation in the Senate with a prolonged filibuster if President Obama tries to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to the United States.

Eric Bradner / CNN:
Roberts on Gitmo: ‘I will shut down the Senate’

Discussion: Practical Politicking, The PJ Tatler and Wall Street Journal

Justin Sink / The Hill:
Report: Obama mulls action to close Guantanamo

Discussion: American Spectator and Wall Street Journal

Adam Liptak / New York Times:

Courts Strike Down Voter ID Laws in Wisconsin and Texas — WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday evening stopped officials in Wisconsin from requiring voters there to provide photo identification before casting their ballots in the coming election. — Three of the court's …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, Associated Press, The Moderate Voice, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Daily Kos, ACS Blog, Althouse, Shakesville, SCOTUSblog, New York Magazine, Balloon Juice, Taylor Marsh, Democratic Strategist, NBC News and Hullabaloo

Joshua A. Douglas / Talking Points Memo:

The Supreme Court's Last-Minute Voter Rulings Should Be About Access — We are less than a month from Election Day and courts around the country are issuing a dizzying array of voting rights decisions that will affect the upcoming elections. In Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Texas …

Tim Eaton / Austin American-Statesman:
Federal court calls Texas voter ID law unconstitutional

Discussion: PoliticusUSA, The PJ Tatler, Hullabaloo and The Moderate Voice

Ryan J. Reilly / The Huffington Post:
Federal Court Blocks Texas Voter ID Law, Calling It A ‘Poll Tax’

Discussion: American Prospect, TPNN, ThinkProgress and Feeds

Rick Hasen / Election Law Blog:
Analysis: Supreme Court Stops Immediate Implementation of WI Voter ID Law; and a Thought on Texas

Discussion: American Prospect, SCOTUSblog, Bloomberg View, The BRAD BLOG, Lawyers, Guns & Money and BuzzFeed

KPTV-TV:

Oregon's first lady admits illegal marriage to Ethiopian immigrant — Oregon first lady Cylvia Hayes admitted Thursday she illegally married an Ethiopian immigrant because she needed money and he needed help to stay in the United States. — Hayes said she married 18-year-old Abraham Abraham …

Discussion: CNN, Fox News, BizPac Review, Watchdog.org and Oregonian

Kendall Breitman / Politico:

Oregon First Lady: My sham marriage — Oregon Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber's fiancée, Cylvia Hayes, admitted on Thursday to entering into an illegal marriage in 1997, calling it a “serious mistake.” — “It was wrong then and it is wrong now and I am here today to accept the consequences, some of which will be life changing.

Discussion: Oregonian, his vorpal sword, Willamette Week, ImmigrationProf Blog and KOIN-TV

Tyler Hurst / Willamette Week:

Oregon First Lady Cylvia Hayes' Undisclosed Third Marriage Was to 18-Year-Old Immigrant — Oregon First Lady Cylvia Hayes regularly speaks about her hardscrabble background—a childhood in poverty, her struggle to get through school, and her two marriages before meeting Gov. John Kitzhaber, to whom she is now engaged.

Discussion: Washington Post, Lawyers, Guns & Money, Oregonian, Washington Monthly, KOIN-TV, TPNN and OnPolitics

Laura Gunderson / Oregonian:
Cylvia Hayes apologizes for ‘illegal act,’ marrying 18-year-old Ethiopian seeking green card

Discussion: National Review and Talking Points Memo

Denver Post:

By The Denver Post Editorial Board — (Kathryn Scott Osler, Denver Post file) — Congress is hardly functioning these days. It can't pass legislation that is controversial and it often can't even pass legislation on which there is broad agreement. Its reputation is abysmal …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Power Line, Washington Post, Hot Air, RedState, Washington Free Beacon and National Review

Chris Perez / New York Post:

Pregnant teens who joined ISIS: We've made a huge mistake — The two teens are believed to be married, pregnant and living in the Islamic State-controlled city of Raqqa. — The teenage girls who abandoned their families in Austria to become jihadis for ISIS feel they've made a terrible mistake …

Discussion: National Review, The Daily Caller, The Jawa Report, The Other McCain and The PJ Tatler

Tina Daunt / Hollywood Reporter:

President Obama at Gwyneth Paltrow Fundraiser: Democrats Should Feel “Sense of Urgency” Over Midterms — The actress hosted the President in her Brentwood backyard, gushing to Obama, “You're so handsome that I can't speak properly” — The Democrats may not want President Barack Obama …

Discussion: FOX News Radio and PoliticusUSA

Darlene Superville / Associated Press:
Gwyneth Paltrow: ‘Would Be Wonderful’ to Give Obama ‘All the Power He Needs’

Discussion: Hot Air and Patterico's Pontifications

Katie Zezima / Washington Post: Gwyneth Paltrow to Obama: 'You're so handsome that I can't speak properly'

Laura Smith-Spark / CNN:

Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi share Nobel Peace Prize — (CNN) — The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to India's Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai for their struggles against the suppression of children and for young people's rights, including the right to education.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, BuzzFeed, The Gateway Pundit, alicublog and Mediaite

Nobelprize.org:
The Nobel Peace Prize for 2014

Discussion: Washington Post, The Dish, Taylor Marsh, New York Times, VICE, The Verge, Hot Air, Raw Story and Business Insider

New York Times:
Reaching across gulfs of age, gender, faith, nationality …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Daily Kos, Hit & Run, Gawker, Shakesville and Feministing

Franklin Foer / The New Republic:

Amazon Must Be Stopped — It's too big. It's cannibalizing the economy. It's time for a radical plan. — Before we speak ill of Amazon, let us kneel down before it. Twenty years ago, the company began with the stated goal of creating a bookstore as comprehensive as the great Library of Alexandria …

Discussion: New York Magazine

Washington Post:

Voyeur charges dropped against photographer at Lincoln Memorial — Charges have been dropped against a man accused of taking photos of women's “private areas” at the Lincoln Memorial after a judge ruled that he did not do anything illegal and that police did not have a probable cause to investigate him.

Discussion: ThinkProgress and Truth Revolt

Joce Sterman / WJLA-TV:
Judge rules man who took photos up ladies' skirts at Lincoln Memorial didn't violate their privacy

Discussion: New York Magazine, Raw Story, Shakesville, Liberaland and Talking Points Memo

Josh Hicks / Washington Post:

U.S. taxpayers paid $486 million for Afghan air fleet. DOD sold it for scrap. — The Defense Department destroyed nearly half a billion dollars worth of defective Italian aircraft that U.S. taxpayers bought for Afghanistan and then sold the scrap for $32,000, according to an agency watchdog.

Discussion: Daily Surge

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

40 painful seconds of Alison Lundergan Grimes refusing to say whether she voted for President Obama — Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) appeared before the Louisville Courier-Journal editorial board on Thursday to make her pitch for their endorsement. The life-long Democrat …

Discussion: Fox News, New York Times, Lexington Herald-Leader, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Hit & Run, Scared Monkeys, Power Line, Betsy's Page, Weekly Standard and Courier-Journal

Joseph Gerth / Courier-Journal:
Grimes won't say if she voted for Obama

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Wall Street Journal and Daily Signal

Associated Press:

Army War College Revokes Sen. John Walsh's Degree — The U.S. Army War College revoked Democratic Sen. John Walsh's master's degree after an investigation completed Friday concluded he plagiarized a research paper required to graduate, a college spokeswoman said.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Jake Sherman / Politico:

South Dakota Senate candidate lives in D.C. — Larry Pressler, who is running for Senate in South Dakota as an independent, has his principal residence in Washington, according to District of Columbia tax records. — Pressler, who served as a Republican in Congress from 1975 to 1997 …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Secret Deficit Lovers — What if they balanced the budget and nobody knew or cared? — O.K., the federal budget hasn't actually been balanced. But the Congressional Budget Office has tallied up the totals for fiscal 2014, which ran through the end of September, and reports that the deficit plunge …

Discussion: AEIdeas, Washington Post, Hit & Run, PoliticusUSA and Daily Signal