OBAMA AGENDA: Another effort to close Gitmo?
Breaking this morning: Two children's rights activists, Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and Kailash Satyarthi of India, have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In a new web video for Organizing for Action, Obama touts the importance of raising the minimum wage.
Writes the Wall Street Journal: "The White House is drafting options that would allow President Barack Obama to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by overriding a congressional ban on bringing detainees to the U.S., senior administration officials said. Such a move would be the latest and potentially most dramatic use of executive power by the president in his second term."
From the New York Times: "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 ... Around the same time, a federal trial court in Texas struck down that state’s ID law, saying it put a disproportionate burden on minority voters."
"With the United States continuing to pressure Turkey to do more in the fight against the Islamic State, Turkey’s position has hardened around an idea it has pushed for years as a strategy to confront the chaos of the Syrian civil war: a buffer zone along its frontier with Syria," writes the New York Times.
OFF TO THE RACES: Another poll has Crist leading in Florida
ALASKA: Web catnip, from the Alaska Dispatch News: "Anchorage police: No charges in Palin birthday brawl"
ARKANSAS: Senate candidate Tom Cotton is expecting his first child with wife Anna.
COLORADO: Cory Gardner's 3Q haul: $4.3 million, compared to Udall's $4 million.
Things got feisty over Ebola during a Colorado Senate debate: "On Ebola, Udall slammed Gardner for voting to cut $300 million from the budget of the Centers for Disease Control. "That's not how we protect our country," Udall said. Gardner said the CDC was funding jazzercise classes and massage and called for "a ban on all flights" from the West African nations afflicted with the virus."
FLORIDA: Another poll shows Charlie Crist leading Rick Scott, 43 percent to 38 percent.
GEORGIA: Conservative PAC Ending Spending will spend another $2 million against Michelle Nunn.
IOWA: The Joni Ernst campaign says it raised a whopping $6 million in the third quarter.
Marco Rubio, an early Joni Ernst supporter, will be back in Iowa to campaign with her right before the election.
American Bridge, meanwhile, has a video tying Joni Ernst to the Koch Brothers (and there’s rapping and rhymes involved)
KANSAS: Observes the Wall Street Journal: "Candidates for office usually close out a general-election campaign by moving to the political center, aiming to build appeal beyond their own party. It is a measure of the topsy-turvy contest here that Republican Sen. Pat Roberts is pushing heavily to the right."
From Politico: "A small group of free-spending wildcard donors, including investment tycoons Peter Ackerman and John Burbank, are rallying to support Greg Orman’s independent Senate campaign in Kansas. Michael Bloomberg and a Jonathan Soros-backed group are also considering entering the campaign on Orman’s behalf, POLITICO has learned."
KENTUCKY: Oof: Alison Lundergan Grimes repeatedly wouldn't say Thursday if she voted for Obama in 2008.
LOUISIANA: Mary Landrieu can dance, apparently.
NEW HAMPSHIRE: Ouch. Asked by Andrea Mitchell yesterday if she'd like to have Obama campaign for her, here's what Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said: "Well, the president's dealing with a lot of crises in the world right now, and I think it's important for him to continue to address what's happening with ISIS, to continue to address the Ebola scare," she said. "And so I expect him to be in Washington."
The Washington Post fact-checks the dueling abortion ads in New Hampshire.
NORTH CAROLINA: “North Carolina Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan’s admission this week that she missed an Armed Services Committee hearing in order to attend a campaign fundraiser has quickly found its way into her opponent’s television advertising,” Politico writes. “Hours after Hagan’s campaign confirmed to The Associated Press that she was in New York to raise money the day of the hearing, Republican Thom Tillis’ campaign modified their ad hitting Hagan on her handling of the terrorist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to include the revelation.”
From the News & Observer: "The Republican leaders of the North Carolina legislature are not yet ready to let gay couples marry in this state. Phil Berger, president pro tem of the state Senate, and Thom Tillis, speaker of the state House, filed a motion late Thursday afternoon asking a judge to let them enter the legal fray over the 2012 amendment to the state constitution that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman."
OREGON: Well this is a twist. “[Oregon’s First Lady] Cylvia Hayes apologized Thursday as she admitted to making a "serious mistake by committing an illegal act" when she married an 18-year-old Ethiopian national to help him secure residency in the United States.”
SOUTH DAKOTA: This will appear in GOP ads in 3..2..: Via The Hill: "South Dakota Independent: I'd be a 'friend of Obama' in the Senate." MORE from Larry Pressler: "'I disagree with Obama on many many things. I am not an Obama supporter, so to speak, but I am on the Affordable Care Act," he said.
Larry Pressler is pledging in a new ad to only serve a single term if elected.
TEXAS: National Journal’s Ron Brownstein takes a look at Lt. Gov. nominee Dan Patrick ® and how the Texas GOP has moved right on immigration. “While somewhat tempering that rhetoric lately, Patrick still portrays border conditions in apocalyptic terms that even some Republicans have condemned as alarmist. Debating last week with Hispanic Democratic lieutenant governor nominee Leticia Van de Putte, Patrick warned of ‘terrorists … drug cartels … and hardened criminals’ slipping into Texas: ‘It's a lot more than just people coming here and working for the American Dream.’ This week Patrick released an ad, complete with images of black-clad jihadist fighters, in which he warns that "ISIS terrorists threaten to cross our border and kill Americans" and pledges.”
VIRGINIA: Looks like Democrats are giving up on VA-10, according to Roll Call.
PROGRAMMING NOTES.
*** Friday’s “The Daily Rundown” line-up: NBC’s Craig Melvin interviews Richard Engel, Dr. Soner Cagatay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, NBC’s Keir Simmons, Sarah Dallof, NIH’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, MSNBC’s Amanda Sakuma, The Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig, The New York Times’ David Sanger, NBC’s Ian Williams and Moderator of Meet the Press Chuck Todd.
*** Friday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: Alex Witt interviews Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, on Ebola and what the U.S. needs to do to handle the disease; Attorney Eric Guster on the Alabama pastor who admits to having AIDS & sleeping with congregation members; in our exclusive Born in the U$A series 11-year-old Donovan Smith, the Toil and Trouble Bath Creator and Entrepreneur; and Actor Chad Coleman from “The Walking Dead.”
*** Friday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Kristen Welker fills in for Andrea and will interview Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Assistant USAID Administrator Nancy Lindborg, nbcnews.com’s Asian America editor Amna Nawaz, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, the Atlantic’s Molly Ball, NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell, MSNBC’s Suzy Khimm and mun2’s Yarel Ramos.