memeorandum: Iowa Senate Candidate Ernst Won't Say If She'd Support McConnell As GOP Leader (Heather/Latest from Crooks and Liars)

11:25 AM ET, November 2, 2014

Top Items:

Iowa Poll: Ernst takes 7-point lead — Joni Ernst has charged to achieve a 7-point lead over Democrat Bruce Braley in a new Iowa Poll, which buoys the GOP's hope that an Iowa victory will be the tipping point to a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate. — Ernst, a state senator and military leader …

Discussion: CNN, Politico, FiveThirtyEight, Power Line, Hot Air, John Hawkins' Right Wing News, National Review, Talking Points Memo, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Bloomberg Politics and Taegan Goddard's …

Molly Ball / The Atlantic Online:

When Conspiracy Theories Don't Fit the Media Narrative — Joni Ernst is an Iowan, born and bred, an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, and the Republican nominee for the Senate in Iowa. She has also flirted seriously with wacky conspiracy theories, especially Agenda 21, which takes off from an innocuous …

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, The Mahablog and Washington Post

Heather / Latest from Crooks and Liars:

Iowa Senate Candidate Ernst Won't Say If She'd Support McConnell As GOP Leader — GOP wingnut Iowa Senate candidate would not commit to voting for Mitch McConnell for leader if she wins her election and the GOP retakes the Senate. — Anyone think Chuck Todd will call this statement …

Discussion: Liberaland

Burgess Everett / Politico:

Reid: Senate hinges on Iowa — If Democrats lose Iowa? Say hello to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Reid says. AP Photo — Close — If Joni Ernst beats Rep. Bruce Braley in Iowa on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he expects to kiss the Democratic majority goodbye.

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, New York Times, Washington Post, Scared Monkeys and Viking Pundit

Katie Glueck / Politico:
Democrats fear Iowa slipping away

Discussion: Booman Tribune, Clayton Cramer and Des Moines Register

Nate Cohn / New York Times:

Why 2014 Isn't as Good as It Seems for the Republicans — The Republicans are looking forward to having a good week. They are favored to win the Senate, and they could pick up enough House seats to finish with their largest margin since 1928. — But perhaps more important …

Discussion: RedState, Althouse, Prairie Weather, Taylor Marsh and Washington Post

Vicki Needham / The Hill:

Five things that would change in a Republican-led Senate — The midterm-election horserace is into its final furlong — and that means most of the attention of the political world is focused, understandably, on who's up and who's down; who will win and who will lose.

Discussion: Prairie Weather

Mike Zapler / Politico:

The final sprint — In Kentucky, Democrats were crying foul over a last-minute GOP flier they called a dirty trick to suppress turnout. In Kansas, independent Greg Orman met the full brunt of a Republican machine determined to rescue one of its own. Louisiana's Democratic …

Discussion: Courier-Journal, The Daily Liberal Blast, The Moderate Voice, The Rothenberg Political …, Liberal Values and Talking Points Memo

Jason Plautz / The Atlantic Online:

The Climate-Change Solution No One Will Talk About — The equation seems fairly simple: The more the world's population rises, the greater the strain on dwindling resources and the greater the impact on the environment. — The solution? Well, that's a little trickier to talk about.

Michael Wells Jr / PoliticusUSA:

Minority Voter Suppression In North Carolina Witnessed Firsthand — It is harder to vote in North Carolina these days. On June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court, in Shelby v. Holder, gutted a landmark provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A majority of the justices struck down Article 5 of the Act …

Discussion: FOX News Radio

Dan Vergano / Reuters:

Will Virgin Galactic's Crash End Space Tourism? — The crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo experimental space plane on Friday, which killed one test pilot and severely injured another, may have wrecked the future of space tourism. — “For the industry, the joyride is over,” …

Discussion: Hot Air, Outside the Beltway, NPR, Popular Mechanics and Mediaite

David Neiwert / Latest from Crooks and Liars:

Makings Of Ammonium Nitrate Bomb Found In Border Militiaman's Hotel Room — When ATF agents arrested Kevin “K.C.” Massey III at a Brownsville-area hotel last week on charges that he had been illegally carrying weapons while leading border-militia patrols in Texas, they found more in his hotel room than just guns and ammo.

Discussion: FOX News Radio and Liberaland

Scarce / Latest from Crooks and Liars:

ME-Gov LePage Says 13% Of Ebola Victims Die Without Showing Any Symptoms — Asked to give his response to a district court judge's ruling that nurse Kaci Hickox presented no threat to public health, Maine's ridiculous Governor again resorted to character assassination and gave more false information about the disease.

Discussion: The Portland Press Herald and FOX News Radio