The Clinton Speech and the “Campaign of Ideas”  —  Scott Galupo identifies the main strength of Bill Clinton's convention speech: … It was, and it was all the more devastating because Romney and Ryan made no concerted effort to make the case for their ticket and their agenda last week.

Our Clinton Nightmare  —  CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former President Bill Clinton's stem-winding nomination speech was a fact-checker's nightmare: lots of effort required to run down his many statistics and factual claims, producing little for us to write about.  —  Republicans will find plenty of Clinton's scorching opinions objectionable.

Disillusioned Obama Supporter In Romney Ad Is Actually GOP Staffer  —  Republicans debuted a new ad Thursday in which a frustrated former Obama supporter expresses her disappointment with the president.  The only problem: The woman in the video is actually an RNC staffer.

Romney, GOP Groups Pull Ads From Michigan and Pennsylvania  —  Republicans signaled this week that they might have given up hope in two important swing states.  —  TPM Slideshow: Romney Takes The Stage At The RNC  —  The Romney campaign and conservative groups like Crossroads GPS …

S.&P. 500 at 4-Year High as Stocks Jump  —  Decisive moves by the head of the European Central Bank sent the benchmark American stock index to a four-year high and fueled hopes that the foundation for a more lasting solution to the European debt crisis may be taking shape.

BET head: Republican Party ‘pandering’ to blacks, women  —  ‘Does the RNC really embrace African Americans, really embrace women?’  Debra Lee asks.  Reuters  —  Close  —  CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Republican Party may have featured women like Ann Romney and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice …

Bartlett suggests federal student loans are unconstitutional, invokes Holocaust  —  Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) suggested Wednesday federally-issued student loans were unconstitutional.  He also said disregarding the Constitution could lead down a “slippery slope” and cited the Holocaust …

DEATH THREAT FROM DNC DELEGATE: ‘MITT ROMNEY... I WOULD LIKE TO KILL HIM!’  —  During the second day of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, TheBlaze took to Time Warner Cable Arena to speak with delegates about the most pressing issues of our time.

Entitlement Trouble  —  Digby noticed it.  I noticed.  Maybe you noticed it, too: the one time Bill Clinton didn't get rousing applause from the Democratic Convention audience last night was when he made a favorable reference to the Simpson-Bowles Commission.

Russia's Putin defiant on Syria, says Romney “mistaken”  —  * Says Obama is honest, Romney could widen missile rift  —  President Vladimir Putin signalled in an interview aired on Thursday that Russia was not ready to shift its stance on Syria, and suggested Western nations were relying …

Intelligence Committee Chair Describes Explosive Confrontation Between Netanyahu and American Ambassador  —  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro allegedly argued over the Obama's administration's Iran policy.  —  (Reuters)

GSA official scolded for party plans  —  The General Services Administration's Julia Hudson was ready to party last month, inviting roughly 1,200 federal employees to celebrate the second anniversary of her appointment as the scandal-scarred agency's National Capital Region administrator.

A Classified CIA Mea Culpa on Iraq  —  In this exclusive from the National Security Archive, a secret agency report on its WMD failures is published for the first time.  —  This remarkable CIA mea culpa, just declassified this summer and published here for the first time …