In New York, defiant Ahmadinejad says Israel will be “eliminated”  —  (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday Israel has no roots in the Middle East and would be “eliminated,” ignoring a U.N. warning to avoid incendiary rhetoric ahead of the annual General Assembly session.

Washington Post polls: Obama lead in Ohio, edge in Fla. hamper Romney path to victory  —  President Obama has grabbed a significant lead over Mitt Romney in Ohio and holds a slender edge in Florida, according to two new polls by the Washington Post that indicate there are fresh hurdles …

Romney Doesn't Understand Why You Can't Roll Down Windows On A Plane … On Monday, Mitt Romney offered a remedy to the problem that caused his wife's airplane to land prematurely last week: Allow passengers to roll down the airplane windows.  —  Ann Romney's plane was grounded Friday after the main cabin filled with smoke.

Veterans retreating from Barack Obama  —  President Barack Obama is trying hard to win veterans, but it looks like they'd prefer a new commander in chief.  —  The Obama campaign had been hoping that veterans and their families — especially among the post-Sept. 11 generation that served …

Harry Reid: Mitt Romney is not the face of Mormonism  —  • Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he agrees with a fellow Mormon who wrote recently that Mitt Romney has “sullied” the LDS faith and that the GOP presidential candidate is “not the face of Mormonism.”

Christie on Romney: If Election Were Tomorrow ‘That Would Be a Problem’  —  Photograph by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images  —  New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addresses the 2012 Republican National Convention.  —  Republican Mitt Romney has been forced to take a more aggressive tack …

Will Obama Free the Blind Sheik?  —  The theologian of terrorism inspired the 1993 and 9/11 World Trade Center attacks.  The White House should state clearly that he will serve out his life term in the U.S.  —  Are senior Obama administration officials considering transferring to Egypt …

Ancient (and Modern) Ignorance  —  I suppose the thing I most enjoy about religion commentary in the New York Times is the serenity of its ignorance.  All sorts of NYT writers just say stuff about religion, without much caring whether any of it is true.  A lovely recent example is this column …

Complaints Mount Against Michelle Obama's New Lunch Menu  —  In Wisconsin, high school athletes are complaining about not getting enough to eat each day, due to the skimpy new school lunch menu mandated by the United States Department of Agriculture and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Obama campaign had twice the staff as Romney last month at same cost  —  (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images / September 22, 2012)  —  This post has been updated, as indicated below.  —  WASHINGTON — One of the big challenges Mitt Romney faced after effectively clinching the GOP presidential nomination …

Conservatives Embrace Alternate Polling Reality  —  Dean Chambers, founder of unskewedpolls.com, has reweighted national polling data based on Rasmussen partisan trends.  His results give Romney a wide lead.  —  Via: unskewedpolls.com  —  Republicans have taken their complaints …

The 10% President  —  The annotated Obama: How 90% of the deficit becomes somebody else's fault.  —  A question raised by President Obama's immortal line on CBS's “60 Minutes” on Sunday—"I think that, you know, as President, I bear responsibility for everything, to some degree"—is what that degree really is.

Hello, Ohio: Key To 2012 (The Note)  —  By MICHAEL FALCONE (@michaelpfalcone) and AMY WALTER (@amyewalter)  —  NOTABLES:  — OBAMA AT THE UN — WHAT HE WILL SAY: Excerpts from the speech President Obama plans to deliver this morning at the United Nations: “The attacks of the last two weeks are not simply an assault on America.

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are sparring over how best to address U.S. challenges abroad in nearly back-to-back addresses at the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting.  —  Following deadly anti-American protests in Muslim countries over the past two weeks …

Libor Gives Prosecutors Chance to Change Banking Culture  —  A defining feature of the 2008 financial crisis has been the dearth of criminal prosecutions.  Rightly or wrongly, people have gotten the impression that the sheriff is asleep.  The global Libor scandal has the potential to change that.

A Measure of Change: Arab Spring Proves a Harsh Test for Obama's Diplomatic Skill  —  WASHINGTON — President Hosni Mubarak did not even wait for President Obama's words to be translated before he shot back.  —  “You don't understand this part of the world,” the Egyptian leader broke in.

The Conservative Mind  —  When I joined the staff of National Review as a lowly associate in 1984, the magazine, and the conservative movement itself, was a fusion of two different mentalities.  —  On the one side, there were the economic conservatives.  These were people that anybody …

Ex-Staffer on Roseanne's Presidential Campaign Claims She Never Got Paid  —  In late January, the comedienne and former sitcom star Roseanne Barr declared her intention to run for president on the Green Party line.  Ms. Barr's Green Party bid ultimately proved unsuccessful …

‘Top-Two’ Election Change in California Upends Races  —  PLEASANTON, Calif. — Running against the Vietnam War, Representative Pete Stark entered Congress the year Richard M. Nixon was re-elected president.  Since then, ensconced in Democratic strongholds here in the Bay Area, Mr. Stark was easily re-elected 19 times.

Women Earn Less Than Men In 97 Percent Of Congressional Districts  —  Women are earning less than men in 97 percent of Congressional districts, the National Partnership for Women and Families has calculated.  That means that only 13 members of Congress have the privilege of representing …