Sorry, But Mitt Romney's Nickname Is Not “The Stench”  —  Not everyone grasped that Paul Ryan isn't really going around referring to Mitt Romney as “Stench,” as a Politico satire suggested.  “Yes, the Stench!” exclaims O'Donnell.  —  When Roger Simon wrote in Politico Wednesday that Paul Ryan's …

Polls Show Obama Is Widening His Lead in Ohio and Florida  —  COLUMBUS, Ohio — For weeks, Republicans in Ohio have been watching with worry that the state's vital 18 electoral votes were trending away from Mitt Romney.  The anxiety has been similar in Florida, where Republicans are concerned …

Democrats On NRSC's Todd Akin Change Of Heart: We Knew It  —  Color Missouri Democratic Party chair Mike Sanders unsurprised.  As news broke that the NRSC was reconsidering its support for Rep. Todd Akin's Senate candidacy Wednesday, Saunders told reporters his party never expected Republicans …

Morning Jay: Are the Polls Tilted Toward Obama?  —  Republicans, by and large, are frustrated with recent polls of the presidential election because they think Democrats are being oversampled.  Many pollsters respond by saying that “weighting” the polls for partisan identification creates …

Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama  —  The case against casting a ballot for the president — even if you think he's better than Mitt Romney  —  Tell certain liberals and progressives that you can't bring yourself to vote for a candidate who opposes gay rights, or who doesn't believe in Darwinian evolution, and they'll nod along.

WE KNEW IT WAS AL QAEDA  —  Sources say intelligence agencies knew within a day that al Qaeda affiliates were behind the attacks in Benghazi, Libya—they even knew where one of the attackers lived.  Eli Lake reports.  —  Within 24 hours of the 9-11 anniversary attack on the United States consulate …

Politico's Paul Ryan Satire: The Joke's on Them  —  A report this morning by Politico chief political correspondent Roger Simon includes this bombshell about Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan: … The “stench” reference comes from a quote that Craig Robinson …

Cherokee chief: Scott Brown staffers ‘racist’  —  The head of the Cherokee Nation called staffers for Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown “downright racist” Wednesday for making “tomahawk chop” motions and yelling “war whoops” at a rally Saturday for the Republican's reelection, and called on Brown to apologize.

Will This Video Sink Tommy Thompson's Wisconsin Senate Hopes?  —  Footage from June shows the GOP candidate promising to “do away with Medicaid and Medicare.”  —  Memo to Republicans: Just stay away from cameras, all cameras.  And if you can, travel back in time and implement this advice in April or so.

Mormons Plan To Fast For Romney  —  Conservative Mormons circulate an e-mail calling for a day of fasting and prayer on September 30th for Romney to do well in the debates.  Asking God to rain blessings on a struggling candidacy.  —  Mitt Romney and his wife Ann arrive for services …

Hubble captures extraordinary view of Universe  —  The image took more than 500 hours to build  —  The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has produced one of its most extraordinary views of the Universe to date.  —  Called the eXtreme Deep Field, the picture captures a mass of galaxies stretching …

UC pepper-spray settlement about $1 million  —  By Sam Stanton, Denny Walsh and Andrea Gallo  —  The University of California regents have agreed to pay out roughly $1 million to end a lawsuit over last November's pepper spraying of UC-Davis students, part of a deal that also calls …

Eugene D. Genovese (1930-2012)  —  To mark the passing of Eugene D. Genovese (1930-2012), I post here an excerpt from a recent forum in Historically Speaking (November 2011) on this influential historian's work and career, alongside that of Elizabeth Fox-Genovese (1941-2007).

Murphy leads by 6 in CT-Senate race  —  PPP's newest poll of the Connecticut Senate race finds Democrat Chris Murphy expanding his lead to 6 points over Republican foe Linda McMahon, 48-42.  Last month he led 48-44.  —  There's no doubt Murphy's image has taken a hit over the course of this campaign.

The First Four Years Are The Hardest...  My name is Mike Rowe and I own a small company in California called mikeroweWORKS.  Currently, mikeroweWORKS is trying to close the country's skills gap by changing the way Americans feel about Work.  (I know, right?  Ambitious.)

How to Make 2012 into 1980  —  When Republican strategists like Karl Rove cite 1980 as a model for this year's election, they usually have in mind two main elements: Ronald Reagan's question in the late October presidential debate about whether voters felt better off than four years earlier …

Euro crisis fuels Spanish separatism  —  Spain has entered a constitutional crisis.  The decision of Catalonia's nationalist government to call a snap election in November - which in practice will amount to a referendum on independence - has opened the way to Catalan secession.

Obama Campaign Trying to Distract Staff From Awesome Poll Numbers  —  President Barack Obama's reelection campaign is currently sitting pretty, at least as far as the polls go.  Survey after survey of key swing states, including the two crucial contests in Ohio and Florida …

Obama's claim that ‘90 percent’ of the current deficit is due to Bush policies  —  “Over the last four years, the deficit has gone up, but 90 percent of that is as a consequence of two wars that weren't paid for, as a consequence of tax cuts that weren't paid for, a prescription drug plan …

Andy Williams, Crooner of ‘Moon River,’ Dies at 84  —  Andy Williams, the affable, boyishly handsome crooner who defined both easy listening and wholesome, easygoing charm for many American pop music fans in the 1960s, most notably with his signature song, “Moon River,” died on Tuesday night …

New Jersey Governor Blows Off Questions About Failed Foreclosure Prevention Program  —  As ThinkProgress has reported, several states took their share of the $25 billion foreclosure fraud settlement and used it to balance their budgets instead of providing help to homeowners.

Executive Producer of ‘Today’ Says Ouster of Ann Curry Was His Call  —  Commenting publicly for the first time about the decision to remove Ann Curry from the “Today” show's co-anchor position after only a year on the job, Jim Bell, the show's executive producer, said Wednesday that it “was absolutely my call.”

Obama to Crash Debate Prep in Nevada as Campaigns Lower Expectations  —  Chris Kleponis/AFP/Getty Images; Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images  —  BOWLING GREEN, O.H. — President Obama will head to Henderson, Nev., on Sunday for three days of debate prep behind closed doors, ABC News has learned.