Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.  —  In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000 acre resort in the Dominican Republic.

Civil rights icons pump Obama in Forsyth  —  Lowery: Don't think whites going to heaven  —  UPDATED TO INCLUDE MAYOR'S COMMENTS: 5 p.m.  —  Two icons of the civil rights movement visited Forsyth on Saturday to campaign for the reelection of Barack Obama.

Sifting the Numbers for a Winner  —  A crucial element: the mix of Democrats and Republicans who show up this election.  —  It comes down to numbers.  And in the final days of this presidential race, from polling data to early voting, they favor Mitt Romney.  —  He maintains a small but persistent polling edge.

NEWS FLASH  —  BREAKING: THREE BUSH-APPOINTED JUDGES GIVE THUMBS UP TO VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT IN OHIO |  Late last week, a federal district court ordered Ohio to stop disenfranchising voters who are directed to vote at the wrong polling place due to poll worker error.

NBC/WSJ/Marist polls: Obama leads in Iowa, running neck and neck in N.H, Wis.  —  Less than a week before Election Day, President Barack Obama holds a statistically significant lead over Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the battleground of Iowa, while the two candidates are locked in tight races …

WaPo-ABC tracking poll: High marks for President Obama on Hurricane Sandy response  —  President Obama gets sky-high marks for his response to Hurricane Sandy, which cut a brutal path along the country's East Coast on Monday, according to the latest release of the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll.

Exclusive: Classified cable warned consulate couldn't withstand ‘coordinated attack’  —  The U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an “emergency meeting” less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps …

Beeson: Obama ‘firewall is burning’  —  Romney political director Rich Beeson said Wednesday that the Obama team's electoral firewall — aka, Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin — is “burning.”  —  “The firewall that I think they talked about was Iowa, Wisconsin,and Ohio,” he said on a conference call …

U.S. yanks support for Syrian opposition group, warns of extremist takeover of uprising  —  ZAGREB, Croatia — The Obama administration on Wednesday renounced the proclaimed leaders of the Syrian political opposition and said any group seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad must reject attempts …

What I'm Hearing About The Sex Scandal  —  I've heard the story, but I don't want to say what it is because, well, I have no idea if it's true.  —  But in the interests of sparing you 1 heart attacks and 2 overly optimistic guesses: What it's about, rumors say, is a Senator.

The Facebook spike  —  As John notes in the adjacent post, a group of former special operators have set up a Facebook page called SOS: Special Operations Speaks.  SOS posted the graphic below on their Facebook page:  —  Facebook took the graphic down twice on the ground that it violated …

Status Update on Gallup Election Polling Following Superstorm Sandy  —  Here's an update on Gallup's thinking when we suspended our national daily tracking of the presidential election campaign as of Monday, Oct. 29.  Basically, we reached the conclusion that Superstorm Sandy had compromised …

Arab tweeps should stop gloating over Sandy disaster: Saudi Grand Mufti  —  The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holliest sites, has condemned the gloating by radical “tweeps” in the Arab world over the Sandy storm disaster, which left more than 100 people dead in the U.S. East Coast, as “illegitimate”

New ADP Count Slashes Job Creation for September  —  Revisions to the way payroll data firm ADP counts private sector job creation have resulted in a sharp drop in the September employment count.  —  ADP's new calculations put the monthly job creation at just 88,200, down from the 162,000 …

George Lucas Just Saved Star Wars by Firing George Lucas  —  So at long last, George Lucas has decided to get out of the moviemaking business.  He's selling out Lucasfilm, including all of its properties and moneymaking storylines, to the Mouse.  This is a good thing.  Maybe even a great thing.

A Partisan Advantage for Obama?  —  As I pointed out at the end of August, I see political and economic context of the election as favoring Mitt Romney, though not overwhelmingly so.  In fact, I think that Romney's gains after the first debate partly reflected a dissatisfied electorate responding …

Obama's campaign goes empty and strident  —  “It is a great advantage to a president, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know he is not a great man.”  —  Energetic in body but indolent in mind, Barack Obama in his frenetic campaigning for a second term is promising …

Obama's Powell ad: Stay the course  —  After announcing radio buys yesterday featuring Colin Powell's endorsement, the Obama campaign rolls out a TV spot featuring clips of the former secretary of state's endorsement on CBS News — the script: … It's sort of an interesting note to end on …

Political Memo: Romney Tones Down Campaign Rhetoric as Vote Nears  —  TAMPA, Fla. — Mitt Romney used to talk up the “crucial” importance of having two parents in the home, saying “a mom and dad together” have a big impact.  But over the past week, he has been extolling the virtues …

Atlantic City mayor accuses Christie of ‘double standard’ in Sandy response  —  Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford accused New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) of having displayed a “double standard” in his handling of communities affected by the landfall of Hurricane Sandy.

Politics can't scare off Ryan from his appointed Halloween rounds  —  Janesville, Wisconsin (CNN) - Even in an election year, Republican vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan stuck to a family trick-or-treat tradition.  —  On Wednesday, Mitt Romney's running mate held three rallies in his home state …

Child sex convict Sandusky sent to Pennsylvania maximum security prison  —  HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Former Penn State assistant football coach and convicted child sexual predator Jerry Sandusky will spend the rest of his days in a maximum security prison in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania …

The Case for Obama: Why He Is a Great President.  Yes, Great.  —  I decided to support Barack Obama pretty early in the Democratic primary, around spring of 2007.  But unlike so many of his supporters, I never experienced a kind of emotional response to his candidacy.

You Can't Go Home Again  —  Tom Friedman ventured into the wilds this week, to his home state of Minnesota: … I wish I believed he is kidding.  But this wasn't just a routine visit home; Friedman was looking for insight into the national scene: … Which means that he found what he was looking for.