A Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change  —  The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast — in lost lives, lost homes and lost business — brought the stakes of Tuesday's presidential election into sharp relief.

CNN Poll: Tight race in Rocky Mountain battleground  —  (CNN) - Hours before President Barack Obama campaigns in Boulder, Colorado, a new survey indicates a very close contest between the president and Republican nominee Mitt Romney for the Centennial State's nine electoral votes.

Oct. 31: Obama's Electoral College ‘Firewall’ Holding in Polls  —  On Oct. 11, this blog posed the question of whether President Obama's “firewall” in battleground states was all that it was cracked up to be.  —  At that point, Mr. Obama still technically held the lead in the FiveThirtyEight forecast …

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.

‘Troubling’ Surveillance Before Benghazi Attack  —  Sensitive documents found amid the wreckage of the U.S. consulate shine new light on the Sept. 11 assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.  —  BENGHAZI, Libya — More than six weeks after the shocking assault …

D.C. paparazzi fear a Mitt Romney win  —  People may have differing opinions on President Barack Obama's handling of such things as the economy, health care and foreign policy, but on one issue, the consensus is clear: He's ushered in an unparalleled wave of celebrity visits to D.C. …

Withdrawal of a Congressional Research Report on Tax Rates Raises Questions  —  WASHINGTON — The Congressional Research Service has withdrawn an economic report that found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economy theory …

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 …

Gay Left-Wing Radio Host Advises Gay Romney Supporter to Commit Suicide, Says He Should Not Be Allowed to Vote  —  Our reader Tim in MT shared this video with us that he had made after catching Michelangelo Signorile on SiriusXM radio yesterday.  —  The left-wing radio talker, twice in the segment …

Does Fox News Know What Media Bias Is?  —  If there's one drum the right wing likes to bang it's the one about the “liberal media”, which, by law, must appear in every right-wing editorial or come out of the mouths of every Fox News and radio show pundit at least four times a day or Rupert Murdoch strips …

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.

Show Me Your Model  —  It might be easy to believe we're approaching Peak Trutherism, what with good old-fashioned birthers now being supplemented by BLS truthers and poll truthers.  But just you wait—should Barack Obama win this election, we'll see an explosion of election trutherism that will be truly unprecedented in scope.

Opening of absentee ballots under way, but not tallying  —  Workers have started the long process of opening the thousands of absentee ballots that have flowed in for this month's election.  —  Franklin County Board of Elections employees, some of them seasonal, are allowed to start opening …

Romney to campaign in Pennsylvania Sunday  —  Mitt Romney will campaign in Pennsylvania on Sunday, the first time he's campaigned in the state in many weeks, a Romney campaign official told The Hill.  —  Romney's campaign has been increasingly bullish about its prospects in the state, launching its first ad there earlier this week.

Romney to Pennsylvania on Sunday  —  A Mitt Romney aide confirms that the Republican presidential hopeful is heading to Pennsylavnia on Sunday, a late-addition stop in a state where his campaign has insisted in the last week that it sees a path.  —  Romney will be in the suburbs of Philadelphia, according to aides.

International observers say states out of line  —  The group hosting international election observers said Thursday that state officials in Iowa and Texas are needlessly blocking access to the decades-old process the United States already has agreed to, an official said Thursday.