Stomping suspect says his actions were misunderstood; now faces charges  —  Police have summoned Tim Profitt to appear before a judge to face an assault charge after a scuffle was caught on tape outside the KET Studios in Lexington before Jack Conway and Rand Paul's debate Monday night.

Dianne Feinstein: outlook “bad”  —  In the not to be missed category, Sen. Dianne Feinstein stepped way out of the spin cycle yesterday, as she is often wont to do.  —  Feinstein was at a campaign event for Sen. Barbara Boxer in San Jose,and was asked by KTVU's Randy Shandobil how things were going, and she replied, “bad.”

Bill Clinton to campaign for Frank Caprio  —  Bill Clinton will campaign this week for Rhode Island Democratic gubernatorial nominee Frank Caprio, providing a stark contrast to President Barack Obama's snub of Caprio earlier this week, according to several Democratic sources.

Midterm blowout: 50 or more Dem seats set to fall in the election  —  Republicans are headed for a blowout election win that seems certain to seize more than enough seats to knock out the Democrats and take control of the House.  —  The Hill 2010 Midterm Election poll …

Angle campaign attorney: Reid “intends to steal this election if he can't win it outright”  —  UPDATE: Secretary of state's response, calling Mitchell's letter “conjecture and rumor,” posted at right.  —  So says Cleta Mitchell, the same woman who tried to get Scott Ashjian …

Democrats Retain Edge in Spending on Campaigns  —  Lost in all of the attention paid to the heavy spending by Republican-oriented independent groups in this year's midterm elections is that Democratic candidates have generally wielded a significant head-to-head financial advantage …

Tonight's House Forecast: 52-Seat Gain For G.O.P.  —  If Democrats were hoping for a late surge to improve their chances of retaining control of the House, there isn't any evidence of it yet.  Instead, Republicans have generally had the better of the polls in individual House districts released in the past 24 hours.

U.S. military campaign to topple resilient Taliban hasn't succeeded  —  An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban so far has failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks to the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military …

NPR receives threat; timing suggests link to Juan Williams firing  —  NPR received a bomb threat Monday, five days after its decision to fire news analyst Juan Williams sparked a hugely negative reaction.  —  Sources at the news organization said the threat was received via U.S. mail …

VPOTUS Joe Biden: Dems Will “Keep The Senate And Win The House”  —  Sorry for the delay — had my hands a bit full with the meltdown at the NYC Board of Elections — but here is the pool report filed by Newsday's Reid Epstein on Vice President Joe Biden's fundraising visit to Manhattan today:

Miller admits to lies about his actions  —  DISCIPLINE: Suspension, probation in 2008 after admitting to violating ethics policy while borough attorney.  —  scockerham@adn.com  —  Republican U.S. Senate nominee Joe Miller admitted in 2008 that he lied after being caught using Fairbanks …

‘Aqua Buddha’ ad backfires on Jack Conway  —  A series of new polls show that Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Jack Conway's now-infamous “Aqua Buddha” ad may have dramatically backfired and turned scores of wavering voters towards tea party favorite Rand Paul.

Independents turn to GOP in Senate races  —  Independent voters are tuning into Senate races and settling on candidates in the final week before the election, clarifying some of the hardest-fought contests of the campaign.  —  And with many of these unaffiliated voters unhappy with President Obama …

Top Six Established Laws That Tea Partiers Claim Are Unconstitutional  —  It seems as if we've heard more about the Constitution this election than we did in 2008, when questions of due process and cruel and unusual punishment were bona fide election issues.

Possible glitch with vote-by-mail system  —  More: Bio, Facebook, Twitter, News Team  —  This year marks the first Illinois election that any registered voter can cast their ballot by mail, no excuses necessary.  Even as the deadline for those ballots to be postmarked nears, problems are brewing.

My Opponent Knows Where Washington Is On A Map; I Don't, And I Never Will  —  REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR WISCONSIN SENATOR  —  As your Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, I'm grateful to have this opportunity to reach out to the people of Wisconsin and draw some distinctions between myself—a D.C. outsider—and Russ Feingold.

NY Times reporter defends profile of WikiLeaks' Assange  —  New York Times reporter John F. Burns considers WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange — the subject of a front-page profile he co-authored Sunday— to be “an incredibly smart man” with an “extremely high IQ.”

Former first lady Laura Bush to President Bush: ‘pick up your socks’  —  Los Angeles (CNN) - Former first lady Laura Bush had her audience LOL (laughing out loud) at a women's conference in Long Beach, California Tuesday.  Nearly 14,000 women attended the gathering hosted by California's first lady Maria Shriver.

Bags of Cash: Are Iran, Karzai Playing All Sides?  —  JIM LEHRER: For contrasting views of this, Ali Jalali is a foreign — a former Afghan interior minister, now a distinguished professor at National Defense University here in the U.S. Steven Clemons is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation …

Legislature likely to cut deep to meet possible $25 billion budget gap  —  rtgarrett@dallasnews.com  —  AUSTIN - Texas faces a budget crisis of truly daunting proportions, with lawmakers likely to cut sacrosanct programs such as education for the first time in memory and to lay off hundreds …

Time's up for Dems' hopes for upturn  —  Time's up for Democrats looking for good news on the economy.  —  More bad news this week squelched any hope that President Barack Obama and his party might benefit from a glimmer of an improvement in the economic picture before Election Day.

Sprint to the Finish with More Good Candidates  —  With just eight days left before Election Day, it's time to sprint through the finish line.  Here are more commonsense conservative candidates who are determined to get our country back on track.  —  Dick Muri for Washington's 9th Congressional District

Dems getting outspent?  Not so fast  —  To hear top Democrats tell it, the party is being wildly outgunned this year in the fight for campaign cash as Republicans rely on outside groups to funnel money to GOP contenders.  —  But the numbers tell a different story.

Katie Couric, On the Move  —  The CBS anchor is nearing the end of her contract—and signs point surprisingly to her staying put.  Howard Kurtz talks to her about her salary, her next move—and her love of the campaign trail.  —  Katie Couric is feeling liberated.

Americans for Job Security — How a Shadow Group Hustles for Funds  —  Long-time GOP operative David Carney is hardly a household name like Karl Rove.  But among Republican strategists and fundraisers in Washington D.C., Texas, and other states, Carney is well-known as an aggressive …

Minnesota Democrats Accuse Catholics of Ignoring the Poor  —  The Democrats are proud of their generosity to the poor, and owing perhaps due to some unclear thinking aren't aware that charitable acts must be of free will, and there's no merit in being generous with other people's money.

Inspector General blasts Treasury for bungling everything TARP  —  Remember all that gladhanding about the success of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) earlier this month?  Neil Barofsky, TARP's special inspector general, puts the kabosh on that in his report released today.  Just read this: