The Kansas Senate race is shaping up for a photo finish.

Independent Greg Orman slightly leads Republican Sen. Pat Roberts 44-42 in the latest public poll, released Tuesday from SurveyUSA for KSN-TV in Wichita -- within the poll's 4-point margin of error.

Those numbers track fairly closely with what other polls have shown in recent days. Many polls last month and in early October showed Orman with a considerable to slight advantage over the embattled incumbent. No more. An NBC News/Marist poll released Monday had Orman barely leading, and well within the margin of error. A New York Times/CBS News/YouGovIndeed poll from last week showed Roberts with a slight edge. RealClearPolitics' polling average shows it's either man's election at this stage.

Meanwhile, the big-name GOP surrogates are coming out in full force this week in Kansas as the senator continues his efforts to nationalize the race and make it about Senate control. (Orman hasn't committed to the party he'd caucus with, if elected). Mitt Romney and Bob Dole stumped for Roberts on Monday and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) appeared at three rallies Tuesday, the same day his PAC-funded ads on Roberts's behalf began airing in the state.

"You have to come together," Paul urged a crowd in Wichita Tuesday, the Wichita Eagle reported. "We're counting on you, Kansas. You're a Republican state, for goodness sake."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/10/29/latest-kansas-senate-polls-show-a-nail-biter/

A joint letter from the presidents of Stanford University and Dartmouth College will be sent to nearly 100,000 Montana voters to apologize for an experiment by three political-science professors at the two institutions. The letter comes after voters and state officials objected to a mailer, sent by the professors, that featured the state’s official seal and offered information about the political leanings of candidates for the state’s Supreme Court as part of an attempt to see whether such information would alter how Montanans voted.

The experiment has been condemned by other researchers in the field as unwise and perhaps unethical. Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard University, told Talking Points Memo that the research struck her as a "lapse in judgment."

The apology letter, which will cost the universities around $50,000 to send out, asks voters to ignore the mailer and states that "no research study should risk disrupting an election."

Which should go without saying, but in this case apparently had to be said.

The episode is an embarrassment to the two universities, both of which say they are investigating exactly what happened. A Stanford spokeswoman said the experiment had never been approved by an institutional review board there, though reportedly an earlier version of the flier was submitted to an IRB at Dartmouth. A spokesman for Dartmouth, Justin Anderson, said officials there were still determining whether the research had undergone a proper review.

http://chronicle.com/article/DartmouthStanford/149687/

Joe McCabe sits on a wooden bench and calls out to two men strolling up State Street, "Have any spare change? I'm actually a traveler.".

The men continue walking, and McCabe grumbles a homophobic slur that they don't hear.

McCabe gets up from the park bench and saunters down State Street in the opposite direction. At the corner, he stretches his right arm out to a woman wearing short shorts and high heels. She grimaces and looks at her friends questioningly as she maneuvers around McCabe's hand.

McCabe continues walking as if unbothered by his encounters with these strangers.


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They're vexing to tourist-dependent spots from San Francisco to San Diego, where officials complain their gritty edge and sometimes violent tendencies intimidate locals and turn visitors off.

"They can be very aggressive and very disruptive," said San Diego City Councilman Ed Harris, who represents Ocean Beach, where homeless youth congregate on the sea wall, sleep on the beach and light illegal campfires.

Cities have tried numerous strategies to control their unruly behavior, from bombarding them with citations to hiring private security guards and installing cameras on street corners. Cash-strapped communities say they don't have the money to hire more police officers, and some doubt law enforcement is the solution anyway.


http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-state-street-panhandlers-20141029-story.html#page=1

Extremist Republicans turned their government into a lab experiment of tax cuts and privatization. And now they may be losing control of one of the reddest states in the nation
By Mark Binelli | October 23, 2014

The Republican party headquarters in Wichita, Kansas, shares space in a strip mall with Best Friends Pet Clinic, a cowboy-boot repair shop and a Chinese restaurant called the Magic Wok. Inside, on a recent Wednesday afternoon, a modest gathering of party faithful mill about, I'M A BROWNBACKER stickers affixed to their blouses and lapels.

It's a terrible slogan. Four years ago, when Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback first took office, you might've wondered if these people, on some subliminal level, actually wanted to be humiliated by a filthy-minded liberal activist looking to add a new "santorum" to Urban Dictionary. As a senator and a failed presidential candidate, Brownback was already one of the nation's most prominent social conservatives, "God's Senator," in the words of a 2006 Rolling Stone profile. But Brownback turned out to be even more radical when it came to economic policy. In 2012, he enacted the largest package of tax cuts in Kansas history, essentially transforming his state into a lab experiment for extreme free-market ideology. The results (disastrous) have reduced the governor to making appearances at grim strip malls like this one in a desperate attempt to salvage his re-election bid.


Related Where the Tea Party Rules

The last time I came to Kansas, in March 2013, Brownback could often be found wandering the halls of the state Capitol, sporting one of his signature sweater vests, smiling and nodding at passing strangers or offering impromptu lectures to schoolchildren paused in front of the oil painting of John Brown, the fearsome Kansas abolitionist, that hangs outside his office. Here in Wichita, though, he looks exhausted. When he takes the stage, he squints out at the audience through puffy eyes. His Texas counterpart, Gov. Rick Perry, stands behind him, having been summoned north to help bail out Brownback's flailing campaign.

Brownback gently teases Perry about how "now we have a small-business climate in Kansas that is better than Texas." Perry flips up his palms and silently makes his oops! face.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-kansas-tea-party-disaster-20141023#ixzz3HYpzkE8I

Republican Gov. Scott Walker is making excuses for his potential defeat in Wisconsin before the votes are even counted. Walker is falsely claiming that he is being outspent by Democrats.

Walker complained to Politico that the Chris Christie run Republican Governors Association isn’t spending enough on his reelection campaign,

It’s TV spending, Walker emphasized, where national Republicans can make the biggest difference. So far, he said, the out-of-state effort on his behalf “pales in comparison” to what his coalition of foes have spent on the other side.

“I’m hopeful that, just as they have in the past, at least some of the national governors associations have come in and helped,” Walker said. “We can’t coordinate [spending with outside groups] in this state, so we have to see it once it’s up on the air. But they did in 2010 and 2012 and I’m hopeful — I believe they will again this time.”

The Washington Post checked into Walker’s claim and found out the governor was not telling the truth, “The RGA has, in fact, spent a boatload of money on Walker’s behalf, including $5.2 million during his 2010 run for office, $8.9 million during his 2012 recall, and $8 million so far this year. In the last few weeks, the RGA has committed an additional $1.3 million to advertisements. And so far, Republicans are actually outspending, and out-advertising, Democrats on the air.”

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/10/27/scott-walker-making-excuses-potential-defeat-wisconsin.html

The application for admission to St. John’s University takes 12 pages to get to the question, but when it arises, it is hard to miss. Set off by a border of bold red, as if to warn of dangerous contents, it asks, “Have you ever been arrested or convicted of a felony?”

On paper, the inquiry seems straightforward enough. But critics, noting the racial imbalances in how some crimes are processed, have argued that asking it can amount to a form of unintended discrimination.

Responding to those concerns, as raised by the advocacy group Center for Community Alternatives, New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman has reached an agreement with St. John’s and two other institutions under which the schools will drop such questions from their standard application process.

“An arrest or police stop that did not result in a conviction, or a criminal record that was sealed or expunged, should not – indeed must not – be a standard question on a college application,” Mr. Schneiderman said in a statement. “Such a question can serve only to discourage New Yorkers from seeking a higher education."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/nyregion/three-new-york-colleges-will-omit-criminal-record-question-for-applicants.html?hpw&rref=education&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

Mitch McConnell’s Nightmare: G.O.P. Wins Control of a Senate He’s Not In

For Senator Mitch McConnell, a politician who has spent much of his life pursuing the dream of becoming Senate majority leader, the prospect of guiding Republicans back into power only to lose his own seat would amount to a heartbreaking coda to a remarkably ambitious career.

“I think that would be devastating,” said Bob Bennett, a former Utah senator and McConnell confidant. “He eats, breathes, sleeps, drinks politics.”

Mr. Bennett recalled traveling with former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, once a majority leader himself, during the 1996 presidential campaign — when Mr. Dole was the Republican nominee — and coming to the conclusion that he “had no life outside of politics.”

“And I thought that ‘Well, that’s a little sad.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2014/10/27/?entry=3660&_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rss&emc=rss

Postal worker Keven Ngo, wearing a protective mask and gloves, prepares to deliver to the apartment building of Ebola patient Dr. Craig Spencer in Harlem

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2808178/Obama-forces-Chris-Christie-U-turn-allow-Ebola-nurse-leave-quarantine-tent.html#ixzz3HOUygq00

(CNN) -- James Tully says he been stopped so many times by law enforcement on his way to work that he's stopped counting.
Apparently, he resembles fugitive Eric Frein, who is accused of fatally shooting a Pennsylvania state trooper and injuring another trooper in a September shootout.

The search for Frein has jolted the Canadensis area of Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, leading to school closures, roadblocks and multiple police interactions for Tully, who walks 5 miles to work and back each day because he does not own a car.

"Because I'm walking and I'm carrying a book bag, and for some reason people seem to think I'm the one they're looking for," Tully told CNN affiliate WNEP. "I've lost count after 20 in total. The most on one round-trip stretch was about seven times."
He even started wearing his work ID around his neck for easy identification.

One concerned citizen is looking to take the target off Tully's back.
Dawn DeBiase of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, started an online fundraiser to help the father of two purchase a car. The campaign has raised more than $22,000 in just five days.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/27/us/james-tully-eric-frein-car-fundraiser/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

After being shown wire hangers in the closets, Conway voices his surprise and warns that inmates could fashion the top into an 'ice-pick-type weapon

://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2809131/This-prison-utopia-Former-U-S-prison-boss-t-believe-eyes-visits-Norwegian-jail-finds-kitchen-knives-xbox-recording-studio.html

How the other half live: US prison boss can't believe his eyes when he visits a Norwegian jail and finds beautiful ten-man apartments with dartboards and recording studios
James Conway got the shock of his life after visiting a prison in Norway
Retired US superintendent saw the inmates had a large TV and dartboard
There was a recording studio and the kitchen had real knives and forks 
Mr Conway said he didn't waste time worrying about well-being of inmates