• Bloomberg has a graphic slideshow that distills the U.S. population down to the handful of Americans that will be deciding the fate of Congress in November. Bloomberg also has a great chart detailing the number of political ads on TV stations across the country. KTUU is number 1, with 9.672 ads, and Juneau’s KATH is in third place, with 8.409 ads. What are they doing with all the money? Who knows? They report and they decide.

• Almost all crisis communications experts agree that handling a crisis relies on having a plan, transparency, and avoiding contrary statements and confusion. Apparently, Gov. Sean Parnell didn’t get the memo. In fact, if there’s a worse way to handle the National Guard scandal, I can’t think of it. The latest: Michelle Theriault Boots reports that two top Alaska National Guard officers were fired and then re-hired one day later at Parnell’s urging. There may be good reason for doing so. (It appears that he might have wanted to avoid a conflict of interest). Maybe not. His administration appears hell-bent on keeping it all a secret. One thing is clear: All of it appears unplanned, nontransparent, and is certainly confusing.

• One way Gov. Sean Parnell could have gotten in front of the National Guard scandal was to turn it all over to a special prosecutor. He didn’t take that initiative and now others are taking it for him, including Bill Walker in the News-Miner, Jim Babb in the ADN, and Lynn Willis, who served with the Guard for 22 years, on this site.

• An Outside audit has confirmed that the Permanent Fund Corporation has earned $6.8 billion in net income in fiscal year 2014-making this the largest gain in the 37-year history since its inception. The Juneau Empire has all the celebratory details.  This comes at the same time that the Dispatch is reporting that panelists at a recent economics forum suggested taking some of our Permanent Fund money as one of the ways to solve Alaska’s fiscal issues.

• “SCOTUS is in the air, everywhere I look around!” Politico has a refresher course on who is on the Supreme Court bench while the Huffington Post and The Hill offer their ideas on the important cases that might be heard this term.

• The Washington Post has an impressive piece, datelined Quinagak, about Sen. Mark Begich’s old-school ground game for his re-election campaign. According to the Post, it’s “an expensive, sophisticated political field operation that reaches into tiny villages along rivers and in mountain ranges throughout the vast Last Frontier. The Begich ground game — which the senator and his campaign detailed for the first time to The Washington Post — is on a scale far beyond anything that has been tried here before.”

• Eric Croft might be considering throwing his hat into a new political race. Which one? Find out HERE.

• Many political wonks are scratching their heads in confusion. The calendar says 2014, but it feels like the 2006 midterm cycle. The Washington Post reveals why.

• The Juneau Empire reports that the Alaska Supreme Court has ruled that the AK Department of Corrections did in fact violate a prisoner’s rights when they sentenced him to 20 days of segregation.

• CBS News/New York Times/Upshot/YouGov.com has a “Battleground Tracker” for the U.S. Senate races. According to their data, Alaska is polling 42% for Sen. Mark Begich and 48% for Dan Sullivan out of 593 people polled.

• According to the Itemizer, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has bought over a million dollars in media buys with TV, digital ads and mailers.

• Planned Parenthood is purchasing radio ad time with Pandora in support of Sen. Mark Begich. Their radio ad focuses on Dan Sullivan’s anti-abortion stance and desire to limit women’s access to birth control.

• The Hill has an article about tempers flaring and finger pointing among Democratic Leadership as Election Day approaches.

• ABC News has a piece by Becky Bohrer regarding the suit to allow same-sex couples the right to marry in Alaska.

• Fairbanks’s Proposition 2 has received quite a bit of attention in today’s Fairbanks News Miner. There is an article about how the results will determine air quality for the borough and another article about the recent anti-air pollution media blitz.

• Will Obama’s 28 words about “every single one” of his policies being on the ballot in November really haunt red state Dems?  The Hill has Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.VA) saying so.

• Rep. Don Young has made the headlines in many media outlets for the recent assertion by his challenger, Forrest Dunbar, that Young threatened him before their Kodiak debate. MSNBC, Wonkette, the Huffington Post, and Alaska’s own Alex DeMarban have articles regarding this alleged altercation. It doesn’t help that Young has a long history of previous altercations, at least one of which was caught on video.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com