• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart skewered some of the U.S. Senate campaign ads. At 4:07 in the segment, the now Alaska infamous snow machine/snow mobile ads became national fodder. Enjoy.

• The educational powerhouse known as the Great Alaska Schools has released not only their endorsed candidates, but also their answers to GAS’ questionnaires. It is an interesting read, especially Mia Costello’s seven unanswered questions regarding base student allocation (the money schools get per student to pay for things like heat, supplies, etc.).

• The NRA’s political arm is staying out of the U.S. Senate race citing Sen. Mark Begich’s votes for NRA-opposed Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

• BreitBart reports that U.S. Senate candidate Dan Sullivan’s campaign has released an ad mocking yesterday’s Mark Begich’s sheepish facial reaction to his mom and wife debating on the best adjective to describe him in Begich’s “cheap chic ad.”

• Planning to capture some of the 57.4 million acres of Alaska’s beautiful federally protected wilderness via photograph or video? Not so fast. According to the Juneau Empire, the U.S. Forest Service is planning on requiring potential photographers/videographers to purchase special permits to bring home visual memories of their experience. How much?  The Forest Service finalizes this new policy in November with the potential of charging fees up to $1,500.

• Jim Rickards, the CIA’s Financial Threat and Asymmetric Warfare Advisor, gave an exclusive interview to Money Morning concerning the serious possibility of the U.S. entering a Great Depression that could last 25 years.

• FAA is expanding its permission for non-military drone use within the U.S. to Hollywood according to The Hill. It is currently illegal to operate a drone for commercial purposes with a FAA permit. The first non-military drone permit was given to BP to help monitor the pipelines in Alaska.

• The Obama administration, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, Shell and ConocoPhillips are looking at ways to renew and expand offshore drilling in the Arctic. FuelFix reports that the O&G companies are asking the administration for more flexibility while The Hill ‘s piece focuses on the Obama administration’s alliance with the Land and Water Fund to utilize a little-known 50-year-old program meant for conservation.

• The Fairbanks News Miner has an interesting article about the U.S. Senate races. It found that, “If the ads that have already aired were to run back-to-back, they would stretch on for 195 days.” That’s a lot of ads and the majority of them haven’t even run yet.

• Dueling bullet point pieces about Sen. Mark Begich. Kenneth Quinnell of the AFL-CIO wrote a piece outlining seven reasons U.S. Sen. Mark Begich has shown he cares about working families while BuzzFeed has a piece that lists eight times Sen. Begich “gave the EPA the green light”.

• The National Association of Realtors just made a massive $777,280 media buy in support of Sen. Mark Begich. While the Koch Brothers’ Freedom Partners Action Fund, Inc. just invested $323,550 to attack Sen. Mark Begich with their own media buys.

• The conservative candidates have the Koch Brothers for deep pocket support, what about the liberal candidates? The Wall Street Journal has an in-depth report on who the Ying to the Koch Brothers’ yang are in U.S. politics.

• In the Dispatch, Becky Beck has a column outlining the results of Sen. Mark Begich’s leadership evidence in Anchorage. Beck was was executive director of Anchorage Downtown Partnership. during the time Sen. Mark Begich was mayor of Anchorage.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com