Good morning! The US Constitution was signed on this date in 1787. In 1908, US Army Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, a passenger on an aircraft piloted by Orville Wright, became the first person to die in a powered airplane crash when one of the Wright Flyer’s propellers broke during a demonstration for military officials. And in 2011, Occupy Wall Street began in Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park.

Slippery slope –> Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Martin Dempsey, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that they would not rule out US troops fighting Islamic State fighters in the future. Spencer Ackerman has the details at The Guardian.

“Looming threat to global security” –> That’s how Barack Obama characterized Africa’s deadly Ebola epidemic as he announced a “major expansion of the U.S. role in trying to halt its spread, including deployment of 3,000 troops to the region,” according to Reuters’ Jeff Mason and James Harding Giahyue.

So much for that “narrow ruling” –> The Supreme Court’s conservative majority swore the Hobby Lobby ruling wouldn’t allow religious objectors to opt out of covering vaccines or blood transfusions. But Ian Millhiser reports for ThinkProgress that a federal judge in Utah cited Hobby Lobby to rule that “a member of a polygamist religious sect could refuse to testify in a federal investigation into alleged violations of child labor laws because he objects to testifying on religious grounds.”

Astroturfing –> The Asheville Citizen-Times reports: “Homeless men unfamiliar with fracking were bused from Winston-Salem to a state hearing Friday… [in] an effort to bolster a pro-fracking turnout.”

We’ll always have BENGHAZI!!! –> HuffPo’s Michael Calderone looks at a study by Media Matters which found that “Fox News, which has led the cover-up charge in conservative media, aired 1,098 evening television segments on Benghazi between the night of the attacks and the formation of the select committee in early May of this year.” AND: The Nation’s Leslie Savan writes: “It’s as if Fox were staging a caricature of itself.”

Global resistance –> At The Nation, Mark Hertsgaard considers how we might judge whether next Sunday’s massive climate march in New York, billed as a game-changer, is actually a success. AND: Stuart Leavenworth reports for McClatchy that in response to China’s “gargantuan environmental problems…  large street protests are breaking out against waste incinerators, chemical plants and other industrial projects.”

Facebook for the 1 percent –> An entrepreneur is launching a social media site for rich people “where you could talk about the finer things in life without backlash.” In order to keep out the riffraff, it will cost $9,000 to join and $250 per month for membership. Via: CNN.

Speaking of the 1 percent –> Jesse Drucker reports for Bloomberg that “the tax-avoidance strategies that companies like Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. use to escape more than $100 billion a year of levies in the U.S. and Europe are under threat from a plan drawn up by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.”

Israel’s NSA scandal –> Dozens of members of an elite Israeli intelligence unit are refusing to do their duty in the Israeli-occupied territories, saying, “any Palestinian is exposed to non-stop monitoring by the Israeli Big Brother, without legal protection.” One officer testified that “any information that might enable extortion of an individual is considered relevant information. Whether said individual is of a certain sexual orientation, cheating on his wife, or in need of treatment in Israel or the West Bank – he is a target for blackmail.” The Guardian has excerpts from individuals who worked in the Israeli Intelligence Corps.

Our mysterious allies –> Stephen Colbert considers our as-yet-unnamed Arab partners in the fight against ISIS — and tells us it’s time to be very afraid…

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