As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell fights in Kentucky to keep his Senate seat, he lays out for Politico his plans if Republicans win the Senate. Strangely, it’s pretty much what Democrats say he would do if Republicans win the Senate. Attach policy riders to spending bills and force showdowns with Barack Obama. Use arcane rules to limit Democratic filibusters. And, if Obama vetoes the bills, to risk shutting down the government.
A British accent from the extremist who apparently executed journalist James Foley leaves Britons wondering about the role some of their countrymen are playing. Via the Washington Post.
If you were thinking that once Obama called out ISIS in the starkest of terms, that meant he was committing the United States to do more, Slate’s Fred Kaplan agrees. At least that’s what Kaplan hopes he means. Not everyone — if you believe the polls — would necessarily agree. The question is: What does Obama have in mind?
Does the American public want a more hawkish president than Obama? Nicholas Lemann questions Hillary Clinton’s electoral strategy. Via the New Yorker.
There was another police shooting in Missouri, this one in St. Louis, and this one captured on video. But if you watch the video of the man holding a knife, it still may not answer the question whether the cops had to shoot Kajieme Powell. Via Vox.com.
Thomas Edsall writes an essay in the New York Times about Ferguson and Watts and a dream deferred.
This time the whole world really is watching: Why Ferguson has become an international story. Via the Atlantic.
In Alaska, among the reddest of red states, Republicans worry that they’re letting their Senate chances slip away. Alex Roarty writes in the National Journal that some Democrats are more confident of Alaska than they are of — note to Mark Udall — Colorado.
Up, up and away: an elderly man with a cane test-drove a red, vintage scooter from a shop in Colorado Springs, never to return again. Theft? Breakdown? We may never know. Via the Gazette.
The Black Forest fire chief hasn’t quite resigned but isn’t quite doing his job right now. He won’t comment on the strange situation but the board says they haven’t heard from him in weeks. Via the Gazette.
Birds have burst into flames as they fly over solar arrays in California, according to reports, but the developers of a new solar facility in Pueblo say they’re not concerned about replicating the avian firework display. The difference, they say, is in using photovoltaic units instead of mirrors. Via the Pueblo Chieftain.
[Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr/Creative Commons.]
