The NukeDeal: Senate Democrats yesterday blocked a Republican resolution to reject the six-country nuclear agreement with Iran, thereby nearly ensuring the deal will go into effect. The United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China are all party to the accord.

President Obama managed to squeeze it through Congress when the Republicans fell only two votes short on a procedural measure. The nuclear accord, which lifts severe economic sanctions in exchange for Iran curtailing its nuclear development, survived opposition even by some Democrats and a heavy lobbying campaign by Israel.

Many critics said the deal wasn’t tough enough. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained bitterly about it. The deal is likely to be weaponized by Republicans during the Presidential election year as they increasingly portray Obama and the Democrats as soft on foreign policy and national defense.

The Great Migration: President Obama said the US will accept 10,000 Syrian migrants in the next year to help absorb some of the flow of refugees into Europe. By comparison, Germany has taken in that many in a day.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the US would not relax its criminal and terrorist background checks before taking in the refugees.

The Numbers Game: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls among Democratic presidential candidates. He leads Hillary Clinton 41 percent to 40 in the latest Quinnipiac poll of Iowa voters. That’s within the margin of error, but only back in July Clinton was ahead 52 percent to 33. And Sanders gets a significantly higher rating for honesty and trustworthiness among likely Democratic attendees for the Iowa caucuses.

Once the “inevitable” Democratic candidate, Clinton is now in a fight with Vermont’s avowed socialist senator who’s winning over liberal democrats with tough talk about income inequality, affordable college, healthcare, and getting money out of politics.

9/11: President Obama will have a moment of silence at the White House today marking the 14^th anniversary of the Sept. 11^th attacks. Ceremonies are also scheduled at the National September 11 Museum & Memorial in Lower Manhattan. Major League Baseball will have a moment of silence at every game played today and nearly 3,000 flags will be displayed at the Ohio statehouse for the people killed that day.

Fault: The New York police department is apologizing after plainclothes officers roughly took down a former tennis star who was waiting in Midtown Manhattan for a car to take him to the US Open.

James Blake, who is black, was surrounded by six plainclothes cops, one of whom tackled Blake, slammed him to the ground, and handcuffed him. But Blake had been mistakenly identified as the suspect in a crime … identity theft. The officer who took him down has been put on desk duty.

Blake is a Harvard graduate who was once the #4 male singles player in the world. He told ABC News he went public with the incident after thinking about what it would have been like if this had happened to his wife. “I was furious because I thought about what I would be thinking if someone did that to my wife, if someone tackled her in broad daylight, paraded her around in a busy, crowded sidewalk in New York City with handcuffs,” Blake said.

The Sports Page: The New England Patriots beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 28-21 last night with quarterback Tom Brady at the helm after being reinstated by a federal judge. But there’s always something. The Pittsburgh coaches complained that the Patriots’ radio broadcast bled into their radio headsets for most of the first half.

The Un-Candidate: Speaking with Stephen Colbert on last night’s “The Late Show,” Vice President Joe Biden said he’s still not ready to give everything he’s got to run for president. He is painfully honest about his grief over losing his 46-year-old son Beau to cancer. Biden said he feels “self-conscious” about the outpouring of support he’s had. “No one owes you anything. You gotta get up. And I feel like I was letting down Beau, letting down my parents, letting down my family if I didn’t just get up. I marvel at the ability of people who absorb hurt and just get back up.”

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