SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:38 P.M. ET:

IOWA SURPRISE? – From Fox:  "Republican Joni Ernst has pulled ahead of Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley in the Iowa Senate race, according to a new poll that points to a heated battle for votes in the final stretch.  The Quinnipiac University survey showed Ernst, a state senator, leading Braley by 6 points, 50-44 percent among likely voters. The poll also showed her leading among independents, a key voting bloc.  The results are a break from earlier polling which for months has shown Braley leading or tied with his GOP rival.  Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll, said in a statement put out by the university that while 'some pundits back east' may have mocked Ernst’s ads in which she talked about living on a farm, 'they send an effective message to Iowans that she is one of them.'"  Polls differ, but there has been a trend toward Ernst.  This would be a great turnover for us.

POLICY OF THE DAY – From the Washington Times:  "Contradicting what his top military adviser said just a day earlier, President Obama personally assured U.S. soldiers Wednesday that he will not send them into ground combat against terrorists in Iraq and Syria, the latest example of the president’s direct involvement in setting the rules for the new war.  'As your commander in chief, I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq,' Mr. Obama told about 1,200 troops at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, home of the U.S. Central Command. 'The American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission.'"  Keep watching this space for tomorrow's foreign policy.

A SERIOUS WARNING – From Newsmax:  "Recalling that the Soviet Union stockpiled hemorrhagic fevers during the Cold War, a federal health official warned Tuesday the Ebola virus could be similarly wielded as a potential weapon of mass destruction.  'Theoretically, you can manipulate almost any virus to change it in any way you want,' National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, Anthony Fauci, told a Senate hearing, The Hill reports.  'The only trouble is, it wouldn't be easy for somebody to do that in their backyard laboratory. They would probably kill themselves doing it. It would take a state-type [actor].'"  We haven't discussed the threat of bio-terror much, but maybe we should.  Of course, one thing holding bio-terror back is that it may get out of control and kill the very people launching it.

SAD – Writers always hope this isn't true, but it must be reported.  From Daily Caller:  "Plagiarism charges against CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria are back with a vengeance.  The team at 'Our Bad Media' claims to have found more than two dozen episodes of 'Fareed Zakaria GPS' that featured content that was 'lifted without proper attribution.'  The content was lifted from outlets such as The New York Times, The Economist and National Review, along with academic papers and documentaries (as seen below).  'Zakaria will simply recite numbers and facts without any attribution. In others, he’ll cite a study or paper when he really only lifted someone else’s reporting on it,' according to the report. 'In all of them, Zakaria fails to give credit where it’s due, either on the show itself or the blog posts that accompany most segments on CNN’s website'  The most egregious example is placed front and center in the report.  Zakaria copied, almost verbatim, the introduction to an obscure Dutch documentary on the imprisonment and death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian whistle-blower, into a segment on the story on his CNN show."  Zakaria has been suspended before due to alleged plagiarism.  I suspect CNN will have to investigate these new charges thoroughly.  The result can be grim.

September 17,  2014