SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:58 P.M. ET: 

RAND OUT? – From Bloomberg:   Kentucky Senator Rand Paul will almost certainly fail to qualify for the primetime stage at next Tuesday's fifth Republican primary debate, according to an analysis of poll data conducted by Bloomberg. Paul has been included in all four of the main presidential debates to this point in the campaign.  To qualify for the CNN-sponsored primetime debate, candidates must average at least 3.5 percent support nationally or 4 percent in either Iowa or New Hampshire, based on major polls conducted between Oct. 29 and Dec. 13.  He should really get out of the race and protect his Senate seat.  All these Republican hangers-on are complicating the race terribly and allowing Trump to lead strongly in part because the field is so divided.

I LOVE IT – Lots of buzz on the internet today about the Republican National Committee preparing for a contested convention – the first in the GOP since 1976, when Ronald Reagan challenged Gerald Ford.  I think it would be great.  Exciting, popcorn television, and a great look at a true convention in action.  It would focus the excitement on the Republican Party while Hillary is preparing her coronation, crown and all.  And a brokered convention might just produce a good nominee.

NUTS – From Daily Caller:  Just when you really thought the myriad college protests across the country couldn’t get any more daft, something comes along to prove you wrong.  In this case, it’s students at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pennsylvania. Demonstrators there recently insisted that school officials “remove or modify” the last name of one of the college’s past presidents as it appears on a campus building – the man’s name is Clyde A. Lynch – “due to the associated racial connotations.”  This is not a joke.  Word is that our African-American attorney-general, Loretta Lynch, will change her name to Linholm to avoid the same stigma.

FROM A LIBERAL DEM – Which makes it startling.  She's also a minority.  From The Politico:   A prominent Democratic congresswoman and Senate candidate said that up to 20 percent of Muslims want to establish an Islamic caliphate and would use "terrorism" to achieve that goal.  Rep. Loretta Sanchez said Muslims seeking a caliphate are willing to use terrorism and violence to impose their views on the Western world.  We know that there is a small group, and we don’t know how big that is — it can be anywhere between 5 and 20 percent, from the people that I speak to — that Islam is their religion and who have a desire for a caliphate and to institute that in any way possible," Sanchez said on "PoliticKING with Larry King."  “They are not content enough to have their way of looking at the world, they want to put their way on everybody in the world,” she said. “And again, I don’t know how big that is, and depending on who you talk to, but they are certainly — they are willing to go to extremes. They are willing to use and they do use terrorism.”   If a liberal Dem is talking this way, maybe the party is taking the polling numbers seriously.

December 10,  2015