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

SENATE MISSES DEADLINE – From Fox:  "The National Security Agency's ability to collect the phone records of millions of Americans in bulk expired late Sunday after the Senate failed to strike a deal before the midnight deadline.  However, that program, as well as several other post-9/11 counterterrorism measures, were likely to be revived in some form in the coming days after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. reluctantly embraced a House-passed bill that would extend the anti-terror provisions, while also remaking the bulk phone collections program."  You'd think this could have been done weeks ago.  No excuses on our side.  Republicans control the Senate.  I hope they get their act together and pass legislation in the next few days.

TALIBAN 5 STAYING PUT FOR NOW – From Fox:  "Qatar has agreed to temporarily extend travel bans on five senior Taliban leaders released last year from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a State Department official confirmed to Fox News Sunday.  The official said the ban would remain in place until diplomatic talks for a longer-term solution are completed. The restrictions had been due to expire on Monday under a May 2014 exchange for Bergdahl. U.S. officials said Friday the Obama administration was closing in on an agreement with Qatar to extend the restrictions for six months that could be announced this weekend. It was not immediately clear why that agreement had not been finalized."  Why did we ever agree to release these fanatics at all?  And they'll be restricted only another six months?  After that they're free to go back to the Taliban?  Are we mad?

THE LEFT ROARS – From Radio Iowa:  "The two Democrats who have formally emerged to challenge Hillary Clinton for their party’s 2016 presidential nomination visited Iowa this weekend. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders attracted overflow crowds in Ames and Davenport, then Sanders capped his three-day trip with a Saturday night stop in Kensett, where more than 300 people greeted him.  'People are extremely frustrated with status quo economics, the greed of the top one percent, establishment politics,' Sanders told reporters on his way into Kensett’s community center. '…People want a movement, to be part of a movement that takes on the billionaire class. Let me be as blunt as I can be: you have a handful of people in this country with enormous economic and political power who are getting it all.'"  Bernie won't be president, but I admire him for speaking his mind.  At least he has a consistent point of view, unlike the very flexible Ms. Hillary.  But the Democratic Party is being pushed further and further to the left, as if Obama were some kind of a moderate.  The left is where liberals go to die.

May 31, 2015