SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET: 

SILLY – From The Hill:  "PHILADELPHIA — Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul says he will bash Hillary Clinton over her husband’s record of putting 'a generation of black men in prison' if he is the nominee.  Paul, a freshman senator from Kentucky, says he will compete with Clinton in Philadelphia, where Democrats have a 7-to-1 registration advantage, and other impoverished cities by highlighting his support for criminal justice reform."  Rand is getting a little unhinged.  As a general rule, people go to prison when they're convicted of crimes.  Bill Clinton, despite his substantial defects, did not himself put a generation of black men in prison.

JINDAL READY TO JUMP – From the Washington Times:  "Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Monday he is launching an exploratory committee to help him decide whether to run for president in 2016 — the clearest signal yet Mr. Jindal is moving toward a White House run on the Republican side.  'If I run, my candidacy will be based on the idea that the American people are ready to try a dramatically different direction,' Mr. Jindal said. 'Not a course correction, but a dramatically different path.'  Mr. Jindal said President Obama has started to redefine the American dream and 'turn it into the European nightmare.'"
Jindal would probably be the most exciting candidate, and he's been a superb governor of the ungovernable state of Louisiana.  I'm not sure he can make it as a presidential prospect, but V.P. might be in his future.

WORKING GIRL – From the Washington Post:  "In one of her last gigs on the paid lecture circuit, Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed an eBay summit aimed at promoting women in the workplace, delivering a 20-minute talk that garnered her a $315,000 payday from the company. Less than two months later, Clinton was feted at the San Francisco Bay-area home of eBay chief executive John Donahoe and his wife, Eileen, for one of the first fundraisers supporting Clinton’s newly announced presidential campaign."  The only "woman in the workplace" Hillary Clinton cares about is Hillary Clinton.

MAJOR ANIMAL NEWS – From the New York Post:  "MARKSVILLE, La. — A young black bear has been a backyard spectacle in a central Louisiana neighborhood where he has spent the past week up one tree or another as he searches for a new home.  The bear is among three to five that have wandered into populated parts of Louisiana in the past 10 days, said wildlife biologist Maria Davidson, head of the large carnivore program for the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries."  President Obama has already offered the bear a free college education, medical benefits and a driver's license.  He declared that bears like this should have a path to citizenship.

May 18,  2015