SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:49 P.M. ET: 

BERNIE MAY TAKE CALIFORNIA – FROM BREITBART:  A new poll has confirmed that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has caught Hillary Clinton in the California primary, reaching a statistical dead heat with less than a week to go before the June 7 primary.  The NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, released Wednesday, shows Clinton with 49% support from likely Democratic voters and Sanders with 47% — well within the poll’s margin of error of 4.2%.  The poll was conducted May 29-31 among 557 likely Democratic primary voters. Significantly, Clinton is ahead, 58% to 41%, among those who have voted already. The state began sending mail-in ballots to most voters in early May; roughly two-thirds of voters are expected to cast their ballots early. That means Sanders’s late surge may not be enough to outweigh Clinton’s support among early voters.  I suspect this is much more an anti-Clinton vote than a pro-Bernie one.  Bernie is getting increasingly obnoxious, and sounds like a hack.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  North Korea’s state media published an op-ed slamming Hillary Clinton and praising Donald Trump on Tuesday, roughly two weeks after the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said he’d be open to direct talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to try to halt the communist nation’s nuclear program.  The commentary describing Mr. Trump as “wise” and Mrs. Clinton as “dull” came amid a flurry of other developments Tuesday that saw a top North Korea official arrive for a visit to China just as Pyongyang carried out yet another failed ballistic missile launch — its fourth such unsuccessful test in two months.  This is a crushing disappointment to the Bernie Sanders base in the Democratic Party, which dearly wanted the Kim Jong-un vote.  As for Trump, someone should whisper in his ear that mature political adults disavow this kind of praise from a thug regime.

OUR DISGRACE – FROM FOX:   An Afghan who served alongside U.S. Marines, then sought refuge in Germany after being denied safe haven in America, told FoxNews.com he fears being sent back to his homeland where the resurgent Taliban has vowed to kill him.  Sami Kazikhani served U.S. troops as a translator during the war in Afghanistan, but was outed as a “collaborator” in a dramatic incident after most American troops pulled out of the region. FoxNews.com wrote in November of the incident that sent the 32-year-old, his wife and kids fleeing for their lives and riding the human wave of refugees to Germany.  Kazikhani, wife Yasmiin and infant daughter Roxanna have been living in camps for more than a year, fearful of being outed once again by fellow refugees, and steadily losing hope that their application for a U.S. visa will be approved. Now they have been told Afghanistan is "stable," and thousands of refugees from the war-torn country will soon be sent back.   What kind of a country are we, to turn our backs on this man and his family?  But there have been too many cases like this.  And Republicans are as much to blame as Democrats.

June 1,  2016