SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

SUCH A HERO – FROM THE PORTLAND PRESS HERALD:   Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Zak Ringelstein was arrested Friday for refusing to leave a child detention center in Texas after being told he would not be allowed inside.  “Zak is now a political prisoner of the Trump regime,” read a tweet from Ringelstein’s campaign account.  It’s not clear what Ringelstein was arrested for, but he had announced on Wednesday that he was traveling to McAllen, Texas, to bring supplies to children separated from their parents under President Trump’s policy of zero-tolerance for migrants who cross the border illegally...He was arrested after persistently asking authorities to be let into a detention facility. The confrontation was broadcast on his campaign’s Facebook page.  Some elected members of Congress have had difficulty gaining access, too, so Ringelstein’s attempt was likely never going to be successful.   I wasn't aware that shortage of supplies was a problem.  This looks like major-league grandstanding.  Watch for a "free Zak" campaign.

THUMBS DOWN ON MEDIA – FROM HOT AIR:   Now, come the Knight Foundation and Gallup Polls dissecting Americans’ thoughts about media. In general, Americans overall estimate that of the news they’re exposed to via radio, TV and print, nearly two-thirds of it is biased (62 percent).  They believe that nearly half the news they see is inaccurate (44 percent). And they’re sure that more than a third of the news moving through those media conduits is misinformation, that is, wrong or fake but distributed as if true.  They also believe that 64 percent of news carried by social media is inaccurate. And — maybe you’ve felt this way too — more than 80 percent of adult Americans report feeling angry or bothered by detecting such false reports. They believe that 65 percent of such news is misinformation and a whopping 80 percent is biased.  Not exactly a ringing endorsement of media integrity.   And it's getting worse, not better.  A number of journalists don't even seem to care whether their stories are accurate, as long as the right social cause is served.  A "free press" is a guarantee of nothing.

EXPOSED!  CAUGHT! – FROM BREITBART:   White House senior adviser Stephen Miller’s third- grade classmate penned an op-ed for Politico, writing how President Trump’s loyal staffer “was obsessed with tape and glue.”  In the Politico op-ed, John Muller, who sat next to Miller in the third grade, described in detail how the senior adviser once played with glue and preferred other classmates not touch his belongings.  Muller writes in Politico:  "He especially was obsessed with tape and glue. Along the midpoint of our desk, Stephen laid down a piece of white masking tape, explaining that it marked the boundary of our sides and that I was not to cross it. The formality of this struck me as odd. I was a fairly neat kid, at least at school, and I had never spread my things to his side of the desk. Stephen, meanwhile, could not have been much messier: His side of the desk was sticky and peeling, littered with scraps of paper, misshapen erasers and pencil nubs."  Now we know the whole gut-wrenching truth.  Misshapen erasers.  That's all I have to know.  This country is in danger.

June 22,  2018