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

DOD DROPS SPLC – FROM DAILY CALLER:   The Pentagon has officially severed all ties to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) after previously relying on the group’s training materials on extremism.  Brian J. Field, assistant U.S. attorney from the Civil Division, stated that the Department of Defense (DOD) Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity removed any and all references to the SPLC in training materials used by the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI), in an email obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation from the Department of Justice.  The DEOMI is a DOD school founded to fight segregation and inequality that teaches courses in racial, gender and religious equality, among other subject areas like equal opportunity and pluralism. The courses are available to DOD civilians and service members.  A wise move.  The SPLC started well many decades ago, but in recent times has turned into a very wealthy McCarthy-style operation that, in the minds of many conservatives, ruins reputation with no real evidence.  There are better sources out there.

MORE HORROR IN FRANCE – FROM THE TELEGRAPH:   French anti-terror investigators are questioning five people over the discovery of a primed bomb at an apartment bloc in one of Paris's plushest districts, amid government warnings that France is "still at war".  The arrests came as four people were seized in Marseille, southern France, in connection with an attack on Sunday in which a knifeman stabbed two 20-year old women to death in the southern port of Marseille. Police also raided buildings as they sought to piece together where he had stayed before the attack.  With the terror threat at maximum levels, the French parliament today overwhelmingly passed an anti-terrorism bill that boosts police powers to search and restrict people's movements but which rights groups warn restricts civil liberties.  France is a constant target, even though it has pursued a generally pro-Arab and pro-Muslim foreign policy.  Terrorists are not interested in our idea of negotiations.

MAJOR SPORTS NEWS – FROM DAILY CALLER:    An Ithaca College professor calls the patriotic song “God Bless America” a “warmongering” song inappropriate for sporting events.
In a September 28 op-ed for the Ithacan, professor Stephen Mosher claimed that “expressions of hyper-patriotism” like the national anthem and songs like Irving Berlin’s God Bless America have “changed our ‘philosophy’ about what it means to be an ‘American’. "  Mosher, who teaches “sport as political resistance” and “sport and popular culture” for Ithaca College’s Department of Communication Studies, claims that these songs should be banned from sporting events.  “Sporting events don’t need a national anthem,” he claims, adding that following the events of September 11, hyper-patriotism took hold and the song, “God Bless America,” took its place as an unofficial anthem for Americans.  It actually took that place before World War II.  And since when is "God Bless America" a warmongering song?  Here are the lyrics.  Where do they get these professors?

October 3,  2017