Free Republic

Lori Loughlin has just committed career suicide. Her alleged involvement in the seamy Varsity Blues college admissions criminal scandal has forever tarnished her reputation as the folksy face of Hallmark Channel and its vanilla-sweet TV movie franchises “When Calls the Heart” and “Garage Sale Mystery.” She’s been a cash cow for the cable network with her top-rated movies, but she’s on notice now. Don’t be shocked when Hallmark Channel casts her aside, dealing a death blow to Loughlin’s career. Her fall from grace sounds like the plot of a weepy Hallmark Channel movie that no one would believe, but it’s...

Scantily clad girls baring their breasts for strings of beads, sunburnt boys chugging cans of beers through bongs and clouds of vape smoke hanging over the formerly pristine sand: this is March in South Padre Island. Spring Break sees the sleepy island community of just over 5,000 people transformed as an estimated 100,000 college kids descend for long days of boozing on the beach. For businesses and the city itself, the influx means a bumper payday with students spending $3.1 million on alcohol alone last year and providing South Padre with an overall windfall of $33.9 million. But DailyMail.com can...

Lori Loughlin's oldest daughter Isabella was pictured arriving home on Wednesday night hours after her mother was granted $1million bail for allegedly bribing college officials to get her a place at USC. Bella, as she is known to her family, 20, said nothing as she arrived back at her family's Bel Air mansion. Her younger sister, YouTube star Olivia Jade, has not been seen since the news emerged that her mother and father, Mossimo Giannulli, were facing charges along with dozens of other wealthy parents. She was on a yacht which belongs to the chairman of USC's board of trustees...

Every year, many thousands of American parents find that the son or daughter they sent to college has been transformed by college into a leftist. For left-wing parents, this may be a blessing, but for parents who are not leftist—not to mention conservative—it is often painfully jolting. It is jolting because their beloved child now holds America in contempt; prefers socialism to capitalism; regards all white people and police as racist; believes the Bible, Christianity, and Judaism are not only nonsense, but dangerous nonsense; no longer believes men and women are inherently different—or even that male and female objectively exist;...

Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) commented on the college admissions scandal in which the Justice Department has charged several wealthy parents.

Only Professor Dershowitz's words here: Nobody can diminish the importance of this, involving as it does, some of the major, major universities in the country. Look every individual who's charged should be presumed innocent. We have to wait and hear the evidence, but this involves the most elite universities, coaches, the SAT, the ACT, this is really one of the great scandals of the twenty-first century. Having said that, I think it's just the tip of the iceberg. Remember, this doesn't involve the super- super-rich. The super-super-rich buy buildings for the university. They donate hundreds and hundreds of millions of...

Meghan McCain blasted Lori Loughlin's husband Mossimo Giannulli Tuesday as the designer was released on bail amid a massive college admissions scandal. The View panelist defended Arizona State University which, according to documents, was mentioned in an email from the father of two daughters to an alleged mastermind who helped get the stars' children into top schools around the country. McCain, 34, made a dig at Loughlin's Fuller House character in a tweet directed at Giannulli.

he YouTube star daughter of actress Lori Loughlin admitted just last week that her parents forced her to go to college and that her father 'faked his way' through school by using tuition money to start his design business. Olivia Jade Giannulli has been slammed ever since her parents were charged Tuesday for paying $500,000 to get her and her 20-year-old sister Isabella into the University of Southern California. Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli allegedly paid to have their two daughters labeled as USC crew team recruits, even though neither of them are rowers. Olivia has since come under...

A thing that occurs to you if you attend an elite college or university, as I did, is that most of the professors teaching you are more or less the same beleaguered time-servers who would be teaching you at any other school. I well remember the sad, unshaven schlump in corduroys who taught one of my introductory English courses: He was fine. He knew his stuff. But so did the people who taught me English at my public high school. Sure, at name-brand colleges you can attend huge lectures given by name-brand professors who appear on television and the op-ed...

The indictments of actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman on charges of offering bribes to enhance their children’s chances of getting into top colleges may come as a surprise to “Full House” and “Desperate Housewives” fans. But the news of a complicated cheating scandal involving privileged parents is not surprising to education consultants who spoke to NBC News. “Parents are willing to do pretty much anything to get their kids into good schools,” said Robert Schwartz, founder of Your Best College Essay, a business aimed at coaching students to write the perfect college admissions essay. “They are hiring consultants to...

A college entrance exam policy that was meant to help students with disabilities was exploited to enable cheating in an explosive school admission scandal. At least 50 people - including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin - were charged with cheating on admission tests and bribing coaches in what's being described as the biggest school admissions scandal ever prosecuted by federal authorities. In the scandal parents had their children 'purport to having learning disabilities' so they could get medical documentation for it and take advantage of the College Board's special accommodations for students with disabilities. With medical proof, those students...

A conservative professor at Sarah Lawrence College is being targeted by radical activists who don't much like the fact that he's conservative. Usually, when we've covered cases like this, the activists and liberal faculty will take something the professor said, exaggerate it all out of proportion, and accuse the prof of being racist, homophobic, misogynistic, etc. But in this case, the offending professor, Samuel Abrams, penned an op-ed in the New York Times that simply advocated for political diversity on campus.  Abrams said nothing remotely controversial, and he offered empirical evidence for massive liberal bias among college administrators. The activists, calling themselves...

Hollywood elites are, by definition, in the business of concocting fictional stories. Is it any surprise that they apply these skill sets beyond screen and stage entertainment, where the fiction is acknowledged, and use them to achieve their objectives in realms affecting their personal and political lives? In both the college admissions scandal and the alleged hate crime fraud masterminded (I use the term very loosely) by Jussie Smollett, I find five other common points in addition to the first point of employing fiction: Two: Powerful people from powerful families with no concern for issues of right and wrong tried...

Wars are rarely kind to the wide-ranging pursuit of the truth. The same goes for culture wars, including the war over fraternities. Harvard University’s recent decision to penalize students who join “final clubs” and other single-sex social organizations is one front in that war. In sober moments, opponents of all-male social organizations concede that they have “positive qualities.” But they demonize them anyway: “the influence of these organizations on campus life and in shaping mindsets,” says one Harvard committee, “is impossible to escape.” No time for nuance when one seeks to break and control the violence of frat boys. Similarly,...

The college admissions scandal that has swept up celebrities and CEOs largely leaves out the children who benefited from their parents' bribes - except for one. Documents reveal that Isabelle Henriquez gloated about cheating on the SATs after her parents paid more than $1 million dollars to get her into Georgetown University. Isabelle is the daughter of Manuel Henriquez, chairman and CEO of Hercules Technology Growth Capital, and Elizabeth Henriquez. The couple were among the 50 people, including Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, who have been accused of paying bribes to get their children into America's top colleges.

Athletic coaches at USC, UCLA and Stanford got the boot Tuesday after federal prosecutors announced more than 50 people have been indicted in a college admissions bribery scandal. Coaches were among those charged with racketeering conspiracy for allegedly accepting bribes in exchange for admitting students as athletes, regardless of their ability. UCLA says its soccer coach Jorge Salcedo has been placed on leave pending a review and will have no involvement with the team. The university said in a statement Tuesday it’s a “potential victim of a fraudulent scheme” but that it’s not aware of any student-athletes who are under...

Hollywood actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and a slew of chief executives are among 50 wealthy people charged in the largest college cheating scam ever prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice, federal officials said Tuesday. Those indicted in the investigation, dubbed "Operation Varsity Blues," allegedly paid bribes of up to $6.5 million to get their children into elite colleges, including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown and the University of Southern California, federal prosecutors said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, a presidential candidate and a former school teacher, expressed outrage over the scandal in an interview Tuesday with ABC News. "This is just stunning," Warren said. "To me this is just one more example of how the rich and powerful know how to take care of their own."

In the fall of 2017, William Rick Singer, college admission fraudster for the rich and famous, sat in the Los Angeles home of actors William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman and laid out a plan to scam their oldest daughter into college, according to a federal indictment released Tuesday. It was what Singer often told parents was “the side door” to college and he did not lack for what federal prosecutors called “a catalog of wealth and privilege” willing to pay for entrance. That includes actresses Huffman ("Desperate Housewives") and Lori Loughlin ("Full House"), each of whom was indicted by...

Nine college coaches and one administrator are among the dozens of individuals charged in a a widespread cheating scheme aimed at getting students into universities as recruited athletes. According to court documents, the scheme, orchestrated by William Rick Singer was centered around cheating on college entrance exams to get the children of wealthy parents like actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin into the schools of their choice. In addition to cheating on tests, Singer enlisted coaches to help the prospective students gain admittance into school by any means necessary. Below are the coaches facing charges and what they are accused...