Free Republic

Fox Business News Calls Muppets Communist; Debate Goes Viral A segment on the network was highlighted by Media Matters, reigniting a conversation about whether or not there are political messages in children's movies. If you Googled news about “Muppets” on Monday you were treated to hundreds of news stories and blog items debating whether Disney’s lovable creatures were Communists or not. You can thank Fox Business News and Media Matters for that. Eric Bolling of Follow the Money set the stage on Friday when he hosted a 7-minute segment that argued that The Muppets film – featuring bad-guy oilman Tex...

Joseph Wambaugh solves the great UC Davis pepper-spraying incident Forget hiring Bill Bratton. You can learn all you need to know by reading the papers. In light of the terrible financial crisis at our California universities, I feel the need to rescue UC Davis, whose administrators are, according to The Times, negotiating a price with the Kroll security firm in New York for none other than former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton to fly West and tell us what went wrong on the day that students were pepper sprayed. I can save the university a hefty Kroll consulting fee by suggesting...

How To Identify A Zombie (Updated) How to Tell the Difference Between Zombies and #Occupy Protesters. Hope it helps.

Where Turkey Is The Guest, Not The Entree (Isabella Colbdorf feeds salad to a turkey at this year's Feeding of the Turkeys ceremony in Watkins Glen, in upstate New York, on Nov. 20, 2011.) Most people think of turkeys as the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving meal. But at one farm, the turkeys are the guests. At the 26th annual Feeding of the Turkeys ceremony in Watkins Glen, in upstate New York, a line of turkeys come walking out the door of the barn. They stroll towards long low tables set up on the lawn, with scarlet tablecloths and seasonal squash...

Man throws aluminum water bottle at UC Berkeley student’s face A man threw an aluminum water bottle at a UC Berkeley student Thursday evening on campus, causing minor injuries to the victim’s face. At about 5:09 p.m., the female student was approached by a man at “the northeast exterior of the Haas Pavilion,” according to a UCPD crime alert. The man asked the student if she was going to the protest on Sproul Plaza, and when the victim answered “no,” the suspect yelled at her. “People like you are the reason that California is in debt,” he said, according to...

Frank Miller Doesn't Think Much of Occupy Wall Street Frank Miller, the legenday comic artist behind Sin City, 300, and The Dark Knight Returns unloaded on the Wall Street protesters in a recent blog post, and plenty of his fans are firing back. First, the blog post. In a long statement posted on his website, titled "Anarchy," Miller says he has decided to say what others are "too damn polite" to say: The “Occupy” movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of...

The most persuasive argument for legalizing pot might just be a dollar sign. California's pot crop is worth $14 billion, according to a state report. The Press Democrat points out that crushes the wine crop which comes in at $2 billion. Legalization would be a huge shot in the arm for plenty of ancillary industries, such as banking and construction.

I'm still in shock from reading this news on Stereogum about primitivist drummer and doll-voiced Velvet, Moe Tucker being a Tea Party fanatic. Say it ain't so Moe. It's like finding out that Henry Rollins has just been wearing a fake muscle suit all these years and he's really a skinny, mild-mannered pushover. Moe's strayed a long way off from being in a band at center of 1960's and 70's American counter culture. She's best known for her unrelenting, tribal drumming style of the time -- opting to take her bass drum, turn it upright and pound away on it...

A few years ago, Merle Haggard was diagnosed with lung cancer and nearly became the latest country music legend to be felled by the unforgiving combination of hard living and age. Haggard beat the disease, returned to touring and now, at 73, he’s the subject of a PBS “American Masters” special airing tonight. The documentary, “Merle Haggard: Learning to Live with Myself,” portrays a man trying to come to terms with a life that took him from a train-hopping delinquent to an ex-con to a country music superstar, thanks to hits like “Mama Tried” and “Okie from Muskogee.” Haggard has...

It bears repeating: If we hope to halt, reverse and permanently alter America’s descent into the gutter of debauchery and that political tyranny that is forever its companion — “education is the key.” (1) And if so, it must be, it can only be that that education is initiated, financed, and controlled by parents, not by Karl Marx and the Almighty State; no, nor by anyone far removed from our home, our values, our input, and our right to say, “You’re fired!” Of course, Marx, and every godless statist there ever was and is, knew the road to their Godless...

You know something is changing in American mores when the supposed leader of the culture wars from the right, Sarah Palin, declares that smoking pot is “a minimal problem” and that “if somebody’s gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in.”

"A man sticks his tongue out at a police officer after being arrested during a protest at the G20 summit in downtown Toronto "

Sixty percent (60%) of Americans with children in elementary or secondary school say most school textbooks are more concerned with presenting information in a politically correct manner than in accuracy. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 28% of adults with children in the schools disagree and think most textbooks are more concerned with accurately providing information. Among all Americans, regardless of whether they have children in the schools or not, 27% say accuracy is paramount, while 55% disagree and believe most textbooks are more concerned about political correctness. Eighteen percent(18%) are undecided. Thirty-one percent (31%) of adults...

HAMILTON, Ontario, February 15, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Public school children in Hamilton, Ontario will not be permitted to withdraw from classes that promote homosexuality, according to the Hamilton Mountain News. At the same time, according to a leaked document obtained by a local journalist, teachers are being instructed to tell parents who object to the curriculum that “this is not about parent rights.”At the end of January, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) hosted a professional development day dedicated to “equity” training, where they distributed a sheet to teachers with “quick responses” they can offer to parents who object to...

HAMILTON, Ontario, February 15, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Public school children in Hamilton, Ontario will not be permitted to withdraw from classes that promote homosexuality, according to the Hamilton Mountain News. At the same time, according to a leaked document obtained by a local journalist, teachers are being instructed to tell parents who object to the curriculum that “this is not about parent rights.” At the end of January, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) hosted a professional development day dedicated to “equity” training, where they distributed a sheet to teachers with “quick responses” they can offer to parents who object...

He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877.

New Research: Why Never Spanking Might Be Worse for Kids Than Spanking Them Wednesday, December 30, 2009 11:00 AM By Po Bronson In NurtureShock, we described some extensive cross-ethnic and international research on spanking by Drs. Jennifer Lansford and Ken Dodge. Their data suggested that if a culture views spanking as the normal consequence for bad behavior, kids aren’t damaged by its occasional use. To explain this shocker, the scholars suggested that in cultures or communities where spanking is common, parents are less agitated when administering spankings. Spanking almost never when combined with losing your temper can be worse than...

I have been a faculty member at a major State University for 40 years. Several years after my arrival, I voted for George McGovern. Eight years later, I voted for Ronald Reagan. In those eight years, my family and I experienced several traumas that caused me to reevaluate -- and ultimately, drastically alter -- the political, cultural and economic axioms that had governed my life. Within months of buying my first home in an excellent neighborhood, within walking distance to the University and, most importantly, located in a district with an outstanding local public elementary school, my five year old...

Glenn Beck will be on vacation this week but when he returns on the 24th he has invited me to come to New York to talk to him on camera about Saul Alinsky, the strategy guru of the Obama era. For the the Hillary-Soros generation of johnny-come-lately radicals and their ACORN footsoldiers Alinksy is their Sun-Tzu and his book Rules for Radicals is the field manual for their struggle. I thought while I’m refreshing my acquaintance with this destructive fellow and re-reading his text, I would share my thoughts with you, serially over the next week. For this first post,...

The White House had a monogram that symbolizes the name of Jesus hidden from the backdrop of a speech President Obama gave at Georgetown University Tuesday. The letters IHS are an ancient monogram for the name of Jesus Christ, according to the online Catholic Encyclopedia. They stand on a wooden archway above the dais where Obama gave his speech. The White House requested that all university signs and symbols behind the stage be concealed, said Julie Bataille, spokeswoman for the Jesuit-founded school in Washington, D.C. snip