Free Republic

I review Pastor Greg Laurie's fantastic new biography of music legend Johnny Cash, and explain how Christians can be in the world but not of it.

RESTON, Va. (FOX 5 DC) - A Fairfax County children’s entertainer – who goes by the stage name “Mr. Knick Knack” - is under arrest after detectives allegedly found multiple child pornography files in his possession. Steven Rossi, 58, of Reston is charged with 10 counts of felony possession of child pornography. Police began investigating Rossi on April 18 after the Fairfax County police department received a tip.

Singer-actress Bette Midler can belt things out. Not just her schmaltzy show tunes, but her Greatest Hits: her fiery, unhinged hits on conservatives, Trump, and pretty much any person who is not a member of the show biz left. She’s usually uninformed, always strident and pretty hateful. Here are five hits that, in the past year, have led people (even liberals) to question her sanity, chide her on Twitter, or simply roll their eyes. On Nov. 14, Midler tweeted out a picture from a Melania Trump photoshoot that appeared in GQ magazine circa 2000. The photograph shows Melania posing in...

Pharrell Williams sent President Trump a cease and desist letter Monday after the president’s campaign played the hit song “Happy” during a rally that took place just hours after the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. “On the day of the mass murder of 11 human beings at the hands of a deranged ‘nationalist,’ you played his song ‘Happy’ to a crowd at a political event in Indiana,” Williams’ attorney wrote in a letter obtained by the Hollywood Reporter. “There was nothing ‘happy’ about the tragedy inflicted upon our country on Saturday and no permission was granted...

Donald Trump's ability to draw a crowd has flabbergasted even one of left-leaning MSNBC's talk-show hosts, Joe Scarborough, who took to national airwaves to say the billionaire is beating all records - that his ability to pack a room with eager listeners exceeds anything even much-loved Ronald Reagan could do. "I was at George W. Bush's campaign rally in 2004 at the final stages of that unbelievable race in early November," the "Morning Joe" host said, Breitbart reported. "I saw Reagan come to Pensacola twice in 1980. I saw the crowds. I never saw anything like that in my hometown...

I wanted to follow up on my overnight post noting that rapidly emerging "schlong" revisionist analysis of Donald Trump's statement which now - a mere dozen hours later - has emerged into a full-fledged "schlong truth" movement. Trump himself is doubling down on "schlong" and has enlisted Jeff Greenfield who is vouching for the normalness and non-sexual meaning of the phrase. It was unclear to me at first from Greenfield"s tweet whether he was basing this on personal experience as a New York Trump contemporary (Greenfield is only slightly older than Trump but, according to Wikipedia, grew up in tonier...

Who better to replace celebrity turned politician Donald Trump as host of NBC’s "Celebrity Apprentice" than celebrity turned politician Arnold Schwarzenegger? No one, according to NBC. The network announced Monday morning that the former California governor will take over the seat relinquished by the GOP presidential front-runner when the show returns to the air next year. “I have always been a huge fan of ‘The Celebrity Apprentice’ and the way it showcases the challenges and triumphs of business and teamwork,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “I am thrilled to bring my experience to the boardroom and to continue to raise...

Alice Cooper, the shock-rock megastar who makes Marilyn Manson look like a choir boy, stopped his hard-partying ways and returned to his Bible Christian roots in the late 1980s and today, still hugely popular and touring, says he isn’t shy about discussing his faith, says his early songs always warned against choosing evil, and contends that the world we live in “doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to Satan.” “The world doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to Satan,” said Alice Cooper. “We’re living with that. We’re bombarded with that every day.” “[A]lmost everything I wrote was good and evil,”...

Everyone knows President Barack Obama likes a celebrity fix - just ask Johnny Depp. And today, just a day after pictures emerged of his extravagant 2009 Halloween party at the White House, the most powerful man in America was enjoying more VIP company. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie brought some Hollywood star power to Washington D.C. as they stopped by for a chat with the chief executive at the Oval Office.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama met with activist-actor George Clooney at the White House on Tuesday to discuss U.S. involvement in Sudan ahead of a critical election early next year in Africa's largest nation. Clooney recently returned from Sudan, and is asking the U.S. and world community to use international pressure and robust diplomacy to prevent violence ahead of the Jan. 9 election. The election is an independence referendum on south Sudan that is likely to split the country in two, and there are fears that the vote could lead to a new outbreak of north-south civil war.<>

Republican Jeff Perry, a self-proclaimed Tea Party member, said he doesn’t want former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to campaign for him because of the baggage she would bring, after dismissing the former vice presidential candidate as an “entertainer” in a TV interview. “I don’t want to interject the debate over the national Tea Party with my race about my district,” said Perry, seeking to replace U.S. Rep. William Delahunt. “I’m trying not to interject a national debate that would distract from my message.”

Even Calbuzz was moved when 11-year-old Paris Katherine Jackson took the microphone to tell the world that Michael had been a wonderful father and that she loved him dearly, which you can watch here on TMZ. That was the emotional high point of the MJ Tribute, for sure. The political high points were two: the Rev. Al Sharpton’s observation that Jackson was instrumental in breaking the color barrier and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s insistence on the presumption of innocence. Sharpton’s great line: “He put on one glove, pulled his pants up and broke down the color curtain.” The Rev...

Al Jolson called himself The World's Greatest Entertainer - and no one ever argued with him about it. That alone could set the man apart from most other show business people. It seems the epitome of - to use a word that figured largely in his vocabulary - chutzpah, but as Larry Adler who saw him at work told me, "He was not lying when he made that claim. It was an established fact." Adler also said, "All sorts of people like Chaplin and Chevalier say they were influenced by Al Jolson, I was influenced by Al Jolson - and...

He kissed my mother. She loved it. Even though she was on stage with a dozen other “grandmothers,” she waited patiently for her turn to receive a kiss from singer Don Ho. We were at the Cinerama Reef Towers Hotel in Honolulu for the Don Ho show, filled with music, dancing and comedy. Audience participation was a major part of Ho's show, and bringing the grandmas on stage brought shrieks of laughter throughout the room.

ON THE WEEK before Christmas, I was excited to take my family to go to our great Verizon Wireless Arena to see James Taylor in concert. I paid a little extra for closer seats. Like any big entertainment venue these days, it is not cheap, but I was happy thinking this would be a fun and memorable family moment. Old James T. is quite a musical talent. He has a long list of hits that folks from 10 to 90 years old can enjoy, songs ranging from "Sweet Baby James" to "Fire and Rain." The Verizon had a great crowd...

LOS ANGELES - Lane Smith, a longtime character actor who played a small-town district attorney who clashed with Joe Pesci in "My Cousin Vinny," died Monday. He was 69. Smith, who also played Richard Nixon in the TV movie "The Final Days" and Daily Planet editor Perry White in "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," died at his home in Los Angeles, according to his wife, Debbie Benedict Smith.Born in Memphis, Smith appeared in numerous films and television shows. Most recently, he appeared in the 2000 movie "The Legend of Bagger Vance," starring Will Smith and Matt Damon.Lane...

The Republican Who Broke the Color Barrier By Joe Bendel One can only assume the Republican National Convention kicking off in New York this week will spend a good deal of time in tribute to President Ronald Reagan. As the man who drove a stake in the heart of an expansionist Communist Empire, and recast the Republican Party is his own image, such tributes are only fitting and proper. The RNC would also be well advised to give significant time to mark the contributions of another longtime GOP stalwart who passed away since the 2000 convention, jazz legend Lionel Hampton....

Elton John has said stars are scared to speak out against war in Iraq because of "bullying tactics" used by the US government to hinder free speech. "There's an atmosphere of fear in America right now that is deadly. Everyone is too career-conscious," he told New York magazine, Interview. Sir Elton said performers could be "frightened by the current administration's bullying tactics", The singer likened the current "fear factor" to McCarthyism in the 1950s. "There was a moment about a year ago when you couldn't say a word about anything in this country for fear of your career being shot...

KISS bass player Gene Simmons has caused an uproar among Australia's Muslim community by launching an attack on Islamic culture while in Melbourne. The lizard-tongued rock god who is touring Australia with the world's most enduring glam rock band launched an attack on Muslim extremists during an interview on Melbourne's 3AW radio - including comments which were labelled inaccurate. "Extremism believes that it's okay to strap bombs on to your children and send them to paradise and whatever else and to behead people," he said yesterday. The Israeli-born US musician went on to say Islam was a "vile culture" that...

The three-day shoot for the video was about to wrap, and director Mark Romanek needed just one more shot from his singer star, Johnny Cash. As Romanek recalls, "I said to John, 'This is the last take. So if you want to get angry or smash something up, this is your last chance.'" Cash didn't get it. He thought Romanek meant this would be the final shot in the ailing star's life, so he had better make it good. Cash wouldn't, couldn't surrender to such defeatism. "I hope it's not the last take," he said in that baritone growl, which...