Free Republic

Too few Americans are qualified for the jobs available. Male working-age labor-force participation is at Depression-era lows. Opioid abuse is widespread. Homicidal violence plagues inner cities. Almost half of all children are born out of wedlock, and even more are raised by single mothers. Many college students lack basic skills, and high school students rank below those from two dozen other countries. The causes of these phenomena are multiple and complex, but implicated in these and other maladies is the breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture. That culture laid out the script we all were supposed to follow: Get married...

Ratings in Weeks 1 and 2 were down 12 and 15 percent, respectively, according to Nielsen. To be sure, saturation TV coverage of Hurricane Irma sapped some eyeballs from football during the first week of play “Week 2 might have still been disrupted by carryover impacts from the hurricanes that hit Houston and Florida,” UBS analyst Doug Mitchelson offered by way of explanation.

A recent article in the Chicago Tribune detailed the experiences of a black woman who obtained a concealed carry permit in Chicago. The article is surprisingly positive about her experiences. An important point is that minority women make up a significant percentage of the growth in concealed carry permits nationwide. From chicagotribune.com: Robinzine, 51, is a gun owner with a concealed carry license. Since she received her permit in late spring, she carries her firearm wherever she goes. “It's like a part of me now,” Robinzine said with the smile.Data show Robinzine is part of a burgeoning group in...

The LA Slimes cites the hurricane and the election for the lower ratings last week and last year. no mention of boycotts or fan displeasure at American values being shat upon

SNF NYG-DAL NBC +2% Late DH SEA-GB FOX -18% Kickoff KC-NE NBC -14% Single Various CBS -18% Early DH PHI-WSH FOX -28%

One day in 2012, Charles Craig and David Mullins entered Jack Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, to order a wedding cake. Phillips, a Christian and self-described “cake artist” who custom-designs cakes for various occasions, politely declined, citing his religious beliefs.Having previously, in the words of his lawyer, refused to bake cakes for Halloween, or with anti-American, anti-family, or what he considered profane messages, Phillips also would not design a cake to celebrate an event in violation of his understanding of Leviticus XX, 13.Craig and Mullins promptly filed a complaint alleging discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation...

White Christians in the US are in the minority and declining, amid increasing ethnic diversity and growing numbers of people who identify as religiously unaffiliated, according to a new survey. The poll from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) found that just 43 per cent of Americans now identify as white and Christian. This is in contrast to 81 per cent of Americans identifying as white Christians in 1976. But what is most striking about the new PRRI survey is that it shows a relatively recent decline among evangelicals – from 23 per cent to 17 per cent from 2006...

Comcast, the parent company of MSNBC, saw its shares plunge this past week as the company said it expected a record drop-off of subscribers for its Xfinity cable and internet service. The selloff of shares began on Thursday when Matthew Strauss, a Comcast vice-president for Xfinity, told a Merrill Lynch media conference that the company was bracing for a dramatic loss of 100,000 to 150,000 subscribers in the third quarter of this year. Shares had closed Wednesday at over $41 a share, but Thursday’s announcement led to a 7 percent price decline -- the biggest drop in share price since...

Americans are starting to pile up more credit card debt than ever before. According to a new study released Monday, U.S. consumers added $33 billion in credit card debt during the second quarter of 2017, making it the second-highest point of debt since the end of 2008.

Mark Twain, quoting Disraeli, once said “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” So it has been with the recent story that White Christians are a minority, To paraphrase Twain again, the reports of Christianity's demise have been greatly exaggerated. The headline was framed as if America was becoming outright pagan. Buried deep inside the story was this admission: Christians of all races and denominations still make up nearly 70 percent of the U.S. population. But that number is likely to shrink as the much younger populations of Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists continue to grow....

The share of Americans who identify as white and Christian has dropped below 50 percent, a transformation fueled by immigration and by growing numbers of people who reject organized religion altogether, according to a new survey released Wednesday.

Professor Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law has poked a stick into a beehive. Tenure is liberating that way. In an op-ed for Philly.com, she argued, with Larry Alexander, a law professor at the University of San Diego, that the decline of "bourgeois values" since the 1950s has contributed to a host of social ills. Male labor-force participation rates are down to Depression-era levels. Opioid abuse is epidemic. Half of all children are born to single mothers, and many college students lack basic skills. This is right out of the Charen hymnbook. Behavioral standards that were...

In a powerful address this week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary’s “fiercest opponents” do not come from within but from abroad, and that Europe is falling victim to “Islamization.” In his annual address to the Civic Picnic in Kötcse over the weekend, Orbán reiterated his opposition to heavy-handed outside influence in Hungarian affairs, as well as his conviction that Europeans have not yet come to grips with the real threat posed by Islam. Citing studies which suggest that more than 60 million migrants will depart from Africa towards Europe during the next 20 years, increasing Western Europe’s...

With last year’s preseason setting a low bar opposite the Olympics, this year’s games posted a double-digit increase in viewership. The NFL preseason averaged 2.6 million viewers across NFL Network, ESPN, CBS, NBC and FOX, up 13% from last year, when several games aired opposite the Olympics (2.3M), but down 20% from 2015 (3.2M).Of the 15 games that aired on the same network and in the same window as last year, nine posted increases in ratings and viewership. In seven of those nine instances, last year’s comparable game faced the Olympics. Of the 16 games that shared networks/timeslots with 2015,...

Mid-February is the most frigid time of year, so it’s always seemed apt that that this is when they choose to hold the highest holy day of the cult of coupledom. If you’re reading this, there’s a not insignificant chance that you are one or several of the following: a) young b) female c) single or d) nauseated by the sheer volume of saccharine romantic propaganda sloshing around the public sphere at this particular time of year. But none of us live outside culture, and feeling frustrated on Valentine’s Day doesn’t make you stupid or duped or a mindless drone...

The challenges and potential business opportunities China's nearly 200 million "single population" has given rise to have been making headlines for some time now. Single population refers to the group of people who are not married despite reaching the legal marriageable age, and those that are divorced or widowed. According to China's population and employment statistical yearbook 2015, the total single population aged above 20－people who are unable to get married as well as those that choose to remain single－was about 140 million in 2014. According to a survey in 2015 more than 58 million people in China live alone...

Only 37 percent of U.S. 12th graders were prepared for college-level coursework in mathematics and reading in 2016, but many public school districts have become fixated on the latest progressive trend of “social and emotional learning.” There is little to boast about when it comes to the state of U.S. education. As Breitbart News reported in April of 2016, only about 37 percent of U.S. 12th graders are prepared for math and reading at the college level, according to the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – also known as the Nation’s Report Card. A recent report also found...

Even before this catastrophic Labor Day weekend is factored in (more on this below), the domestic 2017 box office is in hideous shape. This year is –6.3% behind 2016 and continues to fall behind 2015, 2013, and 2012. If you figure in inflation, those numbers are even worse. For example, in 2012 the average ticket cost $7.96. Today it is almost a full dollar more at $8.89. Yeah, things are that bad and will look even worse on Tuesday. With no apparent faith in their own product, this is the first Labor Day in 25 years where a new title...

Americans continue to get fatter and it’s delivering a huge blow to the country, both in higher health care costs and undercutting military recruiting, according to a huge new study. The 14th annual State of Obesity: Better Policies for a Healthier America report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation bluntly reported that 70 percent of the nation is obese or overweight. And while the rate of obesity growth is leveling off, the costs aren’t. The report, for example, said additional health care for obese adults and children is $150 billion a year and billions...

Yes, the MSM has admitted they got 2016 exactly wrong and that they are out-of-touch with the average American. What truly terrifies the media about 2016, though, is something that has remained largely unspoken. It is what Trump’s victory said so clearly about the MSM’s inability to influence public opinion and, by extension, the outcome of elections. What has also remained unspoken is the media’s desperate and dangerous reaction to this waning influence. As a 25 year media-watcher, I have never seen anything close to the propaganda campaign the national media launched to defeat Donald Trump last year. It was...