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Today is both #FlashbackFriday and, according to Chicago's WGN network, the 30th anniversary of Ferris Bueller's quintessential "day off." Apparently, they figured this out not by determining the date of the Von Steuben day parade (that's actually in September), but by the date of the Chicago Cubs game Ferris and company attend as part of their Chicago adventure. To celebrate at the Spectator, you can do a little #FlashbackFriday of your own. A few months ago, our very own Ben Stein, who delivers an iconic attendance roll (and lecture on the Laffer Curve to a classroom of sleepy kids), detailed...

few notes on what we have learned about law, race, order and the media after Baltimore, the largest city in my home state of Maryland, whose gleaming white stoops once stood for a city’s pride in its law and order and self-discipline. First, Marilyn Mosby should not be allowed to be a law clerk, let alone a state’s attorney/prosecutor. To prosecute police officers EXPLICITLY to please a mob (“I have heard your cries about ‘no justice, no peace’…”) is exactly the opposite of what a prosecutor should do. That is, to prosecute only when the facts and law demand it....

Tuesday on Newsmax TV’s “The Steve Malzberg Show,” Ben Stein, a comedic writer and former speechwriter for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, said President Barack Obama refuses to call terrorists, like ISIS and al Qaeda, “Islamic” because of his friendship and Chicago political history with Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam. ...more (w/video)...

A disturbing conversation with one of my smartest, most astute friends who is from a border state but has been observing race relations for a long time now. He is white. He is definitely idiosyncratic. This, in paraphrase, is what he said: “I keep reading in the newspapers and seeing in the mainstream media how angry blacks are at whites over the Trayvon Martin case, the Ferguson case and the Staten Island case. And what the media is missing is that as angry as the blacks are at the whites, that’s how angry many — not all — whites are...

“I mean, the real problem with race in America is a very, very beaten-down, pathetic, self-defeating black underclass that is — uh, just can’t seem to get its way going in the way that blacks were able to before the scourge of drugs and the scourge of gangs.” (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Actor and conservative pundit Ben Stein says the real problem with race in America is a “very, very beaten-down, pathetic, self-defeating black underclass.” “If you read the liberal mainstream media, that the main problem with race in America was poor innocent black people being set upon and mistreated by the police,” Stein...

Ben Stein—lawyer, Nixon speechwriter, and erstwhile actor known for his turn as Ferris Bueller’s economics teacher—stopped by Fox News on Sunday with some choice words for the Obama administration. “This president is the most racist president there has ever been in America,” he told Fox News. Most racist? Plenty past presidents could challenge Obama for that title. Here are some strong contenders: you be the judge.

the Chicago-area home featured in the film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" has found a buyer. COLDWELL BANKER The Chicago-area home where Ferris Bueller's friend Cameron famously "killed" his father's prized Ferrari finally has a new owner. Crain's Chicago Business reports that the modernist home in Highland Park sold Thursday for $1.06 million, five years after it first came on the market. Craig Hogan is regional director at Coldwell Banker Previews. He wouldn't say who bought the four-bedroom, steel-and-glass house built on the edge of a wooded ravine. The house, built in 1953 by Mies van der Rohe-protege A. James Speyer,...

I am weighed down by some thoughts I have been having lately. I think that since you are my family out there is Spectator-land, I will share them with you. (Although usually family are the last people who want to hear your thoughts. My sister is an exception, of course.) First, a few days ago, I had a brief talk with a thoughtful high school student in my beloved Greenville. The topic was whether or not Osama bin Laden had realized his objectives in the attack of 9/11. The woman had all kinds of brilliant insights, and herewith I add...

In his remarks to the Robert L. Bartley Gala Dinner on October 23, Senator Ted Cruz disparaged the notion of a “grand bargain,” which would raise taxes and (supposedly) cut spending. Cruz went on to say: “ “I’m going to tell you my view, which is I think that we ought to be relentlessly, tirelessly, exclusively focused on growth, because every other priority we have depends on growth.”(continued)

Title is bad: "Republicans Must Fix Obamacare, Not Destroy it: Ben Stein"

Our only hope is if we find GOD again before it is too late ! !  The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary. My confession:  I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved...

Watch Peter Schiff in 2006/2007 state that the stock market and housing Market were about to crash. Watch the so-called experts laugh at Peter Schiff while claiming that the housing and stock markets were going to rocket upwards. Among the "experts who laughed at Schiff were Art Laffer and Ben Stein. Laffer, Stein and the others were wrong. Very wrong. Peter Schiff was right. By the way, Schiff has predicted an economy and stock market crash in 2013.

Sunday I learned about the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school while we were setting up at Fox News to tape Cavuto on Business. The news was so horrible that we all felt as if we had lost our legs and could no longer stand. It was such horrible news that it simply turned the world upside down. It still is that kind of news, and it’s incredibly depressing about the nature of humanity. And my wife and I pray all day for the souls of those dear children and for the peace, if there ever will be peace, of...

"The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary. My confession: [Ben Stein] I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat... Or maybe I can put it another way: where...

Have you noticed that in the past few years, and especially in the past few weeks since the murder of the Ambassador and his guards and colleague in Benghazi (a city that Erwin Rommel loved and whose inhabitants he praised), whenever the New York Times refers to Mohammed, they always call him, without quotation marks, The Prophet Mohammed, as if everyone with any sense understands that OF COURSE Mohammed is The One True Prophet and that it's just understood that Mohammed is The Prophet.

I awakened to a text from a close friend who is a devout Christian and who was so angry at the elite media that she could not sleep. "I am so frikkin' sick of the media telling us that Islam is a 'religion of peace,'" she said. "Look, people make fun of Jesus all of the time and I mean ALL of the time and we don't kill them or harm them. But do anything at all that offends any Muslim and they start killing Christians and Jews -- and then Obama apologizes for it. How long can this go...

Bill O’Reilly spoke to economist Ben Stein about a potential Mitt Romney presidency, as well as what Stein thinks of President Barack Obama. Going beyond wanting Romney to win, Stein said Obama isn’t particularly smart. Smarter than “the average bear,” but not of the likes of President Richard Nixon. Stein began by speaking about he riots in Greece, warning those who think it can’t happen in America. Young people without jobs who are angry, and have nothing better to do, may riot, he said. It’s “fun for them. They can be provoked into doing it at a drop of a...

Ben Stein claims he's a victim of political discrimination. The conservative pundit and actor -- and former Nixon speechwriter -- alleges that his position on climate change had him kicked off a $300,000 acting gig, only to be replaced by a lookalike. Stein filed a discrimination suit against Japanese company Kyocera Corporation and New York ad agency Seiter & Miller Advertising, in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday. He is claiming breach of contract, wrongful discharge and emotional distress, among other charges.

Author, lawyer and former game show host Ben Stein says politics are getting a little too personal, and believes candidates should not be judged by their "gossipy love life." Appearing on CBS' "The Early Show," Stein said the coverage of GOP president contender Herman Cain and allegations of extramarital affairs was getting to be too much.

"They're not doing anything right," Stein says in a way that somehow combines flat affect and high impact. "They don't accomplish anything specifically useful." So what would Ben Stein do? He'd do what he's done in the past. Stein used to write 7,000 word in-depth exposes on corporate fraud. "They were a lot of work but they eventually got some people prosecuted," Stein says. "They got some money recovered for stockholders." Stein offers that if the OWS crowd wants to do something helpful they should do the research necessary to direct and inform their discontent. Beyond method and means, Stein...