Free Republic

Delta Airlines and Bank of America pulled out of their sponsorship of New York’s Public Theater on Sunday over a production of “Julius Caesar” that re imagines the main character as President Trump. Shortly after Delta, who was a four-year sponsor, made its announcement, Bank of America yanked its support as well. The Shakespeare in the Park play tells the story of the leader assassinated by Roman senators over the fear that he’s becoming too tyrannical, but rather than the original setting, the production stages Caesar (Gregg Henry) and his wife, Calpurnia, (Tina Benko) with Donald and Melania Trump lookalikes....

ESPN's audience saw a decrease in conservative leaning viewers between 2015 and 2016, according to a new analysis. Deep Root Analytics conducted the study which found that ESPN viewership in 34 of 43 television markets saw a decrease in Republican viewers between the years that kick-started the presidential campaigns and election. Multiple channels in the ESPN family saw their viewership move to the left of the political spectrum. While ESPN and ESPN 2 saw just a 5 percent and 10 percent decrease in Republican viewers respectively, ESPN News viewership became 36 percent less Republican. The decrease in conservative viewers was...

The number of terrorist attacks recorded in Israel dropped last month by 38 percent nationally — largely thanks to a 72-percent drop in incidents in Jerusalem. The Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, recorded a total of 95 attacks in November, with nine in Jerusalem, compared to 153 attacks in October nationally and 48 in Israel’s capital, according to the security agency’s monthly report, which it published on its website earlier this week. According to the report, one Israeli, a member of the security forces, was wounded in the November attacks, compared to 23 wounded and two killed during the...

It may not have the clout of the official monthly Dept of Commerce Retail Sales report not due out for two more weeks, but in retrospect considering how many credibility issues with seasonal adjustments government data has had in recent months, the Gallup Consumer Spending report may have become far more realistic than official government data.In which case all hope of a Q2 GDP rebound abandon, ye who read this: after a strong April, in which the average consumer reported a daily spend of $91, $3 higher than a year prior, and the highest spending month since before the great financial...

**SNIP** Ninety–four percent is an impressive number, particularly considering Obamacare is mandatory, and most readers would assume everyone kept their insurance. Which makes 94 percent a real success story. Except they didn’t keep their insurance, and it’s not a success story. The truth is (there’s that word again), over one–third of Covered California policyholders dropped their insurance altogether. Attkisson contends this is one of the worst retention rates in the nation. And for those poor souls who are still at the mercy of Covered California, the situation doesn’t get any better, 84 percent of the policyholders will be paying increased...

fter five years and more than 50 votes in Congress, the Republican campaign to repeal the Affordable Care Act is essentially over. GOP congressional leaders, unable to roll back the law while President Obama remains in office and unwilling to again threaten a government shutdown to pressure him, are focused on other issues, including trade and tax reform. Less noted, senior Republican lawmakers have quietly incorporated many of the law's key protections into their own proposals, including guaranteeing coverage and providing government assistance to help consumers purchase insurance. And although the law remains very unpopular with GOP voters, more than...

$75 dollars a barrel – that’s the price crude oil would have to hit for frackers in North Dakota’s Bakken fields to feel pressure to slow new production, according to Greg Zuckerman, author of “The Frackers” and a special reporter at the Wall Street Journal. “All these guys have hedged. They’ve got production [and] they’ve already got the acreage. They’re not gonna stop but maybe they’ll kind of slow new stuff.” Fracking in other parts of the country, though, is likely to be much more resilient. In Texas’s Eagle Ford and Permian basin, Zuckerman says oil prices would have to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Declaring the Great Recession only partly to blame, White House economists say the increasing number of Americans dropping out of the labor force dampens economic growth and demands policy changes that create more job opportunities and add workers. In a new report released Thursday, President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers point to an aging population as the biggest single factor contributing to the lowest participation rate in 36 years. The report also says the elevated unemployment rate, which climbed to 10 percent in 2009, drove workers to put off looking for a job. But they say...

Secretary of Labor Tom Perez dismissed today’s reported drop in the labor participation rate this morning on CNBC. According to the Department of Labor the economy created 288,000 jobs in the month of April, but the labor participation rate dropped 0.4 percentage points back to a historical low of 62.8 percent. Host David Faber put it to Perez directly, noting the labor participation rate drop is not due to people retiring given the participation rate for individuals 55 and older actually increased. “The civilian labor force dropped by 806,000 in April. The participation rate down by 0.4 percentage points, lowest...

Russia began dropping cases on Wednesday against the Greenpeace activists, detained over a September protest staged at a Russian Arctic oil rig, as part of a broad prison amnesty approved by state lawmakers earlier this month. The St. Petersburg Investigative Committee had formally dismissed charges against at least 16 of the activists by Wednesday afternoon. All 30 are expected to be cleared by the end of the day. The activists should be able to go home within days once they receive exit visas.

This video involved about 2 months of research, and me reaching out to several individuals. I would like to thank everyone who took time out of their schedule to contribute to my wacky research. A big thanks to the following people: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My wife and kids. I'm sorry this took so long and I wasn't the kind of active father I want to be during the 5 weeks it took to make this. Dr. Martyn Poliakoff for getting me access to documents which details experiments on the Prince Rupert's Drop by the Royal Society http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.or... (behind a pay wall) Being...

George Zimmerman's girlfriend who called Florida police to say he was breaking her stuff and was brandishing a weapon no longer wants to press charges against him and instead wants to get back together with him. Zimmerman, 30, who faces a felony aggravated assault charge as well as lesser charges stemming from the incident, is asking to have conditions of his bail modified so he can resume contact with Samantha Scheibe. According to court documents filed by Zimmerman's attorney Jayne Weintraub, Scheibe, 27, gave a sworn statement in which she wrote, "I do not want George Zimmerman charged." Zimmerman, who...

About 73,000 policy holders around the state will lose their insurance in coming months because nine insurance companies are dropping some health plans that were not grandfathered under the Affordable Care Act, the Maryland Insurance Administration confirmed Monday.

Headline only.

On more than one occasion I've heard politicians dredge up the old adage "You cannot arrest your way out" of a crime problem. In Oakland, it's apparently become city policy. There's been a precipitous decline in arrests in Oakland - a 44 percent drop from 2008 to 2011, according to a Chronicle investigation. And even as arrests have bottomed out, the city's crime rate has climbed in each of the past two years, including an overall 23 percent increase this year. One of the most startling statistics, the Police Department's homicide clearance rate, is particularly troubling. Through October, the department...

Stuck in a standoff with teachers unions, the San Francisco and Oakland school districts have abandoned efforts to bring in up to $15 million each to develop high-quality math classes for upper-elementary and middle school students. The two districts spent months preparing a joint application for the next round of federal Race to the Top funding - which required districts to incorporate student test scores, among other criteria, in teacher evaluations. And because of that critical clause, union leaders refused to sign, as required by the federal application.

The Obama campaign accuses Mitt Romney in new campaign ad of being a “pioneer in outsourcing,” repeating a charge that the Romney campaign has strenuously contested over the past week. The ad refers back to a June Washington Post story that showed Bain Capital invested in firms that created jobs overseas. The Romney campaign demanded a retraction of the story, to no avail, and more recently pointed to a FactCheck.org analysis questioning the “outsourcing” charge. The Obama campaign has dismissed the FactCheck.org assessment as inaccurate and penned a letter to the truth-squadding website disputing its conclusions. And its newest commercial...

"Italian auctions are now as nerve-wracking as Spanish ones," said sovereign debt expert Nicholas Spiro of Spiro Strategy, warning that both Spain and Italy could soon find it too expensive to raise money on financial markets if the European Central Bank does not take action to restore confidence. Italy's overall debt is an enormous ¬1.9 trillion ($2.4 trillion), requiring frequent market access to repay investors whose bonds are expiring. To lower that debt, the economy needs to become more competitive. Spain's decision over the weekend to seek a bailout for its banks has fundamentally changed the market perception of Italy...

Paramedics drop organ in front of photographers after it was rushed to hospital by police helicopter for transplantIt was a heart-stopping moment – or nearly so: rushing from a helicopter, two Mexican medics dropped a human heart being ferried to hospital for a transplant. And to compound their embarrassment, press photographers were there to capture the mishap. Thankfully, the transplant was carried out successfully, although that has not stopped the medics being widely ridiculed online. The heart was being transported by a police helicopter to a hospital in Mexico City on Wednesday, in what police described as "a rapid,...

Scholastic Inc. is a nearly century-old educational publishing company that distributes books, magazines, and other teaching materials through the schools. If you have kids (or remember from your own grade-school days), Scholastic puts out news bulletins that get sent home weekly or monthly. One of those items is Scholastic News, which bills itself as “America’s Leading News Source for kids.” Reader Edward has a daughter in fourth grade who brought home the December issue of Scholastic News — and he wasn’t too happy when he saw the publication’s coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Read for yourself (click for...