Free Republic

The No. 4 Cavaliers gear up for their biggest game of the season against the No. 1 Blue Devils After a decisive 81-59 win against No. 9 Virginia Tech (14-2, 3-1 ACC), the No. 4 Virginia men’s basketball team (16-0, 4-0 ACC) is set to play No. 1 Duke (15-1, 4-1 ACC) Saturday. All eyes will be on the most anticipated college basketball clash of the season between two ACC powerhouses. ESPN’s CollegeGameday is making the trip to Durham, N.C., where thousands of Blue Devil faithful will be camping out to get into Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Red Semidouble WENCESLAS RECALLS TO US the entrance into the Church of a warlike nation, the Czechs, the most indomitable of the Slavonic tribes, which had penetrated into the very midst of Germany. It is well known with what bitterness and active energy this nation upholds its social claims, as though its struggle for existence in the early days of its history had made it proof against every trial. The faith of its apostles and martyrs, the Roman faith, will be the safeguard as it is the bond of union of the countries subject to the crown of St....

False accusers, administrators, prosecutors – no one learned from her lesson It appears to be the end of the road for Crystal Mangum. The accuser at the center of the Duke University lacrosse gang-rape hoax was denied another trial after her conviction for lethally stabbing her boyfriend five years ago. We last covered Mangum three years ago when she asked for a new trial, saying the jury was improperly informed of her attack on another man in 2010. Mangum claimed the butter-knife stabbing was an act of self-defense against a violent boyfriend, but the jury didn’t believe her and she...

Today’s radical left has embarked on a quest to purge college campuses of their controversial histories. These “social justice warriors” not only believe themselves licensed to tear down statues—they view it as their sacred duty to rid universities of monuments that do meet their standards of political correctness. But merely removing statues they deem to be offensive is not enough for these activists. Instead, they are demanding that campuses be remade according to their radical vision. This includes calling for the installation of new monuments and memorials to be erected that are more in line with the updated values they...

FULL TITLE: Golden Retriever who would almost 'spill the beans' as Duke in Bush's Baked Beans commercials is euthanized due to 'aggressive cancer' A dog that scored legions of fans as Duke in the Bush's Baked Beans franchise, has been euthanized after suffering from 'aggressive cancer.' Neighbor David Odom shared on Facebook that the dog - real name Sam - lived with his owner, Susan, in their home at Apopka, Florida. 'She trains animals to work in commercials,' David said on June 28.

A beautiful golden retriever that portrayed "Duke" in Bush's Baked Beans commercials has died. The canine actor, whose real name is Sam, died last week according to a Facebook post by a man named David Odom, who is a friend of Sam's trainer. Odom said Sam had been suffering from an aggressive form of cancer and had to be euthanized. Bush's Beans said while Sam hasn't worked for them in years, they said they're "saddened by the news of his passing and are grateful to have had him depict Duke." The company goes on to say they've worked with several...

Could California pastors be charged with a crime for using Christian doctrine to help someone leave homosexuality? This could be the case if a new Golden State bill, AB 2943, becomes law. Making matters worse, some critics claim it could even be used to impede sales of the Bible. California, 11 other states, and D.C. already ban “reparative therapy” — which seeks to eliminate unwanted same-sex attraction or feelings of “gender” identity — for minors. The new bill, however, applies to adults as well and would prohibit not just therapists but anyone from offering such aid. It’s gold-plated hypocrisy: The...

The Duke Divinity School is hosting a workshop on “Confronting White Fragility” Tuesday to address why white people have a hard time talking about and acknowledging racism. “This workshop will explore questions of why it is often so hard for white people to have honest conversations about race and racism in the United States today and how can this difficulty in engaging with race and racism manifest in the classroom in harmful ways—often in combination with intersecting issues related to gender and sexuality,” a description of the event reads.

Last year, Duke University History Professor Nancy MacLean became one of the country’s best-known academics for her book Democracy in Chains. That is not, however, to say that her book was so praiseworthy that it made her famous. Quite the opposite—Democracy in Chains was excoriated by academic critics for its blatantly dishonest attack on the thinking and indeed the character of the late James M. Buchanan, the 1986 Nobel Prize winner in economics. MacLean sought to depict Buchanan as a closet racist whose intellectual breakthrough of what is now called “public choice” theory was actually meant to help segregationists ward...

Duke University historian Nancy MacLean, not content to do slap and tickle histories, has gone on to trivialize a malady that afflicts millions. "Nancy MacLean, the Duke University historian who wrote Democracy in Chains, the deeply conspiratorial and much-criticized biography of public choice economist James Buchanan, told an audience in New York last week that Buchanan and other early leaders of the limited-government movement 'seem to be on the autism spectrum,'" Robby Soave reports on Reason.com. "According to MacLean, there is a connection between autism and libertarianism, and that connection is not feeling 'solidarity or empathy,' and having 'kind of...

Lynch mobs are not a pretty sight. But what is a pretty sight, even a beautiful one, is someone standing by the side of the road trying to call halt. In 2006, we saw the thronging of another lynch mob, this time in Durham, North Carolina. Three Duke University students were falsely accused of rape, in a case so flimsy that it should have been dismissed in five minutes. Steve Miller, then a student-columnist for the Duke University newspaper, stood up virtually alone against the 300 articles of the Herald-Sun. He stood up against the satellite trucks parked bumper to...

It was just over ten years ago that the Duke lacrosse case finally dragged its weary way across the finish line. That case was a storm petrel, flying before the thunder. We should have watched its course more carefully, because it was about to become a paradigm of what was to follow. --------- And so we stumble on without understanding why we once believed that the rule of innocence until proven guilty was necessary. Or that if we sacrificed the individual to satiate the appetite of the mob, we gave up everything that was worth preserving in society anyway.

Several years ago, a friend of ours, filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney, attempted to lampoon the iconic field of women's studies by showing up at random campuses, on camera, and asking where he could find the men's studies department. It turns out that Evan may have been ahead of his time. "A few institutions have established centers of masculinity research and counseling," Peter Monaghan reports in the December 15, 2017 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. "Among them are the Center for the Study of Masculinities and Men's Development at Western Illinois University and the Men and Masculinities Center at...

Durham, N.C.-based Duke University Health System's Life Flight helicopter crashed Friday in North Carolina, killing four people, according to UPI. Authorities told WTVD the helicopter was headed back to Durham-based Duke Medical Center from Elizabeth City-based Sentara Albemarle Medical Center. The helicopter was transporting a patient in need of critical care. "With deep sorrow we can confirm that a Duke Life Flight helicopter crashed early this afternoon near Belvedere, N.C. We are in the process of directly confirming information related to this incident and will share more information as it becomes available," said Duke Health Officials, according to UPI. The...

“Unite the Right” was a bad choice of names for the anti-Semitic rally that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend. The movement has nothing to do with conservatives and is the result of the left’s continued efforts to change history. The Grand Old Party is the party that was formed with the sole purpose of ending slavery. It is the party that delivered Abraham Lincoln and fought for the end of slavery. One-hundred years later, it was the party that cast the votes for the Civil Rights movement and later for the rights of women to vote. It’s not...

Click on the link above. Glad someone found this and posted on Twitter. https://twitter.com/President1Trump/status/896466953153511425

It doesn’t really matter who the chairman of the Democratic National Committee is, because it’s the Democratic National Committee. They’re pretty much screwed no matter what. With that in mind, why not pick someone who can bring everybody together?

American college campuses are becoming more and more like the old communist states where people enjoyed freedom of speech—but only so long as they didn’t question some aspect of the official orthodoxy. Any such “deviationism” was apt to land them in severe trouble with the authorities, who encouraged loyal citizens to report it. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn recounted many cases of that in The Gulag Archipelago.) Duke University Divinity School professor Paul Griffiths is the latest faculty member to fall victim to the taboo against speaking out against “progressive” beliefs. His thoughtcrime: daring to say that a “racial equity” seminar would be...

If faculty cannot bail out on and disparage diversity training, students don't stand a chance: Resistance is futile. "I exhort you not to attend this training," Paul Griffiths, then a professor at the Duke Divinity School urged his colleagues via the campus e-mail. "Don't lay waste your time by doing so." "It'll be, I predict with confidence, intellectually flaccid: there'll be bromides, clichés, and amen-corner rah-rahs in plenty. When (if) it gets beyond that, its illiberal roots and totalitarian tendencies will show. Events of this sort are definitively anti-intellectual. (Re)trainings of intellectuals by bureaucrats and apparatchiks have a long and...

Sept. 12: The NCAA, citing a commitment to fairness and inclusion, announces it would move seven championship events from the state of North Carolina. That included first- and second-round games for the NCAA men's basketball tournament that were slated for Greensboro, N.C., for March 17-19, 2017. It is in direct response to the state's passing of House Bill 2, also known as the "bathroom bill," which critics say discriminates against the LGBT community.