Created by Dean Hargrove, Matlock stars Andy Griffith and follows the professional career of criminal-defense attorney Ben Matlock. Noted for its similarities with the hit series Perry Mason, the show aired from March 1986 to May 1992 on NBC before moving to ABC where it ran for another three years before ending in 1995. The show was an incredible commercial success and has been in syndication... Source

In 2020, the popular NBC late-night comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live marked its 46th season. The iconic show has come a long way since premiering on October 11, 1975. During the '70s, the cast had to create something out of nothing and they were wildly successful at it. Once unknown comedians, many of the cast members, including Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, and Dan Aykroyd, went on to have... Source

Coincident with Donald Trump’s electoral victory, increasing numbers of America’s corporations are backing off their DEI—diversity, equity, inclusion—programs. Trump’s opposition to DEI is clear, and JD Vance’s bold opposition to this agenda was one of the reasons for his selection as Trump’s running mate. As the Trump transition team completes its work bringing in the new leadership that will run our government, it’s clear that a priority is to uproot the woke rules, directives, and institutions that Democrats have implanted in our federal government. Efforts will be made to de-woke the military, the Department of Defense, and other major government departments and agencies. And the Department of Justice will work to use existing law to challenge the prevalence of woke rules that have so widely taken over the governance and operation of our universities. Walmart, one of America’s largest companies, has just announced that it will end the Center for Racial Equity that it launched in 2020 with funding of $100 million. The website of this center describes its mission as working to “foster equitable outcomes for people … [and] to address the root causes of gaps in outcomes experienced by black and African American people in education, health, finance, and criminal justice systems.” Walmart also, according to The Wall Street Journal, will “stop allowing third-party sellers to offer some LGBTQ-themed items on Walmart.com.” Boeing corporation, per the same report, has also announced a similar winding down of these efforts. Whereas we can understand how a political agenda can find its way into government institutions, how does this happen in the private sector? What motivated these corporations that operate in a free marketplace and are owned and controlled by private stockholders to incorporate a political agenda into their business and operating practices, and what is motivating them now to back off these programs? Has management of these corporations changed their minds regarding the business efficacy of these programs? Or did they put them in place initially to curry favor with a political regime once in power and now they are backing off to curry favor with a new regime? Let’s recall, again, how profoundly our culture has changed. If there was a defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement, it was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in August 1963. And if there was a defining line in that speech, it was King’s declaration that “I have a dream that one day my four little children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” The Civil Rights Movement was, in the grand scheme of things, about right and wrong. About good and evil. The movement succeeded because it was rooted in these truths. As King argued in 1963, the problem was not our Constitution but its implementation by human beings who permitted evil to find its way into our culture. Unfortunately, rather than following through with the true biblical spirit of the Civil Rights Movement, the nation took the path of politics to implement justice, making our country less free, rather than turning to King’s appeal to the Bible to improve our freedom, in the spirit in which the Constitution was written. We might consider that moment, when politics took over, the birth of today’s woke movement. The result has been a vast politicization of our country and our culture.   My hope is we learn and don’t trade one political regime for another.   Yes, we need to go back to a culture of free markets and merit.   But it all starts with the choices free individuals make, and those choices must start with a conviction of good and evil as defined by the Bible that King had in mind when he spoke that day in Washington in August 1963. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post To Get Rid of Woke, Understand How It Got Started appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you think carving out a sustainable homestead on only a few acres while raising your own groceries is impossible, you would be terribly wrong. Rick Austin, also known as the Survivalist Gardener, has done just that in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Rick Austin Shares His Wisdom Rick Austin and his wife, best known as Survivor Jane, are not just surviving off their land, they're thriving. Several years ago, the couple became keenly aware of the many potential disasters looming. They realized just how unsafe they would be if SHTF while they were still city dwellers. Rick and Jane left their highly successful careers in the city and moved to a beautiful — and sustainable — patch of land in North Carolina. There, they began utilizing their gardening expertise to fully embrace the preparedness lifestyle. Since then, the Survivalist Gardener Rick Austin has become a nationally renowned off grid living, homesteading, and preparedness expert. Rick Austin: A Prolific Survivalist Austin’s first book, Secret Garden of Survival-How to Grow a Camouflaged Food Forest, is now the #1 Best Selling book in Garden Design. His newest book, Secret Livestock of Survival – How to Raise the Very Best Choices for Retreat and Homestead Livestock, is destined to become a top-selling homesteading and prepping resource manual as well. All of the Rick Austin books belong in your survival library. Each one offers an easy-to-read and highly detailed explanation on the focused topic. Both newbies and seasoned preppers will close the cover knowing they've learned important lessons they can put into practice to help their family survive a disaster and live a more natural and sustainable life on a daily basis. The newest book from Rick Austin offers a complete livestock guide that preppers on a budget or living on only a small homestead can easily put into practice. That being said, survivalists living on a sizable plot of land will also greatly benefit from Austin’s words of wisdom and detailed steps. Secret Livestock book excerpt: “When most people think of raising homestead livestock, they invariably think that they must have chickens and a cow. But truth be told, when it comes to raising livestock, there are a lot of reasons to avoid raising chickens altogether, and almost every reason not to own a cow. The Secret Livestock of Survival, will show you how to grow your own sources of food (in this case — protein) with a much better return on your investment of time, money, feed, housing and real estate, than with traditional homestead thinking. And these livestock animals are discrete, so most people won’t even know you are raising them.” The Interview What got you interested in prepping? I have always been a Boy Scout and been always prepared. I grew up in New Hampshire, so I grew up with that New England Puritan work ethic where you are expected to take care of yourself. Growing up in New Hampshire, you learned to cook and heat with wood, because you could lose power for a week at a time in the winter due to snow and ice storms. At the same time, we would store our refrigerated food outside in the snow when we lost electricity for days at a time. As an adult, I moved to Florida — the hurricane and lightning capital of the world. There you always had to be prepared for a storm, losing power — even losing your home. Nobody was going to save you — you had to save yourself. What tips would you give to newbie preppers? Stop being a consumer and start being a producer. Do something, grow something, raise something! Try something. Try DOING. Don’t just stock pile and buy food storage like so many preppers do. The time to learn to produce your own food is not when it is a matter of life or death for your family. Even if you don’t have a homestead or property yet, you can start raising rabbits in an apartment or your garage. Should the SHTF, they can easily bug out with you. Make the leap. The longer you wait, and the more you are stuck on the industrial food grid, the less money you will have later. Grocery food packaging is getting smaller, prices are getting higher, and the food is getting more poisonous with more and more toxic chemicals. You need to stop being a slave to the system. If they control your food, then they control you. Being independent of the food grid will set you free. How did your loved ones react to your desire to work in the survival field and become Rick Austin: Survival Gardener? I have always been a “survivalist” before it was fashionable to be one — before they coined the term. My wife appreciated that I knew how to take care of the family in any disaster. When the housing market and stock market took a dive 10 years ago, crime became rampant. Orlando became the 6th most dangerous city in the country. We both retired early and left our corporate jobs to live off grid. We learned a lot the hard way. Unlike people 100 years ago, we didn’t grow up with living off grid. Today, we teach other people how to live a sustainable lifestyle like we do through books, social media, podcasts, radio, television, and public speaking appearances. Today, we run the largest annual outdoor preparedness and homesteading event in the country, Prepper Camp. Why did you become passionate about sharing your knowledge? We look at it as our ministry to give back and to teach others. We get joy out of helping others become self-sufficient. It also helps the country and helps these people grow as individuals. And of course, selfishly- the more people we teach to feed themselves now, the less unprepared people I will have to kill later after The End Of The World As We Know It – TEOTWAWKI. What factors should a family consider when choosing where to live factor and put their preparedness plan into action? I can’t get over how many people ask me how they can grow my camouflaged food forest in a place like Arizona. I have to ask, “Who can honestly consider themselves a ‘prepper’ and choose to live in a place without rainfall?” Water is #1 most valuable resource. Without water, humans die in three days. Without water, you can’t grow crops. People who live in the desert import their water. If that gets shut off, you and your family are dead. When we chose our last retreat — our final homestead destination, we could have moved anywhere in the world. Yet we chose the Appalachian Mountain region of the United States for lots of reasons. In terms of specific attributes for choosing a homestead, south facing property for our solar home and growing a garden was important. South facing provides the most sunshine for energy, heat and growing food. We live on a mountain top for the view and security. High ground is always the best. It was important to find a location where there was adequate rainfall, climate, and a long distance from big population centers, to be out of the path of civil unrest. What was also very important was the basic quality of the people who already lived in the area. The people here are basically good people. And they are for the most part self-sufficient. I recommend that other people be strategic in their thinking — this is your life. Don’t be constrained by where you grew up or where your family/in-laws chose to live. Do what is right for you and your family as a survivalist. What was your biggest prepping fail and what did you learn from it? The garden growth has been incredible, more than I could have ever anticipated. The only thing I might do, if I had to do it over, would be to give more room to my perennial plants. You don’t realize that they will grow up and out to the point where they can shade out other plants. Building on a mountain top has had its challenges. We sit on a slab of granite, which is fine for the home. But trying to put in a root cellar underground was difficult to do. We broke three backhoes trying to dig a hole 15-feet-deep and 12-feet-square to put our small underground little food storage area in. What was the motivation for the Secret Livestock of Survival book? After my Secret Garden of Survival book about my sustainable perennial food forest and my Secret Greenhouse of Survival book about my insulated sustainable attached greenhouse, protein production was the third leg of my food stool. Having sustainable sources of protein makes the whole sustainable/symbiotic homesteading food production come full circle. Not only do my sustainable livestock choices provide my family with protein — meat, eggs, milk, cheese, etc. — but my animals also give back to the garden and greenhouse from which they eat by providing the plants in my garden and greenhouse with natural fertilizer — poop! What breed of goat do you and Survivor Jane have, and why? We have Nigerian Dwarf Diary goats — not meat goats. They produce 1.5 gallons of milk per day from three small girls. They take little space, consume little food, and produce a lot of milk. And like my garden, greenhouse and my other livestock, they are discrete. They can hide in plain sight. Raising meat is best left for rabbits. I also raise meat from ducks and chickens, to some degree. Basically, when you eat a small animal it is one meal and done, as opposed to big game or big livestock. With those, there is much more work to process and preserve the meat. Once you process a large animal, you have to store it. So, without refrigeration and a freezer, it could all go to waste. The last thing you want to consume is botulism in a grid down situation. If you could go back and add one more bit of information to the book, what would it be? In Secret Garden of Survival, I would show pictures as to what it looks like today. After six or seven years of growth, the trees are huge. They now produce huge amounts of food. Last year, we got over 1,000 peaches off of one tree — and I have several peach trees. But, I do show current day growth on my YouTube channel. That way, people can see the change and the volume of harvest on a very small piece of land. What has changed since your last books? Secret Livestock of Survival was released four years after my Secret Garden of Survival book. I had a lot more to share, and lots of tips and tricks that I would not have known without a lot of mistakes. In fact, it was hard to keep the livestock book short, because I had so much to tell. My livestock book is my best book yet. I have included not only which animals are best to have on a sustainable homestead, but also how to care for them. I give people the most important information about each animal in the book. Therefore, I have kept people from having to buy about eight other books on each specific type of livestock. Plus, I put all my animal recommendations in order of ROI- Return on Investment, getting the most return for the least amount of input. So, if you only had to choose to raise one or two types of animals to start with, you could do so without having to use resources you may not have including time and money. That's why I started my book with raising rabbits.   Have you heard of Rick Austin and his books? Let us know in the comments below! Ready to take some of the advice from Rick Austin? Learn how to start with Planting for Preppers 101!

NYT: Hamas May Really Want a Deal

Quail, chicken, duck? All good, and then a mysterious line is drawn.

New studies suggest that our galaxy evolved differently and is doing something peculiar to its surroundings.

In a Thanksgiving morning photo-op on Nantucket island, President Joe Biden took a swipe at the news media, complaining that most Americans think the country is on the wrong track because when they “turn on the television, you don’t see a lot of good news.” Later on Thursday, a panelist on FNC’s Special Report refuted the Commander-in-Chief, arguing that Biden’s jab “flies in the face of reality,” saying the “American people are hearing good things [from the media] about Democrats,” but the media spin didn’t help the incumbent party overcome negative facts like the worst inflation in decades. As his event at a Nantucket fire station was concluding on Thursday morning, an off-camera reporter asked Biden an open-ended question about how “many Americans are worried about the future this holiday season. What is your message to them?” Instead of admitting that his administration could have done a better job on inflation, the border, or a host of other issues, Biden chose instead to respond with a critique of the media environment (although he claimed he wasn’t going after the press). “I mean, this is not a criticism of the press,” Biden insisted, but if “you turn on the television, you don’t see a lot of good news. Even stuff that is good news doesn’t seem to sell very well.” A few hours later, fill-in host Gillian Turner played the clip for the panel on FNC’s Special Report. Republican strategist Erin Perrine cited an MRC/NewsBusters’ study to prove how wildly off-base Biden was in his critique: When you look at how Democrats were covered, there was a study released after the election that said Democrats and Kamala Harris received 78% positive coverage in the news. Compare that to Donald Trump’s almost 90% negative coverage. Joe Biden can’t blame the media for the fact the American people aren’t feeling good. The American people are hearing good things about Democrats. They certainly did during the election but you can’t have that fly in the face of reality, that it feels like your paycheck doesn’t go as far.     Biden’s Thanksgiving Day complaint shows how Democrats have become so dependent on a favorable press environment, that they find it upsetting when even the liberal media can’t wash away the problems caused by their policy errors. That’s not a good sign for a party that’s supposedly trying to learn the lessons of 2024 so they don’t repeat those failures in the future. Here are the relevant transcripts from the November 28, 2024 edition of FNC’s Special Report (click expand to see the whole thing). Fox News Special Report November 28, 2024, 6:04pm ET Correspondent LUCAS TOMLINSON: President Biden spoke at length at a firehouse here on Nantucket all on Thanksgiving, where he appeared to blame the media for his poor job approval ratings, and his Vice President’s loss. PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: If you think about it — I mean, this is not a criticism of the press. I mean this, you know me too well — is that, you turn on the television, you don’t see a lot of good news. Even stuff that is good news doesn’t seem to sell very well.... Fox News Special Report November 28, 2024, 6:50pm ET PRESIDENT BIDEN: A couple of weeks ago there was a survey done on how people feel about where they are, it was 62%, 35% thought they were doing pretty well. On the direction of the country, 35%, only 35% said that we’re moving in the right direction. I think there is an explanation for that. If you think about it — I mean, this is not a criticism of the press. I mean this, you know me too well — is that, you turn on the television, you don’t see a lot of good news. Fill-in host GILLIAN TURNER: Welcome back. That was President Biden earlier today from Nantucket ...It’s a little hard to make out the President there, but, Erin, what he said was, you know, if you turn on the TV you are not going to see a lot of good news lately. I am willing to bet a lot of money that a lot of Trump supporters feel there’s a whole lot of good news lately, especially. Republican strategist ERIN PERRINE: They absolutely do, but it just flies in the face of reality. When you look at how Democrats were covered, there was a study released after the election that said Democrats and Kamala Harris received 78% positive coverage in the news. Compare that to Donald Trump’s almost 90% negative coverage. Joe Biden can’t blame the media for the fact the American people aren’t feeling good. The American people are hearing good things about Democrats. They certainly did during the election but you can’t have that fly in the face of reality, that it feels like your paycheck doesn’t go as far. I remember, poignantly, during this campaign cycle a woman on NPR said chips felt like a luxury at the grocery store. That’s what the American people were rejecting with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden in this election.  

Not only did British auto manufacturer Jaguar release a bizarre ad campaign featuring androgynous models — but the ads featured no cars. “I have no idea what Jaguar is trying to sell us in that ad and who thought this was a good idea,” Jill Savage of “Blaze News Tonight” tells Matthew Peterson and WILL agency founder Isaac Simpson. Simpson notes that in order to understand the ad, we also have to understand that Jaguar is a “failing brand” and that the brand has “been really struggling for a very long time.” “So they’ve decided to switch everything over to EV, and they’re going to be 100% electric vehicles, and then not only that, they’re going to charge twice what they’re already charging for their cars,” Simpson explains. This is where an ad like the one just released comes in as well as its rejection of its iconic logo that features a jaguar to one that just says “Jaguar” in futuristic handwriting. “Clearly, they asked their marketing team to create a radical new approach to their branding,” Simpson says. “I don’t think this was an ‘any publicity is good publicity situation,’” he continues. “I think that they’re in a bubble, and I think that the people that create the ads for this particular brand are just living in a bubble as we’ve seen so many times, time and time again with Bud Light and so many other brands.” According to Simpson, the brand director, who was in charge of this campaign, is “the kind of guy who goes on stage, and he’s wearing a sheer, see-through shirt.” “You could imagine the type of guy this is,” he says, adding, “They’ve just chased away all the people who would say, ‘Don’t do this.’” Want more from 'Blaze News Tonight'?To enjoy more provocative opinions, expert analysis, and breaking stories you won’t see anywhere else, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) issued a showstopper of a response to coastal elitists' characterization of nonconforming American voters as ignorant. In addition to suggesting that Hollywood script-readers like Alec Baldwin and Sharon Stone are "just goofy," Kennedy intimated that President-elect Donald Trump's landslide victory was partly a response to their brand of denigratory rhetoric. Prominent Democrats have a track record of belittling and dehumanizing Americans who come between them and power. President Joe Biden called Trump supporters "garbage." Failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called Trump supporters "deplorables" and characterized them further as "irredeemable." Former President Barack Obama complained that working-class voters in Pennsylvania who wouldn't vote for him were "bitter" and that "they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." This malicious reflex is not unique to leftist politicians. Every two years, wealthy Hollywood script-readers and the media personalities who support them similarly come out of the woodwork to tell the rest of the country how to vote. When that doesn't work, coastal elitists frequently condemn those who stepped out of line. After the cast of Marvel's "Avengers" and other celebrities failed to convince the majority of Americans not to make the 45th president their 47th president, the condemnations came rolling in from the likes of Alec Baldwin — once again facing the possibility of a manslaughter charge in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins — and Sharon Stone. Both script-readers decided to denigrate their fellow Americans during panel discussions this week at the Torino Film Festival in Italy. Blaze News previously reported that Stone blamed President-elect Donald Trump's landslide victory on American ignorance. "You know, Italy has seen fascism. Italy has seen these things. You guys, you understand what happens. You have seen this before," said Stone, among the many celebrities who supported Harris' latest failed presidential bid. "My country is in its adolescence. Adolescence is very arrogant. Adolescence thinks it knows everything. Adolescence is naive and ignorant and arrogant. And we are in our ignorant, arrogant adolescence." 'They think they're smarter and more virtuous than the American people.' Baldwin also concluded that Americans' re-election of the candidate who campaigned on peace, secure borders, healthy living, and the dismantling of the administrative state evidenced their ignorance. Unlike Stone, he suggested further that he and his peers offered the remedy. "In my country, without going into significant detail, half the people in the country are very unhappy. It's a very difficult time in the United States," said Baldwin. "The only way people can learn what is happening — and film is unique in this way — not only what is happening in the United States but around the world, ... you might not learn from the news." "Television news in the United States is a business. You have to make money," continued the actor, whose net worth is an estimated $70 million. "Not to go into great detail about that, but there's a hole, a vacuum — there is a gap, if you will, in information for Americans." "Americans are very uninformed about reality, what's really going on with climate change, Ukraine, Israel, you name it — all the biggest topics in the world. Americans have an appetite for a little bit of information," continued Baldwin. "That vacuum is filled by the film industry. Not just the independent film industry, not just the documentary film industry, which are very important around the world, but by narrative films as well where the filmmakers and the buyers, the studios, and the networks and the streamers are willing to go that way." When pressed about such remarks as well as the stated desire by a Democratic New York state senator to secede from the union following Trump's win, Sen. Kennedy told Fox News' Sean Hannity, "I think these people are goofy. They have the right to their opinion, but they're just goofy." "They hate George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. They think our kids ought to be able to change genders at recess. They carry around Ziploc bags of kale to give themselves energy," said Kennedy. "To me, to each his own. To me, kale tastes like I'd rather be fat." After teasing leftists, Kennedy got serious: "Now, these people are entitled to their opinion, but they have an unwarranted sense of moral and intellectual superiority. They think they're smarter and more virtuous than the American people. And they think we're not real people, but we were, and we are real people, and in this last election, we got real mad." Referencing the Americans who gave Trump over 2 million more popular votes than his opponent and an 86-vote advantage in the Electoral College, Kennedy added, "We sent a message, clearly, unequivocally. And my message to all my friends and my enemies in America is: Happy Thanksgiving, and stay deplorable, my friend." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!