Free Republic

The long-serving president of New York City's powerful teachers' union was tapped last week to lead the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers - a post from which she'll have ample opportunity to push her education agenda on the national level. "Imagine schools that are open all day and offer after-school and evening recreational activities and homework assistance," she said. "And suppose the schools included child care and dental, medical and counseling clinics." A one-stop nanny state, in other words - owned and operated by Randi Weingarten & Co. Weingarten's push for all-purpose schools is hardly surprising, of course. What...

Blue Dogs look beyond '08 electionBy PATRICK O'CONNOR | 6/11/08 4:50 AM EST Democrat Jim Cooper is focused on the federal government’s swelling financial obligations. Photo: John Shinkle Rep. Jim Cooper never misses a chance to talk about the federal government’s swelling financial obligations. But the Tennessee Democrat clams up when asked about a conversation he had on the topic with his party’s likely presidential nominee, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. “I’ll let his campaign speak to his position on this issue,” Cooper says. Cooper’s silence is understandable: Although the party that takes power next year will have to address deficit...

Vote Tallies1935 Social Security Act Proposal Introduced in Congress Shortly after the 74th Congress convened in January 1935, President Roosevelt sent his "Economic Security Bill" to Capitol Hill. The Administration proposal was transmitted to the Congress on January 17, 1935 and it was introduced that same day in the Senate by Senator Robert Wagner (D-NY) and in the House by Congressman Robert Doughton (D-NC) and David Lewis (D-MD). The bill was referred to Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways & Means Committee. Hearings The House Ways & Means Committee held hearings on the bill from January 21, 1935 through...

Maybe the brilliant mind of the Free Republic members can advise on this. I run a genealogy site for the family. In here we post information obtained from the Social Security Death Index (SSDI), published by the U.S. Government. Let's say someone passes on and their spouse is receiving benefits. The SSDI publishes the SS# of the passed family member. Is it possible for the spouse to have complications arising from the theft of their loved ones ID?

Senator Barack Obama fought back Saturday against accusations from his rivals that he had displayed a profound misunderstanding of small-town values, in a flare-up that left him on the defensive before a series of primaries that could test his ability to win over white voters in economically distressed communities. For a second day, Mr. Obama sought to explain his remarks at a recent San Francisco fund-raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters, bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations. Acknowledging Saturday that “I didn’t...

Boys and their toys? It's biological, not social By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent Last Updated: 4:01pm BST 07/04/2008 Boys prefer playing with cars to dolls because of basic biological differences rather than social pressures, scientists say. The males monkeys played with the 'boys' toys while the females played with 'boys' and 'girls' toys Researchers observed young male monkeys spent more time playing with vehicles than with cuddly toys. They believe this suggests that in most cases boys have an innate predisposition for masculine toys, which is then reinforced by what they learn from their parents, friends and wider society. Dr...

The full title of this book is--CLASS AND SCHOOLS: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform To Close The Black-White Achievement Gap by Richard Rothstein INTRODUCTION This book discusses the black-white achievement gap and how to eliminate it. Dr. Rothstein no longer believes schools are the answer; he has other remedies. While this book was published in 2004, it has the imprimatur of both Economic Policy Institute and the Teachers College of Columbia University. Such formal recognition suggests educators are changing their focus in respect to the genesis of both the black-white and social class achievement gaps. SUMMARY Professor Rothstein on...

...We couldn't agree more. Mr. Obama and former North Carolina senator John Edwards have suggested one intriguing way of addressing the shortfall between what Social Security is expected to take in and what it has promised to pay out in benefits to retirees and others. They have floated, though without specifics, the idea of tinkering with the cap on wages subject to Social Security tax, currently some $97,500. Removing the cap would more than make up for the Social Security shortfall, but it would also amount to a rather hefty tax hike (12.4 percent, considering both the employee and employer's...

The newest sensation at the center of Hollywood's fashion scene isn't a famous designer or starlet. It's a 56-year-old homeless man who spends his days dancing on roller skates.... In a plot twist worthy of Tinseltown, Mr. Jermyn now has a clothing label named after him. Since it was introduced last month, "The Crazy Robertson" brand of T-shirts and sweatshirts, created by a trio of 23-year-olds, has flown off the shelves at Kitson, a haunt of tabloid stars like Paris Hilton. The clothes feature stylized images of Mr. Jermyn, including one design -- available on a $98 hoodie -- that...

The good news is that there's no need to weaken it. We can shore up Social Security for the future without cutting benefits -- or raising contribution rates. The program can be brought into close actuarial balance over the long run with just three revenue-enhancing changes that are desirable in any case: 1.Gradually increase the maximum amount of earnings covered by Social Security so that the traditional goal -- covering 90 percent of all earnings -- is once again achieved. This change would affect only the 6 percent of earners who make more than the maximum covered amount (now just...

$13 trillion deficit looms for Social SecurityTuesday, September 25th 2007, 4:00 AM WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said in a new report yesterday that Social Security is facing a $13.6 trillion shortfall in coming years and that delaying reforms is not fair to younger workers. A report issued by the Treasury Department said that some combination of benefit cuts and tax increases will need to be considered to permanently fix the funding shortfall. White House officials stressed that the President is opposed to new taxes. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he hoped the new report would help find common ground...

Science Daily — Apes bite and try to break a tube to retrieve the food inside while children follow the experimenter's example to get inside the tube to retrieve the prize, showing that even before preschool, toddlers are more sophisticated in their social learning skills than their closest primate relatives, according to a report published in the 7 September issue of the journal Science. Chimpanzees participated in a comprehensive battery of tasks comparing their physical and social cognitive abilities to those of 2-year-old human children. (Credit: Image courtesy of MPI EVAN/JGI-USA) This innate proficiency allows them to excel in...

BASIC CONCEPTS This book is now 5 years old and has yet to receive a formal, academic review. Payne’s last book, A Framework For Understanding Poverty, also never received an academic review. In spite of academic inattention, both books are popular. The Understanding Poverty book sold over 1,000,000 copies. In Hidden Rules of Class At Work both Dr. Payne and her co-author, Don Krabill, explore social class as an important facet of workplace adjustment and success. To make their point they use a mental model for discussion---a triangle comprised of resources, connections and hidden rules. By using this oversimplification, they...

A site for christians to have community together... growth, etc..

People wonder how government could ignore problems like those that led to the Minneapolis bridge collapse, but the truth is that officials have long been turning a blind eye to many looming disasters besides the nation’s roughly 75,000 structurally deficient highway spans. Consider our Social Security system. Each year, the nonpartisan Social Security Trustees details the program’s sorry financial prospects. The latest report concluded that the program — which consumes more than one-fifth of the total budget — will begin paying out more in benefits than it takes in as taxes in just 10 years. At that time, Social Security...

THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Today I want to discuss something that's very dear to my heart both as a practicing Catholic and a patriotic American. It's the principle of Subsidiarity, found in the 'Catechism of the Catholic Church,' which should be of particular interest to all Catholic Americans. Why? Because in this principle we find the central point where our Catholic faith and American citizenship intersect. Our American government was founded on three basic principles. Yet most Americans today are only familiar with one. The first principle, and most commonly understood, is the principle of "no taxation without representation." In other...

Social Security benefit payments soon will exceed payroll tax revenues. Beginning in about a dozen years, these annual cash-flow deficits will begin to climb rapidly, soaring to $100 billion in 2015 and $500 billion in 2025. The Social Security Trust Fund is a deception. It contains no genuine assets, only government bonds--IOUs that have no value beyond a promise to impose higher taxes on future workers. "When the government issues a bond to one of its own accounts, it hasn't purchased anything or established a claim against another entity or person. It is simply creating a form of IOU from...

Picture this: A rotund, theatrical politician from Harlem and a wiry, introverted policy-wonk from Shreveport sitting elbow to elbow on the House floor, shuffling between each other's offices, passing paper between staffs. Two men from opposite ends of the political spectrum, they are joined in secrecy on a project that just about everyone else in Washington considers doomed to failure. Charlie Rangel and Jim McCrery are on a mission to rescue Social Security from bankruptcy. Conventional Washington wisdom long ago wrote the death notice on Social Security reform. What Republican would want to touch a project that blew up in...

In their first debate, staged at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Republican presidential rivals vied to pay homage to the late president even as they criticized -- or at best, ignored -- the current Republican in the White House, George W. Bush. Several candidates made reference to the Bush administration's mismanagement of the four-year-old war in Iraq, as if that were a given. Arizona Sen. John McCain defended his support for the war now, saying "it's on the right track." But he added, as he does routinely on the campaign trail, "The war was terribly mismanaged and we now have...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Social Security trust funds are expected to be exhausted by 2041, a year later than last year's estimate, while the Medicare trust fund is projected to go broke by 2019, also one year later than 2006 projections, according to the latest annual report from the funds' trustees. While the latest forecasts suggest a minor reprieve for the programs' fiscal prospects, the trustees remained pessimistic about the long-term health of the nation's entitlement programs. "The financial condition of the Social Security and Medicare programs remains problematic," the trustees said in the report released Monday. "We believe their...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama accused the Bush administration of "social Darwinism" that leaves every man and woman struggling. "It's a strategy that we've seen this administration pursue over the last six years, that basically says government has no role to play in making sure that America is prosperous for all people and not just some," Obama said ... The Illinois senator said the attempt to "divvy up the government into individual tax breaks" may be tempting, but government research and investment is what has made advances possible in the United States. Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed...

Madam Speaker, Don’t Forget about Your Grandchildren... Pelosi is content just to ignore the problems with Social Security. By Carrie Lukas Nancy Pelosi isn’t just the first female Speaker of the House; she’s also the first grandmother to serve as Speaker. After being handed the gavel, Pelosi invited her grandchildren up to the podium, while imploring fellow Members: “Let’s hear it for the children. We’re here for the children.” While Speaker Pelosi’s talk about “the children” may be political posturing, she’s actually making an important point: Policymakers should evaluate policies based on how they affect future generations. America would be...

We often argue about left/right or conservative/progressive (liberal is a misnomer in the classical sense). I thought a little diversion from the standard debates might be interesting. The link to the Political Compass will allow anyone interested to see where their beliefs fall. It assesses your beliefs both economically and socially, take the test to see where you fall. My score: Economic Left/Right: 6.00 Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.33 I don't claim to be another Milton Friedman, but my score places my political compass beliefs close to his, far right economically and moderate socially.

I’ve been criticized, most recently by Larry Hunter in the New York Sun, for my January 25 article on National Review Online arguing that conservatives need to maintain a strategic perspective on the rising tax burdens that will follow from a failure to fix Social Security. Hunter wrote: "Unfortunately, some conservatives don't appreciate the prudence of a strategic retreat. Illustrative is the vice president for policy and economics at the Independent Women's Forum, Carrie Lukas, who in a January 25 article on National Review Online attacked Mr. Pence as 'unprincipled' and 'foolish' for rejecting new taxes. Shame on her." First,...

Local Iraqi leaders, members of local Iraqi Security Forces and U.S. Marines and soldiers serving in western Iraq celebrate the grand opening of a bridge that stretches across the Euphrates River, Feb. 1, 2007, in Ramana, Iraq. The celebration was complete with a ribbon cutting ceremony, followed by a feast hosted by the mayor of Ramana, one of the many Euphrates River cities that lie here in western Al Anbar Province, Iraq. Local sheiks along with Lt. Col. Scott C. Shuster, commanding officer of Task Force 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, a Twentynine Palms, Calif.-based battalion, and the mayors...

Social Security Agreement with Mexico Released After 3-1/2 Year Freedom of Information Act Battle January 4, 2007 (Washington, DC) – After numerous refusals over three and a half years, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has released the first known public copy of the U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement. The government made the disclosure in response to lawsuits filed under the Freedom of Information Act by TREA Senior Citizens League, a 1.2 million member nonpartisan seniors advocacy group. The Totalization Agreement could allow millions of illegal Mexican workers to draw billions of dollars from the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund.

INTRODUCTON:This book is about social class. A excellent, well written, professional review written can be found HERE For those wanting to review the author’s professional and personal biography, you can find that HERE The purpose of this book review is to introduce a few basic concepts. To do this I have summarized and simplified a complex and nuanced book. Accordingly, this book review can not replace the actual text. There are two matters that need brief mention before I begin. First, the author is not only a British writer but a public intellectual. His works include both fiction and non-fiction....

The North Korean regime is starving its own people and sending them to concentration camps, and no one gives a damn. Folks, I've just watched a recurrent documentary in the Discovery Times Channel (DTC) entitled Children of the Secret State. The DTC broadcasts this documentary regularly but this is the first time I was able to watch the whole thing. I found it disturbing. What's happening in North Korea is another Holocaust, where hundreds of thousands of peoples, often entire families, are left to die of hunger, mostly for imaginary political crimes. Those who resist are carted into concentration camps...

With the approach of the crucial mid-term elections, and especially after the media obsession with the internet correspondence of Congressman Mark Foley, numerous liberal commentators eagerly anticipate a shattering crack-up of the conservative movement. While the outcome of the November balloting remains very much in doubt, these gleeful predictions of GOP disaster demonstrate an ignorant misunderstanding of the essential nature of the Republican coalition, and grossly exaggerate the gap between “religious” and “economic” conservatives. Paul Krugman, for instance, New York Times columnist, bestselling author and Princeton professor, recently published a piece called “Things Fall Apart.” In it, he declared: “At...

The Pledge I’d Like to See Every Political Candidate Take I, ________________________________________, upon signing this document, do hereby swear and affirm under penalty of forfeiture of office and wages, that I shall: 1.) Make no public statement which demeans, denigrates, or defames any active member, unit, or branch of the U.S. armed services, or the military as a whole, except in cases where an individual soldier or group of soldiers has been tried and convicted of committing a criminal offense or offenses.

The State Duma on Friday gave preliminary approval to a 2007 budget that is expected to be 25 percent bigger than this year's, prompting worries of overspending and higher inflation as next year's elections near. The hike comes on top of a 40 percent increase this year, as the government spends windfall revenues created by the bonanza of high world oil prices. By a 343-94 vote with no abstentions, deputies passed the draft budget on first reading. Budget spending is to swell to 5.46 trillion rubles ($205 billion), or 17.5 percent of the country's gross domestic product. With expected revenues...

Three years ago, some dismissed social networking Web sites as a fad, a place where the geek-minded could fluff their personality on a Web page. They’re now the hottest thing on the Web, with almost daily word of older companies suddenly becoming hip by jumping in. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, citing “people familiar with the matter,” reported that Yahoo YHOO is in serious talks to buy the popular social networking site Facebook.com for as much as $1 billion. Investors and companies are jumping into the business in a frenzy not seen, many observers say, since the days of...

Women like Germaine Greer who want to age disgracefully forget why we need moral laws, writes Miranda Devine. Like Ken Park's director, Larry Clark, Germaine Greer deliberately provokes controversy with the cheapest trick. If there's a taboo left, she'll break it, and since one of the few remaining taboos in Western liberal democracies is pedophilia, that's the arena she's most recently entered. Her upcoming glossy book, The Boy, full of pictures of "ravishing" pre-adult boys with hairless chests, wide-apart legs and slim waists, is an "art book", Greer, 64, told this newspaper last week. She wouldn't say exactly how young...

Keywords A "Keyword" search is the best search engine option on FReerepublic.com. Newcomers to FR and longtime users frequently ask for help finding favorite threads or information on a specific topic. When properly "keyworded", an article can be easily retrieved using the "Keyword" search. Keyword searches can be bookmarked for future reference and to monitor current topics. Logged-in users can add keywords to new and existing threads. Performing a "Keyword" search: At the top of the latest articles page, there is a search form. Use the pulldown menu to select "keyword". Type in the search criteria and press the...

July 19, 2006 - Imagine the Internet as a college campus. Amazon.com is the bookstore. Wikipedia is the library. Facebook is the snazzy new dorm. Friendster is the dreary old one. And the classroom? That just may be a newcomer, Essembly.com. Essembly, designed last year by Joe Green, 23, a friend and former Harvard classmate of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is the emerging online social network of the serious-minded. Like Facebook and MySpace, the site is free and lets users browse friends' photos and personal information. But unlike more organic networks, it actively promotes intellectual discussion. In the spirit of...

I am proud that the Senators from Texas did not vote for this. I do believe that the other Senators should be voted out of office. I am surprise at some of the one who voted for it and other not so shocked at all!! Lynn Richards Make sure everyone is informed and that they vote. This should really get your knickers in a knot!! Below is a list of U.S. Senators who just voted to give illegal aliens Social Security benefits; in essence, your FICA monies. Money to people who are here illegally. They'll now share in an account...

Democrats rip GOP on Social Security planBy MIKE WILSON, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 21 minutes ago DES MOINES, Iowa - The Republican plan to privatize Social Security could cause huge debt for decades, a Democratic candidate seeking a House seat in Iowa, a state with a high concentration of elderly residents, said Saturday. "If the Republican plan is allowed to pass, future generations both here and across the country will be saddled with decades of debt and no guaranteed retirement security," Bruce Braley said in the Democrats' weekly radio address. Braley, 48, a lawyer from Waterloo, faces Republican Mike...

Back from the DeadMARIE COCCO June 27, 2006 WASHINGTON -- The corpse will be revived. Plans to resuscitate President Bush's stone-cold proposal to turn Social Security from a guaranteed insurance program into a patchwork of private savings accounts already are in the works. All it will take, says Grover Norquist, conservative strategist extraordinaire, is the election of another five conservative Republican senators -- enough to surmount procedural roadblocks by Democrats or those tremulous Republican moderates who would try to preserve the nation's most successful and best-loved government program. ``I believe that when there are 60 Republican senators we will move...

Sailors' Social Security nos. on Web siteBy LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer 55 minutes ago Sailors man the rails as the amphibious transport dock USS Nashville (LPD 13), an element of the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG), departs Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Virginia, June 6, 2006. Personal data on 28,000 U.S. sailors and their families appeared on a public Web site this week, the Navy said on Friday, marking the latest in a string of data breaches involving American military personnel. (Matthew Bookwalter/U.S. Navy/Handout/Reuters) WASHINGTON - The Navy has begun a criminal investigation...

Court: Father Can't Raise Child Despite Mother's Deception Woman Lied, Saying Baby DiedPOSTED: 7:06 am EDT June 21, 2006 RALEIGH, N.C. -- A biological father should lose his parental rights because he did not establish himself as a caregiver, even though the mother deceived the man by claiming she had a miscarriage, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. Pernell Ingram argued that he had provided sufficient care to the mother to qualify as the legal father of a child born out of wedlock. The Newton Grove man said he had provided "consistent care" by frequently caring for the mother's...

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised: 1.) That participation in the Program would be completely voluntary, 2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into the Program, 3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year, 4.) That the money the participants put into the independent "Trust Fund" rather than into the General operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no...

JUNE 7, 2006 | We recently got hired by a credit union to assess the security of its network. The client asked that we really push hard on the social engineering button. In the past, they'd had problems with employees sharing passwords and giving up information easily. Leveraging our effort in the report was a way to drive the message home to the employees. The client also indicated that USB drives were a concern, since they were an easy way for employees to steal information, as well as bring in potential vulnerabilities such as viruses and Trojans. Several other clients...

Nationwide Rally to Stop Illegal Immigration on Saturday, July 1st, at noon, at every City HallOn May 1st - Million of Illegal Aliens Marched in our StreetsTwelve million illegal aliens demonstrated their political power, and declared May 1st to be A Day Without Undocumented Workers ( illegal aliens ). They boycotted the USA, all US businesses and institutions. Millions of them marched in our streets, carried Mexican flags, shouted "Si se puede!", and demanded new laws from our Congress. On July 1st - U.S. Citizens Nationwide Rally and BoycottRally to stop the invasion by millions of illegal aliens. 1-Day boycott...

The term "anchor baby" is unfamiliar to most Americans, but it nicely describes one of the more troubling aspects of American immigration policy. Put simply, an anchor baby is the offspring of an illegal immigrant who, under current legal interpretation, becomes a U.S. citizen at birth and, in turn, is the means by which parents and relatives can also obtain citizenship for themselves by using the family reunification features of immigration law. It's estimated there may be as many as 200,000 anchor babies born each year in the U.S. No single agency keeps track, but there is abundant, if fragmented,...

What's the role of labor in Marx's concept of individual and social existence? if labor is not the source of wealth, what is?

The CHEEBA Club's celebration of marijuana is 'part entertainment (free food and dodge ball), but it's also about social justice.' So, like, check this out. These dudes at Macalester College are throwing this righteous party Thursday. They're calling it CHEEBAdanza — "the Twin Cities premier marijuana festival." Says so right on the green flier. This isn't one of those mediocre pot fests — it's A-grade all the way. Excellent. First of all, OK, you have the date, right? Thursday, April 20. That's 4/20. And you know the party starts at 4:20 p.m. That's the legendary tokin' hour, my friends. So...

Candidates for Congress get questionnaires from many organizations. Most encourage us to file our answers on line. All but one have assured us that our “answers will not be edited” or censored. There was one, glaring exception, the North Carolina “Edukashun” Association. This group keeps their answers private, sharing them only with their state leaders and their “member-convenors” who interview us in district to see if we’re really toeing the party line. Answers are never shared with union members. Okay, let’s break the embargo. Here are some of my answers, and I welcome responses from teachers who agree, or disagree,...

Answer To Last Month's "Full House For Disaster" Four Of A Kind: Foundations For An American Future March, 2006 Feature--Return Of The Gods Web Site SynopsisThe four foundation blocks for a Conservative American Future, one that returns to the wisdom of the Founders: Integrity, Identity, Responsibility & Respect. Last month we discussed a metaphorical "poker hand from Hell," reviewing a "full house" of egregious errors in addressing social goals and in understanding the causation for social phenomena. In a discussion of error in addressing societal goals, we described serious mistakes in assigning responsibility in the approach to Public School...

A Crunchy Con Manifesto 1. We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly. 2. Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character. 3. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government. 4. Culture is more important than politics and economics. 5. A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative. 6. Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big,...

It is official. On the 15th of next I become OLD.Were I a car instead I would become a 'classic'. Maybe a '41' Buick, DeSoto, Kaiser-Frazier or Studebaker.But I'm not so I'll just be an old man with clogged pipes, sludge in the oil, a stiff differential and worn out joints. A man with less income and no medical insurance approachingdecision time inundated by mountains of conflicting information.(Like trying to process a program that would stretch a super-computer with only an 8 bit processor, 32k of unreliable RAM and a cranky CPU.)Freeperstan being the repository of the greatest minds still...