Free Republic

The Social Security Administration, which announced in April that it would stop trying to collect debts from the children of people who were allegedly overpaid benefits decades ago, has continued to demand such payments and now defends that practice in court documents. After The Washington Post reported in April that the Treasury Department had confiscated $75 million in tax refunds due to about 400,000 Americans whose ancestors owed money to Social Security, the agency’s acting commissioner, Carolyn Colvin, said efforts to collect on those old debts would cease immediately. But although some people whose refunds were seized were reimbursed in...

When looking for the perfect hotel, its Wi-Fi service is the most important factor, according to new research. A survey on important factors when searching for accommodation revealed that 67 per cent of travellers are most concerned with Wi-Fi, above any other factor. The internet connection ranked higher than the hotel's location, a good night's sleep and friendly staff.

IREDELL COUNTY, N.C. -- A man charged with multiple sex crimes involving a teenage girl he met online has turned himself in. Investigators arrested 27-year-old Jarred Ashley Workman late Monday afternoon. He’s charged with 11 counts of statutory rape and five counts of statutory sex offense. Iredell County authorities say Workman met a 14-year-old girl on social media. They chatted for about a month, and then agreed to meet in the woods near the teen’s home in the Love Valley area of Iredell County. Investigators say the teen invited Workman inside the house where he set up residence in the...

President Obama’s forthcoming budget request will seek tens of billions of dollars in fresh spending for domestic priorities while abandoning a compromise proposal to tame the national debt in part by trimming Social Security benefits. With the 2015 budget request, Obama will call for an end to the era of austerity that has dogged much of his presidency and to his efforts to find common ground with Republicans. Instead, the president will focus on pumping new cash into job training, early-childhood education and other programs aimed at bolstering the middle class, providing Democrats with a policy blueprint heading into the...

Democratic senators are pleading with President Obama to abandon his proposal to trim Social Security benefits before it becomes a liability for them in the midterm elections. The president proposed a new formula for calculating benefits in his budget last year, in hopes that the olive branch to Republicans would persuade them to back tax increases in a broader fiscal deal. But Democratic lawmakers say Obama should shelve the idea now that they are facing a difficult midterm election where they need to turn out the liberal base to preserve their Senate majority. “I’m not sure why we should be...

Federal auditors said Friday the Social Security Administration still struggles with a basic problem — figuring out who is dead and who is not. The question is a crucial one, since federal agencies rely on the administration to cross-match data on deceased persons and avoid paying out federally funded benefits to people who aren’t alive, or to establish accurate benefits for survivors. The administration also maintains a “Death Master File” that is available to the public. “SSA’s methods for processing death reports may result in inaccurate, incomplete or untimely information for users of its death data,” the Government Accountability Office,...

The word “natural” is treated in a way peculiar in the extreme. This perhaps reflects our confused ideas about nature, or perhaps darker, more sinister misconceptions are at work. There is a strange dichotomy between the positive connotation of “natural” in one realm (that encompassing health, food, medicine, environmental management, and the like) and the negative connotation of “natural” in another realm (social and political organization). If you use the adjective “natural” in conjunction with objects of the first group, eg natural remedies, natural substances, natural environment, it is almost invariably taken as a virtue, a good qualitative appreciation....

Facebook has defended its decision to make the posts of its teenage users more visible claiming that “teenagers are expert at controlling who they share things with”. The social networking site says that it has tightened privacy settings for users aged between 13 to 17, restricting sharing of posts to friends only by default. The previous default included friends of friends which might not be directly known by the user. The company has also introduced “additional tools to help educate teens on the implications of sharing a post with a public audience, with reminders as they post,” explained a Facebook...

Facebook could be spreading unhappiness through society as well as keeping people connected, research has shown. The number one social networking site is strongly associated with declines in well-being, psychologists claim. Scientists found the more time people spent on Facebook over a two-week period, the worse they subsequently felt. In contrast, talking to friends on the phone or meeting them in person led to greater levels of happiness. "On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection," said Study leader Ethan Kross, from the University of Michigan. "But rather than enhance well-being,...

I wanted to act since I was six years old, after seeing “Star Wars,” but my goals were more “wear a sweet costume and pretend to be cool” than “be famous.” So the fact that I was cast in the Nickelodeon sitcom “iCarly” at age 14 and catapulted into tween stardom was both an exciting and unexpected journey. When “iCarly” first started growing in popularity back in 2007, my castmates and I quickly felt the swell in attention. I started getting invited to movie premieres, designers were sending me clothes, old friends were reaching out, and I could no longer...

I need help/ammo. My kids go to a small Seventh Day Adventist school in Orlando. There's a new humanities teacher and the information that's in the pamphlet about him says the 'big subject' for 8th grade is "social justice". I know what we conservatives consider SJ, and I agree with it but there are varying definitions on line. When I meet with this guy and the head of curriculum I want to be armed with as much accurate information as possible. I'm trying not to be really pissed off that this is going on. I am arming my daughter with...

"EIGHTY years ago Lu Xun, now enshrined as the father of modern Chinese literature, observed that when others needed help his countrymen seemed to be stricken by apathy. “In China,” he wrote, “especially in the cities, if someone collapses from sudden illness, or if someone is hit by a car, lots of people will gather around, some will even take delight, but very few will be willing to extend a helping hand.”"

Egalitarian rhetoric, once largely confined to revolutionary movements, such as French Jacobins & Marxist Communists, now appears accepted by many in the political & social mainstream. Thus, there is scarcely a ripple among affluent viewers when major "Liberal" broadcast media air programs discussing the "need" & methods to "narrow a gap between the rich & poor," despite the unspoken, yet obvious, implications. Thus a former American President, who claimed to be a "Compassionate Conservative," voiced a similar objective, with scarce notice in a generally hostile media, which had no problem in mislabeling him & the like-minded, as "right wing." The...

Scientific studies are used to support controversial social policies like same-sex marriage. But can we rely on them? Even in scientific laboratories Georg Wilhelm Richmann is not a household name. But he ought to be. Richmann was an 18th century Russian scientist who died trying to repeat Benjamin Franklin’s famous experiment of attracting lightning to a kite. A ball of lightning travelled down the cord and struck him dead. The first martyr for the cause of science died trying to replicate another scientist's results. The ability to reproduce the results of an experiment is a key step in the rapid...

NBC's Chuck Todd told an inconvenient truth about Barack Obama on Sunday's Meet the Press. "The rise of the internet media and social media and all that stuff - he hates it" (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHUCK TODD: What I wonder how many people realized at the end [of Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner] when he did his, you know, there's always this part at the end where they get serious for a minute. And it’s usually the part where presidents say, “You know, I think the press has a good job to do and I understand what...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Elizabeth Warren "made it clear Wednesday in an e-mail to supporters that not only would she oppose President Barack Obama's plan to cut Social Security benefits through a cost-of-living adjustment known as chained CPI..." That's another thing. It's Obama's creation. The chained CPI is like the sequester. It's his idea, it's in his budget, and wait until you hear it! I've got three or four sound bites of Jay Carney and Obama denying it; accusing the Republicans of doing it. I dare say that 99-out-of-100 low-information people don't have the slightest idea what it is. "What do...

**SNIP** Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, one of Congress' most outspoken liberals and a vehement opponent of chained CPI, warned Obama on Friday morning not to renege on his promise to avoid cuts to entitlement programs and veterans benefits as a way to reduce the deficit. “Millions of working people, seniors, disabled veterans, those who have lost a loved one in combat, and women will be extremely disappointed if President Obama caves into the long standing Republican effort to cut Social Security and benefits for disabled veterans and their survivors through a so-called chained CPI,” he said in a...

For some years now, we have been told about a major division within American conservatism: fiscal conservatives vs. social conservatives. This division is hurting conservatism and hurting America, because the survival of American values depends on both fiscal and social conservatism. Furthermore, the division is logically and morally untenable. A conservative conserves all American values, not just economic ones. By social conservatism I am referring to the second and third components of what I call the American Trinity — Liberty, In God We Trust, and E Pluribus Unum. It is worth noting that a similar bifurcation does not exist on...

In an effort to cut spending, federal officials began retiring paper checks in favor of direct deposits and prepaid "Direct Express" debit cards in May 2011. Since then, the Treasury Department has required all new recipients of payments from federal benefits programs -- including Social Security, Supplemental Security Income disability, Veterans Affairs and government pension plans -- to sign up for electronic payments. It set a March 1, 2013, deadline for all other recipients to do the same. snip So now, the agency is urging remaining check recipients to beat the March 1 deadline. The department has partnered with more...

Obama proposes Social Security cutsPatrick Martin 20 December 2012 **SNIP** The White House decision to propose cuts in future Social Security benefits is of enormous political significance. Social Security has long been characterized as the “third rail” of American politics—touch it and you die. Obama and Boehner are seeking to break this taboo and create a new political framework for imposing brutal austerity measures on working people. Whatever the immediate outcome of the talks in Washington, whether or not a deal is reached before December 31, the overall direction is clear: entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are...