Free Republic

Caption - It describes the social media website as a "vicious network". LONDON: Many mosques in the UK propagate extremely strict rules of conduct for women, asking them to delete their Facebook accounts, not to leave their houses without their husbands' permission, and to avoid wearing trousers, a research report released on Friday said. The research conducted by 'The Times' showed rulings published by mosques and Islamic associations around Britain. Under a section titled 'Islamic articles', the Croydon Mosque and Islamic Centre in London published a document - 'Advice for the husband and wife'. Written by a mufti at the...

CalPERS is learning that social responsibility can be a drag. The $290 billion California pension manager may reinvest in tobacco stocks after a report found that exiting the sector cost it $3 billion of potential investment gains over 15 years. There’s more to the idea than higher returns, though. Engaging financially with controversial firms can be a better way to effect change.

Thousands of people are using the hashtag #jesuisbruxelles to show solidarity with Brussels and the dozens of people killed or wounded in today's deadly terror attacks. Repeating the French 'Je suis' phrase that became a hallmark of support for France in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, some 80,000 people have now used it to send their support to Belgium. Many of these are in the form of illustrations or cartoons in the Belgium national colours next to the French tricolour.

An Obama administration proposal to have some nonprofit charities report the Social Security numbers of donors giving at least $250 in one year is raising concerns about security, government overreach and another episode of IRS targeting. “There´s a big caution here. There´s a big yellow light that should be flashing for a couple of reasons,” Illinois Republican Rep. Peter Roskam tells Fox News. “Number one, the IRS has not demonstrated its capacity to hold this type of information from confidentiality and a security point of view.” The change would impact organizations that fall into the 501 (c)(3) category, which includes

How do I find a thread talking about the news story I've been hearing about? I've looked for an hour and turn up nothing. Social Security changes affecting spouse loophole passed in this recent budget.

Beijing: While social media was designed to bring people together, it can sometimes drive them apart — more Chinese people are switching their status from married to single and social media could be responsible, say experts. A report by the ministry of civil affairs in June found that 3.637 million couples divorced in 2014, up by 3.9 per cent from the previous year, Xinhua reported. Statistics from the ministry show the country has been witnessing a continuous rise in divorces since 2002. Su, a white collar worker from Shanghai, was stunned and furious after discovering her husband's secret romances online....

A cascade of events suggests that 2015 could be remembered as a Liberal Spring: the moment when deeply divisive and consuming questions of race, sexuality and broadened access to health care were settled in quick succession, and social tolerance was cemented as a cornerstone of American public life. Yet what appears, in headlines and celebrations across the country, to represent an unalloyed victory for Democrats, in which lawmakers and judges alike seemed to give in to the leftward shift of public opinion, may contain an opening for the Republican Party to move beyond losing battles and seemingly lost causes. Conservatives...

This is a time when it’s necessary to read beyond the headlines. A May 10 Gallup survey shows that the share of Americans calling themselves social liberals has risen to 31% from 25% in 2009, while the share of self-described social conservatives has fallen to 31% from 42%. It is the first time social conservatives have not outnumbered social liberals since Gallup began asking the question in 1999. As recently as 2010, social conservatives led by 17 points. All this was trumpeted as bad news for Republicans. But what’s driving this shift is largely Democrats lurching further leftward. In 2010,...

WASHINGTON — A Twitter post recently caught the eye of Bill McKibben, the environmental advocate and godfather of the Keystone XL pipeline protests. It included an image from “The Simpsons” showing Homer and his family basking in mountains of cash in their living room, followed by a report on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s appearing at a fund-raiser with a lobbyist from the Keystone fight. Mr. McKibben’s environmental organization, 350.org, has been trying to raise awareness about the ties it sees between lobbyists for the oil pipeline and former aides to Mrs. Clinton. He promptly shared the post with his 150,000 Twitter...

Indianapolis may go down in history as the Gettysburg of the culture wars, the place where forces flying the flags of modernism, diversity and individual rights outflanked the would-be upholders of traditional values, forced them into a tactical retreat — and maybe even set them on the road to long-term defeat. Not since Pickett’s Charge has a group of Americans misjudged their strategic situation more completely than did Gov. Mike Pence and his fellow Republican backers of Indiana’s religious freedom restoration law. They thought they could define conscientious objection to same-sex marriage as the moral high ground, then seize it; they...

As she made the long journey from New York to South Africa, to visit family during the holidays in 2013, Justine Sacco, 30 years old and the senior director of corporate communications at IAC, began tweeting acerbic little jokes about the indignities of travel. There was one about a fellow passenger on the flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport: “ ‘Weird German Dude: You’re in First Class. It’s 2014. Get some deodorant.’ — Inner monologue as I inhale BO. Thank God for pharmaceuticals.” Then, during her layover at Heathrow:

Back in December of 2012, I wrote, "The "Social Gospel" is more concerned about an earthly future than eternity Standing before a statue of Mary near the Spanish Steps on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Benedict XVI reminded his listeners that the Gospel is the good news of freedom from sin, that it is "the proclamation of the victory of grace over sin, of life over death." Proponents of the "social gospel" have forgotten this. The mission of the Church is not to eradicate poverty or social injustice. As Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand explains, while "a deep interest...

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...