Free Republic

President Barack Obama says he is “unequivocally committed” to keeping the Internet free and open, a concept known as “net neutrality.” Net neutrality is the idea that Internet service providers shouldn’t block, manipulate or slow data moving across their networks. Obama credits net neutrality with unleashing the power of the Internet. He says he doesn’t want to lose that power or “clog up the pipes.” …

The Chinese economy just surpassed the U.S. economy to become the world’s largest in terms of purchasing power, according to the International Monetary Fund.The IMF measures economic strength by Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in both market exchange rates and average purchasing power, the latter being where China has overtaken the U.S. with a GDP of $17.6 trillion by the end of 2014 — 16.4 percent of the world’s purchasing power. The U.S. will close out the year with a purchasing-power adjusted GDP of $17.4 trillion, or 16.2 percent of the world’s total.Financial Times predicted the change in April and illustrated...

Boston City Council approved giving itself a nearly 23 percent pay raise on Wednesday, despite threats of a possible veto by Mayor Martin Walsh. The council voted 9-4 to raise its annual pay from $87,500 to $107,500, a $20,000 increase, effective January 2016. […] Boston City Council salaries already exceed those in other New England cities; only Cambridge councilors, who earn $73,362, come close, according to a 2013 Boston city survey. …

The sign includes the universally recognized symbols for a man, a woman, and a handicapped person, as well as a seemingly novel symbol that appears to be a combination of the man and woman symbols

A record 92,584,000 Americans 16 and older did not participate in the labor force in September, as the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.7 percent, a level it has not seen in 36 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. Six times in the last twelve months, the participation rate has been as low as 62.8 percent; but September’s 62.7 percent is the lowest since February of 1978. The participation rate is the percentage of the civilian non-institutional population who participated in the labor force by either having a job or actively seeking one. Those not in...

Americans lack confidence in the government’s ability to protect their personal safety and economic security, a sign that their widespread unease about the state of the nation extends far beyond politics, according to the latest Associated Press-GfK poll. […] The poll found that Democrats tend to express more faith in the government’s ability to protect them than do Republicans. Yet even among Democrats, just 27 percent are confident the government can keep them safe from terrorist attacks. Fewer than 1 in 5 say so on each of the other issues, including climate change. […] Urbanites tend to be more confident...

Civil society groups in Egypt long had a tenuous position under the rule of autocrat Hosni Mubarak, but they were able to operate. Now those groups, ranging from human rights defenders to advocates of economic justice, fear even that margin of freedom is disappearing and that they are on the way to being silenced. The government of newly elected President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has ordered non-governmental organizations to submit to regulations that gives the state sweeping authority over their activities and financing—and dangles over them the threat of prosecution if they violate vague guidelines against “hurting national security” or “affecting public...

A record 55,553,000 women 16 years and older did not participate in the labor force in September, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This means that 55,553,000 women in the United States did not have a job and did not actively seek one in the past four weeks. The number of women not in the labor force increased from 55,345,000 in August to 55,553,000 in September, an increase of 208,000. …

For years, the Mail has campaigned against the insidious and remorseless undermining of the sovereignty of Parliament and our judicial system by the remote, unaccountable European Court of Human Rights. From demanding that prisoners should get the vote to halting the deportation of terrorists who hate this country’s values, it is synonymous with judgments that fly in the face of common sense and the interests of the British people. Indeed, judicial activism in Strasbourg—and, remember, some ECHR members represent countries with populations smaller than the London borough of Islington—has warped the original noble intentions of the British authors of the...

The Justice Department is not expected to bring civil rights charges against George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin, according to three law enforcement officials, despite allegations that the killing was racially motivated. The federal investigation of Zimmerman was opened two years ago by the department’s civil rights division, but officials said there is insufficient evidence to bring federal charges. The investigation technically remains open, but it is all but certain the department will close it. …

Republican-turned-Democrat former Gov. Charlie Crist said Tuesday that current Republican Gov. Rick Scott “has no integrity” and his policies are driven by “the almighty dollar.” Crist made the remarks while discussing his campaign to seek his old job with his new party during an hour-long interview with Associated Press reporters that covered education, the environment and claims by Scott. The gubernatorial campaign has been one of the most negative in Florida history. …

Education is supposed to help bridge the gap between the wealthiest people and everyone else. […] Wealthier parents have been stepping up education spending so aggressively that they’re widening the nation’s wealth gap. When the Great Recession struck in late 2007 and squeezed most family budgets, the top 10 percent of earners—with incomes averaging $253,146—went in a different direction: They doubled down on their kids’ futures. Their average education spending per child jumped 35 percent to $5,210 a year during the recession compared with the two preceding years—and they sustained that faster pace through the recovery. For the remaining 90...

When the economy tanks, women have fewer babies. But what happens in the following years, when conditions improve? A massive new study suggests that for some U.S. women, living through a recession can mean they will never have children. In fact, the authors project that among women who were in their early 20s in 2008—early in the so-called “Great Recession”—about 151,000 will forgo having any children as a result, at least by age 40. …

Conservative MP Mark Reckless has announced that he is joining UKIP. The Rochester and Strood MP told the UKIP conference, in Doncaster, that he has resigned as an MP, triggering a by-election in the constituency. Delegates started to spontaneously chant "UKIP, UKIP" when Mr Reckless announced his decision to defect, which he said was not easy. The move comes just weeks after Clacton MP Douglas Carswell defected from the Conservatives to join UKIP.

The Defense Department plans to let some illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children enlist in the military—a policy that comes as the Army is effectively firing active-duty soldiers due to budget cuts.The Military Times reports that a program—called the Military Accessions Vital to National Interest, or MAVNI—which currently allows recruiters to search for foreign nationals with unique skills will be expanded to accommodate the new policy. The Defense Department now wants to let in some illegal immigrants who enjoyed a reprieve under a 2012 Obama administration policy. That policy applied to those who came to the country...

The Detroit City Council on Thursday unanimously approved a plan to return oversight of daily operations to elected officials while retaining the city’s state-appointed emergency manager to oversee bankruptcy matters until they are resolved. Kevyn Orr, who was appointed by the state in March 2013 to manage Detroit’s troubled finances and who took the city into the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, said Thursday that Detroit is “more than ready for the change.” …

The Navajo Nation is poised receive $554 million from the federal government over mismanagement of tribal resources in the largest settlement of its kind for a single American Indian tribe. Much of the land on the 27,000-square-mile reservation has been leased for things like farming, grazing, oil and gas development, mining and housing. The leases once were largely overseen by the government, which mismanaged the revenue and failed to properly invest and account for it, according to the tribe. …

Former Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) said Tuesday that he is “seriously looking” at the possibility of running for president. Webb is a former Navy secretary and Marine who fought in Vietnam. In comments at the National Press Club, he framed himself as someone able to work with both parties to get things done, and spoke out about the danger of interventions in the Middle East. “We’ve had a lot of discussion among people that I respect and trust about the future of the country and we are going to continue having these discussions over the next four or five months,”...

Amnesty International says a draft anti-gay bill in Chad represents a backward step for human rights in the country. The rights group said Tuesday that amendments to the penal code proposed by the government would criminalize same-sex conduct in Chad, threatening jail sentences of between 15 and 20 years, and a fine ranging from $100 and $1,000. …

Thousands of people took part in the People’s Climate March in NYC on Sunday. Among them illegal aliens, people who want to “stop fuel” and some students earning extra credit from their public school teacher. “I’m actually here with ‘Culture Strike’ and we’re a national network of artists, musicians that focus on migrant justice,” Sonia Guiñansaca told Democracy Now! television. “A lot of undocumented artists were actually part of this. We’re designing the birds, the puppets—so were here loud, screaming out loud visually.” …