FREE PRESS NEWS

fotojournalismus:

Hundreds of thousands of people march through Havana’s Revolution Square during the May Day parade, May 1, 2012.

[Credit : Javier Galeano/Reuters]

(via myheadisweak)

pantslessprogressive:

“The reason that unemployment is high clearly has nothing to do with taxes. Consequently, there is no reason to think that reducing taxes further will do anything to raise employment by reducing the tax wedge.

Additional evidence on this point comes from a new study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on taxes paid by average workers in its 34 member countries. The data [above] are for a single worker without children.

As one can see, the United States is a low-tax country with a total tax wedge of 29.5 percent. Three-fourths of O.E.C.D. countries have a larger tax wedge on average workers.

I have also included the latest data on the percentage of workers employed as a share of the working-age population. I think this is a better measure of the health of the labor market than the unemployment rate, which goes up and down for a variety of reasons unconnected to taxes.

Here, too, there is little evidence that taxes affect employment one way or another. Almost half of the countries with a bigger tax wedge employ a larger percentage of their working-age populations than the United States does, and more than half of those with a smaller tax wedge have lower employment ratios. […]

There is simply no evidence that cutting taxes at the present time will do anything to raise employment.” - Bruce Bartlett: Taxes and Employment

(via theamericanbear)

beautiful-ambition:

cartoonpolitics:

Student loan debt, at $830 billion, now exceeds total US credit card debt, itself bloated to the bubble level of $827 billion.  More here..

THIS!!!!!!

(via kemetically-ankhtified)

theatlantic:

U.S. Teen Birthrates Are Down, But Still High in the Bible Belt

Teen birthrates are highest in Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, and New Mexico, with slightly lower concentrations in the neighboring states of Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Arizona. New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts have the lowest rates of teen births.

What factors lie behind this geographic pattern? […]

Teenage births remain high in more religious states. The correlation between teenage birthrates and the percentage of adults who say they are “very religious” is considerable (.69). The 2009 study posited that attitudes toward contraception play a significant role, noting that “religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself.”

Teen birthrates also hew closely to America’s political divide. They are substantially higher in conservative states that voted for McCain in 2008 (with a correlation of .65) and negatively correlated with states that voted for Obama (-.62).

Class plays a substantial role as well. Teen births are negatively associated with average state income (-.62), the share of the workforce in knowledge, professional, and creative class jobs (-.61), and especially with the share of adults who are college graduates (-.76). Conversely, teen birthrates are higher in more working class states (with a positive correlation of .58).

Read more at The Atlantic Cities. [Image: Centers for Disease Control]

boston:

Photo of protest confrontation prompts Boston Police review

- Boston Police are reviewing officers’ response to a protest rally Sunday on Boston Common after a photo appeared to show an officer with his hand around a protester’s neck.

thenewrepublic:

Meet the freedom-fighting smugglers on the Syrian border:

“As violence has intensified in Syria, the human smuggling business has boomed—in both directions. Syrian civilians employ smugglers in hopes of getting out of harms way, while journalists, aid groups, and human rights organizations hire them to gain access to the front lines. It can be an expensive proposition: Sources confirmed that smugglers have asked for upward of $20,000 for a single trip. But, increasingly, smugglers are giving a free ride to international journalists, or anyone else who promises to spread the word about the stakes in Syria. Indeed, perhaps the most telling aspect of this burgeoning market is that it’s informed by a calculus that’s not strictly economic.”

- Erin Banco and Sophia Jones, Meet the Freedom-Fighting Smugglers on the Syrian Border

Photo courtesy of the Daily Beast

thisgingersnapsback:

reagan-was-a-horrible-president:

thepeoplesrecord:

Badass Strips Naked as a Form of Protest Against TSA

April 18, 2012

A 50-year-old man who said he felt that airport screeners were “harassing” him stripped naked at Portland International Airport, police in Oregon said.

Police charged John E. Brennan with disorderly conduct and indecent exposure after he disrobed while going through the security screening area at the airport Tuesday evening.

“When interviewed about his actions, Mr. Brennan stated he fly’s (sic) a lot and had disrobed as a form of protest against TSA screeners who he felt were harassing him,” a police incident report said.

He was not intoxicated or under the influence of drugs at the time, police said.

Source

You DON’T have to be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs to say “enough is enough”….in fact, it’s better to be sober in those situations.

I don’t need to be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs to want to get naked. Anywhere. Regardless.

But yeah, this dude’s a badass.

(via sexgenderbody)

onlyexperiments:

There’s also a few side affects of a having such a large prison population. The court system has become so overloaded it’s now become more of a mechanism for getting people to admit guilt and accept a plea bargain (because it’s faster) rather than actually establishing their guilt or innocence. And don’t forget, this is all because of the Drug War.