In the hard economic times since 2008, when Foster voted for President Barack Obama’s message of hope, America’s young voters have been battered. They’ve disproportionately sustained job losses, wage declines and detours on their career paths.
For many, even the normal rites of passage to adulthood have been disrupted, as they delay such life steps as leaving home, getting married and having children.
[…]One in six 16- to 24-year-olds last year was idle, neither working nor attending school even for just an hour a week, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economics professor. Among 20- to 24-year-old men, almost one in five was idle last year.
As of May, 41 percent of the nation’s net decline in full- time jobs from four years earlier was among under-25-year-olds, an age group that represents just 14 percent of the workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Under-35-year-olds account for 65 percent of the decline in full-time employment, though they comprise only 35 percent of the labor force.
Even among young people who have full-time work, real wages have dropped, while older workers’ pay has kept even or slightly improved. Median weekly earnings after inflation fell 6 percent among 18- to 24-year-olds in full-time jobs from 2007 to 2011, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by the Pew Research Center in Washington.
[…]The portion of 18- to 24-year-olds who say they will definitely vote dropped to 47 percent this year from 64 percent in 2008, according to polls conducted by the Institute of Politics during March and April of each election year.
Support for Obama also has declined, with the president besting Republican Mitt Romney 41 percent to 29 percent in the age group compared with 53 percent to 32 percent against Republican John McCain in 2008, according to the poll.
Sixty-six percent of voters under 30 cast ballots for Obama in the last election, the highest share for a presidential candidate from that age group going back to the start of modern exit polls in 1980. Turnout in the age group was the highest in 16 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Note that Romney’s support among young people is DOWN to 29 from McCain’s level of 32. DOWN.
What amazes me is that the support is still so high for Obama. But I think this just goes to show you how thoroughly indoctrinated young people are in the public schools, and how little diversity of opinion and critical thinking there is in higher education.
Governor Bobby Jindal signed two new laws. The legislation – SB 766 by Senator John Alario and HB 1086 by Representative Alan Seabaugh – are part of the Governor’s 2012 legislative package.
SB 766 by Senator John Alario prohibits abortions of an unborn child who is 20 weeks or older, and provides for license revocation and disciplinary action for any person who intentionally or knowingly performs or induces an abortion on a woman when she has a baby who is 20 weeks or older.
HB 1086 by Representative Alan Seabaugh prohibits euthanasia for the non-terminally ill and the severely disabled. Prior to Governor Jindal signing this new law those same protections were only offered for the terminally ill.
Governor Jindal said, “It is incumbent upon us to protect the weakest and most vulnerable among us, and these new laws will protect innocent human life.”
Earlier this year, Governor Jindal signed SB 330 by Senator Rick Ward to create a specific crime for performing an abortion in Louisiana if the abortionist is not licensed to practice medicine in Louisiana. The legislation also created the crime of aggravated criminal abortion by dismemberment when the unborn child is dismembered in the course of a criminal abortion.
Governor Jindal also signed SB 708 by Senator Sharon Weston Broome to require that the fetal heartbeat be made audible and ultrasound images be displayed for optional review prior to an abortion.
1a. Gov. Bobby Jindal, LA — No single person better combines the ability to excite the Republican “base” with the breadth of resumé experience, the reformist record, and the proven ability ofcrisis management than does Jindal. At age 25 he rescued Louisiana’s state health-care system from Medicaid-induced collapse; he helped forge a national Medicare solution (along Paul Ryan’s later lines) that won over Democratic moderates like John Breaux and Bob Kerrey but fell short when Bill Clinton pulled the plug during the Lewinsky mess; he ran Louisiana’s second-largest system of colleges; he served as the number two guy at the federal Department of Health and Human Services; he served three years in Congress and emerged from Hurricane Katrina as the only Louisiana politician with his stature enhanced by his highly effective responses; and he has been the most successful conservative reformer (and the only re-elected one) ever to serve as Louisiana’s governor. As governor he pushed through some needed ethics reformed, pared state government, kept taxes low, handled the BP oil spill superbly, and pushed through (partly in his first term, partly in his second) a series of education reforms (expanding choice and improving accountability) that, combined, probably outstrip even those of Florida’s Jeb Bush and Wisconsin’s Tommy Thompson as the boldest and best school improvements in modern American history.
Some will gripe that Jindal adds no geographical advantage to the ticket — and they are right. But that consideration pales in comparison with what he will add in one particular area. It is almost certain that, regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on Obamacare, the question of “what would Republicans do to replace it” will dominate campaign coverage throughout the summer and perhaps all the way until Election Day. Romney himself, as the author of Romneycare and a once-avid advocate of an individual insurance mandate, is poorly equipped to handle this question. No high-ranking elected official in the country, however, can match Jindal for his expert knowledge on health-care policy, nor can anybody else match Jindal’s ability to explain positive, conservative alternatives to the Left’s state-controlled systems. In short, he takes a major Romney weakness and turns it into a strength, on an issue that really could sway the whole election.
Jindal also will be hard to attack. He has been somewhat inoculated by none other than James Carville, who said (for the dust-jacket of Jindal’s excellent book) that “I don’t agree with the guy on everything, but Governor Jindal has provided competent, honest, and personable leadership throughout some of Louisiana’s toughest times.”
Alas, nobody is perfect, and while national conservatives love Jindal, numerous Louisiana conservatives (some of them quite perspicacious, not to mention friends of mine) will bend anybody’s ear about certain alleged shortcomings and apostasies. Individually, their complaints may have merit. Collectively, they still don’t add up to an effective indictment of somebody who has had more success with conservative governance than anybody in Louisiana history.
Conservatives also will complain that Jindal is sometimes too inaccessible, and that his own geniality masks a serious political ruthlessness in his administration. In truth, there is a certain air of LBJ-like political muscle — definitely minus the corruption, thank goodness — that comes from the administration. On the other hand, in the hardball realm of national politics in which the Left and its media allies have no compunction about smearing conservatives relentlessly, conservatives could probably use a measure of ruthless effectiveness.
If Bobby Jindal and his team are deceptively tough, it also means they are tough to beat. Conservatives and Republicans of all stripes should celebrate such a quality — and Mitt Romney darn well ought to make use of it.
He is tied for first place with former senator John Kyl of Arizona.
I would prefer Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, Pat Toomey or Bobby Jindal. Go with ice cold competence. These are all people with stong fiscal conservative credentials but who are also thoughtful, reflective social conservatives.
President Obama said Friday the United States will stop deporting hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants and give them work permits, a move praised fellow Democrats but criticized by Republicans on Capitol Hill who said the administration has side-stepped the country’s legislative process.
The executive order will apply to illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. before they were 16 and are younger than 30. They also must have no major criminal offenses, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have graduated from a U.S. high school or have earned a GED, or served in the military.
Individuals who have been convicted of a felony offense, a significant misdemeanor offense, or three or more other misdemeanor offenses not occurring on the same date and not arising out of the same act, omission, or scheme of misconduct are not eligible to be considered for deferred action under the new process.
“These are young people who study in our schools and play on our playgrounds,” the president said. “They are Americans in every single way but one – on paper.”
Those now eligible also can apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed.
The change is expected to impact roughly 800,000 illegal immigrants.
This is nothing but suspending the rule of law to buy votes from a special interest group. Who pays for it? You do – you have to pay for the extra school, health care and policing costs of illegal immigration.
WINTERY KNIGHT 