Free Republic

Last summer, student activists in Florida known as the Dream Defenders held one of the longest sit-in demonstrations in recent Tallahassee history, as they attempted to get Rick Scott to call for a special session on the controversial Stand Your Ground self-defense law. The sit-in began just days after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Though Scott declined to convene such a session, the group received national attention for their actions, and they vowed that they would be back in 2014 to educate thousands of new voters in advance of the 2014 state elections. That's...

Economists are scratching their heads trying to figure out a puzzle in this recovery: Why are young people not working? People retiring at age 60 or even 55 in a weak economy is easy to understand. But at 25? The percentage of adult Americans who are working or looking for work now stands at 62.8%, a 36-year low and down more than 3 percentage points since late 2007, according to the Labor Department's May employment report. This is fairly well-known. What isn't so well-known is that a major reason for the decline is that fewer and fewer young people are...

The Filastuder One question arises quite often when talking to people who utilize FDM 3D printers on a daily basis. What do you do with your 3D printed scraps and junk? When an object doesnÂ’t print correctly or when an object just simply is not wanted or needed any longer, where do they eventually end up? Most likely they get tossed in a the trashcan, and end up in a landfill for the next 500 years before the earth reclaims them. That filament that you paid $40/roll for becomes wasted money. One 15-year-old boy, named Grayson Galisky, has taken it...

PHILADELPHIA — DINNER with your children in 19th-century America often required some self-control. Berry stains in your daughter’s hair? Good for her. Raccoon bites running up your boy’s arms? Bet he had an interesting day. As this year’s summer vacation begins, many parents contemplate how to rein in their kids. But there was a time when Americans pushed in the opposite direction, preserved in Mark Twain’s cat-swinging scamps. Parents back then encouraged kids to get some wildness out of their system, to express the republic’s revolutionary values. American children of the 19th century had a reputation. Returning British visitors reported...

Behold, yet another data point indicating that Obama’s 2012 re-election coalition is splintering or flat-out apathetic heading into the midterm cycle, via the Washington Post: As this graph illustrates, less than a third of Obama’s 2012 Millennial voters say they’ll “definitely” vote for Democrats this fall. Almost as many have abandoned the party label completely, either by shifting to independent status or by supporting Republicans. When this Democratic pollster tabulates the data, he finds that only half of all the young Obama voters surveyed will definitely, probably, or maybe vote for Democrats in the midterms. The rest plan to...

Surprise, surprise, the labor force participation rate in April for young adults between the ages of 25-29 hit a record low. Liberals continue to tout that young people are doing just fine under the Obama economy, but alas the data shows otherwise. Young people have been the hardest hit by Obama and his leftist policies. Young Americans are the ones expected to pick up the tab for the reckless spending coming from Washington while facing an increasingly tough job market. Each year Young America’s Foundation releases its Youth Misery Index (YMI), which adds together youth unemployment, average graduating student debt,...

Bad news for students who need to borrow federal student loans: your interest rates for the 2014-2015 school year will be higher than they were during the 2013-2014 academic calendar.

Republicans will nominate someone younger than her, and it won't make a difference to young people.Our old colleague Patrick Caldwell has an interesting article up at Mother Jones about the way the Hillary Clinton campaign—or whatever we can call it at this point, since it isn't actually a campaign but it isn't exactly just a bunch of independent people doing their own thing either—is going after college students. I had forgotten how idiotically hostile the Hillary '08 campaign was toward college students in Iowa, but that's just one of innumerable mistakes that one presumes she'll attempt to correct this time...

Building the Machine introduces the public to the Common Core States Standards Initiative (CCSSI) and its effects on our children’s education. The documentary compiles interviews from leading educational experts, including members of the Common Core Validation Committee. Parents, officials, and the American public should be involved in this national decision regardless of their political persuasion. What is the common core? The Common Core is the largest systemic reform of American public education in recent history. What started as a collaboration between the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to reevaluate and nationalize America’s education standards...

Europe’s unemployed youth do not mind a little economic insecurity. What they can’t stand is a chronic atmosphere of political hopelessness. No wonder they are fleeing the continent. Young people appear to be the social group most affected by the lingering economic crisis of the EU. Around a quarter of them is unemployed. As expected, the situation is the most dramatic in the countries on the European periphery: In Spain 57 per cent of the population below 30 is unable to find a job, according to the most recent Eurostat figures. The worrying list also includes Greece with 58 per...

A few weeks ago, I began to show from extensive studies and evidence how alcohol use and marijuana use compare in terms of addiction, withdrawal and using motorized vehicles. This week, I will discuss in greater detail how alcohol and marijuana compare in their effects on our minds, bodies and relationships. And then I want to conclude by addressing the most overlooked aspect of the marijuana legalization debate: its effects on the youth of America. CNN recently reported on multiple studies on alcohol and marijuana use. Of course, we know that long-term drinking can lead to neurological and psychiatric problems,...

It's 8 PM on Wednesday in Bellevile, Ontario, Canada, and independent filmmaker Andrew Gray hasn't eaten dinner...

Lawmakers in Utah and Colorado are promoting legislation to raise the legal age for tobacco use to 21, a higher standard than imposed by any other state, saying they want to discourage young people from picking up a lifelong smoking habit. Supporters say keeping tobacco out of the hands of young adults will save thousands of lives, even as critics complain that Americans who are old enough to vote and serve in the military should not be deemed too young to decide on their own if they should smoke. In a dramatic display of the risks of smoking, lawmakers in...

After doing a fun bit in a Tonight Show sketch, Michelle Obama sat down to talk with Jimmy Fallon about life in the White House, dealing with two young girls while still being the First Lady and all, her Let’s Move! healthy living initiative, and getting young people signed up under the Affordable Care Act. Obama said Malia and Sasha are basically just like every other kid: they want “nothing to do” with their parents. After chatting about that and the Olympics a bit, Fallon brought up the Let’s Move campaign (which Fallon has promoted twice before when the First...

Liberal failures always trace back to having glossed over the biggest problems, the showstoppers that should kill bad ideas before they get out of committee. Instead, an unfounded trust in the power of technology, the future, or in the sense of being on the cutting edge of everything gets these manic ideas passed and signed.During the Bush era, I heard plenty of appeals to a futuristic savior as a means for avoiding war: Dude, itÂ’s 2005. YouÂ’re telling me they canÂ’t come up with a better strategy for Iraq than shooting the bad guys some more? Yes. I was...

An increasingly desperate -and unpopular- Obama regime seems to be running out of the dumb luck that's gotten them way farther than was ever any good for this country... With Obamacare itself unsuccessful by almost any measure -other than subjugation of the populace and big government expansion- the most fatal flaw would seem to be the ACA's widespread lack of appeal to those it needs the most... healthy young people who pay but make few claims. After Pajama Boy failed to make much of an impact, now Dear Leader's asking his snake-fascinated true believers to inflict direct pressure on basically anybody they can trap in a corner,...

The Food and Drug Administration is launching a new campaign against youth tobacco use. "The Real Cost" advertisements graphically depict the health consequences of smoking, such as tooth loss and skin damage. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease, death, and disability in the U.S. Every day, more than 3,200 Americans under age 18 try their first cigarette, and more than 700 become regular smokers. The FDA is targeting its efforts toward the 10 million Americans ages 12 to 17 who have never smoked a cigarette but are open to it. "We know that early intervention is critical,...

TAMPA -- Some Florida Republicans fear, and some Democrats hope, that a November referendum on legalizing medical marijuana in Florida will drive young and liberal voters to the polls, helping Democratic candidates including gubernatorial challenger Charlie Crist. The initiative, still not certified for the November ballot, is generating charges of political motives from both sides. Some Republicans call it an expensive ploy by Crist's backers to help him win. "It is no coincidence that Charlie Crist's law partner and biggest supporter, John Morgan, is financing medical marijuana," said Gainesville-based GOP consultant Alex Patton. "It's a plan." Some Democrats, meanwhile, say...

Equal protection under the law for pre-born human beings is headed our way - and from the work of a surprising demographic: adults under 30. A 28-year old dynamo working on college campuses across the nation, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, exemplifies why hers is the "pro-life generation". Kristan feels deeply the loss of nearly one-third of her age group. “The undeniable fact is that nearly a third of my generation was killed by abortion. We are missing brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, husbands and wives…. But [we’re] determined to set it right. We’ve seen the ultrasounds of our...