† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: The New York Time profiles four twentysomethings who are juggling three or four jobs to make ends meet in this economy to avoid what one describes as that “horrible phone call” to her parents to ask them for rent money. None of them is making more than $27K:

 

“Young college graduates working multiple jobs is a natural consequence of a bad labor market and having, on average, $20,000 worth of student loans to pay off,” said Carl E. Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers.

 

“There are two types of people in this position: the graduate who can’t get a full-time job, and the person whose income isn’t sufficient to meet their expenses,” he said. “The only cure for young people in this position is an economic recovery of robust proportions.”

 

An entry-level salary often doesn’t go very far these days. According to a study by the Heldrich Center, the median starting salary for those who graduated from four-year degree programs in 2009 and 2010 was $27,000, down from $30,000 for those who graduated in 2006 to 2008, before the recession. (Try living on $27,000 a year - before taxes - in a city like New York, Washington or Chicago.) …

 

More college graduates are working in second jobs that don’t require college degrees, part of a phenomenon called “mal-employment.” In short, many baby-sitters, sales clerks, telemarketers and bartenders are overqualified for their jobs.

 

Last year, 1.9 million college graduates were mal-employed and had multiple jobs, up 17 percent from 2007, according to federal data. Almost half of all college graduates have a job that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree.

 

The only cure for young people in this position is a Republican in the White House who will put pro-growth policies in place.

 

† How To Tell When A “Hate Crime” Has Been Committed: Here's something you don't read about every day: A group of Southern black teens lynching a lone white teen -- according to a quirk in the laws of SC this particular instance of black-on-white violence is considered a lynching because one person was attacked by two or more people. WIS-TV (Channel 10, Columbia, SC) reports:  

 

Police Chief Randy Scott said the 18-year-old victim, later identified as Carter Strange, was jogging through a parking lot near the intersection of Blossom Street and Saluda Avenue just after midnight on Monday when the assault happened. "This teenager was minding his own business, trying to make his curfew when he was brutally attacked and robbed," said Scott.

 

Strange's mother, Vicki, said her son was headed home after visiting a friend slightly past his midnight curfew. "At 12:07 he wasn't home, I called him and said 'Carter where are you?'" recounted Vicki. "He said 'Momma, I'm almost home. I'll be there in just a minute.' At 12:15 I called, but the phone was dead." …

 

Investigators believe the suspects assaulted Carter and stole his cell phone before leaving him in the parking lot.  

 

After the assault, Scott said Carter managed to make it a block down the road to Edisto Avenue, where a passerby found him two hours later and called 9-1-1. Carter was taken to a local hospital, where he is still in critical condition. …

 

Carter's family told police the beating was so severe he required emergency surgery to remove a brain clot. He's also expected to need reconstructive surgery on his face. "He did nothing to them," said Vicki. "They didn't know him, they didn't know the kind of person he was, they don't know the kind of man he's grown up to be and they don't know the lives he's touched. But they thought he was so less of a person, they thought this would be okay."

 

Eight suspects ranging in age from 13-years old to 19-years old have all been charged with criminal conspiracy. The charges against the oldest gangbanger, Thyeem Henrey, include common law robbery, second degree assault and battery by mob (lynching); a 14-year-old, 15-year-old, and 16-year-old were also charged with second degree assault and battery by a mob and strong arm robbery.

 

† What Al Gore Hath Wrought (second item): The Secretary of State Project (SOSP), a tax-exempt group funded by billionaire financier George Soros and his cronies has “quietly” helped elect 11 liberal Democrats as secretaries of state in several battleground states - including IA, OH, MN, NM and NV - to make “key decisions … in close races on which ballots are counted and which are not,” reports The Washington Times:

 

The group's website said it wants to stop Republicans from "manipulating" election results.

 

"Any serious commitment to wresting control of the country from the Republican Party must include removing their political operatives from deciding who can vote and whose votes will count," the group said on its website, accusing some Republican secretaries of state of making "partisan decisions."

 

SOSP has sought donations by describing the contributions as a "modest political investment" to elect "clean candidates" to the secretary of state posts.

 

"Supporting secretary of state candidates with integrity is one of the most cost-efficient ways progressives can ensure they have a fair chance of winning elections," SOSP said on its website, adding that "a relatively small influx of money - often as little as $30,000 to $50,000 - can change the outcome of a race."

 

SOSP was formed in the wake of the ballot-counting confusion in Florida during the 2000 presidential election and a repeat of that chaos in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election. Democrats accused Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, both Republicans, of manipulating the elections in favor of GOP candidates — charges Mrs. Harris and Mr. Blackwell denied.

 

† Other People’s (Tax) Money: As promised,30 members of a group called Art Uncut protested a performance by Ireland’s U2 at England's Glastonbury festival, inflating a 20-foot balloon “emblazoned with the message ‘U Pay Your Tax 2,’” The Associated Press reports:

 

U2 and its frontman Bono, known for their global poverty-fighting efforts, were accused of dodging taxes in Ireland by activists who crashed their performance …

 

Security guards wrestled them to the ground before deflating the balloon and taking it away. About 30 people were involved in the angry clash. …

 

Art Uncut argues that while Bono campaigns against poverty in the developing world, his group has avoided paying Irish taxes at a time when his austerity-hit country desperately needs money. …

 

Tax(es) nestling in the band's bank account should be helping to keep open the hospitals, schools and libraries that are closing all over Ireland," Art Uncut member Charlie Dewar said ahead of the protest.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Chicago On The Potomac): Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D-IL) was convicted of corruption charges stemming from what the jury found was his attempt to sell or trade President Barack Hussein Obama’s vacant Senate seat, The Associated Press reports:

 

His defense team had insisted that hours of FBI wiretap recordings were just the ramblings of a politician who liked to think out loud. …

 

The verdict capped a long-running spectacle in which Blagojevich became famous for blurting on a recorded phone call that his ability to appoint Obama’s successor to the Senate was “f---ing golden” and that he wouldn’t let it go “for f---ing nothing.” …

 

The verdict provided affirmation to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, one of the nation’s most prominent prosecutors, who, after the governor’s arrest, had condemned Blagojevich’s dealings as a “political crime spree.” …

 

Fitzgerald pledged to retry the governor after the first jury deadlocked on all but the least serious of 24 charges against him.

 

This time, the 12 jurors voted to convict the 54-year-old Blagojevich on 17 of 20 counts after deliberating nine days. He also faces up to five additional years in prison for his previous conviction of lying to the FBI.

 

Blagojevich was acquitted of soliciting bribes in the alleged shakedown of a road-building executive. The jury deadlocked on two charges of attempted extortion related to that executive and funding for a school.

 

Judge James Zagel has barred Blagojevich from traveling outside the area without permission. A status hearing to discuss sentencing was set for Aug. 1.

 

Although Blago faces up to 300 years in prison, legal experts told the AP that he would get between six and 15 years behind bars.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (Obama Is Just About Every U.S. President All Rolled Into One!): As Commentary editor John Podhoretz did before him,  Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose argues that President Barack Hussein Obama should look to Richard Nixon for guidance on “getting out [of Afghanistan] without turning a retreat into a rout” in this New York Times op-ed:

 

[H]e would be wise to borrow one from the last American administration to extricate itself from a thankless, seemingly endless counterinsurgency in a remote and strategically marginal region. Mr. Obama should ask himself, in short: What would Nixon do? …

 

The first rule of withdrawal is you do not talk about withdrawal. You may agree with the doves about the value of exiting, but you should respect the hawks’ fears about what will happen once people realize what you are doing. You must deflect attention from the true state of affairs, doing everything you can to keep your foes and even your friends in the dark as long as possible.

 

The second rule of withdrawal is to lay down suppressive fire so the enemy cannot rush into the gap you leave behind. The Nixon administration was brutal and ham-fisted about this, using secret bombing runs along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and expeditions into Cambodia and Laos to buy time and space for its “Vietnamization” programs to work. Thanks to technological advances, the Obama administration can do the same thing while incurring far fewer human, financial, legal and political costs. Drone attacks and raids against enemy targets in Pakistani sanctuaries today are a precision replay of actions in Cambodia and Laos, but more effective and less controversial.

 

The third rule of withdrawal is to remain engaged, providing enough support to beleaguered local partners so they can fend off collapse for as long as possible. Withdrawal should be defined as the removal of ground forces from direct combat, not the abandonment of the country in question. …

 

In Vietnam, Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger sought to extricate the United States from a war even as the local combatants continued to struggle. The Obama administration should try to do the same in Afghanistan — while planning carefully for how to keep withdrawal from turning into defeat.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (penultimate item, The TSA Emperor Wears No Clothes: Part II): There’s good news, and there’s bad news. The good news is, after widespread condemnation of infants and children being touched by TSA agents in places that would be considered molestation in another context, the agency will soon announce a new policy for screening kids under the age of 12. The bad news is, the disabled and elderly are still being subjected to manhandling when they are unable to understand or physically comply with security procedures. The latest example of TSA insensitivity and lack of common sense involves a 105-lb, 95-year old woman in a wheelchair who was forced to take off her Depends so she could go through the checkpoint and board the plane with her daughter, Jean Weber. CNN reports:

 

At a security checkpoint, a TSA officer ushered the wheelchair-bound woman into a glassed-in area where a pat-down was performed, Weber said. Weber said an agent told her "they felt something suspicious on (her mother's) leg and they couldn't determine what it was" - leading them to take her into a private, closed room.

 

Soon after, Weber said, a TSA agent told her that her mother's Depend undergarment was "wet and it was firm, and they couldn't check it thoroughly." But her mother had no clean diapers in her carry-on luggage and the departure time for the plane was approaching, Weber said.

 

"They said, 'You can get her luggage back to get more out of her luggage,' but the luggage was checked and I didn't know how long it would take to get her luggage," Weber said. "I asked if I could take the wet Depends off and they said yes but said I had to take her back to the lobby of the airport -- to the restroom out of the screening area."

 

She said she and her mother then went to a bathroom and removed the wet diaper, then went back through the screening checkpoint.

 

Weber said her mother, a nurse for 65 years, "was very calm" despite being bothered by the fact that she went on to complete her journey without underwear.

 

Weber tells The News Herald (Panama City, FL) that if the TSA agents were following the rules and regulations, “then the rules and regulations need to be changed,” adding, “I’m not one to make waves, but dadgummit, this is wrong. People need to know. Next time it could be you.”

 

Meanwhile, though it was touch and go for a while, a bill to that criminalizes enhanced TSA pat-downs that involve touching a passenger's privates was approved by the TX House, Reuters reports:

 

Federal officials had threatened to halt all flights out of Texas airports if the original bill were passed on the grounds that they would not be able to certify that the flights were safe.

 

"We've been working with the attorney general's office from the very beginning to ensure that the bill will accomplish our goal of stopping the humiliation of travelers while also maintaining language that will withstand judicial scrutiny," [Rep. David Simpson (R), the author of the bill] said in a statement on Monday.

 

The major change in the amended bill, Simpson said, is a requirement that the Transportation Security Administration agent have "reasonable suspicion" before conducting an enhanced pat-down, a less stringent standard than the "probable cause" in the original measure. …

 

The revised bill also includes a provision prohibiting the prosecution of a TSA officer if the officer's actions are "pursuant to and consistent with the Constitution." Violation of the law would be a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine. …

 

The final form of the bill must be voted on by the state House and approved by the Senate, before it reaches Gov. Rick Perry’s desk. The special session of the legislature ends on Wednesday.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (It’s Not Easy Being Green. Just Ask Al Gore.): On his blog American Interest, Walter Russell Mead takes former Vice President Al Gore to task for bloviating about sacrificing to save the planet change while sparing himself no convenience or luxury:

 

But while some forms of inconsistency or even hypocrisy can be combined with public leadership, others cannot be. … The head of Mothers Against Drunk Driving cannot be convicted of driving while under the influence.  The head of the IRS cannot be a tax cheat [Editorial Note: Given Tiny Tim Geithner, this may not be the best example.] The most visible leader of the world’s green movement cannot live a life of conspicuous consumption, spewing far more carbon into the atmosphere than almost all of those he castigates for their wasteful ways. Mr. Top Green can’t also be a carbon pig. …

 

If the heart of your message is that the peril of climate change is so imminent and so overwhelming that the entire political and social system of the world must change, now, you cannot fly on private jets. You cannot own multiple mansions. You cannot even become enormously rich investing in companies that will profit if the policies you advocate are put into place. …

 

Al Gore can consume more carbon than whole villages in the developing world. …  A father of four, he can lecture the world on the perils of overpopulation.  Surely, skeptics reason, if the peril were as great as he says and he cares about it as much as he claims, Gore’s sense of civic duty would call him to set an example of conspicuous non-consumption.  This general sleeps in a mansion, and lectures the soldiers because they want tents.

 

What this tells the skeptics is that Vice President Gore doesn’t really believe the gospel he proclaims. …

 

The average citizen is all too likely to conclude that if Mr. Gore can keep his lifestyle, the average American family can keep its SUV and incandescent bulbs. If Gore can take a charter flight, I don’t have to take the bus. If Gore can have many mansions, I can use the old fashioned kind of shower heads that actually clean and toilets that actually flush. Al Gore looks to the average American the way American greens look to poor people in the third world: hypocritically demanding that others accept permanently lower standards of living than those the activists propose for themselves. …

 

The Vice President thinks he can square this circle, but he can’t. Sometimes the truth is inconvenient.  Mr. Gore must find either a new cause or a new way to live.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Healthcare “Reform” Horror Stories): As The Stiletto noted in a different context involving patients left high and dry by private or public health insurance, “Americans come forward, sometimes anonymously, to donate their own money to help someone - even a perfect stranger - in need.” In the American tradition of self-reliance, generosity is even more forthcoming in the aftermath of a natural disaster (FEMA or no FEMA). The Associated Press reports:

 

[S]tories of people helping one another, often without being asked and demanding nothing in return, were a heartwarming counterpoint to the destruction from unprecedented flooding along the Souris Valley in north-central North Dakota. Brought together by word of mouth, church and civic networks, social media and random encounters, those with housing and supplies to spare gave willingly to those without.

 

So many opened their doors that while some 11,000 people were evacuated from neighborhoods nearest the river, only a few hundred used shelters at Minot State University and the City Auditorium.

 

"For the rest of the country, that is kind of mind-boggling. But ... that's how we are in North Dakota," Sen. John Hoeven said.

 

A Facebook page called "Minot ND Flood Help" drew volunteer offers to haul furniture, care for pets, clean laundry and even give therapeutic massages - many from outside town.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Look Before You Leap: Part II): The new battleground in anti-abortion legislation: fetal pain. Over the past year, NE, ID, IN, KS, OK and AL passed laws banning abortions after the 20^th week “based on the theory that the fetus can feel pain at that point,” reports The New York Times:

 

“The purpose of this type of bill is to focus on the humanity of the unborn child,” said Mary Spaulding Balch, director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee. “Fetal pain is something that people who are in the middle on the abortion issue can relate to.” …

 

Support for fetal pain legislation is one item in a pledge that anti-abortion groups are asking potential candidates to endorse. Five have signed, but Mitt Romney and Herman Cain have been criticized for refusing to take part in the pledge, which also asks leaders to make opposition to abortion a test for all appointments and to end taxpayer funding of abortion and Planned Parenthood.

 

“These 20-week laws are absolutely unconstitutional,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, a legal group. No one has yet challenged the laws in court, in part because they are so new that few potential plaintiffs have emerged. But advocates for abortion rights are also proceeding warily, fearful that a weak case could end up in the Supreme Court and upend the legal structure established by Roe v. Wade in 1973 and subsequent decisions, with fetal viability as the all-important dividing line between access to abortion and stringent limits.

 

“We will file a legal challenge when the circumstances and timing are right,” Ms. Northup said. …

 

“It seems to me that the other side is afraid of challenging this in the courts,” Ms. Balch, of the National Right to Life Committee, said of the 20-week limits. “But we’re going to get this, whether in court or passing it state by state.”