[guest post by Dana]

While President Trump stupidly threw red meat to his critics, fouling up a salient argument regarding voter i.d. laws, everybody’s favorite journalist, CNN’s Jim Acosta threw some red meat of his own to the critics and haters of Big Media:

While Trump gleefully stokes the fires of media-hate and intentionally nurtures an ugly divisiveness in the nation, it’s noteworthy that Acosta conveniently ignores the fact that it was his employer, CNN, which greedily greased the rails for Trump’s ascendancy to the White House. As a reminder:

The benefits to CNN are pretty obvious—namely, higher ratings, which translate into higher ad revenue. It’s not like the network only boosted its coverage of Trump as it has become more and more obvious that he would become the leading candidate. According to a number of media analysts, the Republican candidate received orders of magnitude more coverage from the very beginning of his campaign—before it was even clear how dominant his support was.

From June 16 (the day he announced his campaign) through September 14, media-tracking firm Zignal Labs said Trump was the subject of at least 2,159 CNN reports, almost twice as many as Florida governor Jeb Bush. Furthermore, the Media Research Center found that during a two-week period in August, close to 80% of CNN’s Republican campaign coverage was spent discussing Donald Trump: 580 minutes out of a total of 747 minutes.

Interestingly, Acosta also tweeted this in spite of his already earnestly expressed concern about the dangerous rally:

Ugh. Embarrassing child’s play, and painfully easy to see through:

Also piling onto Acosta’s elitist sense of self, while also conveniently ignoring Big Media’s dirty hands, Politico’s Marc Caputo whipped up his own special brand of derogatory hostility and divisiveness:

Ironically, Caputo seemingly still can’t understand why the media is so hated… Initially, Caputo came out swinging with sarcasm at his critics, but later issued an apology for his comments. But his ugly message remains: These garbage people, these Trumpsupporters, these hicks, these toothless clowns should stop fanatically clinging to their guns and Bibles and follow our example in how to treat fellow Americans!

It is undeniable that both sides of the political aisle are filled with deplorable individuals imbued with a perceived sense of righteous anger as they stoke the coals of dissension, and then claim the mantle of true patriot. Whether it’s members of the media, who conveniently forget their own complicity in giving Trump a helping hand for the sake of Big Ratings and subsequently downplayed the abuses leveled at his supporters, or whether it’s the Trump sycophants and loyalists, whose own bitterness and sense of betrayal have found a home in the incendiary provocations of Trump, they are all loathsome individuals. Neither group adds to the fiber of political discourse, nor do they persuade anyone to their cause. Oddly, Trump, like no other, brings to the surface all the arrogant dishonesty and self-deception that lies beneath the surface in many an individual. It’s raw, it’s angry, it’s manipulative and condescending. And from where I stand, it’s a foul piece of work, indeed.

P.S. I know a few good and decent people who uneasily support Trump. While I don’t share their views, I would absolutely exclude them from this assessment because I know that they too would turn away from anyone like those rally attendees captured on video, as much as they would people like Acosta and Caputo.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

[guest post by JVW]

Those of us of a certain age on this site probably have memories of our teenage summers spent working at minimum wage jobs, a tradition designed to expose us to life in the working world as well as provide us with some spending money and/or some savings for college. (I knew schoolmates too, of course, who worked to help make ends meet for their families, but they typically had year-round after school jobs and perhaps were able to pick up extra hours in the summer.) According to a piece on government radio, summer jobs are now joining obtaining a driver’s license and going on dates as coming-of-age milestones less and less known to the latest generation:

Pedraam Faridjoo of Kensington, Md., is spending his summer volunteering and traveling. Ryan Abshire from Carmel, Ind., is using the time to be with his family. Meme Etheridge of St. Simons Island, Ga., is attending a music camp where she plays percussion.

What do they all have in common? They’re teenagers, and they are not working summer jobs.

A summer job, like lifeguarding or scooping ice cream, used to be a rite of passage for teens. Thirty years ago, nearly two-thirds of U.S. teenagers worked summer jobs. Twenty years ago, more than half of them did.

Now, only a third of teens are in summer jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The article goes on to list some possible reasons for the decline in teen employment. They range from the plausible (the recession and glut of college graduates looking for jobs has forced credentialed people to take jobs that used to be filled by teens) to the dubious (teens are choosing to study or take unpaid internships over the summer) to the aggravating (teens express a preference for hanging out with family and friends or playing video games over work).

I can understand and sympathize with the idea that teen jobs are harder to come by. The sort of jobs available when I was that age were at fast food restaurants, movie theaters, lawn care, city parks, and retail. Where I grew up, these jobs were either largely seasonal (people in Colorado mowed their lawns mostly from mid-May through mid-September) or else, as in the case of fast food and retail, the summer months when everyone was out of school which was an especially busy time, necessitating the hiring of more employees. Here in Southern California, however, I note that lawn care is a year-round concern and as such is largely handled by immigrant workers, and in the age of online movie tickets and fast food ordering kiosks fewer employees are required to sell tickets and take orders.

Yet at the same time there is plenty of data suggesting that seasonal jobs go unfulfilled because teens are not entering the workforce. Lifeguarding, a job at which I spent two glorious summers, is suffering from a diminished pool (of course it’s a bad pun) of qualified applicants, as fewer teens are willing to take the lifesaving and water safety instructional courses necessary for certification, despite the fact that they have lowered age requirements since my day. Summer resorts are struggling to hire dining staff, desk workers, maids, babysitters, and the rest of the army of young, nimble, and eager recruits to take care of the grunt work. I was in Jackson Hole last summer for the eclipse, and I was amazed that all of the hotels in the area had brought in overseas students to staff the entry-level positions. Meanwhile, American teens work two afternoons per week at the dog rescue center, post pictures on Instagram, study for the ACT, and play the latest release of Call of Duty.

Feel free to reminisce on your summer employment back in the day, or tell us if teens in your community are any better or worse about seeking employment than the NPR article suggests.

– JVW

Um no.

“You know if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID.” The guy says.

I believe in voter ID laws. And there are countless areas of life in which you do need an ID to perform simple, basic, everyday tasks. The underlying complaint here is valid.

But why do we have to select a moron to make that argument? Why must this nincompoop choose one of the few situations where you don’t typically need an ID?

This guy contaminates everything he touches and everything he supports.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]