TRUMP LET A KID MOW THE WHITE HOUSE LAWN. IDIOT ASKS: WHAT ABOUT CHILD LABOR LAWS?

Frank Giaccio, an 11-year-old kid from Falls Church, Virginia, wrote a note to President Trump saying he admired his business sense and had a business of his own: He mows lawns, $8 a pop. But it would be his “honor to mow the White House Lawn” as a volunteer.

And he got the gig!

So now there are pictures of him all over the Internet, mowing the Rose Garden lawn on September 15. And while he’s doing it, out comes the president to shake his hand. Giaccio tells the president he wants to be a Navy Seal someday and it’s a giant feel-good story.

Except on Twitter.

There, Steven Greenhouse, former New York Times labor reporter and author of the book, The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, tweeted that the administration was “Not sending a great signal on child labor, minimum wage & occupational safety” by having a “10-year-old volunteer mow its lawn.”

As you might imagine, critics were somewhat dumbfounded (to put it mildly) that Greenhouse was treating this one-off photo op as if it were a policy statement. The words “Debbie Downer” appeared in at least one response. So did some other names. Thankfully, other people reminded Greenhouse that it is good for kids to mow lawns. Plenty of them spent their own childhoods mowing lawns.

Greenhouse countered by recommending they all read an article on how dangerous lawn-mowing is for kids. So I read it. I immediately recognized the name of the doctor who did the research: Dr. Gary Smith at Nationwide Hospital. “Nationwide” as in the insurance company that featured a dead kid in its Super Bowl ad a few years back.

This photo-op is such a pretty nifty small win all around for Trump; it humanizes him next to the 11-year old kid and by reminding voters how much PR Giaccio is going to get now that he can use this in his marketing efforts. Having Giaccio at the White House wanting to promote his business contrasts Trump with Obama trolling America via “clock boy” last year. And the White House PR team had to know when they scheduled it that someone in the DNC-MSM would find some way of freaking out – Trump could say “Nice day today,” and a lefty scold would shout, “But what about global warming???!!!!”

The former Timesman’s freakout over the kid mowing the White House lawn occurred the same day that Brooke Baldwin of CNN dived for the fainting couch over Clay Travis’s “First Amendment and boobs” crack. The same weekend that Colbert’s Emmys were hyper-politicized. The same weekend that Jerry Brown called Trump voters “troglodyte” cave dwellers. Apparently, Brown doesn’t seem to care that he’s just insulted 4.5 million of his constituents in California.

In the 1960s, the left was first cool – think JFK, Brando, Sinatra and Miles Davis, and later hip, with the Beatles, the Stones and Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. Today, they’re humorless PC scolds, tut-tutting anyone having fun – and that’s not a good look for anyone.

THIS IS BAD: Virgin Islands lack supplies for second hurricane pummeling.

Still in a state of near-total destruction from Hurricane Irma this month, the U.S. Virgin Islands are now bracing for another major storm and may be woefully unprepared.

As much as 20 inches of rain could pound the islands of St. Croix, St. Thomas and St. John over the next two days, prompting President Donald Trump to declare a state of emergency on Monday. FEMA officials warn of potentially “life-threatening flash floods and mudslides” that could last through the weekend.

But the Caribbean island chain is short on crucial supplies as Hurricane Maria approaches, according to internal briefing documents obtained by POLITICO.

As of Monday morning, Virgin Islands officials had received none of the 29 generators ordered. About 15,000 sheeting covers were delivered for protecting homes, of more than 135,000 requested. And a dozen shelter kits arrived, of more than 58 ordered — with supplies like clothing, medical equipment and hygiene items.

The territory is also short about 400,000 meals, of 2 million ordered. Out of 450 cots requested, 300 are available.

Notably, the supply shortage is not an issue of cash. Congress just approved a $15 billion disaster relief package that will go toward recovery efforts in the U.S. territories, as well as several hurricane-battered states.

Not good.

HOW ABOUT THAT:

CHANGE: A Nation Of Shrinking Drinkers: Who Wins And Who Loses As Booze Sectors Contract. “Generation Z is growing up with an aversion to alcohol, in part because its members don’t want to look wasted when they take selfies with their fancy smartphones. Millennials? They’re starting families, furthering careers and acting more responsibly, which makes their trademark binge drinking less desirable. Then there’s Generation X, the supposedly nihilistic blank generation. They’ll take on the drinking habits of their parents, the Baby Boomers, as they age. And those Boomers? They’re declining in numbers because, well, they’re old.”

Some of them put away a lot of chardonnay.

MICHAEL BARONE: House Republicans’ frustrations may doom their majority. Well, Republican voters’ frustrations, anyway.

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: The Quote Investigator Website explores if a statement by the late management consultant and author Peter Drucker regarding higher education’s future – or the lack thereof – is apocryphal or true.

In 2011 an article in “The New Republic” about online education reprinted remarks of Drucker:

As early as the Internet mania of the late ’90s, higher education has been singled out as ripe for a technology-driven revolution. And looking back at the grandiose predictions of the time, it’s fair to say that such claims deserve a dose of skepticism. In 1997, for instance, legendary management guru Peter Drucker predicted that “Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won’t survive. It’s as large a change as when we first got the printed book.” Fourteen years later, the big universities are bigger and (after a stellar year for endowment investments) richer than almost ever before.

In conclusion, Peter Drucker did deliver the quotation during an interview published in “Forbes” in 1997. The thirty year prediction runs until 2027.

Based on their current implosion, that timeline seems somewhat generous.

FROM TAMARA KEEL: Review: SIG Sauer P320 X-Carry Pistol.

VIDEO: The 5 Craziest Trump-Bashing Moments From the Emmys.

RETAIL BLUES: Toys R Us could file for bankruptcy as soon as this week.

TOLERANCE: Malaysia scraps beer festival following Islamist party’s objections.

Though there are plenty of beer drinkers among the sizable Chinese and Indian minorities, protests against events deemed to be “western” and unIslamic – such as concerts and festivals involving alcohol – are common in Muslim-majority Malaysia and are usually led by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS).

Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) said in a short statement on Monday that it has rejected the application for a permit by the organisers of the “Better Beer Festival 2017” to host the event, which would have entered its sixth year.

“If the organisers continue with the event without DBKL’s approval, action will be taken in accordance to existing laws,” city hall said.

Mybeer (M) Sdn Bhd, the company organising the event, said in a separate statement that they were informed by DBKL officials that the decision was made “due to the political sensitivity surrounding the event”.

So I guess there’s one thing beer can’t do, after all.

FIGHTING MISOGYNY WITH HAIR DYE: “If you were really concerned about being taken seriously, would you go to the press and rave about your hair color like that?”

PATRICK POOLE: Media Continues Gaslighting Somali Refugee’s Stabbing Terror Attack at Minnesota Mall.

ESPN OFF THE RAILS: This Video Montage Proves ESPN Has Been Biased for a Long Time.

DON’T BE WEEVILS: Google is serving ads in YouTube Red – even though it promises not to.

CRUEL, BUT FAIR: How Rex Tillerson alienated every ally he needs.

THE DEMS ARE HAVING A BAD YEAR. OR TWO. ‘My God’: Did this Va. Dem make the worst campaign ad in American political history?

OF NARRATIVES PAST AND PRESENT: In the new issue of Commentary, Andrew Ferguson profiles veteran DC journalist Elizabeth Drew, whom he describes as “Washington’s Keeper of the Narratives.”

Every administration gets suited up with the Divided White House Narrative at some point; Donald Trump’s is just the latest to succumb, and Ronald Reagan’s never outgrew it. The Pentagon Papers Narrative is also ongoing, most recently with Julian Assange as the hero, until he broke the narrative flow and became a bad guy, not at all like that brave Daniel Ellsberg. Bill Clinton’s White House was fit into the Tragic Presidency Narrative originally applied to the administration of Lyndon Johnson. Bill Clinton—able, smart, stuffed with charm, oozing political savvy—was shown lifting the country from the HWBushian darkness into the light of Democratic peace and prosperity even as he was brought low by his own personal Vietnam, who was wearing a thong.

More than once Barack Obama was draped in the Cuban Missile Crisis Narrative. His iciness was undeniable, though how canny he was remains an open question. But his far-seeing aide, John Kerry, was a Kennedy wannabe from Massachusetts, and when the time came to stare down the nuke-craving mullahs and call their bluff, Obama rose to the narrative by striking the Iran nuclear deal, thereby saving the world from cataclysm. It says so right here in the narrative.

Drew is handy with all these narratives, able to keep one spinning on the tip of a pool cue even as she balances another on her forehead while lifting a third with her big toe. As Keeper of the Narratives, though, she has particular responsibility for the crown jewel. Drew covered the Watergate scandal in weekly dispatches for the New Yorker and has been closely associated with it ever since. She even appears in the movie adaptation of All the President’s Men, which, although admittedly fictionalized and largely debunked, is to Washington narratives what the epic of Gilgamesh is to quest literature.

Drew’s Watergate articles became a book, called Washington Journal. I reread it the other day. It is droll, knowing, discursive, full of flavorsome detail, a worthy and appealing work of higher journalism. It is also animated by a subcutaneous vein of hysteria. Actually, it’s hysteria and delight all mixed together, for in Washington the two are always commingling. We Washingtonians are an excitable people. We feed off crises, draw strength from the Republic’s misfortune. I recall a remark from Ben Bradlee, editor of the Washington Post (yeah, he was legendary, too), during the Iran-Contra scandal of the late 1980s. The official position of the Washington establishment was that Iran-Contra, like Watergate before it, was a grave threat to the Constitution, indeed to the existence of self-government. No laughing matter, in other words. And yet: “I haven’t had so much fun since Watergate,” Bradlee said. That’s the emotional life of the capital, indiscreetly expressed.

And Drew is its truest representative.

In the middle of a fascinating hour-long interview with Peter Robson on Uncommon Knowledge, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame and the author of