Trump Narrows BLS Focus to Just BS
Trump responds to bad jobs numbers by adding one more bad job number and firing bearer of bad news
Aug. 4: BLS decapitation threatens to defenestrate U.S. economy … EXCLUSIVE: Forgotten records show how Trump made Mar-a-Lago Epstein’s ideal hunting ground … DHS, Pentagon working together on more collaborations to violate constitutional guards against military deployments on U.S. soil … Texas Democrats flee state of horrors …
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Apparently, no one’s ever given Pres. Donald Trump the message not to blame the messenger. Because no one gives billionaires messages that don’t consist of praising their awesomeness and relaying the news of other people praising their awesomeness.
Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) Commissioner Erika McEntarfer not only failed to praise Trump’s awesomeness, she dared to reveal his anti-awesomeness.
On Friday, the BLS released July jobs numbers and revised previous jobs numbers. Not in a good way.
July saw a meager, sub-Bidenian total of just 73,000 jobs created despite Trump’s awesomeness. Revised May and June job numbers, the orange bars in this Wall Street Journal chart, now look a lot more like you’d expect them to look in the first two full months after announcing massive global tariffs:
Trump immediately added to this month’s labor statistics by firing McEntarfer. The reduction in staff will allow BLS to focus on its new, core mission, of BS.1
Of course, Trump being bad at everything, it turns out firing McEntarfer has nothing to do with the numbers. She didn’t generate or juke them. And the data are all transparent, anyway.
Ironically, BLS so far has been helping Trump. The bad data we got initially for May and June actually helped buffer the market response to Trump’s tariffs, cushioning him and the GOP from even worse blowback to their blowing back home.
That’s not BLS’s fault — it’s absolutely understandable why the initial surveys for those months might have been off while businesses were scrambling to figure out what the fuck to do about a literally unprecedented and unsmart dynamiting of global trade. Of course early numbers were off.
But as The Atlantic points out, Trump’s emotional-support clowns were thrilled at the time to cite the absence of bad economic data as vindication of their vindictive tariffs. Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran crowed a month ago that “Lots of folks predicted that it would end the world; there would be some sort of disastrous outcome.”
Firing McEntarfer will only ensure that no one believes the BLS anymore and will prevent Trump from having the best data on which to base the worst decisions. It’s as if a guy with muscle tremors volunteered at a magic show to saw the lady in half and then put on a blindfold.
Because of the way Trump did it, he could now hire the best labor statistician in the world and still no one would believe the numbers. Not good numbers for Trump. And people will assume even bad numbers are covering up even-worse numbers.
Trump in the awesome Trumpitudity of his stupidity has now made it impossible for him to get credit for any good jobs numbers ever.
And the Wall Street Journal reports that undermining Earth’s confidence in U.S. jobs numbers “could have surprising effects on trillions in assets and payments.”
As the Journal’s Spencer Jakab notes, BLS was already under fire for collecting less inflation data and inflating its number of inflation guesses. That’s because BLS data is tied to some very real spending and investing.
BLS data drives Social Security benefits. If Trump puts his thumb on the inflation scale, that means millions of Social Security beneficiaries getting less money.
And then there are U.S. bonds indexed to inflation rates. Per Jakab, “if investors suspect they’re subject to political influence, it could chill the $2 trillion market for Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities.” As any good chef will tell you, you never want to chill anything that involves $2 trillion.
OTHER NEW NUMBERS THAT ARE NOT GOOD Factory jobs are at a five-year low according to new data that Trump can’t (yet) juke.
The Institute for Supply Management reports that U.S. factory activity is contracting, not expanding, and has been for five straight months. Hmm.
New factory orders have dwindled for six straight months. Hmm.
After less than a year, the only growth category in which America’s still the manufacturing leader is sad trombones.
OTHER FACTS TRUMP HAS DECIDED ARE NOT GOOD Firing the head fact-reporter may be Trump’s most transparent and pitiful fact-rejection move so far, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the many other non-facts he’s deemed facts contrary to actual, empirical, epistemological evidence:
Iran’s nuclear sites were destroyed by the U.S. military attack despite multiple intelligence reports that they were not.
Venezuela sent trained paramilitary here as an invading force to destabilize the country despite Trump’s own intelligence community and director reporting that they did not.
Trump Tower had 68 floors despite expert floor-counters locating only 58 floors.
Trump’s inaugural crowd was historically big despite crowd-counters reporting it was not.
The 2020 presidential election was stolen despite Justice Department lawyers and investigators concluding reluctantly that it was not.
Former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden wrote The Epstein Files™ despite Attorney General Pam Bondi not telling Trump that.
Trump just gave us new evidence that he’s monstrously unqualified to assess anything about reality, let alone math. Here he is, on the same day he rejected the BLS numbers, estimating future price reductions for drugs:
Let the record show that the price of any drug is no more than 100% of it. One can only reduce the price of anything by 100%. And then it’s free. Any more than 100%, and one is now giving away money. So, according to Trump’s prediction, drug companies are going to make some drugs free and start giving consumers as much as 1100% of the old price to boot.
It’s also worth noting that Trump prefaced his claim that the BLS numbers were rigged with the phrase “In my opinion.” Misuse of the word “opinion” is actually a bipartisan sin.
“Opinion” does not mean “guess.” It means “subjective view about something subjective.” It’s understandable that people often cloak their BS under the mantle of opinion. Opinions cannot be wrong, after all.
So it’s important to recognize when an “opinion” is actually a guess.
To wit, one can have the opinion that chocolate ice cream is good. One cannot have the opinion that chocolate ice cream is lobster almondine.
If one defends a factual claim by calling it one’s “opinion,” one is doing facts badly. In my opinion.
OTHER PLACES THAT SELF-FUCKED THEMSELVES BY JUKING DATA Trump may be a disruptor, but he’s no innovator. One example of other countries that beat Trump in the Juke Race is Greece’s BS numbers helping drag Greece into its grinding, years-long economic crisis.
The New York Times shares other stupicidal instances from whatever’s left of history:
China’s local officials juked economic data to hit the federal government’s targets.
Argentina deflated inflation numbers so wildly that lack of confidence added to the nation’s borrowing costs, exacerbating the debt crisis that led to default.
Pretending it had an economy is literally how the Soviet Union collapsed.
As the Wall Street Journal editorial board put it last night, “The reality of slowing job growth is clear to anyone paying attention, no matter the official statistics. Mr. Trump’s data denial is one more reason fewer Americans will trust the government.”
Of course, firing McEntarfer is just a drop in the public’s government-trust bucket as long as Trump continues to cover up The Epstein Files™.
EXCLUSIVE: How Trump Created a Hunting Ground for Epstein
Unearthed lawsuits, depositions, and even old help-wanted ads show how pre-President Donald Trump created a target-rich environment at Mar-a-Lago for the predations of BFF Jeffrey Epstein and Epstein BFF Ghislaine Maxwell.
I uncovered and reported on this stuff — some of it old and some never seen before — over on my original-reporting Substack, because that’s how I spend my weekends once I’ve kicked a stupid cold. Some of the high/lowlights from my article:
Trump’s job ads specifically encouraged college students to apply as spa attendants
Mar-a-Lago’s HR manager said Trump wanted “young, attractive” workers
Virginia Giuffre described the uniform for spa girls as mini-skirt and “skin-tight” top.
That’s what she was wearing when Maxwell spotted Giuffre in the brush during a 2000 safari at Mar-a-Lago.
Understandably, Trump’s acknowledgment last week that he knew Epstein recruited Giuffre now has her family wondering what the fuck else that fucker knew. Especially since his comments about Epstein have just raised even more questions and contradictions about how and why he split from Epstein.
TEASER A little birdie told me there’s a possibility my story is gonna be covered by one of the big, online, indie news outlets. No need to look for it, of course, as I will obviously show no restraint whatsoever touting this fact if indeed it happens.
Senate Dems Stick It to GOP, but Hint at Future Capitulation
The U.S. Senate left town this weekend, going home for the entire month like this is France or somewhere else with healthy work-life balance instead of this Calvinistic work-or-die bullshit ethos that had me unearthing gross Jeffrey Epstein shit all weekend.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) sent everyone home after Democrats stuck to their guns and refused to stop slow-walking the embarrassingly unqualified nominations of embarrassingly unqualified Pres. Donald Trump. Trump had demanded that the Senate cancel its August recess in order to keep rubber-stamping new passengers in his emotional-support clown car.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was considering a number of possible trade-offs in exchange for speeding up the Republican rubber-stamping, but talks fell apart over the weekend. Trump wrote that Schumer could “GO TO HELL,” which I’m sure everyone enjoyed on both sides. But here’s the troubling part…
On Saturday, Schumer warned Republicans not to change the rules when they come back in September, in order to speed up confirmations. Why wouldn’t the GOP do that? Here’s Schumer:
As we look ahead to the fall, Republicans have to make a decision moving forward: they can work to find common ground with Democrats to deliver for our constituents—for our country. Just look at the three appropriation bills we passed this week. It shows that Democrats, when Republicans are willing to work with us, will work with them.
What happens in the fall? The next budget bill. Schumer is effectively pre-capitulating, announcing that Democrats will give Republicans the votes to avoid a shutdown in exchange for a few pittances and scraps tossed to Democrats in the process.
The AP figured this out and put it in clearer language than Schumer did:
Schumer said a rules change would be a “huge mistake,” especially as Senate Republicans will need Democratic votes to pass spending bills and other legislation moving forward.
Which might explain why polling released just a week ago found that 63% of the country disapprove of the job Democrats are/aren’t doing. That massive number isn’t due to the country shifting right, it’s due to Democratic voters pissed at Democratic capitulation.
PIRRIC VICTORY Former Fox TV person Jeanine Pirro this weekend joined the ranks of other former Fox TV people populating the top ranks of government.
Pirro — who stuck out as a bent Cheez Doodle even in the Fox snack bag of crazy — was confirmed and sworn in/at as U.S. attorney for Washington, DC. Meaning she’s literally the top federal prosecutor in the district including the nation’s capital. Like, this actual nation.
Pirro is perhaps best known as a star of “The Five” on Fox and a co-star of the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit over Pirro and other Fox people lying about the 2020 election on Fox’s air because Fox was committed to spoonfeeding happy pablum to its viewers even though internal emails showed they knew their on-air people were spewing crazy sauce all over the cameras.
In a disturbing development, Pirro’s confirmation means she is now officially in charge of things, meaning some literal humans will actually have to do what she says, whereas in the past they could just change the channel.
Memo by Lesser Hegseth Reveals Plan for More Military Activity on U.S. Soil
The New Republic’s Greg Sargent has obtained an internal Dept. of Homeland (sic) Security (DHS) memo revealing a July 21 meeting with the Pentagon “to enhance operational coordination between DHS and DoD in defense of the homeland [sic].”
The memo was written by the DHS liaison to the Pentagon: Philip Hegseth, no relation to the brother of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The existence of a lesser Hegseth, unable to reach the heights his brother achieved, is disturbing enough. But the memo reveals even worse.
Hegseth says the meeting included “A verbal agreement to find places where DoD can detail personnel within ICE and CBP [Customs and Border Protection] (and vice-versa) to increase information sharing, and specifically support nationwide operational planning capabilities.”
But also, Hegseth fires an apparent warning shot at his brother’s top officials for being insufficiently Hegsethian (italics added for petulance):
The U.S. military leadership (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and NORTHCOM) need to feel — for the first time — the urgency of the homeland [sic] defense mission. They need to understand the threat [sic], what’s at stake, and the political importance the administration has placed on this issue.
Why aren’t those Pentagon officials feeling the Hegsethian urgency? How is it that these seasoned military officers lack Hegsethian understanding of the “threat”?
As your unreported-details-reporting TFN revealed back in June, the USNORTHCOM commander in the line of command for the Battle of Los Angeles was Gen. Gregory M. Guillot. It’s not clear what un-Hegsethian acts Guillot is guilty of.
But Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine, you may recall from TFNs past, testified in June that “I don’t see any foreign-state-sponsored folks invading.”
In addition to the lesser Hegseth’s typos and misspellings (“plain” and “plane” are two different words: “Plain” can mean clear or simple, while “plane” can refer to a literal or metaphorical flat space or to the kind of aircraft one’s brother smashed a helicopter into), he also identifies the Battle of Los Angeles as a model for future operations:
Everyone here is also aware of our joint work in L.A.
It hasn’t been perfect, and we’re still working through best practices together, but I think [sic] it’s a good indicator of the type of operations (and resistance) we’re going to be working through for years to come.
No more than three years to come. And it’s worth noting that the Pentagon lost the Battle of Los Angeles. Despite lesser Hegseth’s boss, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem vowing to “liberate” the city from (elected) socialist leadership, the Pentagon has actually pulled back most of its forces even though the city remains in the iron grip of democracy.
Texas Republicans Threaten to Remove Democrats from Office as Part of Plan to Remove Democrats from Office
The Texas state House of Representatives is set to meet today, but a lot of Democratic state legislators got the hell out of Dodge over the weekend to stop the proceedings by denying the state House a full quorum.
That’s because Pres. Donald Trump’s redistricting plan is on the table, which would redraw the state’s congressional map to give Republicans another five House seats in Washington. Texas’s congressional map is already gerrymandered to minimize Democratic representation, so an additional redistricting would qualify as a full geraldmander.
The problem for Texas state Democrats is it’s illegal for them not to show up for work. So now Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) is threatening to remove rogue state legislators from office.
They don’t really have much recourse, which doesn’t mean it’s not worth the performative exodus to raise public awareness. And that could make it easier for Democratic governors, most notably Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), to make good on threats to claw back seats gerrymandered away by Republicans by jerry-rigging their own states’ gerrymandering in favor of Democrats.
Dems Mount Push for Palestinian Statehood
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is getting more House Democrats to sign on to a letter urging the Trump administration to recognize a Palestinian state before everyone in it is dead and it can only be recognized as a Long Island real-estate-developer state.
Thirteen House Democrats have now signed on, Axios reports. Khanna told Axios the letter endorses last week’s Arab League plan, which calls for recognizing a Palestinian state and also the recognition of a Jewish, democratic state.
A number of other Democrats say they expect to introduce additional initiatives in the House in response to the growing humanitarian crisis.
ICE Claims It’s Ignoring Stephen Miller’s Orders Just Like The Rest of Us
In court last week, Justice Department attorney swore that no one at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has enacted or relayed any orders stemming from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s claim of seeking to arrest 3,000 people every day.
Miller said in May that, “we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day and President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher.” But Politico now reports that DOJ attorney Yaakov Roth admitted in court last week that, if Miller or Trump did impose a quota on ICE, that would undermine the agency’s legal cases.
That’s because quotas would incentivize ICE agents to “impermissibly cast suspicion on large segments of the law-abiding population, including anyone in the District who appears Hispanic, speaks Spanish or English with an accent, wears work clothes, and stands near a carwash, in front of a Home Depot, or at a bus stop,” as a three-judge panel concluded last week.
So, Roth claimed no one in ICE is even listening to that guy, Miller whatsisname McGillicuddy whatever.
“[N]either ICE leadership nor its field offices have been directed to meet any numerical quota or target for arrests, detentions, removals, [or] field encounters,” Roth said. In fact, he said this crazy “quota” story came from “anonymous reports in the newspapers,” referring to Miller saying it literally on Fox television (which is not a newspaper) with his unmistakably non-anonymous Stephen Miller face.
In other words, Trump has yet again put himself in a bind. Either he’s lying to his dwindling cohort of xenophobic-cruelty fans, or Trump’s xenophobic cruelty won’t stand up in court. And it’s only going to get worse the longer Trump refuses to deport his administration’s incompetence.
Two Quickies
Alaska state legislators over the weekend overturned two (2) vetoes by Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R-AK). Those overrides included Republican votes in both chambers. Dunleavy had vetoed $50 million in education spending in a battle over his attempts to fuck over the already Alaskan education system (no slight intended toward any of Alaska’s fine educators). Journalist Colleen Mondor shares a fun story of how one legislator thwarted Dunleavy’s attempt to quash the overrides. Dunleavy said the lawmakers preferred to solve problems with “money” while he prefers “policy,” even though his paychecks arrive in the form of “money.”
In case you heard about the Smithsonian Institution eliminating Pres. Donald Trump’s two (2) impeachments from an exhibit on impeachments, fret not. The Smithsonian says it was only temporary as they’re working on a permanent version of the exhibit which will premiere “in the coming weeks” featuring “all impeachment proceedings in our nation’s history,” meaning Trump only has a few weeks left to officially remove his impeachments from history itself.
TCB
I’M BACK! In case you missed it, I marked my triumphant return from my devastating annoying cold last week with a new live chat. Thanks to all you Newsfuckers who were able to join me!
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RESOURCES
Go get ‘em, kids! It’s what Jesus would want…
TFN creator and writer Jonathan Larsen co-created Up w/ Chris Hayes and wrote for Countdown with Keith Olbermann at MSNBC, helped launch CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° and Air America Radio, and has also worked at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Young Turks.
Disclosure: TFN’s commitment to sustainability includes recycling jokes; in this case, TFN has previously reduced another acronym, CBS, to See BS.
“Full geraldmander!” Bravo, sir 👏👏👏🤣
BLS data drives Social Security benefits. If Trump puts his thumb on the inflation scale, that means millions of Social Security beneficiaries getting less money.
You have been great AND much better than just about anyone in reporting about what this admin is doing to SS; I barely see it elsewhere. Much appreciated!