The Economy Will Be Flying Blind (No Data) During The Shutdown

The chart above reflects the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between September 26th and 29th of a nationwide sample of 1,656 adults, with a 3.4 point margin of error.

The American people are not happy with the economy, and a clear majority thinks it's getting worse. I can understand their pessimism. The job market is not good - with more job seekers than jobs available and very few new jobs being created. Also, inflation continues to eat a bigger bite out of the wages of those with jobs.

Republicans have not made things better for most Americans. Their "big beautiful bill" gave huge tax breaks to the rich (the only people who didn't need any government help), while punishing many people who did need the help. The bill kicked millions off of SNAP rolls (meaning they will get no help to buy food). It also kicked millions off the Medicaid rolls (effective after the next election), and stopped subsidies for ACA enrollees at the ending of this year (which will cause their insurance premiums to be raised exorbitantly).

Trump has bragged about how great the economy is, but the people don't believe it and government data tells a different story. Now he won't have to worry about any negative economic data being released. His administration has announced that no economic data will be released by the federal government as long as the shutdown is in effect (because they have furloughed all government workers who compile that data).

That means there will be no weekly unemployment reports (one was due yesterday), no monthly jobs reports (the September jobs report was to be released today), no reports on inflation or GDP or anything else.

The economy will essentially be flying blind during the shutdown. Businesses, agencies, investors, and ordinary Americans will have no reliable data on which decisions can be made about the future. This includes the Federal Reserve (which must soon make a decision on whether to cut interest rates further).

This is not good - but it probably makes Trump happy, because his lies about the economy won't be exposed by government data!

Can We Trust The Data Published By Government Agencies?

Government agencies publish reams of data every month. This data is used to track how well the economy is doing, and how our justice system, environment, and other parts of our democracy are faring, Politicians use the information to write laws, businesses use it to plan for the future, and voters use it to pick candidates. 

This information is vital to the well-being of the country. But can we trust it these days?

In Donald Trump's first term, he told over 30,000 lies - and even most of what came out of the mouths of his aides was laughable. But this is not what I am talking about. The data published by the government did not come from the fantasists at the top of Trump's first administration. It came from the millions of hard-working, honest, career government employees - the ones who diligently do their jobs regardless of which party is in power. So, it could be trusted.

But things have changed in Trump's second term. Instead of just changing leadership at the top of government agencies (as all presidents do), Trump has gone further. He used DOGE to decimate most government agencies - firing many thousands of workers. This was a tactic to instill fear among government workers. Then agency heads made examples of some employees - firing anyone who publicly disagreed with Trump actions or published information Trump didn't like.

The message is very clear. Agree with Trump or else lose your job. 

The sad fact is that the career government jobs are no longer safe. And agencies are not peopled by those who are afraid of Trump or those who are Trump sycophants. 

What happens if the data does not agree with what Trump claims is true or what he wants to be true? Do they change the info (or shade it to be more in line with Trump's  lies)? I would like to think that is not true and brave employees would publish the truth - but truth is not valued in the Trump administration, and anyone publishing truthful data could easily be fired and replaced with someone willing to spread lies.

I think we must treat data coming out of the executive branch agencies with suspicion.  

Musk Leaves (After Laying The Groundwork For A Trump Authoritarianism)

Elon Musk is leaving his government appointment - at least for now. His tenure as head of DOGE created an immense amount of chaos and damage to many government agencies. He has claimed he would cut trillions of dollars from the government budget, but failed to come anywhere near that. He only cut a few billion, and even that was countered by the cost of DOGE. In the end, he likely saved nothing. He just made many agencies less responsive to the citizens they are supposed to help.

But his biggest (and most dangerous) accomplishment has largely flown under the radar. He has forced many government agencies to allow his DOGE flunkies access to their citizen databases (even though that was not necessary to cut "waste and fraud". This information was downloaded and can now be used to create one huge database of information on every citizen - something that will make it easier for Trump to control the population.

Agencies have long gathered information that, while private, was necessary for the agencies to function. But that information was kept private and could not be shared with anyone else - even other government agencies. 

Donald Trump doesn't like that. He wants one big database that contains private information on every citizen. This is the way authoritarians act - the way they are able to seize power and control a population. 

That huge database is now one step closer to be created. That means the United States is a giant step closer to losing its democracy. 

There is no reason for that huge database containing the private information of every citizen. It is not necessary for the government to function efficiently. It's only purpose is to concentrate more power in the executive branch - Donald Trump.

It must be stopped! Sadly, that is unlikely with the sycophants in the GOP-controlled Congress.

For more on this, you can go to this article in The New Republic.

Thousands Of Police Dept. Don't Report Hate Data To FBI

 

The following is by the editorial board of The Washington Post:

The FBI released what seemed to be good news earlier this month, announcing that the agency had counted 7,262 instances of hate crimes in 2021 — a drop from 8,263 the year before. In fact, outside experts said, hate crimes might actually have trended sharply higher last year; the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism charted a 21 percent surge in hate crimes in 20 states over the same period. One reason for the discrepancy: The FBI relies on state and local police departments to report crime numbers to the federal government, and only 11,883 of 18,812 law enforcement agencies submitted their 2021 hate-crimes data. The nation’s two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, were among the non-reporters.

FBI crime data is supposed to give the public, criminal justice researchers and law enforcement agents hard numbers so that they have more than just instinct and anecdote — and the claims of demagogic politicians — to characterize what is happening on the country’s streets and elsewhere. Real numbers provide insights into what is working and what is not. They also show how often police respond to crime with force, against what types of people and in what situations. But voluntary compliance from state and local departments falls well short of what is necessary.

This is not the first time the FBI has struggled to collect reliable criminal justice statistics. The Post has tracked fatal police shootings since 2015, painstakingly sorting through news and social media reports, local law enforcement records and other sources. The Post has found that police shoot and kill about 1,000 people every year — including 1,084 over the past 12 months. Black Americans are killed at a much higher rate than White Americans, the victims skew young, and nearly all are male. Further, the number of fatal police shootings has been rising in recent years, The Post’s tally shows. Yet the FBI has reported a decline between 2015 and 2021. The FBI’s records contain only about one-third of the 7,000 fatal police shootings The Post counted during that period.

In other words, the statistics provided voluntarily by local law enforcement agencies underplay both the scale of the problem and the urgency of taking measures to address it — for instance, by updating use-of-force guidelines and investing in de-escalation training. The FBI has embarked on a broad effort to track fatalities and serious bodily injury committed by law enforcement officers, plus instances in which police officers fire their weapons. Yet the bureau  almost had to shut down the program for lack of response from local police departments.

All of this is despite Congress having passed laws in 1994 and 2014 to improve federal crime data collection.

True, in any given year, smaller police departments might have seen no hate crimes, police use-of-force incidents or other notable events to report, so they might not see a need to inform the FBI. Doing so takes time and resources; the FBI estimates it consumes 38 minutes to report every incident to its police use-of-force database. Police departments complain that the FBI’s transition to a new crime reporting system, which asks for more details, has made complying harder.

But “none this year” results are crucial if the FBI is to compile an accurate and comprehensive report. Police departments that have a sense of what is happening within their areas would also benefit from seeing what is happening down the road — or across the country.

Congress should intervene once again. Federal appropriations to help police departments report their crime numbers are an obvious place to start. At the same time, Congress should condition the large number of various crime-fighting grants it sends to state and local governments on departments reporting their numbers. Bills such as 2021’s George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, which passed the House but got nowhere in the Senate, would have created such a system. Federal legislators should also eliminate any confusing or duplicative reporting requirements that place an unnecessary burden on police departments.

Ultimately, however, the federal government has only so much leverage. Most police funding comes from state and local governments. Some departments get scant federal money at all. So state governments should also step in, requiring their police departments to submit crime data to the FBI — or to them directly, to be forwarded to the FBI.

A trustworthy set of statistics is a foundational tool with which to begin figuring out just how big of a problem crime, police use of force and related issues are in the United States — and how to tackle them.

Sanders Campaign Steals Data From The Clinton Campaign

The Sanders and Clinton campaigns both make use of the database provided by the Democratic National Committee (DNC). But they do not share information with each other. There is a firewall separating the information collected by the two campaigns, and both campaigns have agreed to abide by that separation.

Unfortunately, one campaign has now violated that trust.

That firewall was down for a short time recently, and realizing they could now have access to the Clinton campaign data, four Sanders staffers jumped on the unethical opportunity and ran at least 25 searches of the Clinton data. They built lists and saved them to their own accounts. This was not just some volunteers. The effort was led by Sanders campaign political data director Josh Uretsky.

The DNC data base provider realized what was happening after about 25 minutes, and deleted the information collected in accounts they knew about. The DNC has now suspended the Sanders campaign's access to the database until an audit can be done to insure they possess no data they should not have. The Sanders campaign has fired Uretsky, but isn't cooperating with the audit.

Instead, they have gone to court to have their access returned, and say the denial of access is just the DNC trying to give Clinton an advantage in the primary election. That is ridiculous. The DNC has been very careful to stay out of the campaign, and if it had been the Clinton campaign stealing data, they would have denied them access for an audit.

This was nothing short of theft, and it was done by only one campaign -- the Sanders campaign. It cannot be fixed by blustery rhetoric or accusations. They need to apologize and give the DNC what it needs to clear up the situation and restore access.

Sanders has bragged since getting into the presidential race that he plans to run the most ethical campaign of any candidate of any party. Sadly, it looks like some of his employees don't have that same high ethical standard. They seem to think that anything goes as long as they think it will help their candidate. I can understand their frustration over Sanders being unable to turn the race into a real contest, but frustration doesn't justify theft or dirty tricks -- and their unethical actions tend to smear the entire campaign effort.

This mess will undoubtably come up in tonight's Democratic debate. I hope Sanders doesn't try to play it off as the DNC unfairly trying to help Clinton. If he does, I'll lose a lot of the immense respect I have for him.

(The caricatures above of Sanders and Clinton are from DonkeyHotey.)