The NYT reports that the MAGA thug running the commerce department, Howard Lutnick, is planning to fudge the numbers on America's GDP to obscure evidence of an impending recession:
Comments from a member of President Trump’s cabinet over the weekend have renewed concerns that the new administration could seek to interfere with federal statistics — especially if they start to show that the economy is slipping into a recession.
In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, suggested that he planned to change the way the government reports data on gross domestic product in order to remove the impact of government spending.
Federal spending cuts and reducing the federal work force will be drag on economic growth in coming months. Removing federal spending from G.D.P. calculations obscures the impact of djt and MAGA policies.
Lutnick claims this will increase transparency. One can assume fudging the numbers will decrease transparency while increasing secrecy. The GDP is a measure of consumer spending, private-sector investment, net exports, and government investment and spending. That gives an approximation of all goods and services produced in a country. The definition of gross domestic product has been unchanged for decades. It is widely accepted by experts.
FWIW, Project 2025 suggests consolidating the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Census Bureau, and Bureau of Labor Statistics into a single agency. This consolidation will undermine the independence and data collection capabilities of these important agencies. They provide vital economic and demographic information. P2025 also recommends maximizing the hiring of political appointees in statistical analysis positions, which will lead to politically motivated data manipulation, i.e., lying affirmatively and by omission. djt's executive orders have already removed or manipulated over 8,000 web pages and approximately 3,000 datasets across multiple federal agencies. For MAGA seeking to hide inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning, data manipulation and secrecy are the primary go-to tactics.
Rule of thumb: When a MAGA thug tells you something is good, e.g., more transparency, a reasonable default reaction is to believe it is bad and a lie, with the opposite goal (more secrecy) most likely intended. Let's face it, MAGA is going to lie to us over and over and over.
Lutnick
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Here's part of an open letter by the American Bar Association about how it sees the actions of djt and MAGA in terms of the rule of law, separation of powers and the role of the courts:
The ABA rejects efforts to undermine the courts and the legal profession
(well, duh!)
Three weeks ago, the American Bar Association spoke to you about values that guide us. We called upon every lawyer to insist that the government adhere to four major principles of law that have guided our country for over 200 years: Defending Judges and Courts, Acknowledging the Role of the Courts, Adhering to the Rule of Law, and Respecting the Separation of Powers and the three co-equal branches of government with distinct duties and responsibilities. These principles have been bedrocks of American democracy. The ABA does not shrink from standing in support of each of them.
Since that time, government actions evidence a clear and disconcerting pattern. If a court issues a decision this administration does not agree with, the judge is targeted. If a lawyer represents parties in a dispute with the administration, or if a lawyer represents parties the administration does not like, lawyers are targeted. We issued statements standing up for these four key principles, and a government official targeted us by instructing some of its lawyers not to attend ABA meetings or participate as speakers. These actions highlight escalating governmental efforts to interfere with fair and impartial courts, the right to counsel and due process, and the freedoms of speech and association in our country.
High-ranking government officials (appointed and elected) have made repeated calls for the impeachment of judges who issue opinions with which the government does not agree. There have been calls to impeach “corrupt judges” with no effort to produce evidence of the so called “corruption.” These have been directed only at judges who have ruled against the government position.
There have now been statements by officials criticizing judges for not following the will of the people. Judges swear oaths to follow the law, not public opinion polling or political chatter or what someone contends is the will of the people. (emphasis added)
An important point that MAGA demagoguery has successfully been poisoning the American public with is the distinction between duty to the rule of law and duty to the will of the people. In my opinion, when laws are made in good faith and in accord with existing law, the rule of law reflects the will of the people. When laws are made in bad faith, as is now the norm for djt and MAGA, I see it as anti-democratic. That is the case even if new MAGA laws are in the scope of existing law. I consider manipulation of public perceptions and laws by elites using MAGA demagoguery against us to be more authoritarian than democratic.
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I didn't listen to any of djt's SOTU speech. The reporting about it was what I expected, lots of lies, slanders and divisiveness, not much substance. The Dems seemed to be in disarray, also as I expected.
