The latest report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was bad news for the administration. It showed a small increase in employment and it revised downwards earlier data.
Trump was furious. The official was fired immediately. The message to federal data agencies was clear: Report good news or look for a new job.
Question: Will we ever be able to trust data reported by the Federal Government again? Maybe in four years?
Charles Rugaber of the AP reported:
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday removed the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported.
Trump, in a post on his social media platform, alleged that the figures were manipulated for political reasons and said that Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, should be fired. He provided no evidence for the charge.
“I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said on Truth Social. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”
Trump later posted: “In my opinion, today’s Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad.”
After his initial post, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said on X that McEntarfer was no longer leading the bureau and that William Wiatrowski, the deputy commissioner, would serve as the acting director.
“I support the President’s decision to replace Biden’s Commissioner and ensure the American People can trust the important and influential data coming from BLS,” Chavez-DeRemer said.
Friday’s jobs report showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month and that 258,000 fewer jobs were created in May and June than previously estimated. The report suggested that the economy has sharply weakened during Trump’s tenure, a pattern consistent with a slowdown in economic growth during the first half of the year and an increase in inflation during June that appeared to reflect the price pressures created by the president’s tariffs…
Trump has sought to attack institutions that rely on objective data for assessing the economy, including the Federal Reserve and, now, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The actions are part of a broader mission to bring the totality of the executive branch — including independent agencies designed to objectively measure the nation’s wellbeing — under the White House’s control.
McEntarfer was nominated by Biden in 2023 and became the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in January 2024. Commissioners typically serve four-year terms but since they are political appointees can be fired. The commissioner is the only political appointee of the agency, which has hundreds of career civil servants.
The Senate confirmed McEntarfer to her post 86-8, with now Vice President JD Vance among the yea votes.
Trump focused much of his ire on the revisions the agency made to previous hiring data. Job gains in May were revised down to just 19,000 from 125,000, and for June they were cut to 14,000 from 147,000. In July, only 73,000 positions were added. The unemployment rate ticked up to a still-low 4.2% from 4.1%.
“No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers,” Trump wrote. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”
The monthly employment report is one of the most closely-watched pieces of government economic data and can cause sharp swings in financial markets. The disappointing figure sent U.S. market indexes about 1.5% lower Friday.
While the jobs numbers are often the subject of political spin, economists and Wall Street investors — with millions of dollars at stake — have always accepted U.S. government economic data as free from political manipulation.
The New York Times added this information about Ms. McEntarfer:
McEntarfer was appointed to her post by President Biden after a long career at the Census Bureau and other agencies, where she served under presidents of both parties, including Trump. She is widely respected in the statistical community, and outside economists have often said they trust the data coming out of the bureau, thanks to her leadership.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Maybe that fired federal employee will go to court for that wrongful firing.
And the fired employee may end up settling for millions in the employee’s favor. Trump doesn’t have to pay that out. The federal government does, which is funded by US taxpayers, tariffs, and increased federal debt, NOT Trump.
Has the porn star’s John signed an executive order that federal agencies that issue reports like that are only allowed to post reports that make Epstein’s besty-alleged pedophile client look good?
In Russia, Putin sends anyone who upsets him to labor camps for decades, even mothers who complain publicly about their son’s being drafted and killed in Ukraine, which I’ve read is a 15-year term.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Has the porn star’s John signed an executive order that federal agencies that issue reports like that are only allowed to post reports that make Epstein’s besty-alleged pedophile client look good?”
Yup, something akin to that, as reported on this day, in USA Today: “Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell quietly moved out of Florida federal prison” (sounds like a quid pro quo is in the works)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/08/01/epstein-accomplice-ghislaine-maxwell-moved-prisons/85475060007/
LikeLiked by 1 person
So didn’t it occur to him that he just made those numbers worse, albeit infinitesimally so, by firing her…?
Question: Will we ever be able to trust data reported by the Federal Government again? Maybe in four years?
To that last question, nope. To the first, we have crossed the threshold into a new… well, can’t call it “reality”… to a new “cognition,” I guess, one in which 2+2 = Israel will be the new math.
LikeLike
IDK, he’s not really any more pro-Israel or pro-Jewish or against anti-semitism (think of all the Jewish college presidents on his hit list, like Harvard’s) than all those very fine people in his NeoNazi and KKK base.
He boils down to always being pro-self, which means pro-money, pro-power, and pro-similarly self-serving autocrats. So in the Middle East, I think the equation we’re supposed to accept is more like 2+2=Saudi Arabia + Qatar etc. (i.e. free money, land and a plane for himself and Trump Riviera)
LikeLike
My point in saying 2+2 = Israel is to say he is complicit in, is an enabler of, the Israeli/Zionist aim to recast everything in terms of Israel, that Israel is the unquestioned center of the universe, that even our Constitutional protections are to be sacrificed to it.
Trump’s part in this? Acceptance of that $100 million campaign check for Zionist billionaire Miriam Adelson. His moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. His having the toxic, far- right, Israel apologist/supporter Steve Miller as policy advisor. His naming the Christian evangelist and historically ignorant Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel. His still continuing the American government policy of giving taxpayer military support and carte blanche to kill at will to Israel. And on, and on, and on…
This is not to negate your points, all of which hold true, as if one such equation of 2+2 = [fill in the blank] isn’t enough to contend with. That there are multiple answers = we are fornicated no matter how you look at it.
LikeLike
Neglected to include the utterly unqualified – thus par for the course for Trump’s picks – Steve Witkoff as special envoy to the Middle East.
LikeLike
“the Israeli/Zionist aim to recast everything in terms of Israel, that Israel is the unquestioned center of the universe, that even our Constitutional protections are to be sacrificed to it.”
I believe in a two state solution to the Palestinian issue, but I also know that it’s a very complicated matter that’s not easy to resolve.
Since its modern day founding, Israel has been surrounded by people in hostile Arab nations who didn’t want it to exist and periodically attacked it, with terrorists and in wars. Ever live in a war torn country? I was living in Israel when the Yom Kippur War broke out and the country was attacked on two fronts. I was very grateful for the strength of the Israeli military, as well as the help provided by the US –which was led by Nixon and a very different GOP then.
Today, and for all of my life, it’s the US that has thought it’s the center of the universe. However, it’s under the direction of a malignant narcissist and his loyal MAGAts that our Constitutional protections are being denied, not because of Israel or Zionists.
LikeLike
The only truly just – though thoroughly impractical – solution is to revert to the Palestine of the pre-1882 land “reforms” under the British, pre-dating even the self- and empire-serving imposition of the British mandate. See for example Ilan Pappé here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY6P2zzv37M and here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6G5LrEd-ts among several others. (I was going to include another Ilan Pappé video I had recently come across “Does Israel have the right to exist or not” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-r4LQrW_ig but found out the Zionist media police had gotten to the uploader and seen to its removal.)
A more practical and justice-approximate solution – though still difficult – solution is to dismantle the current Israel apparatus of a state, i.e. its government, constitution, military, the whole kit-and-caboodle of the invasive European Ashkenazi Jews, with all expropriated property and assets – which is to say, virtually all of it – to the Palestinians. The Palestinians would then develop a new government and constitution and apply to the UN for membership. Those identifying as Israelis would be welcome to participate in the new state as fully fledged citizens contingent upon their abiding by the new government and constitution, or depart for elsewhere.
As to the Yom Kippur and other wars and Israel being surrounded by hostile countries, if the above references don’t give some indication as why, then there is https://ifamericansknew.org/history/origin.html#1973, scroll down to Yom Kippur or choose any war you wish.
For certain, since the end of the Second World War, the United States has thought itself to be, and has fought both overtly and especially covertly, the center of universe. That has been independent of which of the two parties is in office at any one time, as it represents the overarching military-industrial- congressional complex having evolved into the present military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex, Israel incorporated into that. As has been succinctly put, “Israel ‘R’ Us!”
LikeLike
XK,
I disagree. I believe in Israel’s right to exist. I believe that Israel should withdraw its settlements from the West Bank. There should be a two-state settlement. The two sides should agree to peace and to economic cooperation. I have no idea about how to get from here to there. I am simply stating my wish for the end-goal: peace, mutual recognition, economic cooperation.
I visited Israel many years ago and vividly remember one sight: standing on a high point, I looked at the Israel side and saw green fields, created with desalinated water, drip irrigation, and modern farming techniques. I looked at the Arab side and saw dry, parched fields where nothing was growing. Why not share the knowledge and the benefits?
LikeLike
When I lived in Israel, I saw how Jews and Arabs were able to both live and work peacefully in Old Jerusalem, as well as easily visit their holy shrines there. That was unlike prior to the Six Day War, when Jews were not allowed to go there at all. Although, due to terrorist attacks, walls have since been built, Arabs still live, work and go to their holy places there, so I do not agree about giving up Jerusalem –and we have three different opinions about this matter right here.
Today is Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the many tragedies that have befallen the Jews, especially how both the first and the second temples in Jerusalem were destroyed on the same day, THIS DAY, many hundreds of years apart –first by the Babylonians, and then by the Romans.
In Old Jerusalem, the Western Wall, which consists of the remnants of the second temple, is the most holy site where Jews go to pray, but they could not do so when the city was under Arab control.
What a day to be talking to someone who so clearly wants to take away Jerusalem and effectively wipe Israel off the map! I’m out of here.
LikeLike
Jerusalem was supposed to remain open to all faiths, not ceded to Israel. Read Shlaim and Pappe’ on how Jews and Palestinians lived peacefully together for generations upon generations prior to the invasion of the Ashkenazi Jews under their fanciful presumption that Palestine was their homeland. Are you so unaware that Herzl even approached the British to explore the possible establishment of an Israel in Uganda? So much for the claim on Palestine.
If all this is inconvenient truth is too much for you to absorb, and you’re gone, then good, given the genocide that has been taking place for the past 22 months, there’s no place for willful ignorance in any discussion. I quote Maimonides, Moses ben Maimon, a Jew, who said, “I call senseless beliefs and degenerate customs diseases of humanity.” Humanity. That’s what Jews have stood for throughout history. Not cant, falsehoods, fabrications, fantasies, distortions, diminishment, denial, theft of the property and humanity of others.
LikeLike
I lived on two kibbutzim in Israel, one established by Israeli sabras and one established by Holocaust survivors, because I wanted to get to know those very different populations. Have you done that?
Blaming today’s current situation on either of those people is fanciful at best and antisemitic at worst. Personally, I think there should be no room here for people who target Jews like you do, since the blog owner is Jewish, as well as many people who interact here. Personally, I find your comments singling out Holocaust survivors, aka “Ashkenazi Jews,” to be abhorrent and not nearly as well-informed as you’d like to think.
If you believe Uganda is a reasonable place to send Jews, or Madagascar, where the Nazis originally proposed to forcibly relocate Jews, or if you’d like to see American Jews eliminated, you are welcome to go live there yourself.
LikeLike
If you paid any attention, you would realize I was referring to the Ashknenzis who started arriving in the early 1920s, and did you bother to click to links I had provided on Ilan Pappe’? No, you didn’t, because you prefer to cling to pseudo-history, not the historical fact of Zionism under Herzl, who – historical fact, underscored – sought to locate “Israel” in Uganda. Please, spare the world the kibbutz angle, it’s focused on the erasure of Palestinian communities by the Zionists, not on any experiment on community life long since abandoned. And please spare the world the cynical invocation of the Israelis/Zionists to the unspeakable murder of the European Jews as any amelioration of the decades-long, indeed century-long, humiliation, dehumanization, debasement, displacement, theft from, maiming, and murder of the Palestinians all for the sake of establishing their faniciful Eretz- better termed Ersatz – Israel. It was from the noted Dr. Gabor Mate’ – who is Jewish – that I first heard the astute, pretense-puncturing line “The Shoah must go on!” Is he a self-hating Jew? And Norman Finkelstein, whose “The Holocaust Industry” I read years ago in its first edition, and whose scholarship I have followed since, is he a self-hating Jew too? Do you even know who he is? And again, Pappe’? And Avi Shlaim? And Noam Chomsky? Hadn’t I asked you previously whether you consider them self-hating Jews, Jew haters, or antisemites, and you prefer to evade the question? Returning to Gabor Mate, will you bother to see this interview with him and Chris Hedges https://scheerpost.com/2024/12/13/enduring-the-trauma-of-genocide-w-gabor-mate-the-chris-hedges-report/ on Robert Scheer’s – a Jew, by the way – Scheerpost? Did I not – but now do anyway – refer you to Norman Finkelstein’s “Israel is a lunatic state” on You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu4OMmoo5mw? Will you respond to that?
This “goy” through his education, friendships, and experience with Jews has seen that Jews for millennia have stood for humanity, for contributing to the community, for universal social justice, for the life of the mind, for inquiry into the relationship between God and humankind, for philanthropy. In brief, l’chaim! -to life!- is their legacy. I have risen to their defense against being conflated with the outrages of the Israelis and Zionists in newspapers and other online postings.
Zionists, on the other hand, are the galactic antithesis of that, their gross inhumanity, their depravities, their indifference to social justice, their ruthlessness, obliviousness toward and contempt for anything beyond their self-aggrandizing particularism is their legacy. In brief, it is le-mavet! – to death! – that they celebrate, death to anything that stands in the way of their taking anything they hold they are entitled to.
Characteristic of the Zionists and their apologists, they seek to self-identify with the Jews when in fact they are – like that comical and pitiful ex-Congressman George Santos – merely “Jew-ish,” for the sake of convenience and camouflage they seek to get away with their malefactions. Thus any solidly documented, well-articulated, wholly valid and legitimate criticism of them will be reflexively proclaimed a hate-filled, antisemitic attack upon Jews, requiring immediate condemnation and snuffing out.
The fact is the Zionists thrive on antisemitism, the cloak of it allows them to conceal or divert attention from what they are doing, point a finger at someone other themselves, and to play the victim card, part of the hasbara strategy. It surpasses that “parricidal orphan throwing himself on the mercy of the court” definition of sheer “chutzpah.”
Virtually everything – EVERYTHING – I have learned about Israel, Zionism, the present genocide I have learned from Jews – Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe’, Avi Shlaim, Jeffrey Sachs, Gabor Mate’, Kenneth Roth, Gideon Levy, Miko Peled, Max Blumenthal, and Robert Scheer. I have also learned from such non-Jews as Chris Hedges, Rashid Khalidi, Dimitri Lascaris, and Francesca Albanese,
Don’t you dare to fling the feces of antisemitism against me, and don’t embarrass yourself by offering up a Noa Tishby-like response – she the author of “Israel: A Simple(ton’s) Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country in the Solar System – to all those individuals I have mentioned, and with whom you are obligated to be familiar if you wish to speak with any validity or pretense of worth to any discussion relating to the extermination of the Palestinians.
Do not expect me to let pass any remarks by apologists for the willful targeting of Gazan children in the head, chest, and genitals by soulless IDF snipers of “the most moral army in the world” https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cjelp738zd7o, “Two girls shot in Gaza – BBC pieces together what happened and looks at dozens more child shootings,” and https://jamesmacleod.substack.com/p/a-humanhunting-game-israeli-forces, “A Human‑Hunting Game”: Israeli Forces Systematically Targeted Palestinian Children in Gaza. British surgeon Dr. Nick Maynard says the Israeli defence force operating in Gaza are turning the targeting of Palestinian children into a ‘human-hunting game.'”
LikeLike
I have never approved the disgusting tactics and behavior of the Netanyahu regime. Never. He is a criminal.
LikeLike
Reassuring to hear. Now what do you have to say about the 82% of Israelis who want to expel Palestinians from Gaza, 47% who want to kill every man, woman, and child? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/poll-82-of-israelis-want-to-expel-palestinians-from-gaza-47-want-to-kill-every-man-woman-child/ar-AA1FPQHi
LikeLike
Israel needs an election. Netanyahu needs to be arrested and tried.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Were that to happen. One trouble is, there is no visible opposition candidate for PM to be seen. That says something troubling. Protests, yes, but who is willing to run?
LikeLike
There is no Trump in Israel. No one is afraid to protest against Netanyahu. There are protests at his home regularly and anti-Netanyahu protests in the streets.
When there is an election, Netanyahu will go on trial on multiple counts. Like Trump, he stays in office to avoid prison.
Someday when there is an official inquiry into the events of October 7, Netanyahu will be held accountable for withdrawing troops from the Gaza border and for criminal actions of other kinds.
His son, by the way, is draft age and lives in Miami.
LikeLike
“His son, by the way, is draft age and lives in Miami.”
Does this get any more absurd?
LikeLike
“did you bother to click to links I had provided on Ilan Pappe’?”
Seems incumbent upon you as an academic at least to take a look at what other academics/scholars have to say, that seems to go without saying. So what did you think, please give a brief synopsis of your thinking.
LikeLike
So evidently my comments are now being censored. A goy, who’s learned virtually everything he has learned about Israel, about Zionism, about the genocide in Gaza, from highly regarded Jews at the apex of the educational hierarchy – including one appointed Institute Professor in 1976, the highest honor at MIT – and who has unintentionally come across two Jews on this site who know nothing about these histories, whether through habituated indoctrination or willful denial, and who tries to elicit some cognition from them about this gross deficiency, of being historically AWOL, as the world fails to respond to the great moral depravity of the time, instead gets ignored, intimated through the hackneyed trope as being an antisemite. This from individuals who purport to speak, carry on about, “education and democracy.” Fuhgeddaboudit.
LikeLike
Your comments have never been censored. I disagree with you. That’s not censorship.
LikeLike
Please explain why I cannot see them posted. Does the site somehow only show a certain number of responses to comments?
LikeLike
WordPress puts comments into moderation without my direction. If you had been censored by me, you would be gone.
LikeLike
So their version of AI at work.
LikeLike
XK,
When I awoke this morning and looked at comments, I discovered that WordPress put some of yours into moderation. As every reader here knows, that can happen to anyone without my knowledge. You were not censored.
LikeLike
Thank you for that explanation, I have seen that Word Press can does that, sometimes not, their algorithm for doing so is not transparent.
LikeLike
Pretending that liar loans, derivatives that separated banks from the mortgages they issued and the National Association of Realtors pretending there was no housing bubble or Larry Kudlow swearing AIG was a great company . Did not prevent the Great Recession and the financial collapse. Nor Hank Paulson going to Congress with knees shaking and the end of Capitalism as we socialized the losses of the Banks . Unreliable economic reporting will only prevent employers from investing, causing further lay offs. It is the authoritarian playbook , but it does not put money in peoples pockets nor change the reality of higher prices or unemployment.
LikeLike
Good luck getting unbiased credible information to help you invest your life savings. Reality will now warp to the prevarications of the demented pedophile insurrectionist. Putin’s little Kompromat jester will now dance in front of the world slathered in his orange clown makeup as our institutions – higher education, Congress, a free press – burn to the ground.
LikeLike
Blame as he will,
Blame as he must
The emperor has no clothes
His regime is a bust.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5432776-rage-against-the-regime-protests-what-to-know/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not to worry! We have a new Rose Garden!
Total low life living in the White House.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Paving over the historic Rose Garden is disgusting. Just demonstrates Trump’s trashy taste.
LikeLike
Not to worry, Trump and Putin are in charge of the nuclear weapons/nuke missiles of their respective countries. What could possibly go wrong with these 2 geniuses at the helms of their ships of state. One malignant conniver war monger versus a malignant moron, guess who’s who?
LikeLike
In my geography classes we use data from the US government on a regular basis . This summer has been sent downloading that information so that we can still access it when the sites get radically altered.
LikeLike
Wow. Good thinking but how terrible to have to think that way.’
LikeLike
As I could not find record of my response to your comment made at 2:12 pm today (there evidently is no “reply” click in the upper right hand corner), I submit it here.
“I visited Israel many years ago and vividly remember one sight: standing on a high point, I looked at the Israel side and saw green fields, created with desalinated water, drip irrigation, and modern farming techniques. I looked at the Arab side and saw dry, parched fields where nothing was growing. Why not share the knowledge and the benefits?”
A comment right in line with Golda Meir’s arrogance and willful ignorance:
“One of the first sights that shocked me, when I came to Israel in 1921, was an Arab turning over a field with a very primitive plow; pulling the plow were an ox and a woman. Now, if it means that we have destroyed this romantic picture by bringing in tractors, combines, and threshing machines, this is true: we have,” and
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.”
I supplied links to the work of noted historian Ilan Pappé, did you bother with clicking them before making such a superficial, unexamined, reflexive, hasbara-fueled comment, or did you not care to acknowledge that when the first university-educated Ashkenazi Zionists arrived in Palestine they knew nothing – nothing – about survival in that environment, that it was the Palestinians who willingly taught them how to farm, how to survive? Or do you recklessly subscribe to the notion that Pappé – and Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and Avi Shlaim, among others – are “self-hating Jews,” that Rashid Khalidi, a renowned Palestinian scholar and author of “The Hundred Years War on Palestine,” a “Jew hater” or “antisemite.”
Is it further beyond comprehension that the “lushness” of Israel has come about by the pushing of Palestinians off their own land since the Nakba, by the stealing of their agricultural lands and water supplies not only for their crops but also their swimming pools, by the reduction of their lives to fight for mere subsistence, in place of thriving because of all the repressions, strictures, humiliations, denial of self-determination placed upon them since the Nakba, and even before, as part of the Zionist plan to expel them from their own land. Denial of right of return, whoever heard of such an absurdity placed upon a people?
I find it amazing, though thoroughly in keeping with the education/indoctrination system in Israel extending from grade school through adulthood*, that Israelis know nothing of the history of their illegitimate country** than the myths they’ve been fed. Leon Uris’s “Exodus” is fiction, not a documentary. Here are two other short videos for you to ignore at your will on “How Israel’s education system brainwashes children,” Part 1 and 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRbAKrLfXZw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBAdpeJrN_Q
Again, Pappé and Shlaim have written about their personal experience under this, the latter in his “Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew.” Enjoy investing some time with them.
*Why were both Pappé and Shlaim compelled to give up their university teaching positions and leave for England?
**What do you make of Abraham Feinberg’s $2 million in cash given to Harry Truman’s to rescue his flagging 1948 re-election campaign in gratitude of his recognition of Israeli statehood 10 minutes after it being declared by Ben Gurion, despite the unanimous and strenuous opposition from the State Dept., including Secy of State George Marshall, in lieu of a UN protectorate to avoid what has become the present carnage?
LikeLike