President Donald Trump on Friday fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, hours after the agency reported that job growth in the U.S. had slowed to a near-halt.

In a Truth Social post that also directed even more fire at Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Trump accused BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of being a political appointee who was manipulating jobs data.

“I was just informed that our Country’s “Jobs Numbers” are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala’s [Harris’] chances of Victory,” Trump wrote.

“We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” he added.

  • limelight79@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Ever hear the expression, "Hitler made the trains run on time“?

    Thing is, he didn’t. But everyone was afraid to report that they weren’t running on time, so officially they always met their schedules.

    That’s where this is heading.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      The thing is, we don’t need you to march on Washington. We need you to march against your neighbor who’s so full of OAN that they still support the asshat in chief.

      • killea@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        That’s just it though. These folks seem IMPOSSIBLE to get through to. Though admittedly my experience may draw from some of the lead-alzheimer’s cadre of boomers. I mean they spent fuckin decades making sure they had a poorly educated group that would VOTE, with the added bonus that so many of them were surreptitiously ending up brain damaged as well.

        I really wish I knew how to help these people. I’ve been compassionate, patient, understanding; and I’ve also brow beat the shit out of em, gotten in screaming matches (not too often, but they tend to respect a level of violence). And it tends to have little effect. It’s the part of this that vexes and hurts me the most, and why I can’t help but feel this will only be rectified with chilling violence that none of us want and are ill-suited to execute. Ugh.

        • Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          Their belief in MAGA is filling some deep psychological need. Logical reasoning around the belief is irrelevant because logic can’t activate whatever social buttons are being satisfied by their engagement with the MAGA movement.

          Research trying to figure out what makes humans susceptible to this kind of stuff and how to protect each other was a hot topic, but then Congressional Republicans launched harassing investigations into everyone in the field and the institutions that supported their work, and of course the current executive branch has entrenched that fear. Gotta keep the victims coming to the grifter trough.

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          So far we’ve been screaming that the meteors are coming. They haven’t really hit yet. When they start landing next to them and on them, then most of them will start to believe it.

          But one, how close the meteor needs to hit varies. And two, a few won’t even get it when their wife gets deported.

    • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Maybe we help each other get elected to local positions in our communities and state. Only way we can truly make some difference. Anyone in Oklahoma area won’t join the resistance?

  • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    He wants people who will lie for him, like bondi, bongino, kash, hegseth, tulsi, etc.

    He wants people who will lie, break the law, or support/hide/ignore illegal activities. He’s a fucking mobster. Organized crime is at the executive branch. Arguably the judiciary and Senate as well.

    Watching fascism play out in real time… What a time to be alive.

      • humorlessrepost@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Depends on timing. We’re in a small window between them showing their intent, and a first-for-humanity inability to organize against them. Once ORNL gets their nuke-powered AI up and running, and fed all the Palantir data and the decades of mass surveillance data the NSA has but hasn’t been able to use at scale, the regime will be able to have a constantly-updated list of the people most likely to instigate an uprising, and can just MLK them or blackmail them before their movement gets off the ground. All that will remain are easily-dealt-with and easily-discredited lone wolves.

        • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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          Goddamn man. Depressing. This is exactly what I expected though, and nearly lost my mind over 20 years ago.

          I was so excited about technology, and then it occurred to me that it would definitely have been used by Hitler 1.0 if he’d had it, and it definitely will be used by Hitler 2.0 when the time comes.

          The next big authoritarian movement will not need neighbors informing on each other. People have unwittingly prepared a dossier on themselves and handed it to the Stasi.

          Man, oh man.

          • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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            What Hitler 1.0 actually had available to him was adequate to maintain complete control over Germany despite the German people going through much worse than what we’ve experienced (so far, at least). Germany had clearly lost WWII, her cities had been bombed into complete rubble (so much so that there really wasn’t anything left to bomb), and the Allied armies were rapidly closing in on all sides. And yet Hitler and his cronies didn’t lose their grip on power, not until the Russians were literally overhead and Hitler put a bullet in his brain. The German people never rose up and overthrew fascism on their own.

      • Furbag@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Why waste the space putting the crooks who willingly sold out the country on ice when there’s a perfectly good gallows?

      • limelight79@lemmy.world
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        I would like someone to create a website where we can list the enablers. All of them. Make a list. Start with Trump. Add everyone in his cabinet. Add all of his enablers, down to the people that voted for him.

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    1 day ago

    kyle kulinsky from secular talk says we (the US) are already in a recession, and i really can’t think of any evidence to the contrary. so, what I’m trying to say, is does anyone have anything fun going on? something positive to talk about? 😃

  • limelight79@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    We’re fucked. It’s all over but the fighting.

    Until a few months ago, I was a statistician for the US government. 25 years. I’m so fucking glad I’m out, though I’m making far less than I used to, honestly not enough yet. But I’m glad I’m not under his thumb.

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    The administration equivalent of putting a piece of tape on your dash to cover a blinking check engine light.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      Thanks for including blinking, as this means severe engine damage, not a pesky code to clear. And it’s exactly what’s going on here.

  • squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    Since the first messenger who told Tigranes that Lucullus was coming had his head cut off for his pains, no one else would tell him anything, and so he sat in ignorance while the fires of war were blazing around him, giving ear only to those who flattered him.

    Plutarch, ~ 100 A.D.

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        For a good 25 years now, the Republican party has treated reality as a messaging problem, not something to grapple with and use in planning. The only surprise is that it took this long to fire people in the federal government who didn’t give the “right” message.

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    2 days ago

    to try and boost Kamala’s [Harris’] chances

    Will everyone that needed CNBC to clarify which Kamala he was talking about, please raise your hand.