Politics

Steve Brodner Backdoor. The post Save the Children appeared first on The Nation.

David Daley In a series of mid-decade redistricting gambits, state legislatures are looking to rig next year’s congressional balloting in advance. The post How the GOP Hopes to Gerrymander Its Way to a Midterms Victory appeared first on The Nation.

Sasha Abramsky I learned from a young age that you shouldn’t let your neighbor go hungry. Benjamin Netanyahu would do well to revisit this tradition. The post Forced Starvation Is a Grotesque Inversion of Jewish Traditions appeared first on The Nation.

Stephen Miran, who chairs President Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, took a break from stoking racial resentment to appear on CNN Friday and dismiss increasingly troubling jobs reports. When asked about struggling small businesses like Detroit Axle, which recently announced that it will close a warehouse and lay off more than 100 employees due to Trump’s chaotic tariff policies, Miran blamed the company itself for failing under Trump’s ill-conceived trade wars. “I don’t know the story of that business, but it’s always convenient to blame political changes when your business fails,” Miran told CNN’s Kate Bolduan before clumsily trying to change the subject. “So I don’t know what to make of that particular story. But economically, as I said before, there’s just zero evidence of increased prices for consumers as a result of the tariffs.” YouTube Video As for “zero evidence” of price increases on consumers, big box retail behemoth Walmart announced in May that it would be raising its prices as a result of the administration’s tariffs. More recently, an analysis by The Wall Street Journal found that since January, despite public proclamations saying otherwise, Amazon has steadily increased prices on a variety of consumer goods. At the grocery store, beef prices are soaring and Nestle said Halloween candy will be more expensive, thanks to tariffs increasing in the price of cocoa. Related | New jobs numbers hint at Great Recession 2.0 Shortly after Miran’s appearance on CNN, video-gaming giant Nintendo announced it will further increase the price of its popular Switch console and many accessories in the United States “based on market conditions.” Trump’s trade wars have led to dubious deals, all of which end with rising costs for Americans—and no relief in sight.

A cartoon by Clay Bennett. Related | So much for Trump ending inflation

Conservative pundits and officials scrambled on Friday to downplay the Trump administration’s latest lackluster jobs report. Over at Fox Business, the crew was doing their darndest to spin how the stock market tanking wasn’t too concerning. “Well, I mean, Steve, no wonder the market was down 300 points going into this number. Look at these revisions?” said Fox host Maria Bartiromo to Stephen Moore, Trump’s former pick to head the Federal Reserve and well-known supply-side snake-oil salesman.  “There was a lot of turmoil. My point is that a lot of that turmoil is now behind us,” Moore said. YouTube Video At the same time, pretend-folksy Sen. John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, brought his own brand of homespun denial to Fox News. And you know things are bad when this guy starts spitting nonsense. “Everybody in Washington now seems to be an economist. And some of them just don’t know what they’re talking about. Taking their advice is like, it’s like taking the advice of a nun about sex,” Kennedy said, adding, “I wouldn’t trade America’s economy for the economy of any other country.” YouTube Video Despite all of the spin, the reality remains the same: Trump’s trade policies are exactly as bad as critics predicted they would be. Costs for critical goods like medication are set to rise, while manufacturing faces growing burdens. But as things worsen, Trump’s cronies may no longer need to spin bad numbers—especially since Trump fired the official overseeing jobs data. Soon the data may spin itself.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a cornerstone of American culture for three generations, announced Friday it would take steps toward its own closure after being defunded by Congress — marking the end of a nearly six-decade era in which it fueled the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and even emergency alerts. The demise of the corporation, known as CPB, is a direct result of President Donald Trump’s targeting of public media, which he has repeatedly said is spreading political and cultural views antithetical to those the United States should be espousing. The closure is expected to have a profound impact on the journalistic and cultural landscape — in particular, public radio and TV stations in small communities across the United States. Related | Senate GOP deals blow to rural America in voting to defund NPR and PBS CPB helps fund both PBS and NPR, but most of its funding is distributed to more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations around the country. The corporation also has deep ties to much of the nation’s most familiar programming, from NPR’s “All Things Considered” to, historically, “Sesame Street,” “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and the documentaries of Ken Burns. A stuffed Cookie Monster in a control room on May 2 at the Arizona PBS offices at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Phoenix. The corporation said its end, 58 years after being signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, would come in an “orderly wind-down.” In a statement, it said the decision came after the passage through Congress of a package that clawed back its funding for the next two budget years — about $1.1 billion. Then, the Senate Appropriations Committee reinforced that policy change Thursday by excluding funding for the corporation for the first time in more than 50 years as part of a broader spending bill. “Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said Patricia Harrison, the corporation’s president and CEO. A last-gasp attempt at funding fails Democratic members of on the Senate Appropriations Committee made a last-ditch effort this week to save the CBP’s funding. As part of Thursday’s committee deliberations, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., authored but then withdrew an amendment to restore CPB funding for the coming budget year. She said she still believed there was a path forward “to fix this before there are devastating consequences for public radio and television stations across the country.” “It’s hard to believe we’ve ended up in the situation we’re in,” she said. “And I’m going to continue to work with my colleagues to fix it.” But Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., sounded a less optimistic tone. “I understand your concerns, but we all know we litigated this two weeks ago,” Capito said. “Adopting this amendment would have been contrary to what we have already voted on.” The closure will come in phases CPB said it informed employees Friday that most staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept. 30. It said a small transition team will stay in place until January to finish any remaining work — including, it said, “ensuring continuity for music rights and royalties that remain essential to the public media system.” “Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country,” Harrison said. “We are deeply grateful to our partners across the system for their resilience, leadership, and unwavering dedication to serving the American people.” Related | Trump wants to bulldoze Sesame Street NPR stations use millions of dollars in federal money to pay music licensing fees. Now, many will have to renegotiate these deals. That could impact, in particular, outlets that build their programming around music discovery. NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher estimated recently, for example, that some 96% of all classical music broadcast in the United States is on public radio stations. Federal money for public radio and television has traditionally been appropriated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes it to NPR and PBS. Roughly 70% of the money goes directly to the 330 PBS and 246 NPR stations across the country, although that’s only a shorthand way to describe its potential impact. Trump, who has called the CPB a “monstrosity,” has long said that public broadcasting displays an extreme liberal bias, helped create the momentum in recent months for an anti-public broadcasting groundswell among his supporters in Congress and around the country. It is part of a larger initiative in which he has targeted institutions — particularly cultural ones — that produce content or espouse attitudes that he considers “un-American.” The CPB’s demise represents a political victory for those efforts. Related | Why Republicans keep trying to murder Big Bird His impact on the media landscape has been profound. He has also gone after U.S. government media that had independence charters, including the venerable Voice of America, ending that media outlet’s operations after many decades. Trump also fired three members of the corporation’s board of directors in April. In legal action at the time, the fired directors said their dismissal was governmental overreach targeting an entity whose charter guarantees its independence.

Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell was moved on Friday from a Florida prison known for its poor conditions to a lower-security prison in Texas, giving the former Jeffrey Epstein associate cushier accommodations to serve out her 20-year federal prison sentence. The move comes after Maxwell met last week with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was previously President Donald Trump’s criminal defense attorney. Blanche interviewed Maxwell for two days to see if she had information that could incriminate third parties in Epstein’s alleged crimes. Epstein was accused of sex-trafficking minors but died by suicide in 2019, before his trial began. On July 17, activists in London put up a poster showing President Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. The interview was meant to satiate right-wing critics angry that Trump’s administration has refused to release more documents related to Epstein. But that scandal has continued to roil the right. Maxwell was moved to Federal Prison Camp Bryan, a minimum-security facility. Such prisons have “dormitory housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and limited or no perimeter fencing,” according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. And the fact that she’s now being given cushier prison accommodations, seemingly in exchange for helping Trump tamp down criticism of his handling of the Epstein files, could spike further backlash. Indeed, the family of Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein accuser who died by suicide in April, slammed Maxwell’s move. In a statement to CNN, they said: It is with horror and outrage that we object to the preferential treatment convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has received. Ghislaine Maxwell is a sexual predator who physically assaulted minor children on multiple occasions, and she should never be shown any leniency. Yet, without any notification to the Maxwell victims, the government overnight has moved Maxwell to a minimum security luxury prison in Texas. This is the justice system failing victims right before our eyes. The American public should be enraged by the preferential treatment being given to a pedophile and a criminally charged child sex offender. The Trump administration should not credit a word Maxwell says, as the government itself sought charges against Maxwell for being a serial liar. This move smacks of a cover up. The victims deserve better. Maxwell is serving 20 years in federal prison for her role in helping Epstein abuse numerous underage girls. After she agreed to the Trump administration’s request for an interview, she is now pushing for Trump to pardon her. It’s unclear what Maxwell told the DOJ in the two-day-long interview. However, she had ample reason to lie and tell the Trump administration what it wanted to hear, since it could earn her a pardon. Trump has not ruled out such a pardon, saying multiple times that he is “allowed to do it.” YouTube Video This is not the only new scandal related to the Epstein brouhaha. On Friday, Bloomberg reported that the FBI redacted Trump’s name from the Epstein files. From Bloomberg’s report: While reviewing the Epstein files, FBI personnel identified numerous references to Trump in the documents, the people familiar with the matter told me. Dozens of other high-profile public figures also appeared, the people said. (The appearance of Trump’s name or others in the Epstein files is not evidence of a crime or even a suggestion of wrongdoing.)   In preparation for potential public release, the documents then went to a unit of FOIA officers who applied redactions in accordance with the nine exemptions. The people familiar with the matter said that Trump’s name, along with other high-profile individuals, was blacked out because he was a private citizen when the federal investigation of Epstein was launched in 2006. Democrats are lambasting Trump over the news. “The Trump-Epstein Cover-up,” Rep. Brendan Boyle, Democrat of Pennsylvania, wrote in a post on X, referencing the FBI’s redaction of Trump’s name from the files.

President Donald Trump responded to a reporter’s question about Friday’s jobs report, which showed a terrifying slowdown in job creation, by claiming it was fabricated by bad actors in the Bureau of Labor Statistics in order to make him look bad.  “Why should anybody trust numbers?” Trump said before launching into a semi-coherent and fictional story about election interference by the BLS. “You go back to Election—Election Day. Look what happened two or three days before with massive wonderful job numbers, trying to get him elected or her elected, trying to get whoever the hell was running—because you go back and they came out with numbers that were very favorable to Kamala, okay. Trying to get him—trying to get her elected. And then on the 15th of November or thereabouts, they had it 8[00] or 900,000 overstatement reduction right after the election. It didn’t work because you know who won, John? I won.” YouTube Video Trump’s convoluted claim is absolutely false. The “[800] or 900,000 overstatement reduction” he is yammering about was a preliminary downward revision (by 818,000) of job estimates that the BLS announced on Aug. 21, 2024—months before the election. The finalized revision, released in February 2025, was 589,000 fewer jobs—not 900,000, and certainly not part of a plot to elect Kamala Harris. Related | New jobs numbers hint at Great Recession 2.0 Because facts are not Trump’s friend, he fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday after the woeful jobs report was released. Going forward, Trump will likely rant away and spew fabricated facts to make himself feel better whenever bad economic news rears its head.

In a move you’d expect from a tinpot dictator and not the leader of the world’s most esteemed democracy, President Donald Trump on Friday fired the commissioner of labor statistics after the latest jobs report showed his tariffs are paralyzing the labor market. “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, referring to Dr. Erika McEntarfer, who was confirmed to a four-year term as commissioner of Labor Statistics in January 2024. “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.” Related | Thanks, Trump: Stock market tanks amid new tariffs and crappy jobs report In the same post, Trump claimed Friday’s report—which showed the U.S. economy added virtually no jobs over the last three months as Trump’s tariffs paralyzed business decisions—was fake and that the economy is actually “booming.” (Yeah, and Oceania had been at war with Eastasia.) Trump wrote in the grammatically insane post: “McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative. The Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP’ despite a Fed that also plays games, this time with Interest Rates, where they lowered them twice, and substantially, just before the Presidential Election, I assume in the hopes of getting “Kamala” elected – How did that work out? Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should also be put ‘out to pasture.’ Thank you for your attention to this matter!” The fact that Trump would fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics—which calculates critical data that policymakers and investors alike use to make business and legislative decisions and ensure economic stability—will now call into question the accuracy of further reports. “BLS puts out the jobs reports, CPI inflation, productivity and employment cost index, among other key statistics. This is basically unprecedented and will raise concerns about US data integrity going forward,” Navy Federal Credit Union Chief Economist Heather Long wrote in a post on X. McEntarfer, for her part, was confirmed to her role by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 86-8. Vice President JD Vance, who at the time was a senator for Ohio, voted to confirm her, meaning he thought she was competent enough for the role. Economists decried Trump’s decision—and warned of the negative consequences this could have on the economy. “I’ve worked closely with Erika. I know of no economist who is more data-focused & devoted to truth in statistics. She never shied from speaking truth to power when the data were disappointing. Nothing would be worse for US credibility than political meddling in our economic data,” Ernie Tedeschi, director of economics at the Yale Budget Lab, wrote in a post on X. “You can cook up whatever numbers you want. If people don’t trust them, it won’t do you any good,” Martha Gimbel, executive director of the Yale Budget Lab, added in a post on X. “And the labor market—something people experience every day—is not a thing where it’s going to work to cook the books because people will know if they can find a job or not.” Other economists brought up a situation in Argentina, when the Argentine government faked inflation data for nine years to make it look like the country wasn’t experiencing an inflation crisis. Faking the data, however, did not solve the country’s inflation problems.  “This is awful. Reliable economic data is a key strength of the US economy. When Argentina and Greece faked economic data it contributed to major crises,” Harvard economics professor Jason Furman wrote in a post on X. “I don’t think Trump will be able to fake the data given the procedures. But there is now a risk plus an awful appearance.” Democrats also lambasted the move. “This is how dictators behave,” Rep. Yvette Clark (D-NY) wrote in a post on X. “Do not believe a word Donald Trump or his administration have to say on the state of the economy. They’ve given up every chance at our trust—and they clearly think they don’t need it.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer mocked Trump for the firing, posting an image of Trump with the text: “BREAKING: I did some research into Trump’s Deep State and found this photo of the real government employee responsible for the job loss numbers. Trump must fire him immediately.”