Trump is hiding government data to reshape reality

 Washington Post -   The Trump administration is deleting taxpayer-funded data — information that Americans use to make sense of the world. In its absence, the president can paint the world as he pleases.

We don’t know the full universe of statistics that has gone missing, but the U.S. DOGE Service’s wrecking ball has already left behind a wasteland of “404″ pages. All sorts of useful information has disappeared, including data on:

Some of this censorship has been challenged (and at least temporarily reversed) through litigation. Even so, DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, has continued its digital book-burning and is now blocking new data collection. For example, in recent weeks, DOGE has canceled contracts for scheduled data gathering at the Social Security Administration and Education Department, among other agencies.

Contrary to claims that these contract cancellations save money, in many cases the data have already been collected — but will never see the light of day, even if a new administration changes course. That’s because many contracts contain data deletion clauses.

Foreign tariffs will hit Trump backing workers

 NY Times - As President Trump imposes tariffs on products from countries around the world, foreign governments are answering back with tariffs of their own.

China has targeted corn farmers and carmakers. Canada has put tariffs on poultry plants and air-conditioning manufacturers, while Europe will hit American steel mills and slaughter houses.

The retaliatory tariffs are an attempt to put pressure on the president to relent. And they have been carefully designed to hit Mr. Trump where it hurts: Nearly 8 million Americans work in industries targeted by the levies and the majority are Trump voters, a New York Times analysis shows.

The figures underscore the dramatic impact that a trade war could have on American workers, potentially causing Mr. Trump’s economic strategy to backfire. Mr. Trump has argued that tariffs will help boost American jobs. But economists say that retaliatory tariffs can cancel out that effect.

 

Polling

CNN - The Democratic Party’s favorability rating among Americans stands at a record low, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, fueled in part by dimming views from its own frustrated supporters...

Democratic-aligned adults say, 52% to 48%, that the leadership of the Democratic Party is currently taking the party in the wrong direction. That’s another shift from eight years ago, when views on this metric were largely positive.

Among the American public overall, the Democratic Party’s favorability rating stands at just 29% – a record low in CNN’s polling dating back to 1992 and a drop of 20 points since January 2021, when Trump exited his first term under the shadow of the January 6 attack at on Capitol. The Republican Party’s rating currently stands at 36%. 

NBC News - Buoyed by jubilant and unified Republicans, who are standing in lockstep with Trump and the expansive agenda he and congressional leaders are pushing in Washington, more registered voters see the U.S. as heading in the right direction than at any point since early 2004, though a majority still say the country is on the wrong track. Trump’s approval rating also equals his best-ever mark as president (47%), though again, a majority (51%) disapproves of his performance.

Foreign tourism dropping

 Washington Post- International travelers concerned about President Donald Trump’s trade policies and bellicose rhetoric have been canceling trips to the United States, depriving the U.S. tourism industry of billions of dollars at a time when the economy has started to appear wobbly.

Canadians are skipping trips to Disney World and music festivals. Europeans are eschewing U.S. national parks, and Chinese travelers are vacationing in Australia instead.

International travel to the United States is expected to slide by 5 percent this year, contributing to a $64 billion shortfall for the travel industry, according to Tourism Economics. The research firm had originally forecast a 9 percent increase in foreign travel, but revised its estimate late last month to reflect “polarizing Trump Administration policies and rhetoric."

Trump rescinds 19 Biden orders

 Washington Times - President Trump rescinded 19 executive orders, directives and regulations signed by President Joe Biden, including some related to gender, climate change and labor practices.

Some of the Biden-era orders that Mr. Trump rolled back Friday included eliminating the use of the Defense Production Act to push climate initiatives such as mandates for electric heat pumps and solar panels, directing federal agencies to push joining a union as part of employment as well as prioritize workplace safety initiatives, and elevating gender ideology in foreign diplomacy. 

Mr. Trump also reversed his predecessor’s 2021 executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour. A September 2022 order by Mr. Biden directing the government to invest more funds in the biotechnology industry to develop materials for clean energy generation was also canceled.

A White House fact sheet released alongside the executive order blasted Mr. Biden’s order as elevating “radical gender ideology,” “pushing “his Green New Scam,” imposing “unnecessary regulations on industry” and funneling “federal resources into radical biotech and biomanufacturing initiatives under the guise of environmental policy.”

Trump vs. the media

 The Guardian - Donald Trump expanded on his threats to the media on Friday, suggesting actions of the press should be deemed illegal and subject to investigation.

“I believe that CNN and MS-DNC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat [sic] party and in my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal, what do they do is illegal,” the president said during a contentious speech at the Department of Justice.

“These networks and these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative,” Trump continued, claiming that CNN and MSNBC are corrupt.

“And it has to stop, it has to be illegal, it’s influencing judges and it’s really changing law, and it just cannot be legal. I don’t believe it’s legal, and they do it in total coordination with each other,” he added.

On Saturday, government-employed journalists at Voice of America (VoA) were put on administrative leave, a day after Trump signed an order eliminating the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), VoA’s parent company, along with six other federal agencies.

Reporters at VoA, which broadcasts news, information and cultural programming in nearly 50 languages to a global audience, were placed on “administrative leave with full pay and benefits until otherwise notified”, according to an internal memo obtained by the Hill, adding that it is “not being done for any disciplinary purpose”.

The decision to place VoA employees on administrative leave came a day after its parent moved to terminate contracts with the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse, and told its journalists on Friday to stop using material from the wire services.

BBC - Donald Trump has signed an order to strip back the federally funded news organisation Voice of America, accusing it of being "anti-Trump" and "radical". A White House statement said the order would "ensure taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda", and included quotes from politicians and right-wing media railing against the "leftist", "partisan" VOA. VOA, still primarily a radio service, was set up during World War Two to counter Nazi propaganda. It is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Mike Abramowitz, the VOA's director, said he and virtually his entire staff of 1,300 people had been put on paid leave. Abramowitz said that the order left VOA unable to carry out its "vital mission... especially critical today, when America's adversaries, like Iran, China, and Russia, are sinking billions of dollars into creating false narratives to discredit the United States".

 

Trump goes after Ireland during prime minister's visit

 Daily Kos - President Donald Trump turned Irish leader Micheál Martin’s visit to the White House ahead of St. Patrick’s Day into another opportunity to insult a longtime American ally.

“You took our pharmaceutical companies and other companies,” Trump said. “This beautiful island of 5 million people has got the entire U.S. pharmaceutical industry in its grasps.”

Martin tried to diplomatically handle the insult as the two men sat in the Oval Office and patiently explained to Trump that trade between the two countries is a two-way street. Martin noted that more than 700 Irish companies have outposts in the U.S., employing thousands of people, contributing to the domestic economy.

Nightclub fire kills at least 59

 People - At least 59 people have died and more than 100 others were injured in a fire at a nightclub. The blaze broke out at the Pulse club in the eastern town of Kočani in North Macedonia at around 3:00 a.m. local time on Sunday, March 16, causing the deaths and injuries, Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski announced in a press conference shared on Facebook by local outlet MIA News.

U.S. launches large-scale military strikes against Yemen’s Houthis as Trump issues sharp warning to Iran

Vance admits Musk made mistakes

 Daily Beast - Vice President JD Vance admitted that Elon Musk has made “mistakes” while carrying out his mass firings of government employees under the Department of Government Efficiency. “Elon himself has said that sometimes you do something, you make a mistake, and then you undo the mistake,” Vance told NBC News on Friday. “I’m accepting of mistakes.”

“I also think you have to quickly correct those mistakes,” he added, acknowledging that “there are a lot of good people who work in the government—a lot of people who are doing a very good job.”

Vance did not specify what exactly those mistakes were or how they had been corrected.

Amy Coney Barrett Isn’t What the Conservative Legal Movement Expected

Meanwhle. . .

Shelly C. Lowe, the first Native American to lead the National Endowment for the Humanities, has left her role at the direction of President Donald Trump. 

The Gym Teacher Invented Basketball on a Challenge by His Boss

The Story

 

Trump and courts

 The Guardian - Donald Trump has invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport five Venezuelan nationals from the US. The White House issued a presidential proclamation on Saturday targeting Venezuelan members of gang Tren de Aragua, saying: “Tren de Aragua (TdA) is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization with thousands of members, many of whom have unlawfully infiltrated the United States and are conducting irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States.”

Civil liberties organizations have accused Trump of invoking the 1798 act unlawfully during peacetime to accelerate mass deportations and sidestep immigration law.  Hours later, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s administration from using the act to carry out its intended deportations of the Venezuelans.

US district judge James Boasberg of the federal district court in Washington DC agreed on Saturday to issue temporary restraining order that prevents the Venezuelans’ deportation for 14 days.  “Given the exigent circumstances that it [the court] has been made aware of this morning, it has determined that an immediate Order is warranted to maintain the status quo until a hearing can be set,” Boasberg wrote in his order.

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