Stand Up For Science: Part 2
Post 04; stand up for science
Trump's firing of BLS commissioner decried as 'groundless' and 'giving way to authoritarianism'
That headline, which I found in the Morningstar.com newsroom, I think is a pretty good one. I like seeing “groundless” and “giving way to authoritarianism” in a headline, not lost in minutiae or both-sides-ism.
This post, Stand Up For Science: Part 2, starts at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. President Trump fired the BLS Commissioner for truthfully reporting job numbers; democracy-wise, this is a five-alarm fire. Also, we, supporting science, care about the integrity of ALL data. I hope we write some letters-to-the-editor about this. Good newsrooms should get a thank-you, in my humble opinion, and bad ones should get a scalding hot piece of our minds, regarding how they’ve reported on this.
Speaking of major newsrooms never answering the most important questions: why are we even at this point?! The architects of the Project 2025 coup tell us that by design, they intend to destroy the government as we have known it, and replace our institutions with something we MUST defy. This is a necessary second stop for today’s post.
Being a physicist and not an economist or historian, I’ll segue to the science news. We know that our federal science agencies had gathered up their courage and published letters of dissent. The follow-up news has not been all bad – if you have been among the citizens calling Congress regularly, thank you for that.
Saving the best for last – Stand Up For Climate Science!
I realize that this is another long-ish post. I’ll try to cover less ground next time!
Bureau of Labor Statistics in Project 2025’s crosshairs
BLS operates as a federal statistical agency. Their public data are considered to represent a gold standard worldwide. Inflation and prices, employment, pay and benefits, spending and time use, productivity, workplace injuries, international and regional resources. Take a look at the BLS web site’s Subjects page while you still can. It’s impressive.
BLS is afforded autonomy to ensure that the data it releases are as accurate as possible. The importance to businesses and markets, of having BLS continue to do so, cannot be overstated. Problem: on Friday, Trump fired the Commissioner.
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. …
"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.
After reading a number of news articles surrounding this, I can see that I don’t want to get up a tree, but I feel it’s important to react. Right now, the White House lets Trump express contempt for our institutions by telling the bald faced lies; spokespeople then give a cloudy defense of him, a combination of doubting questions and baseless accusations that are almost lies. The purpose is an erosion of public trust and of the expertise in the agency. This erosion of trust and expertise serves the Project 2025 agenda more immediately than falsification of the data would do. A little poison goes a long way.
It’s also important to know that many groups are coming together to defend BLS right now. We can support them.
Reporting on the immediate news:
Reporting from Morningstar on 1-Aug and 3-Aug: Trump sacks BLS chief after poor jobs report, as credibility of U.S. economic data comes under fire; Trump's firing of BLS commissioner decried as 'groundless' and 'giving way to authoritarianism'
CNBC and NBC: Trump fires commissioner of labor statistics after weaker-than-expected jobs figures slam markets; Trump fires labor statistics boss hours after the release of weak jobs report: Without evidence, Trump called the data "rigged" and implied that BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer manipulated the numbers "for political purposes."
Backstory and support for BLS:
Politifact: Trump’s baseless ‘manipulated’ data claim in firing BLS chief Erika McEntarfer follows long history
FedScoop: Statistics, public data leaders condemn Trump’s order to fire BLS commissioner: “One group, whose leadership includes two former BLS commissioners, called on Congress to respond immediately and investigate her removal.”
From this article I learned that the administration’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2026 requested a decrease of more than 8% for BLS.
Data Rescue Project: Support for the BLS.
Two paragraphs, I’ll quote in full, there are links to participate at their site, if you are part of the data rescue community:
We imagine that many of you have already heard the news about last night's removal of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner, Erika McEntarfer. We are dismayed by these actions and join our partner groups, the Friends of BLS, COPAFS, APDU, and others, in calling on Congress to investigate these actions. We encourage you to read the Friends of the BLS statement, if you have not done so.
We remain firm in our support of the federal employees who work diligently to make our federal statistical system one of the best in the world and decry attempts to politicize the BLS or any other agency. We encourage members to speak out to the extent they feel possible. If you want to talk about possible actions with us or other groups, join our office hours this Wednesday, August 6 at 4:30 PM Eastern.
The Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Statement on Commissioner McEntarfer’s Removal: “The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome economic news.”
They call on Congress to respond immediately, and you can call for that as well.
The words of Project 2025 are predictable, ranging from doubt-casting to stone-throwing. They will, to a great extent, succeed in sowing doubt. Being aware of the tactic as it plays out is helpful.
“The president wants his own people there so that when we see the numbers, they’re more transparent and more reliable,” Kevin Hassett, chair of the National Economic Council, said on “Meet the Press.” (From The Hill.)
Hassett did not provide evidence that the report was incorrect, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the “revisions are hard evidence” that the jobs data was rigged; … In an appearance that aired on “Fox News Sunday,” Hassett said that if he ran the BLS and had “the biggest downward revision in 50 years, I would have a really, really detailed report explaining why it happened.” He claimed without evidence that there are “partisan patterns” in the jobless data and that “data can’t be propaganda.” (From CNN.)
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on Sunday defended President Donald Trump’s decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as the president’s claim that weaker-than-expected jobs reports were “rigged,” but failed to produce any evidence to support Trump’s claim; … “The bottom line is that there were people involved in creating these numbers. And if I were running the BLS and I had a number that was a huge, politically important revision, the biggest since 1968 actually ... then I would have a really long report explaining exactly what happened. And we didn’t get that,” Hassett said. (From NBC News.)
That line about 1968 is not true.
Dick Tofel said, and I agree: Newsrooms Need to Get Tougher on All That Lying.
Closer to our professional home, Garth Brazelton remarked on LinkedIn that:
Every person or organization that claims to be a “data driven leader” has a duty to speak out and/or act out against this continued baseless attack on democracy that undermines all future reporting from every government agency in the US. Not just Bureau of Labor Statistics is impacted - we all are.
Data driven leaders abound among us, yes?
So let’s speak out, let’s say professionally as well as personally, that what Project 2025’s White House has done is not acceptable.
Action: Pick a newsroom, see how they’re covering this story, and write to the Editor.
Why? Are? We? Here?
I said my Substack wouldn’t be a place for endless think-pieces, and it is not. This is just a relay station! But the month of July 2025 has seen an anniversary of a sort. Historian Heather Cox Richardson has this to say:
On July 2, 2024, just about a year ago, president of the right-wing Heritage Foundation Kevin Roberts told the listeners of Steve Bannon’s War Room webcast: “[W]e are going to win. We’re in the process of taking this country back.” Roberts pointed to the Supreme Court’s decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States the day before giving the president absolute immunity for committing crimes while engaging in official acts. …
Roberts was the man who organized Project 2025, the blueprint for a new kind of government dictated by a right-wing strongman. Creating that new government would require a president willing to act illegally, stripping the secular language of civil rights from public life, packing the government with loyalists, ending the social safety net, killing business regulations, and purging American institutions of all but right-wing ideologues. …
As Roberts said, the Supreme Court’s decision giving Trump immunity was important because destroying the country’s institutions would require lawbreaking.
If this story, if HCR’s history series, are new to you – please read, and believe. This is not how it was before, despite our country’s flaws, and it is not normal.
You can know the impacts of being “here.”
In this maelstrom of bad news, can you ever know the impacts in a holistic way? A way that drills down to the agency, issue, occurrence, or locality that you’re most interested in?
I want you to know about The Impact Project:
The Impact Project uses data to understand how government change at the local, state, and federal levels impacts our daily lives, and helps organizations, businesses, local leaders, and many others make more informed decisions about how and where to allocate resources.
Our multilayered datasets track government change and contextualize it with economic and demographic information, allowing us to identify gaps in services and systems, pinpoint local responses, highlight opportunities for growth, and demonstrate the impacts of government choices on families, communities, and economies.
Here is a screen shot of the main impact map. There are others, for example an Office and Budget map and a Public Health map, also a dashboard of government agencies and departments. Very large numbers of our colleagues have gathered together to provide these data and make them available. I hope you feel curious to explore. Click on a few of the sidebars and you’ll see just how deep this dataset goes.
News Bites from our Federal Science Orgs
I mean that both ways. They are news bites. The news bites. When last we met,
The National Institutes of Health staff had published their Bethesda Declaration back in June.
From STAT News we learned on July 31 that:
Senators from both parties endorsed a $400 million increase to the budget of the National Institutes of Health on Thursday, in an Appropriations Committee vote that represents a clear rebuke of President Trump’s plan to dramatically reduce the agency’s spending.
The administration had proposed slashing the NIH’s budget for the 2026 fiscal year by $18 billion, a 40% decrease. The committee also retained all 27 NIH institutes and centers, rejecting a White House consolidation proposal, and rejected the administration’s plan to revamp the way NIH pays universities, medical schools, and other research centers for overhead costs.
Stephanie M. Lee reported for the Chronicle of Higher Education, 30 July, and says:
In June, a judge ordered the NIH to begin the process of reinstating more than 900 terminated grants. So how's that going? A month later, more than a dozen scientists told me that they're some mix of thrilled, grateful, overwhelmed, and confused.
“You think I’d be ecstatic. Not at all,” said one. “I’m still unable to plan anything.”
After being forced to halt research midstream, lay off staff, and alter career plans, researchers say picking up where they left off is complicated, scientifically, financially, and logistically. Some had confirmation that their payments had resumed, while others were anxiously waiting for clarity. Still others were discovering that they wouldn’t actually get any money at all. (Some were getting reinstatements worth $0, yes, $0.)
And everyone I talked to was operating under a new assumption: that the administration will yank back the funding once again.
From the Appropriations Committee to a full Senate vote to becoming law to being enforced properly, this is a long hard road, especially with a regime predicated upon lawbreaking by the Executive. We have to push on the steps we can. I know Congress got a lot of calls about this. Thank you.
National Science Foundation: Science reported, 22 July:
Some 149 employees of the National Science Foundation (NSF) today joined colleagues at three other U.S. research agencies in denouncing steps taken by President Donald Trump and his administration that they say have politicized federal science and are making the country less competitive.
We still don’t know what will happen here, but reporters are on the beat.
The Declaration of Dissent from the Environmental Protection Agency was a central topic of my previous post.
Well, these two paragraphs from Wired will surprise none of us:
A new report released yesterday by the Department of Energy purports to provide “a critical assessment of the conventional narrative on climate change.” But nine scientists across several different disciplines told WIRED that the report mishandled citations of their work by cherry-picking data, misrepresenting findings, drawing erroneous conclusions, or leaving out relevant context.
This report was introduced on the same day that the EPA announced it would seek to roll back the endangerment finding, a crucial 2009 ruling that provides the scientific and legal basis for the agency to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. In its draft reconsideration of the finding, the EPA cites the paper from the DOE as part of a review of “the most recently available science” that it undertook to challenge the validity of the 2009 ruling.
Climate science is always under attack, because a lot of money stands to NOT be made if we try to protect our environment.
We are fortunate for the dedication of weather, climate, and environmental scientists! Their passion means that there’s always signs of fighting back! Here’s how that played out just two months ago.
Stand Up For Climate Science
Starting on 28-May and continuing through 1-Jun, more than thirty brave and dedicated climate scientists organized and hosted the Weather & Climate Livestream. This one-hundred-hour program on YouTube featured dozens of speakers, panelists, climate science presentations, and conversations showcasing the research and researchers behind our nation’s world-leading capability to predict the weather and understand the climate. I watched many of the streams at the time, and came away giddy with admiration for the PhD students and post-docs hosting speakers, round the clock, sometimes for four hour shifts. I think you should be inspired, too. If you missed it, take this opportunity to learn about these colleagues of ours and thank them. THIS can be the future of science and also the future of our citizenry.
I want you to see these folks, really look at their faces and listen to their words, and understand that very many of the organizers, hosts, and speakers are early career scientists. They know they have to fight for the world we all want to see. They stayed up nights working this show.
I logged a few dozen hours with this livestream, feeling lucky to have the free time. There are still dozens of hours in it that I haven’t seen. Start a conversation with me in the Substack chat, and I’ll tell you some of my favorite easter eggs to look for — but I’ll still try to make you go find them yourself!
I learned later that the organizers provided several interesting interviews. I’ve learned that the stream had over 180,000 views, and that viewers called Congress over 15,000 times as a result of the livestream. Now that’s some action! Here are three reports that provide some fun background.
Union of Concerned Scientists: Ask a Scientist: How Livestreaming 100 Hours of Weather and Climate Moved Thousands to Action
Fast Company: How to watch: Scientists are hosting a 100-hour livestream to protest Trump cuts
You’ll find the agenda online, and the streams on YouTube, and I just can’t recommend it enough. Turn off whatever tv is usually going, during your dinner or chores, and play these in the background instead. Let it sink in, the enormity of an administration so intent on capturing the government that they’ll cancel huge portions of our weather sensing infrastructure, fire tens of thousands of Feds, and absolutely cripple climate science. And here are a hundred scientists, in a hundred hours, coming together to tell you that they need help.
That whole week, I’d tune in, be so enthusiastic, take screenshots for social media, post them hoping more folks would see.
Ready for the action?
Below, is the list of Weather & Climate Livestream organizers and hosts that I could identify. A number of these folks are still in grad school.
I’m supplying the names, and either the LinkedIn account links or the closest substitute I could find.
Would it not be incredible if everybody reading this, did the following.
On your own LinkedIn, post something supportive about the Weather & Climate Livestream. Leave that post up a while, or pin it.
In the list, click the links, request to connect to these scientists and communicators.
Your account type affects whether you can offer a message before a connection is accepted. Regardless, you could view their profile, maybe interact on a post or two.
If you do connect, thank them, say you have their back, and welcome them to contact you directly if there’s another action to take.
Getting out of Project 2025 will require that we beat the algorithm. Love of our scientific community, and defiant rejection of the gutted world this regime is trying to force on us, are the ways out. Wouldn’t it be incredible if everyone on this list got our messages in the course of the next few days. Spending just a few minutes with each name, you’ll be done in 90 minutes. They’ll know their cause hasn’t been forgotten during the weeks that have passed. — Oh, and tell a friend about it, too!
Andrew Williams | Syl Foisy | Marc Alessi | Henri Drake (also this!) | Jonah Bloch-Johnson | Miriam Nielsen | Nick Lutsko | Tommy Stone | Marie McGraw | Vanessa Sun | Lily Zhang | Virginia Schutte | Andrew Dessler | Richard Rood | Nick Siler | Clare Singer | Ryan North | Paul Staten | Michela Biasutti | Stella Heflin | Becca Jackson | Nadir Jeevanjee | Karen Shell | Matt Luongo | Cecilia Bitz | Dave Gutzler | Dargan Frierson | Mara Freilich
It’s interesting. The mainstream media reporting seemed a little less neutral than has recently been the thing, as regards the BLS Commissioner. There’s immediate money in news like that - markets, business decisions. It had an immediate, huge, avid audience.
Scientific research is invaluable and irreplaceable but the return on investment is slower, is not as immediately evident. The audience for our news is smaller; we have to grow it up with some personal effort.
What we decide to do — it matters. The future is still unwritten. See you out there.