two things stand out when I look at this chart. First is how evident the 2008 Great Recession, the pandemic drop, and the post-pandemic recovery are in the data. And, given what we know about how this data is collected, that actually makes sense; BLS surveys about 631,000 worksites for their employment data as of the 12th of the month, then revises the monthly numbers as more data comes out. The corrections to the jobs reports in 2008 were likely caused by numbers that continued to decrease throughout consecutive months, while reports late in 2021 showed an economy actively adding jobs as it rebounded from the pandemic. In short: A growing job market has positive revisions, a shrinking job market has negative revisions.

National Review’s Dominic Pino wrote a thorough breakdown of the complex work that goes into producing these reports, noting how variables like seasonal employment patterns, self-employment, and new and shuttered businesses make creating an accurate snapshot of the economy on the first try very difficult. Furthermore, the response rate to BLS surveys has dipped since the pandemic. Ironically, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick fired the team of people who help us know how many people are getting fired, making it even more difficult to get accurate initial estimates.

employment in industries that Trump is trying to boost with tariffs have hit a wall: Since May, manufacturing, wholesale trade, and retail trade — three sectors most sensitive to tariff policies — have lost jobs. Meanwhile, both the rates of nonfarm hiring and workers quitting their jobs are steadily decreasing, showing a labor market that’s getting tighter and tighter.

Instead, this firing looks like a case of Trump injecting us-versus-them politics into another arena that could really benefit from reasonable discussion. Whoever takes the role next will still be attempting a difficult task with dwindling resources, but with the addition of a white-hot spotlight of the political culture war beating down on them.

Now, I hate the expression “conspiracy theory” and have been advocating against its casual use for a couple years now. I especially object to how commonly people use the term to slander popular beliefs that contradict institutional statements but are highly credible; we’ve learned that many “conspiracy theories” have ended up being true. But today, I’m going to use the expression to refer to things I’d define like this: a belief or set of beliefs which connect unrelated observations together based on a set of fundamentally false assumptions.

As the internet has proliferated unsubstantiated assumptions, conspiracies have become more abundant. The internet has also incentivized politicians, political influencers, media outlets, and pundits to constantly battle for attention. Attention means influence, which translates to votes, fundraising clicks, subscriptions and money, depending on what you are looking for. And easy ways to get attention include: stoking conspiracies, evoking fear, and providing shock value.

Republican conspiracy theories are at the center of conservative discourse and messaging. Conspiracy theorists on the left, in contrast, are usually marginalized

"DOGE is not a serious exercise," said Jessica Riedl, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a fiscally conservative think tank that supports streamlining government. She estimates DOGE has only saved $5 billion to date, and believes it will end up costing more than it saves. The examples - previously unreported - span 14 government agencies and were described in Reuters interviews with three dozen federal workers, union representatives and governance experts.

At the Social Security Administration, in a four-day period in the first week of March, computer systems crashed 10 times. Because a quarter of the agency's IT staff have quit or been fired, it's taking longer to get the systems online again, disrupting the processing of claims, one IT worker told Reuters. Few dispute the SSA's computer systems are old, often crash and need updating. Musk told Baier the agency's computer systems are "failing", and "we're fixing it."

Since its founding on Trump's first day in the White House, DOGE has largely shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides aid to the world's needy, canceling more than 80 percent of its humanitarian programs. Almost all of the agency's employees will be fired by September, all of its overseas offices shut, with some functions absorbed into the State Department. At home, the government overhaul has resulted in the firing, resignations and early retirements of 260,000 civil servants, according to a Reuters tally. Over 20,000 probationary workers - recently hired or recently reassigned employees - were fired in February. After court rulings they were reinstated but most were sent home on full pay. Most are now being fired again after further court decisions.

Trump and Musk have said the U.S. government is beset by fraud and waste. Few civil servants and governance experts dispute efficiencies can be made, but say there are already people inside the federal bureaucracy trying to save taxpayer dollars. Yet some of these offices have been targeted for cuts by DOGE.

A UN commission investigating crimes against humanity in Yugoslavia defined ethnic cleansing as “rendering an area ethnically homogeneous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area.” That’s an accurate description of what Trump wants to do in Gaza. What else would we call it? And where are they going to go? Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and even the West Bank all reject this plan. One of Gaza’s defining characteristics is that over 80% of its inhabitants are descendants of people displaced following the 1948 war; that history is part of what makes Gazans so committed to staying in place — but Trump wants to run it back.

the route of peacemaking he’s pursuing is making one of two sides just go away. That’s not peacemaking; it’s domination. And it’s a means of diplomacy that tends to create the preconditions for future conflicts.

The same president who criticized nation-building in Afghanistan and wanted to avoid conflict in Ukraine now wants to “take over” Gazan reconstruction.

Trump tends to push interpretations of his statements towards the poles of either optimistically brushing him off or paranoia, depending on the person or the topic. For me, on this topic, it creates paranoia. What exactly does Trump mean by “we’re going to take it over?”

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says Trump wants to remove Gazans from the strip temporarily, but Trump also literally said he wants to permanently relocate them and then rebuild Gaza “for the world’s people”

Trump consistently phrased his descriptions of Gaza to avoid apportioning any amount of responsibility to Israel. Gaza is a “demolition site,” but demolished by whom? “Gaza is a guarantee that they’re going to end up dying,” meaning the location itself is hostile to Palestinians? Gazans have suffered “bad luck,” meaning that bad things have just happened to occur to them?

Since January, Israel has repeatedly violated the terms of the ceasefire; it refused to withdraw its soldiers, it continued military operations (150 Palestinians were reportedly killed in Gaza during the “ceasefire”), and it blocked electricity and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza — a violation of international humanitarian law.

this week, he became the first Israeli leader to ever fire the head of Shin Bet, an intelligence agency in Israel that recently put blame on the Israeli government (and Netanyahu) for failing to act on warnings about the October 7 attack. With Netanyahu’s governing position secured and critical voices banished, the bombing started again in earnest.

while Hamas may be responsible for the horror it unleashed on Gaza with its October 7 attacks, I find it hard to dispute that — within the scope of the last two months — the primary fault for this deal collapsing lies with Israel.

The talking point from Netanyahu and Trump is simple: Hamas didn’t release the remaining hostages. But it’s also incomplete. Hamas did the most important thing it had committed to in phase one: It released all 33 hostages, as the deal called for, and came to the table to negotiate phase two.   Israel violated the agreement’s terms first by not meeting on the ceasefire’s 16th day to discuss the plans for phase two. Phase two was always going to be the sticking point, because it required an actual end to the war and Israel leaving Gaza.

Trump then began insisting on an extension of phase one, which was not in the text of the agreement. Then Israel broke the commitment to withdraw from the Philadelphi corridor. Then Israel broke its promise to continue aid while second stage talks were ongoing. Then Israel broke the promise to actually cease firing. Israel did all of this before Hamas balked on additional hostage releases.

Netanyahu has abandoned the hostages to extend his political life. From the early days of the war, this has been the story; it’s why he refused to end the war earlier, and it’s how he has survived this year and a half despite his political obituary being written on October 8. Once again, it is politically advantageous for him for the war to continue. Netanyahu needs approval for a budget before March 31, which he can’t get without support from the far-right wing of his party, which wants him to do exactly what he’s doing now.

Gazans have no ability to restrain or resist Hamas, a group that cares more about killing Israelis or pretending it may have a way to win this war than it does about protecting its own people. Israelis are at the whims of a leader who consistently ignores their pleas for a ceasefire, caring only about his own political survival.

we have the leaders of Hamas holding on to all they have, which are literal human bargaining chips, and the Israeli prime minister openly defying the desires of the hostages’ families. Meanwhile, the U.S. president openly muses about permanently vacating Palestinians from Gaza