What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[The Minsky Moment]

http://time.com/5518947/donald-trump-intelligence-briefings-national-security/

'Willful Ignorance.' Inside President Trump's Troubled Intelligence Briefings

. . . After a briefing in preparation for a meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May, for example, the subject turned to the British Indian Ocean Territory of Diego Garcia. The island is home to an important airbase and a U.S. Naval Support Facility that are central to America's ability to project power in the region, including in the war in Afghanistan.

The President, officials familiar with the briefing said, asked two questions: Are the people nice, and are the beaches good? "Some of us wondered if he was thinking about our alliance with the Brits and the security issues in an important area where the Chinese have been increasingly active, or whether he was thinking like a real estate developer," one of the officials said wryly.

There's nothing to wonder or be wry about.  That is unquestionably what he was thinking about. He neither knows nor cares what a military base is for but he's always on the lookout for good beachfront property.

[Eddie Teach]

Swings of 100,000 are within the margin of error (I think it's around 110,000) at the first estimate so

Well yes, that's the problem.  Where you are looking at a number that usually swings from 50 - 300K and your margin of error is over 100K, you've got a problem.  To say that that the estimate is reliable because it's within such a gaping margin of error begs the question.   For that matter, to defend the reliability by saying BLS wouldn't release it otherwise begs the question as well.

Well, if you look at it as 100 thousand out of 100 million jobs, that's pretty reliable.

[The Minsky Moment]

Sure if the way the US economy worked was that everyone got fired every month and had to get rehired, and the BLS first estimate got that close it would be pretty darn good.

Of course that's not the way it works.

The reason people care about these numbers is that for the US economy to keep going strong, one wants to see about 140K jobs added per month.  Under 100K is on the weak side, anything over 200 is pretty strong.

If the BLS first estimate reports 160K, that looks good, but really it could be anything from 60K (weak) to 260K (very good).

The data isn't totally useless but the noise in the signal is very high and the media doesn't usually do a good job of providing that context.

[DGuller]

Sure if the way the US economy worked was that everyone got fired every month and had to get rehired, and the BLS first estimate got that close it would be pretty darn good.

Of course that's not the way it works.

The reason people care about these numbers is that for the US economy to keep going strong, one wants to see about 140K jobs added per month.  Under 100K is on the weak side, anything over 200 is pretty strong.

If the BLS first estimate reports 160K, that looks good, but really it could be anything from 60K (weak) to 260K (very good).

The data isn't totally useless but the noise in the signal is very high and the media doesn't usually do a good job of providing that context.

I think you're being a little too skeptical.  The margin of error is the worst case reasonable deviation.  It is indeed important to realize that all BLS numbers come with a confidence interval, but at the same time you can't use that as an excuse to either be selectively skeptical or be paralyzed in decision-making because of it.  Sometimes you just have to go with the information you have, because it won't be any more precise.

[Syt]

Only the best people!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/its-way-too-many-as-vacancies-pile-up-in-trump-administration-senators-grow-concerned/2019/02/03/c570eb94-24b2-11e9-ad53-824486280311_story.html?utm_term=.2b2810d963a6

'It's way too many': As vacancies pile up in Trump administration, senators grow concerned

From the Justice Department to Veterans Affairs, vast swaths of the government have top positions filled by officials serving in an acting capacity — or no one at all. More than two years into Trump's term, the president has an acting chief of staff, attorney general, defense secretary, interior secretary, Office of Management and Budget director and Environmental Protection Agency chief.

To deal with the number of vacancies in the upper ranks of departments, agencies have been relying on novel and legally questionable personnel moves that could leave the administration's policies open to court challenges.

The lack of permanent leaders has started to alarm top congressional Republicans who are pressing for key posts to be filled.

"It's a lot, it's way too many," Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) said of the acting positions in Cabinet agencies. "You want to have confirmed individuals there because they have a lot more authority to be able to make decisions and implement policy when you have a confirmed person in that spot."

By any standard, Trump's administration lags behind its predecessors when it comes to filling top posts throughout the government — even though the president's party has controlled the Senate for his entire time in office. The Partnership for Public Service, which has tracked nominations as far back as 30 years, estimates that only 54 percent of Trump's civilian executive branch nominations have been confirmed, compared to 77 percent under President Barack Obama.

"The Trump administration is slower to fill jobs and has higher turnover than any administration we have records for," said the group's president and chief executive, Max Stier.

Republicans have largely blamed Senate Democrats for slowing down the consideration of executive branch nominees.

But according to an analysis by the Partnership for Public Service and The Washington Post, the White House has not bothered to nominate people for 150 out of 705 key Senate-confirmed positions.

Three departments are facing a particularly high number of vacancies: Only 41 percent of the Interior and Justice Department's Senate-confirmed posts are filled, and just 43 percent of these positions have been filled at the Labor Department.

The third-highest ranking position at Justice — which, like Interior, has been operating without a permanent secretary for weeks — has been vacant for nearly a year, with no nominee in sight.

"If you think about our government as a manager of critical risk, we've upped our risk," Stier said.

One particular vacancy senators have fixated on is at the Pentagon, where former defense secretary Jim Mattis resigned in December after clashing with Trump over his decision to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria. Patrick Shanahan has been serving in an acting capacity since Jan. 1.

Some Senate Republicans have lobbied on behalf of potential Mattis successors. In a private phone call shortly after Mattis announced his impending departure, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) urged Trump to nominate Heather Wilson, the current Air Force secretary who would be the first woman to head the Pentagon.

"We absolutely need to have a permanent nominee," said Ernst, a veteran who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I do have great confidence in Patrick Shanahan, I know he is the acting secretary right now. But I do feel that in order to reassure allies and also to push back on our adversaries, it's very important that we have a permanent secretary of defense."

Trump does not share the urgency of some in his party to name permanent Cabinet secretaries, largely because he sees leaving people as interim to his benefit. The president has told others it makes the secretaries more "responsive," an administration official said.

"I like acting because I can move so quickly," Trump said in an interview with CBS News that aired Sunday. "It gives me more flexibility."

To deal with the lack of Senate-confirmed officials in key posts, several agencies have employed unusual legal gambits.

Last week, acting interior secretary David Bernhardt amended an order his predecessor, Ryan Zinke, signed in November to keep eight handpicked deputies in place without Senate approval. Under the revised order, these appointees can serve in their posts for another four months, unless they are replaced or the department decides to extend the deadline once again.

At both the departments of Interior and Veterans Affairs, officials have assigned deputies to perform the critical functions of Senate-confirmed officers but have stopped short of calling them "acting" to avoid the legal requirements of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. That 1998 law stipulates that individuals cannot occupy Senate-confirmed posts in an acting capacity for longer than 300 days during a president's first year, and more than 210 days in subsequent years.

After VA's acting deputy secretary Jim Byrne hit his 210-day mark this past month, Secretary Robert Wilkie gave him a new job as of Jan. 14 — he designated Byrne as "general counsel, performing the duties of the deputy secretary of Veterans Affairs," according to department spokesman Curt Cashour.

Left unclear is whether these types of personnel moves could cause legal headaches for the administration if critics seize on them as part of an effort to roll back or strike down policies they oppose.

A Congressional Research Service report published in July concluded that "an action taken by any person who" is not complying with the Vacancies Act "in the performance of any function or duty of a vacant office . . . shall have no force or effect." While this position has not been tested in court, several legal experts said that it at least raises a question about the durability of policies undertaken by officials who lack Senate approval.

Nina Mendelson, a professor of law at the University of Michigan, said the strategy Interior officials and others have taken of delegating many responsibilities to unconfirmed officials was "legally problematic" because it conflicts with the intent and language in the Vacancies Act.

"Congress specifically sought to limit this sort of strategy," Mendelson said. As a result, she said, "Legally binding actions taken by these officials would be subject to challenge."

[Interior is running mostly with leaders who lack Senate approval]

Trump officials reject the idea that their personnel practices contradict existing law.

For instance, Interior's top lawyer, Daniel Jorjani, began serving as principal deputy solicitor on May 26, 2017, which meant that normally he would be slated to step down on Dec. 6, 2018. But in an email, Interior spokeswoman Faith Vander Voort said the department was complying with the Vacancies Act because he was delegated nearly all the duties of Interior's top lawyer "without assuming the vacant office."

"It is legally possible for the functions of a vacant office to be carried out indefinitely by another individual pursuant to a delegation by the agency head," she said.

Kate Kelly, public lands director for the liberal advocacy group Center for American Progress, said in an interview that Interior officials were disregarding the Senate's right to weigh in on political appointments.

Kelly noted that Jorjani has signed several critical legal opinions since taking over the division, including one that revived a mining claim near Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and one that relaxed the penalties energy companies could face for killing birds under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The eight legal opinions Jorjani wrote during the first year-and-a-half of the Trump administration exceed the combined total that were issued under the three previous administrations, Kelly said.

"They are not just keeping the seat warm while waiting for the real McCoy to show up, and yet they're able to operate without the level of scrutiny that's usually associated with these positions," she said.

At times, the Trump administration has felt like a game of musical chairs. Mick Mulvaney has taken a break from his job heading the White House budget office to serve as acting chief of staff, while the deputy OMB director is also serving as the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management. And in late December the vice chairman of the Merit Systems Protection Board — which acts as a personnel court for federal employees accused of misconduct or facing other employment actions — began concurrently serving as OPM's acting general counsel.

Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser who now works as a lobbyist, said that Trump and some of his top aides remain skeptical of the idea that they need to bring on all the appointees they re authorized to hire.

"Life would be easier for them if they had more allies in the bureaucracy," he said.

Key Senate Republicans are hoping the administration will agree and put nominees forward for top administration jobs.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she is concerned with the lack of a confirmed interior secretary as well as vacancies atop the Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service.

"When you think about it, what was the big initiative at the end of last year? Let's do something with park maintenance," Murkowski said. "Would sure be great to have the head of the parks in order to execute this initiative. Yup. It worries me."

For the moment, Trump's deputies continue to come up with inventive ways to fill openings. On Monday, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue named three presidential nominees to senior leadership posts in his department, saying that the last Congress failed to act on their appointments and he wanted them to start working while they awaited action from the new Congress.

"At USDA, we've been engaged in fulfilling our mission without all of our players on the field, so we want to get these strong, qualified leaders in the game," Perdue said.

[The Minsky Moment]

I think you're being a little too skeptical.  The margin of error is the worst case reasonable deviation. 

The BLS uses a 90% confidence interval not a 95%.  It's not really a *worst* case reasonable deviation - it's not unlikely for there to be a deviation greater than that at least once every calendar year. In the example I had the numbers for - 2012 - there were two months at or close to 100K off.

Sometimes you just have to go with the information you have, because it won't be any more precise.

sure, no debate there.  For example, the Fed uses the numbers because it's better than nothing.  But no sane Fed chair would make a major policy change simply based on a first estimate.  It's just one part of an array of information that collectively might move the needle a bit. 

[crazy canuck]

Trump says he wants to use his speech to unify.

This is how a previous Republican President attempted that task.  It is startling to see how respectful he was in the context of what is happening today.

https://preview.msn.com/en-us/news/video/george-w-bush-was-the-first-president-to-greet-a-madam-speaker/vi-BBRLQ1c

[jimmy olsen]

Trump says he wants to use his speech to unify.

Aside from mostly uniting us against him, that ship has sailed.

[11B4V]

Trump says he wants to use his speech to unify.

This is how a previous Republican President attempted that task.  It is startling to see how respectful he was in the context of what is happening today.

https://preview.msn.com/en-us/news/video/george-w-bush-was-the-first-president-to-greet-a-madam-speaker/vi-BBRLQ1c

Oh this ought to be good.

[dps]

Trump says he wants to use his speech to unify.

Aside from mostly uniting us against him, that ship has sailed.

That's a good one.  Funny, yet true.

[mongers]

Any likely unintentional comedic elements in this upcoming speech?

Or can it safely be missed?

[Habbaku]

Skip it and watch the highlights reel later.

[mongers]

Skip it and watch the highlights reel later.

Thanks, I'm listening to some radio instead.

[garbon]

Seems like no reason to pay attention to it. Recycle of other speeches.

[crazy canuck]

Actually I thought it was worth watching.  Otherwise you miss the parts where he starts a sentence on one topic, mid sentence loses track of what he was saying, and then ends the sentence on a completely different topic.