Remember the Media Outrage Over Obama’s Early Release Jobs Information? I Don’t Either

Yesterday, much of the media had its hair on fire over President Trump teasing a stellar jobs report. About an hour before the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its official press release on the May employment data, President Trump tweeted:

Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2018

This tweet gave way to all manner of dumbf***ery:

Markets are moving on Trump’s illegal tweet preview of April jobs report.

— Pedro da Costa (@pdacosta) June 1, 2018

I would point out that a “directive” is not “the law” and that no directive by an agency is binding on the head of the agency or the president, but that would be wasted effort. https://t.co/Gk7kscGaIv

— streiff (@streiffredstate) June 1, 2018

This is a veritable cornucopia of know-nothingness masquerading a commentary:

This is going to sound like inside baseball and minor stuff to people, but the truth is it’s a very disturbing, blaring example of the recklessness with which Trump treats privileged information, and it’s easy to imagine all the natsec ways this can and will go wrong. https://t.co/fZWnOG8fIA

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) June 1, 2018

Lemme bore you by telling you why this tweet was an effing outrage.

The jobs numbers are released at 8:30am. The President is traditionally told the numbers the night before, but told to play them close to his chest.

But at 7:21am he’s telling us all to tune in. Wonder why. https://t.co/Tl43ywZDcR

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) June 1, 2018

Dozens of federal employees who go to enormous lengths to make sure that no-one (beyond the White House) can get a jump on the numbers and front-run the market. But the President just big-footed them.

And really, who’s surprised that the numbers were stronger than expected?

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) June 1, 2018

Fact check…who exactly ran the market based on this tweet an hour before the official press release which comes out an hour before the markets open? Does this guy really think that major companies aren’t buying this same kind of analysis from private vendors?

Here’s the problem: Who wants to buy U.S. stocks, if you think there’s a chance that you might be buying from someone who’s selling based on Trump having said something to them on the phone last night?

Even if this effect is small, what’s the upside from Trump’s tweet?

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) June 1, 2018

Let me get this straight…the tweet by Trump is an indicator that Trump called the guy you are making a trade with the night before?

And you can’t put the genie back in the bottle: Next jobs day, if at 7:21am Trump tweets about Roseanne or some other dumb thing that’s not the jobs day, markets will infer he doesn’t want to talk about the jobs report. Watch: Stocks will fall as a result.

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) June 1, 2018

uhhhh….I got nothing.

If *any* other federal employee had tweeted in a way that gave the *appearance* of hinting at confidential information, they would be fired on the spot.

Plus there would be an investigation checking their emails and phone logs to make sure they hadn’t leaked to others, too.

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) June 1, 2018

This is factually false unless the employee released the data to someone with the intent of making a profit off the markets. Absent a felony conviction for insider trading the odds of a firing based on this surviving Merit System Protection Board scrutiny and legal challenges approaches zero.

Honestly, I get that on the scale of norms violations, it’s small. And if he’s an honest bloke, he didn’t tip off any of his mates.

But what’s the upside? Why not follow the norms of your office? Why mess with financial markets? Or undermine the integrity of our stats?

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) June 1, 2018

And finally the Thorazine kicks in and this guy realizes what kind of a clown he’s made of himself.

But the most interesting one is this:

If during the Clinton or Obama Administrations there had been a statement from @POTUS or anyone senior official in the morning before the Employment Report it would have been a major scandal—with all sorts of investigations following on.

— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) June 1, 2018

I see this over and over, from the left and from Never Trump people: “what if Obama had [fill in your anti-Trump outrage du jour], then there would be hell to pay.” In the case of Larry Summers’ gripe, we’re fortunate in that we know exactly what would have happened.

This is from Reuters, dated “FEBRUARY 5, 2009 / 12:42 PM,” that would be in the middle of the trading day on the Thursday before unemployment data for January 2009 was posted on Friday.

President Barack Obama predicted more grim economic news when the government releases its January employment data on Friday.

“Tomorrow, we’re expecting another dismal jobs report on top of the 2.6 million jobs that we lost last year,” Obama said during a visit to the Department of Energy on Thursday.

Private economists in a Reuters poll predicted the January employment report would show U.S. employers slashed another 525,000 workers from their payrolls after cutting 524,000 jobs in December.

The report is due out at 8:30 a.m. EST (1330 GMT) on Friday.

If the poll proves correct, it would be the third straight month that employers have shed in excess of half a million workers. The unemployment rate is predicted to jump to 7.5 percent, which would be the highest since August 1992, up from 7.2 percent in December.

Obama discussed the deteriorating job market as he pushed for passage of a roughly $800 billion stimulus package that is under consideration in Congress.

“We know that if we do not act, a bad situation will become dramatically worse. Crisis could turn into catastrophe for families and businesses across the country,” Obama said.

Let’s compare and contrast. Trump teases a good jobs report an hour before markets open and the media befouls itself. Obama predicts a terrible jobs report the day before the release and we have crickets. And if Larry Summers can find an investigation either demanded or conducted because of this “outrage” by Obama, I’ll kiss his fat butt at high noon at a place of his choosing and give him an hour to draw a crowd.

These people are not serious. They aren’t even particularly smart. They oppose Trump viscerally because his very existence offends them and any success he has condemns them as poseurs.

(yes, I know this is whatabboutism and it violates the rules that I should love be held to a different and higher standard than Democrats, but that’s how I roll)

=========
=========
Like what you see? Then visit my story archive.
Follow @streiffredstate

I’m on Facebook. Drop by and join the fun there.
=========
=========

The post Remember the Media Outrage Over Obama’s Early Release Jobs Information? I Don’t Either appeared first on RedState.