I'm not totally sure what Greenman was asserting with his first response or subsequent in this thread.
But here's a taste of reality. You choose whether or not to believe what I tell you. I'm retired -- I have no reason to dissemble or lie.
I worked in "statistical shops" and in one way or the other during my CIVIL SERVICE CAREER. I don't care IN WHAT PARTY THE CIVIL SERVANTS ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE. THEY DON'T PHONY UP THE NUMBERS, and the numbers are collected systematically, from multiple sources -- often -- like different Fed regional offices, different government facilities, different states, etc.
HERE IS A TRUE STORY, THOUGH -- an anecdote -- anecdotal reality, not a statistical sample or tally. I had been working for a senior career employee who had earned a double PhD in statistics and evaluation, and who then earned a JD in law from U of Maryland. We had, for a period of about two years, worked on some government projects with William Edwards Deming, who was paid under contract.
This had been during Reagan. Later, political appointees just wanted to stir things up. This -- after we had done a stellar job providing statistical analysis for the Republican agency head in a landmark court case. We didn't care what party he belonged to -- we just wanted to collect honest statistical data, run it through the SAS and SPSS software provided on the agency's IBM 370, and be useful -- therefore contributing to our professional reputation for accuracy and INTEGRITY.
My colleague was moved into a position with the agency's research arm. We had lunch regularly. At one point, he told me this story as to how one of the GOP political appointees asked him if he could "do something" with the numbers that made the administration look good in the public eye. We thought the insinuation was to phony up some numbers and make up a story -- but as professionals, we're not going to do that sort of thing.
And this was "way back when"!
The sort of "phony number" exercise in Trump's imagination could not happen. They could surely make mistakes, and then correct them. I'm astounded by the paranoid imaginations of many, but particularly the delusions of He Who Has No Name.
Oh! The whole world is against me! They're conspiring to take me down and put me in jail! It's the Democrats! They're phonying up the numbers through the Career Service!
I'll tell you what needs to be done, and not to the civil service. But with this crowd, I don't want to attract attention. So I will just quietly go to church and pray to Jee-sus for an Elm Street and a fence on a knoll.
We're not even close to ending the first disastrous year of this criminal and incompetent administration. Anyone who doesn't think all this litigation and legislative dysfunction is an indication of a totally failed presidency and a totally failed political party -- well -- maybe they should take their heads out of the sewer of internet political babble and learn some things.
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