Kathy Hochul welcomes Texas Dems in redistricting publicity stunt to jab Trump
Hochul said Monday that New York should toss out its 2012 redistricting reforms that were aimed at removing bipartisan politics from congressional maps — while standing alongside Texas Democrats at the state Capitol in a photo-op her detractors ripped as 'political grandstanding.'
'If that's what's called for, that's what's called for,' Hochul said, asked if Democrats are abandoning good government and good Democracy principles in an effort to 'save Democracy.'
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'Saving Democracy is my top priority at any cost,' she added.
Gov. Kathy Hochul says she's abandoning good government and calling on Dems to gerrymander New York's congressional districts.
Hans Pennink
Hochul was flanked at her state Capitol press conference by six Democrats from the Texas House of Representatives, as they abandoned the state in their own effort to try and prevent Republicans there from redrawing their own maps.
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'The playing field has changed, not just for Democrats, but all Americans, and it's time to meet them on the new field,' Texas House Democratic Vice Chair Mihaela Plesa said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott convened a special session to try to push through the new gerrymander and has threatened to try to remove the renegade Dems from office if they don't return to the state and give up their procedural blockade.
'He's making up some s–t, OK? He's trying to get soundbites and he has no legal mechanism,' Texas Rep. Jolanda Jones said.
New York Republicans dismissed this visit as a political stunt.
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'Governor Hochul has described mid-decade redistricting as 'undemocratic,' yet her and other New York Democrats are willing to destroy democracy under the guise of 'saving democracy,'' state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt (R-Niagara) wrote in a statement. 'Voters know what this is really about – political power.'
'In her own words, Kathy Hochul is hell bent on angrily spiting the New York State Constitution, the will of New York voters, good government groups, and the courts by dismantling fair and legal district lines,' Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) wrote in a statement.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbot convened a special session of the Lone Star state's legislature to consider gerrymandering the congressional maps.
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Hochul called Abbott 'un-American' for 'rigging' Texas' maps, as she vowed to do the same in New York.
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'To subvert the will of the people, they're hellbent on rigging the system. Rigging the system is un-American. Congressional districts are never drawn mid-decade,' Hochul said.
New York's redistricting process is largely supposed to be carried out by a commission composed of appointees from Democratic and Republican legislative leaders as well as the governor. The process was put into place following a ballot measure in 2014, where it was approved by voters with over 57% of the vote.
Hochul said she now wants to scrap that process, and give full map drawing powers back to state legislators. Democrats are just a few votes short of a supermajority in both Houses of the legislature.
Changing the constitutional language wouldn't be immediate.
A proposal would need to be approved by two consecutive sessions of the legislature before its put on the ballot for voters to consider. The earliest that would occur is 2027, meaning New York Democrats could likely only rig the maps for the 2028 presidential elections.
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Commentary: How markets will punish Trump if he fudges the economic data
President Trump is laying the groundwork for replacing real economic data with his own numbers. It's a terrible idea that will blow up in his face if he tries it — and cause the Trump presidency more damage than any legitimate numbers could. Trump fired the economist in charge of the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Aug. 1 after the latest employment report showed a sharp slowdown in hiring. The problem isn't the data or the economists who produce it. The problem is that, right on schedule, Trump's disruptive policies are messing up the economy. His tariffs are raising costs and jamming up business operations with new inefficiencies. His workplace raids, meant to ensnare unauthorized migrants, are reducing the labor supply and leaving some companies disastrously short of workers. After firing the BLS commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, Trump said in a social media post that she 'rigged' the job numbers to make him look bad. 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The simple reality is that nobody, not even the president, can fool markets, at least not for very long. Official government data is important, but businesses, investors, and consumers rely on thousands of data points that tell them almost everything they need to know about how the economy's doing. Presidents have tried many times to generate a counternarrative meant to persuade voters they're better off than they think they are. It never works. Ordinary workers know how far their paycheck stretches and whether they're getting ahead or falling behind. Most can tell you that without knowing whether the inflation or unemployment rate is going up or down. Businesses know what's happening with their order book and cash flow, and spend more or less accordingly. Investors read pricing signals the government can't control and buy, sell, or hedge based on what they see. 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Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices. Sign in to access your portfolio
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Trump specifically cited revisions in the jobs data for May and June that cut total employment by 258,000. That put average job growth during the last three months at an anemic 35,000 — 80% below the average pace of job growth during Joe Biden's last year as president, an underperformance that Trump must find intolerable. There are legitimate concerns about the quality of the surveys BLS conducts to compute the jobs data. Those are huge surveys relying on accurate and complete responses from thousands of firms and regular people. The methodology is complicated. Trump's own cutbacks to the agency make mistakes more likely. One of the main reasons BLS revises the data in the first place is to provide more accuracy as it refines the results of a given month. The downward revisions for May and June were large, but hardly unprecedented. Trump isn't talking about any of that. 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In June, the BLS, which also calculates inflation data, said it was reducing the collection of pricing data in some parts of the country. Starting Aug. 14, it will cut the number of wholesale prices it measures. The agency says staffing shortages are the main reason it's dialing back data collection. Trump, of course, has slashed staffing at myriad government agencies as part of the so-called DOGE efficiency commission's work. Trump makes no secret of seeking to exert maximum control over all facets of government, including agencies established to be independent of political manipulation. He could very well co-op economic data by putting loyalists in charge of the relevant agencies and instructing them to make the data friendlier. He clearly wants a Federal Reserve that will juice the economy on his command, and if he appoints the right people for the rest of his presidential term, he might get that too. If any of that happens, it will backfire, maybe spectacularly. The simple reality is that nobody, not even the president, can fool markets, at least not for very long. Official government data is important, but businesses, investors, and consumers rely on thousands of data points that tell them almost everything they need to know about how the economy's doing. Presidents have tried many times to generate a counternarrative meant to persuade voters they're better off than they think they are. It never works. Ordinary workers know how far their paycheck stretches and whether they're getting ahead or falling behind. Most can tell you that without knowing whether the inflation or unemployment rate is going up or down. Businesses know what's happening with their order book and cash flow, and spend more or less accordingly. Investors read pricing signals the government can't control and buy, sell, or hedge based on what they see. The bond market is the ultimate arbiter of economic truth, and right now it's expressing concerns about the Trump economy and Trump's own policies. Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM, points out there's a 'risk' or 'fear' premium in markets right now that's pushing long-term interest rates about 0.65 percentage points higher than they'd otherwise be. That interest rate premium is the extra amount investors demand in order to lock up their money in longer-term bonds. It compensates them for what they think is the risk of higher inflation in the future, along with uncertainty over other factors that could affect the value of their investments. The current term premium is not historically high. But it's higher than it has been for most of the last 15 years. And not all of it involves Trump's policies. Last fall, for instance, long-term rates rose by about a full point while the Fed was cutting short-term rates by a full point. That was a very unusual move, suggesting investors foresaw higher inflation over a five- to 10-year time frame and demanded higher rates to buy bonds maturing during that time. Still, Trump has inherited a dyspeptic bond market, and his tariffs clearly contribute to inflation expectations because they're a tax on imports that literally raises prices paid by businesses and consumers. Another problem is the massive amount of US government borrowing, which may finally be approaching unsustainable levels. If or when the day arrives when there aren't enough buyers for Treasury securities, the only outcome can be higher rates for all bonds to entice buyers. And higher long-term interest rates raise costs for every business or consumer borrowing money. The weird pricing action from last fall shows that if Trump did manage to force the Fed to slash short-term rates, long-term rates might actually rise, because investors would anticipate higher inflation due to looser monetary policy. Trump doesn't care about short-term rates, which only apply to banks making overnight loans. What he really wants is lower long-term rates, so that businesses and consumers borrow and spend more, stoking growth. Trying to force that to happen would probably have the opposite effect. The same thing would happen if Trump tried to fool the world by publishing bogus data showing the economy doing better than it really is. Every serious investor would know it's a sham. Uncertainty would worsen as opacity on some facets of the economy replaced transparency. That would cause upward pressure on the interest rate risk premium, pushing rates higher. Brusuelas's data shows a risk premium of more than 2 percentage points during some periods during the last 25 years. If there were such a premium today, the typical mortgage rate would be more than 8%, instead of 6.7%. In 2008, during the financial crisis, the term premium approached 4%, which would push interest rates today above 10%. That's the range, or trouble, Trump could cause in bond markets if he tries to manipulate the economy and fails. Would it cause a recession? Nobody knows, but that may be the wrong question. Americans are in a foul mood largely because they think management of the economy stinks and they feel prosperity slipping away. When Joe Biden was president, he repeatedly touted record job growth and other things going right, convincing approximately nobody that they were better off than their personal finances led them to believe. Americans want to feel like they're getting ahead at home and at work. Legitimate data won't convince them if they don't see it happening in their own lives, and bogus data won't do any better. Consumer attitudes have been at recessionary levels for much of the last five years, and if Trump starts producing doctored data, it may depress people even more. Truth has value, even to Trump. Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Bluesky and X: @rickjnewman. Click here for political news related to business and money policies that will shape tomorrow's stock prices. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
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Key Takeaways American Eagle shares took off Monday after the president praised its recent ad campaign with actress Sydney Sweeney. Critics said the ads were hypersexualized and made references to discriminatory ideas about genetics. American Eagle said on Instagram that the ad has always been about Sweeney's Eagle (AEO) shares soared Monday as the president applauded its recent ad campaign with actress Sydney Sweeney. 'Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the 'HOTTEST' ad out there. It's for American Eagle, and the jeans are 'flying off the shelves.' Go get 'em Sydney,' President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform Monday morning. 'Being WOKE is for losers, being Republican is what you want to be.' Shares of American Eagle surged nearly 24% Monday afternoon after Trump's comments, following days of public discourse on ads critics said were hypersexualized and played on discriminatory ideas about genetics. In a video ad unveiled in late July, the actress—who has lighter hair and blue eyes—discussed the science behind genetics, and a narrator added, 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans." To some, the promotion seemed to echo ideas on the superior genetics of white people. American Eagle didn't immediately respond to an Investopedia request for comment. The retailer said the ad has always been about jeans, and that 'great jeans look good on everyone," on Instagram last week. Despite the recent gains for American Eagle stock, the shares have still lost about a fifth of their value this year. They've slumped in recent months amid worries about the company's outlook, which the retailer pulled in May. Read the original article on Investopedia Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
