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NY Post "cooked jobs numbers" story debunked, hard

Kobie

Kobie

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Last week, many conservatives on this site and around the interwebs gleefully chimed in on another "Obama scandal" -- this time, a New York Post column, based on an anonymous source and the confirmed chicanery of Census worker Julius Buckmon (story can be found here), alleged that the Census bureau cooked the jobs numbers in the run-up to the 2012 election, presumably to grease the skids for Obama's re-election.

Turns out that Exhibit A in columnist John Cruedele's expose on chicanery at Census was ... well, calling it bull**** would be an insult to actual bull****.

A bogus NY Post piece sets off a frenzy : Columbia Journalism Review

The problem here is not that there’s no story, but that Crudele seriously overplays and distorts what he’s really got, turning a nugget of news into a blockbuster conspiracy exposé. It’s like if Woodward and Bernstein had skipped the years of legwork and just went with “NIXON HENCHMEN BURGLE DNC” the day after the Watergate burglary.

But of course, Nixon’s henchmen did actually burgle the DNC. What Crudele has uncovered is not evidence—at all—of a political conspiracy—but a very minor story about a single Census employee filing fake household reports rather than doing the work of surveying the households.

It turns out that the single Census employee Crudele found faking reports—Julius Buckmon—hasn’t worked for the Census since 2011, when, presumably, he was fired. That news came from CNBC’s Steve Leisman, and it moots the thesis of Crudele’s entire column.

All he’s got after that is a single anonymous source saying the Census intentionally interfered with the election, and that doesn’t come close to cutting it, particularly since Crudele’s reporting in the rest of the piece is fatally flawed.
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But, of course, none of this matters. The right wing has jumped to conclusions without any facts (AGAIN), and now it's part of the right-wing zeitgeist that Obama ****ed around with the jobs numbers before the election.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Is this opinion piece really supposed to mean anything?
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Which one is an "opinion piece"? The story that rightly points out that the NY Post story was complete bull****?
 
sawyerloggingon said:
No offense but your link does absolutely nothing to discredit the post story. If you hurry you can just delete this silly thread.
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It most certainly does! It points out that Julius Buckmon didn't work for the goddamn Census bureau anymore during the the time of the alleged "Faked" jobs report. It COMPLETELY DEBUNKS to the Post story.
 
Kobie said:
It most certainly does! It points out that Julius Buckmon didn't work for the goddamn Census bureau anymore during the the time of the alleged "Faked" jobs report. It COMPLETELY DEBUNKS to the Post story.
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Knowing that it is very easy to do and has, in fact, been done is surely enough to indicate that it is not impossible - as this opinion piece seems to wish to imply. Of course the employment figures could have changed in response to an offensive video reported on the web. ;)
 
Kobie said:
It most certainly does! It points out that Julius Buckmon didn't work for the goddamn Census bureau anymore during the the time of the alleged "Faked" jobs report. It COMPLETELY DEBUNKS to the Post story.
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Did the faked data exit the job with him?
 
clownboy said:
Did the faked data exit the job with him?
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The "faked data" would have had approximately zero effect on a jobs report a year later, which is the premise of the story. The story heavily implies that Buckmon's data was flawed and affected the Sept. 2012 jobs report, and that the anonymous source says "there's many more like him."

Well, we now know that Buckmon was long gone from Census by Sept. 2012. So now what we have is an anonymous source telling the columnist that Census is dicking with the jobs numbers.

OK, now it's on the Post to prove that, and they failed hard at that.
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Is this opinion piece really supposed to mean anything?
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It means that the census worker, Julius Buckmon didn't work for the Census Bureau at the time the employment rate was alledged to have been cooked. In short, the only witness has been debunked, discredited, quashed, invalidated, negated, exposed, booted out, kapooie.
 
I don't know if the original story is true or not... but this "debunking " story did a piss poor job of debunking it.

the original story does not paint this Julius guy as the only one doing the falsifying of records, in fact.. the story points out that the "whitsleblower" clearly states .." he's not the only one"


from the original story...
Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy.
And a knowledgeable source says the deception went beyond that one employee — that it escalated at the time President Obama was seeking reelection in 2012 and continues today.
“He’s not the only one,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous for now but is willing to talk with the Labor Department and Congress if asked.
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the "debunker" ignored everything i put in quotes and replaced it with his own assumptions.

anyways, the OP has a very low standard for Debunking... the story hasn't been debunked " hard".. or even debunked at all.
 
Thrilla said:
I don't know if the original story is true or not... but this "debunking " story did a piss poor job of debunking it.

the original story does not paint this Julius guy as the only one doing the falsifying of records, in fact.. the story points out that the "whitsleblower" clearly states .." he's not the only one"


from the original story...


the "debunker" ignored everything i put in quotes and replaced it with his own assumptions.

anyways, the OP has a very low standard for Debunking... the story hasn't been debunked " hard".. or even debunked at all.
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The original story states that Julius was one of the guys doing this ... we now know he wasn't. That means the entire substance of the NY Post story is now "anonymous source alleges something bad." Sorry, but that doesn't cut it.
 
Thrilla said:
I don't know if the original story is true or not... but this "debunking " story did a piss poor job of debunking it.

the original story does not paint this Julius guy as the only one doing the falsifying of records, in fact.. the story points out that the "whitsleblower" clearly states .." he's not the only one"


from the original story...


the "debunker" ignored everything i put in quotes and replaced it with his own assumptions.

anyways, the OP has a very low standard for Debunking... the story hasn't been debunked " hard".. or even debunked at all.
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You know... this is all great and stuff, but say you take out the ONLY person mentioned by name. What do you have? Well, you have an anonymous source making an unsubstantiated claim and right wingers eating it up. Hardly hard hitting journalism standards.
 
Kobie said:
The original story states that Julius was one of the guys doing this ... we now know he wasn't. That means the entire substance of the NY Post story is now "anonymous source alleges something bad." Sorry, but that doesn't cut it.
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from hte proginal story...
Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy.
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The Census employee caught faking the results is Julius Buckmon, according to confidential Census documents obtained by The Post. Buckmon told me in an interview this past weekend that he was told to make up information by higher-ups at Census.
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clear as day... the original story point out that Julius was caught fabricating data 2 years before the election..... you article does not debunk that fact, it backs it up.

nowhere in the original story does it say Julius was fabricating data in 2012.... this is the only fact that your article "debunks" and it's not even a fact that was included in the original story.
 
Hatuey said:
You know... this is all great and stuff, but say you take out the ONLY person mentioned by name. What do you have? Well, you have an anonymous source making an unsubstantiated claim and right wingers eating it up. Hardly hard hitting journalism standards.
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that's true.. there is only the unnamed whistleblower who supposedly is willing to go before congress if asked....

and sure,some right wingers will eat it up... just as some left wingers will eat up this "debunking".... partisan politics works that way day in and day out, facts be damned.
let's not pretend this is a right wing trait.. it's pretty much a universal political trait.

until i see some proof, this is just another story in a sea of stories... no attention need be paid.
I learned long ago not to buy into "unnamed trusted sources" as gospel....most often, the stories go nowhere.
 
Thrilla said:
from hte proginal story...

clear as day... the original story point out that Julius was caught fabricating data 2 years before the election..... you article does not debunk that fact, it backs it up.

nowhere in the original story does it say Julius was fabricating data in 2012.... this is the only fact that your article "debunks" and it's not even a fact that was included in the original story.
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It's heavily implied. The original article does not draw a very clear distinction between the time of Buckmon's tenure at Census and the 2012 jobs report. In fact, it intentionally obfuscates it.

By making up survey results — and, essentially, creating people out of thin air and giving them jobs — Buckmon’s actions could have lowered the jobless rate.
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No, no they couldn't have. Not in Sept. 2012 when he'd been gone for a year. The NY Post piece leaves that (in)convenient fact out.
 
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Kobie said:
Last week, many conservatives on this site and around the interwebs gleefully chimed in on another "Obama scandal" -- this time, a New York Post column, based on an anonymous source and the confirmed chicanery of Census worker Julius Buckmon (story can be found here), alleged that the Census bureau cooked the jobs numbers in the run-up to the 2012 election, presumably to grease the skids for Obama's re-election.

Turns out that Exhibit A in columnist John Cruedele's expose on chicanery at Census was ... well, calling it bull**** would be an insult to actual bull****.

A bogus NY Post piece sets off a frenzy : Columbia Journalism Review



But, of course, none of this matters. The right wing has jumped to conclusions without any facts (AGAIN), and now it's part of the right-wing zeitgeist that Obama ****ed around with the jobs numbers before the election.
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What do expect from a Murdoch tabloid POS rag? You could tell it was fake by the lack of links especially to bls.gov.
 
nota bene said:
Drudele says his source is willing to testify if protected from retaliation: House probes Census over
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I can’t say if the faking of the jobs numbers was politically motivated or not — although most of the extra 100 monthly surveys submitted by Blackmon did contain info that people did get jobs.

That would have helped lower the unemployment rate.
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Um, no it wouldn't have, necessarily. If say 90 of the 100 surveys reported employed people, that would RAISE the unemployment rate. This bozo can't help but mislead.
 
Kobie said:
It's heavily implied. The original article does not draw a very clear distinction between the time of Buckmon's tenure at Census and the 2012 jobs report. In fact, it intentionally obfuscates it.



No, no they couldn't have. Not in Sept. 2012 when he'd been gone for a year. The NY Post piece leaves that (in)convenient fact out.
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I have no power to influence your inferences.. but to argue that it was "heavily implied" is false.....it clearly states he was caught fabricating date 2 years before the election.... nowhere does it argue he was caught fabricating data in 2012... nowhere.... it doesn't mention julius in regards to the election at all.

in addition, "intentionally obfuscates it" is your opinion, certainly not fact.

the bigger part of the story is the part about Julius being ordered by "higher up" to fabricate data... and the resulting lack of proper investigation by the census bureau.. along with them not reporting the fabricated data to Labor.
all of this is heresay at this point, so i won't put my stamp of approval on any of it....there's simply not much in the way of corroboration.... but at the end of the day, your "debunking" has failed.
 
Kobie said:
Um, no it wouldn't have, necessarily. If say 90 of the 100 surveys reported employed people, that would RAISE the unemployment rate. This bozo can't help but mislead.
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so if more people have jobs, that raises the unemployment rate?

interesting math skills.
 
pbrauer said:
What do expect from a Murdoch tabloid POS rag? You could tell it was fake by the lack of links especially to bls.gov.
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lack of BLS link = fake?...... interesting logic.


say, how are your math skills?... do you believe more people having jobs leads to a higher unemployment rate too?
 
Thrilla said:
so if more people have jobs, that raises the unemployment rate?

interesting math skills.
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10 out of 100 unemployed is 10%, which is HIGHER THAN THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE WAS AT THE TIME. Hence, rate goes up. Learn to math.
 
Kobie said:
Um, no it wouldn't have, necessarily. If say 90 of the 100 surveys reported employed people, that would RAISE the unemployment rate. This bozo can't help but mislead.
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So you're familiar with his work? I didn't know anything about him, so I Googled. Found very little, so that would be great if you'd share what you know.
 
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