A website that's chock full o' interesting and crucial U.S. economic data is being shut down 10 days from today.  The website, www.economicindicators.gov, managed by the Economics and Statistics Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce, provided daily releases of key economic indicators from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the U.S. Census Bureau. 

The website's shutdown is attributed to "budgetary constraints," but the timing is a bit auspicious.  One has to wonder if an executive order came down the pipes to shut down one of the few sites which clearly relays the vital stats of our nation's economy.  Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but if you keep information about the economy and looming recession away from people, the Republicans have a much better chance of keeping the White House in 2008.

The reason is simple: when the economy becomes the nation's top issue, Democrats are elected.  When the country's top issue becomes national security, Republicans are elected.  The only way for the Republicans to avoid handing over control of the government to Democrats is to avoid talking about the economy, stupid. Eliminating this website and its troubled economic indicators is just one step of many in keeping the public misinformed enough to vote for guns over dollar bills.

Sound ridiculous?  Couldn't happen? 

Recall the Bush administration's gag order to NASA, in which they instructed the agency not to make any statements about global warming--which the administration refused to recognize at the time.  James Hansen, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said agency officials had ordered that public affairs officers to review his lectures, papers and postings on the Institute's website as well as vetting requests for interviews from reporters. 

"They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," said Mr. Hansen when the story broke.

This is also the same administration that orchestrated the U.S. attorney firings and fed the country misinformation about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction.  Eliminating a little website would hardly stir the same amount of dust of these other feats.