CDC gets list of forbidden words

If I understand this well, and it's likely I don't, but for the sake of argument assume I do? Then the most important thing to know about this story is that it's about the President's budget document (which is assembled with input from all the Executive Branch departments).

That budget is one of the more elaborate charades in Washington. Congress controls the budget by passing laws allocating funds to departments. The President can't not spend money allocated to those departments. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of the budget goes to stuff that is effectively non-discretionary; for instance, to Medicare and Social Security entitlements spending.

Banning words, and these words in particular, is batshit. I'm probably not alarming many people on HN when I say this is a batshit administration.

But this is about the words the administration is soliciting from a department for an elaborate marketing document. Someone tell me why, apart from the principles and precedents of it all, any of this matters?

Because words and the way we use them change the world. HN is probably mainly a place of realism, but social constructs are playing an increasingly effective part in the world of politics.

On top of that it's another level of bullshit that distracts you from all the other terrible things the US government is currently doing. "They are censoring words???" - mean while the worst tax reform in US history is being passed to increase inequality to revolutionary levels.