Crime, Census, and censorship
Crime, Census, and censorship
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009
There are serious problems with the administration of the U.S. Census. Americans have good reason to be wary of the stranger’s knock on the door. Unfortunately, anything critics say about the federal census can and will be used against them in the court of left-wing opinion.
First, the disturbing news about the government’s most recent census travails: According to a new General Accounting Office report, botched finger-printing by ill-trained employees led to the hiring of some 36,000 census workers with insufficient background checks. “More than 200” of those workers may have had serious criminal records, according to the GAO. The investigators revealed that:
“…of the prints that could be processed, fingerprint results identified approximately 1,800 temporary workers (1.1 percent of total hires) with criminal records that name check alone failed to identify. Approximately 750 (42 percent) [of those] were terminated or were further reviewed because the Bureau determined their criminal records—which included crimes such as rape, manslaughter, and child abuse—disqualified them from census employment.”
Gulp. This comes on the heels of the Census Bureau’s admission that it is uncertain of the final cost of the 2010 decennial census and that it faces ongoing problems with handheld computers used to collect data. The failure of the handheld devices will increase census costs by up to $3 billion, officials told a House subcommittee last month. On top of that, NewMajority.com blogger Tim Mak points out, the bureau is grappling with cost overruns of nearly $90 million related to verifying its address list.
Then there’s the troubling alliance between the Census Bureau and the aggressively partisan Services Employees International Union – whose many leading officials and organizing tactics are inextricably intertwined with the disgraced personnel and methods of the ACORN community organizing racket.
GOP congressmen Peter Roskam, Patrick McHenry, and Mark Kirk pointed out in a letter to Census Director Robert Groves that the SEIU donated more than $4 million to ACORN in 2006-07. ACORN Founder Wade Rathke, who covered up his brother’s multi-million-dollar embezzlement of ACORN funds, is the “Founder and Chief Organizer” of SEIU Local 100. In Chicago, SEIU Locals 1 and 880 have contributed $230,000 to ACORN groups in Illinois and Texas. Many of their offices are co-located.
Given “SEIU’s intimate financial relationship with ACORN,” which the Census dropped from its partnership contracts after last month’s prostitution sting video fiasco, “you should take action to protect the public from the corruption of the 2010 census,” the GOP critics wrote. Their warning has gone unheeded.
Instead, Census Director Robert Groves, the SEIU, and several pro-illegal amnesty groups recently launched “a historic campaign” to target “the estimated 50 million Latinos living in the United States.” Inclusion of the massive illegal alien population has resulted in a radical redrawing of the electoral map. More people equals more seats. More illegal immigrants counted equals more power – for ethnic lobbyists, Big Labor, and the Democratic Party.
Alas, watchdogs can’t call attention to the politicization of the census enumeration process and its bureaucratic woes too loudly.
Three weeks ago, a part-time census worker was found murdered in rural Kentucky. Bill Sparkman was tied to a tree by the neck (his feet touching the ground when discovered) and the word “fed” had been scrawled on his chest with a felt-tip pen. Police are still investigating and haven’t ruled out three possibilities: suicide, accidental death or homicide. “We’re not responding to any of the speculation, the innuendo, or the rumors,” Don Trosper, spokesman for the Kentucky State Police, told the Christian Science Monitor last week. “The Kentucky State Police concerns itself with facts.”
But this hasn’t stopped rabid opportunists from convicting outspoken conservatives in the media of the unresolved crime/non-crime/incident.
The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan immediately fingered “Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts.” Author Richard Benjamin acknowledged that the area where Sparkman died is an infamous drug haven, but zeroed in on “anti-government bile” as his favored culprit. Benjamin singled out GOP Rep. Michele Bachman of Minnesota for her criticism of ACORN and the Census.
“Progressive” talk show host Stephanie Miller blamed the Tea Party movement for inciting violence. Echoing the unhinged liberal base, New York magazine indicted conservative talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh, “conservative media personalities, websites, and even members of Congress.”
They did this with the abortionist George Tiller shooting in Kansas and the Holocaust Museum shooting in Washington, D.C., and the Binghamton immigration center shooting in New York. Motives had yet to be determined and bodies were still warm, but that did not stop the liberal stampede from redefining conservative political expression as an incitement to violence.
This cynical move to demonize criticism of the census is part of a larger drive by the Left to muzzle limited-government advocates at every opportunity. Who needs the Fairness Doctrine? The criminalization of conservative dissent is well underway.
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» Surrender, he whispered
[heavy sigh] — Not you too, Michelle! That worn-out trademark of AllahPundit over an Hot Air is one of the most irksome parts of reading that blog.
I’d ask you to puh-leeze not use that word anymore — I stopped reading your column as soon as I saw it — but that’d probably tempt the reply of, “Dude, chill!” wouldn’t it?
the old adage about computers GARBAGE IN- GARBAGE OUT, applies equally to census data, global warming data, polling data, and any other data where the inputter has an agenda.
Look on the bright side. Those alarm companies that advertise on national TV can turn this into a great commercial.
“This is George at the alarm service. Is everthing all right?”
“No, there’s a census taker at the door.”
“We’re sending help right away.”
Of course you realize that it doesn’t make any difference don’t you? They’re going to cook the numbers to show what they want anyway, just as they do with everything else.
Perhaps I shall let the lads answer the door and see just how fast a census taker can run.
Run census taker Run.
This is the most scary. It may take years to correct the mess this administration and congress make, but if the census gets skewed the districts and electoral numbers will keep the Socialists in power for a generation, or more. That, of course, is their plan.
Once again it appears to me that both parties are more interested in trying to gain favor with the growing number of illegals than they are with taxpaying Americans.
The wolf is coming to Grandma’s house.
Errah, if the Federal government can already gleen this information from tax records and drivers license info then why do we still need a huge bureaucracy as well as a bunch of knuckleheads doing this every 10 years to satisify the Constitution and the demogoblin jerrymandering? Alexander Hamilton must be rolling over in his grave!
Errah, I support an Ammendment to the Constitution to change the “counting of people” by the census to a “counting of Citizens” or better yet a “counting of Taxpaying Citizens”!
And I take it the Wood Cutter was your favorite character in that story?
—
For our Professional Educators: that story, Little Red Riding Hood, is known as a Fairy Tale although it is not endorsed by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance for some reason.
I am surprised that the Roman Polanski supporters are not trying to have this story banned…..
Ayefirmative!
Be sure to have your Webley on hand as well: )
Cause they believe they can count on the “illegals” future vote for job security more than the taxpaying American.
Child abusers, murderers and rapists knocking at your door, offering to enter your home and help you fill out a multi-page form?? Good Lord, isn’t there any crime so heinous the Obama administration finds offensive???
Well, censorship has hit a new low at KSFO in San Francisco.
For the third time this week, they have shut off Sean Hannity as he plays audio from the ’safe schools czar. Clearly, this radio station has issues with allowing discussion regarding this morally challenged safe school czar!
@#$%^ People invade our country, and the gov’t wants to include them in the census that’s used to redraw OUR congressional districts? We want to make sure the invaders have equal representation in the House??? And to accomplish this, they’re sending any Tom, Dick, or Julio to knock on our doors as an official representative of the gov’t?
What kind of idiot would NOT speak out against this?
On a side note, the cleaning lady who comes through my office in the evenings speaks zero english. In a sane world, that would be her issue to deal with. But one evening she decided that I needed to learn spanish. First she kept trying to get me to admit I CAN speak it (I can’t) and then proceeded to prompt me by pointing to things and (I assume) telling me the spanish words for them. For some reason that really irked me. At first I thought it was because I’m not getting paid to learn spanish and she’s not getting paid to teach me…we both have jobs to do. But that’s not really what bothered me. It was her attitude that I “had” to learn spanish, not that she needed to learn english.
I’m starting to worry that in a few years I’ll be saying “I didn’t cross the border, the border crossed me!!!!”
PS – At first I tried to interact with the lady…I thought it would ne nice to learn a few spanish words or expressions and I could share some english with her. But she wasn’t interested in picking up english.
There is a way to deal with a hopelessly corrupt system (including voting, the census, and gerrymandering) in this country. It is specifically discussed in the Declaration of Independence as a way of affecting regime change. But talking about it too often got me banned from Hot Air (which I still read many times daily). Guess the time to talk about that option is not now.
We are discussing something similar, the Clay Co.,Ky., Census Takers Death and The Hardin, Montana Prison mystery. Odd Goings on in Backwater America. I linked to The Other McCain. He went to Clay Co.,Ky., to get a first hand look. He jokingly refers to Clay Co.,Ky., as Lower Glennbeckistan. Honestly, I don’t think there are huge numbers of News Junkies in the Manchester, Kentucky area (To Be Whipped Up) but I could be wrong. I just don’t see the Clay Co.,Ky., incident as having much to do with Fox News or Talk Radio.
Alabama Tide (3) VS Ole Miss Rebels..I think that’s Sheppard Smith’s team, Good Luck with that
Odd, isn’t it, that the moonbats will call us ignorant rednecks and trailer trash on the one hand, and then accuse us of getting riled up watching Beck on CABLE channel Fox News (whose advertisers aim at educated and affluent viewers) , via a SATELLITE feed from Direct TV, a service that will set you back at least $60 a month.
We’re an up-scale bunch of rednecks, I guess.
Don’t worry, they will be pushing to elect “non-voting” representatives from the
illegal alienimmigrant community. Kind of like Eleanor “can’t close her mouth to save her life” Holmes Norton.Once
Illegal aliensimmigrants make up .5% of the population, they get a congressman and 3 seats in the House. Of course like their constituants they would be immune from deportation, and paying taxes since they receive no benefit from the taxes…. It must be a mistake that it isn’t in the Constitution, perhaps the New and improved Supreme Court will straighten that out.FirstSpouse and myself will be answering the door with a holstered 9mm just in case. Hope it doesn’t come to flashing a concealed carry license, brandishing the weapon, and screaming “Get Off My Lawn”. We’ll see, but they ain’t getting in my house!