The Census boondoggle: $340 million ad campaign
Otherwise known as the tax-subsidized National Democrat Future Voter Outreach Drive:
Anyone who doesn’t know there is a Census this year will know after Monday.
The government’s unprecedented $340 million promotional blitz of the 2010 Census launches Monday with the debut of the Census Portrait of America Road Tour in New York City’s Times Square.
A 46-foot trailer, to be unveiled on NBC’s Today show, and 12 smaller cargo vans with 14-foot trailers will crisscross more than 150,000 miles nationwide through April to promote the benefits of responding to the 10-question Census.
They will stop at more than 800 events from local parades and festivals such as New Orleans’ Mardi Gras and San Francisco’s Chinese New Year celebration to national sporting events from the Super Bowl and the Daytona 500 to the NCAA Final Four.
“This thing is all over the place,” says Angelo Falcón, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy and chairman of the Census advisory committee on Hispanics. He jokes that “it might make people sick of the Census.”
This is just the beginning:
• $140 million on TV, radio, print and outdoor advertising, including $2.5 million for two ads in the Feb. 7 Super Bowl pregame show and a 30-second spot directed by Christopher Guest (This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show) and starring Ed Begley Jr.
• Roughly $80 million spent on ads will target racial and ethnic groups and non-English speakers in 28 languages. The bulk of it will pinpoint Hispanics, blacks, Asians and American Indians, but some ads will be in Arabic, Yiddish and other languages.
• Partners from Univision and Telemundo to Google and Best Buy will promote the Census.
Via USA Today, hat tip American Power.
***
Obama census propagandists have already invoked Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in their recruitment drive. Are Allah and Buddha next?
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They will shoot themselves in the foot with this.
Tell your conservatives friends and family to only participate in the census if they live in a conservative state.
Anyone know what the 10 questions are?
Other than “how many people live in your house?” I can’t think of anything they need to know to comply with the Constitutional mandate for congressional seat allocation.
I saw a painted sign tacked up in a local strip mall parking lot yesterday: “Sencis Jobs – call now!” I just had to shake my head. Got to be a minority jobs program.
Prop up the failing lamestream media time …
They have illegally combined the 10 year census w/the once a year American Community Survey.
This will tell you all you need to know
http://www.censusrights.com
I wonder how many lauguages this form will have on it? There are so many people who do not or will not speak English this form should be a dandy! The people they hire to go to people’s home will have to bi-lingual or whatever laungage the homeowners speak also. Our government at work again!
L
No habla.
Beyond how many people live in my house, I’ll answer their remaining questions after they answer one from me:
That should leave them scratching their head long enough for all this silliness to pass.
Think of the carbon footprint involved in that. I here I thought the planet was in crisis. Not as much as the Dem party, evidently.
A Census Taker showed up at my door yesterday during the Cowboys vs Eagles game. Invited him and his laptop in, turned the game on in that room (I was watching in my office instead) and answered every questions except “how many?” and “what names and did they live here last year?” with “I don’t know”. That complies..right? They wanted to know how far I commuted to work (10 feet), if I paid for electricity (nah, the TV came on by Magic), how much I got paid (at least a dozen) and if I paid for alternate sources of energy to heat my home (do dogs count? they radiate heat.)
I hope that they drive all of them here to Hawaii.
All this with what used to be our money …
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
What a total waste of money! And it is exactly what our gov does so well. I’m all for illegals boycotting the census. Maybe they should just leave before the census forms are sent out.
My state could stand to lose one of its seats. One less lib in congress would be a good thing.
Our dear gov values the Constitution when it applies to us rather than to them.
I’m already sick of the census
Do they go to every house?
2010 census questions, beyond enumeration;
name, sex, age, DOB, hispanic, race, household relationship, own or rent.
The American Community Survey was created because of the backlash over the 2000 census longform. So while everyone will get the short form this April, about 250,000 residences per month will also get the ACS. The ACS comes with its own 90 day harrassment cycle.
If the data is still going to the White House for “processing” I am not participating.
It will end up in the same “memory hole” with the original climate data that was later “modeled” to the specifications of the “true believers.”
If the mail is good enough to send us our anthrax meds in a national emergency, why isn’t it good enough to tell us about the census?
“Targeting non-English-speakers in 28 languages”.
Exactly WHY? If they’re NON-English speaking, either they need to provide a visa in order to be here legitimately, or they’re ILLEGAL, since people have to be able to speak English to become a citizen.
No English? Show visa, or leave.
Unless Obama is counting ALL the illegals as legal voters in 2012. Hmm.
I’m only going to answer with Senor y senora.
After my initial answer to how many reside in my household, the rest will be answered as “Not applicable to Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution.”
In similar words from Deadwood: “Go #$%^ yourself and don’t feel entitled!”
We ignored the ACS and they called and called. Finally one day when I wasn’t home, my wife got the call (caller id had been saying Census but that time something else). Anyway, she answered “prefer not to say” for every question. They accepted it. But apparently you are not allowed to do that on the paper copy you receive.
How do you explain that even the earliest censuses, you know…the ones around at the time of our framers, included more than just a head count? It also had age and racial breakdowns. Why would the framers, who were in charge of the government at that time, commission such a census if they thought that such information was unconstitutional?
Were these questions asked separately as part of an additional survey?
Did they impose fines or jail sentences for non compliance after the initial number in household question required by the Constitution?
These additional questions could have been very easily voluntary only.
Okay, you know the drill…we’re all black handicapped gay chinese females with hispanic surnames again aren’t we?
Nope.
Don’t know.
You can actually view the old censuses at the Census.gov website (where they still exist). Pretty interesting. And always more than a head count. Check out 1810.
These additional questions have not been properly addressed by the courts with regards to privacy laws and abuse by the Government. (ie: Japanese Internment)
And how many devils can dance on the head of a pin?
It does not matter what is asked or what is answered. Once this raw data goes into the WHITE HOUSE and not the Commerce Department, I have no illusion about the factuality of the data coming out.
If you applied the same computations as a way to get to the moon, you’d end up in Fairbanks, Alaska.
So in terms of Constitutionality it is unimportant, because information is power and the White House is seizing all of it for political purposes.
You can answer anyway you like. It does not matter, because the facts and the results will look nothing alike. It will look like those precincts that had more registered voters than residents. NO PROBLEM.
Just because it was the framers asking the questions doesn’t make it constitutional. It’s what’s in the constitution that makes it constitutional, not a politician or bureaucrat, regardless of how many (or few) years since ratification.
I don’t work for the government, so I’m just a stupid serf, but wouldn’t they get a much better response if they took $100M and drew 100 census forms to win $1M each?
Fantastic point but do not mention them as their carbon off-set would be too great – flatulence, dung etc. You would likely get a visit from a federal agency. Bad news.
Dogs are a great heat source. So are cats. My wife and I have been employing them to great effect during this cold snap. Although they tend to get annoyed if you reposition them too often. Thank goodness for global warming or we would probably have had to go out and collect some local strays (all except for Crazy Dog – he will nip toes).
Make sure you mention that to Thomas or Scalia next time they pull out the “original intent” argument.
I think the original fine for not answering the questions was ~$20 — which would probably be several hundred today. I don’t get major heartburn over the basic questions — although I *do* think that they should ask if you are a legal resident of these United States, but that’s another argument.
What I have a major problem with is the extremely invasive ACS “supplemental” questions. If you go to the government website, they will tell you that you are required by law to answer all of those questions too (per Section 221) — but as far as I can tell, that penalty is only for the enumeration information, not the “what time do you leave for work each day” garbage they want to know too. It’s all so conflicting that it is insane! Here’s one quote from the Census Bureau’s “Answers to common questions”
But then the very next section has this:
Huh? So they collect all of this other information at the behest of other agencies, with whom they are not allowed to share their findings?
Glad they could clear all that up for us.
If I ever get to meet them, I will.
Been wanting to give them my opinion of legislating from the bench for a number of years.
Lan,
I do believe they mean that they cannot share information about a specific respondent with any other agency, like for example, the IRS. If you say on your census form that you make $200,000 a year, but only reported $20,000 to the IRS, the IRS couldn’t go to the Census bureau to ask to see your questionnaire.
Of course this is different than sharing information with another agency like, “3% of the population of Nevada reside in nursing care or group home facilities.” Which is made public anyway.
Hawaii shouldn’t have to put up any of the $340 million since the trucks and trailers can’t drive here.
Since the White House has directed that the data come to them and since the people working there are political appointees and not Federal Civil Serivce workers you can connect the dots on the confidentiality of anything.
Anyone seen Craig Liviningston lately? H.R. Haldeman is dead so….
If a “sencis” taker ever makes it out here to the Alagnak River, Alaska I will tell them whatever they want to hear. Providing they bring me a bottle of Jack Daniels.
I received the ACS over 2 years ago and have been doing lots of research on it. The history of the questions is quite interesting. The CB allows various groups to submit questions. A group studying marriage added the marriage history questions. Various ethnic groups including La Raza want to know where their own minorities live. The health insurance question was added for the 08 ACS. (Gee, guess why?) The ACS is used as a screening survey to basically troll for people who qualify for gov programs but haven’t applied yet. (I guess the gov couldn’t begin to understand that someone might qualify for something and not want it.) And the gov does give out the info to marketers along with social, behavioral and economic scientists. They just strip out names and addresses. They also do some other interesting stuff with the data.
The problem with all of this is that there is so much info already known about the public, that it doesn’t take much to reconstruct the entire survey answers for any one individual using only a few data points and the CB knows this. Also, the CB would like to have all of the census gathering and survey questions done on-line, but can’t maintain that the answers connected to an identity remain secure.
I imagine a big share of this money went to ACORN. Corruption is running rampant in this administration. But hell if we need money the Chinese have it.
NumbersUSA has a great article regarding question #9 about “Race” on the 2010 form – check it out here
I will just claim “American” for race and be done with it.
Why should I follow my constitutional obligations regarding the census when the US gubment isn’t following the constitution at all?
Can I answer: none of your business with my new 44? or would that be tacky?
Be respectful and follow the Constitution like a good citizen.
Politely refuse to answer anything based on your Fifth Amendment Rights.
Only if the response is to circle one.
I’m thinking I’ll mark “Some other Race” and write in “Daytona 500″ as “My Race”
It’s actually the only NASCAR race I watch. I generally sleep through the rest, and let my wife wake up for the last 5 laps.
That should say I let my wife wake ME up for the last 5 laps.
For race, try Human! Ethnicity is American. Sex….frequently, occasionally???
You poor wife staring at the TV muttering.
191 laps to go
190 laps to go
189 laps to go
188 laps to go…….
She must really love you.
In 2000, I got the dreaded “long form”. I answered . . . less than truthfully. And no one ever followed up, in spite of the fact that I swore I lived in Denver (true) and took a boat to work every day (not true).
I mark “other” for race, and then write in CELT.
My granddaughter is Irish/Scots/Welsh/Chinese/Hawaiian/Korean. If we can just get some Nubian and Nuevo-Iberian in there, we can check “All of the Above.”
yo red dog, you got a problem wit ebonics? dat public school edumacation is phat bro, cause dey ain’t no wrong answers, yo, so we all grudgiate.
and hangfire, great lineage, almost the same as my daughter, but i just prefer nunia under other. leave em guessing.
funny how they can pull out scripture to suit them…they are very knowledgeable…just like their father, Satan the Devil.
Mary & Joseph were travelling to coincide with the Autumn holy days too. I believe Sukkot was during that time.
Oh, puh-LEASE! Since when does the IRS ever ask for information? Besides, there is no firewall between any gov’t agency and the IRS. If you think there is, then let me print up a title deed to a bridge I’m sure you’d like to pay for.
As for the questions, answer them any way you like. Personally, I think I’m going to answer all questions in spanish. If there is a space for comments, maybe I’ll use German.
By the way, in 2000 I answered “human” to the question about my race.
I’m planning on answering everything I am legally required to answer. No more, no less. Like paying taxes.
And why follow the law, when some legislators do not? Because character is not about what others do, its about what you do.
Okay, except for the -Saxon part. Nyuk, Nyuk.
And was there any penalty for not answering the questions that went beyond the constitutional mandate?
Remember, that’s your Fifth Amendment right against compulsory self-witness. “Self-incrimination” is NOT a right; it’s a privilege. So don’t use it!
Basically, self-incrimination means you know a crime has been committed but you would rather not admit it. It cannot be used as a blanket to fail to answer questions. You may, however, answer each question as “self-incrimination.”
Your right against compulsory self-witness means that you don’t even have to take the witness stand. It CAN be used as a blanket because the gov’t can’t force you to give testimony against yourself.
If you are unsure as to whether answering the questions is mandatory or voluntary, just check the signature box. If says something like “Under penalties of perjury…” then it voluntary. If it says something like “I swear (or affirm)…” then it’s probably mandatory.
Yeah, but look on the bright side – the 2008 election could have been a disaster, and that other guy could have gotten more votes than Obama. Just imagine the horrible state of affairs this country would be in if that happened. Right? So we dodged a bullet on that one, isn’t that correct, rightwingrocker RWR http://www.rightwingrocker.com ?
Like everything else this crooked administration touches, this count will be so corrupt. I imagine people coming to my door with name tags that have ACORN crossed out with census counter written above it. Seriously America, what in the world were you thinking?
1790:
“In 1790, assistant marshals listed the name of each head of household, and asked the following questions:
•The number of free White males aged:
◦under 16 years
◦of 16 years and upward
•Number of free White females
•Number of other free persons
•Number of slaves”
But-but-but this will stimulate the economy!
idiocy off/
There are 56 people in my house
Race: other
What is this thing you speak of? This thing, how you say, sex?
I don’t know. Those early census forms don’t seem to have a whole lot of extraneous questions in them to me. And even up to 1830 it seems to be mostly a “head count.”
Questions Asked on the 1790 Census
* Name of the head of each household.
* How many free white males age 16 and older.
* How many free white males under age 16.
* How many free white females.
* How many of all other free persons.
* How many slaves.
Questions Asked on the 1800 Census
* Name of the head of each household.
* How many free white males under age 10.
* How many free white males over 10 and under 16.
* How many free white males over 16 and under 26.
* How many free white males over 26 and under 45.
* How many free white males over age 45.
* How many free white females under age 10.
* How many free white females over 10 and under 16.
* How many free white females over 16 and under 26.
* How many free white females over 26 and under 45.
* How many free white females over age 45.
* How many other free persons.
* How many slaves.
Questions Asked on the 1810 Census
* Name of the head of each household.
* How many free white males under age 10
* How many free white males over 10 and under 16.
* How many free white males over 16 and under 26.
* How many free white males over 26 and under 45.
* How many free white males over age 45.
* How many free white females under age 10.
* How many free white females over 10 and under 16.
* How many free white females over 16 and under 26.
* How many free white females over 26 and under 45.
* How many free white females over age 45,
* How many other free persons.
* How many Slaves.
Questions Asked on the 1820 Census
* Name of the head of each household.
* How many free white males under age 10
* How many free white males over 10 and under 16.
* How many free white males between age 16 and 18.
* How many free white males over 16 and under 26.
* How many free white males over 26 and under 45.
* How many free white males over age 45.
* How many free white females under age 10.
* How many free white females over 10 and under 16.
* How many free white females over 16 and under 26.
* How many free white females over 26 and under 45.
* How many free white females over age 45,
* How many other free persons except Indians.
* How many Slaves.
* How many persons not naturalized.
* How many persons engaged in agriculture, commercial or manufacture.
* How many colored persons sometimes broken down in age categories.)
Questions Asked on the 1830 Census
* Name of the head of each household.
* How many free white males and free white females age 0-5
* How many free white males and free white females age 5-10.
* How many free white males and free white females age 10-15.
* How many free white males and free white females age 15-20.
* How many free white males and free white females age 20-30.
* How many free white males and free white females age 30-40.
* How many free white males and free white females age 40-50.
* How many free white males and free white females age 50-60.
* How many free white males and free white females age 60-70.
* How many free white males and free white females age 70-80.
* How many free white males and free white females age 80-90.
* How many free white males and free white females age 90-100.
* How many free white males and free white females over 100.
* How many males slaves under age 10, over 10 and under 24, over 24 and under 36, over 36 and under 55, over 55 and under 100, over age 100.
* How many female slaves under age 10, over 10 and under 24, over 24 and under 36, over 36 and under 55, over 55 and under 100, over age 100.
* How many free black males under age 10, over 10 and under 24, over 24 and under 36, over 36 and under 55, over 55 and under 100, over age 100.
* How many free black females under age 10, over 10 and under 24, over 24 and under 36, over 36 and under 55, over 55 and under 100, over age 100.
* How many deaf and dumb whites under age 14, over 14 and under 25, over 25 years of age.
* How many blind whites.
* How many deaf and dumb slaves and free blacks under age 14, over 14 and under 25, over 25 years of age.
* How many blind slaves and free blacks.
* How many white foreigners not naturalized.
We need people to make calls. You can from your house anywhere. contact brad@brownforussenate.com and he will set it up.
we can do this
“My name is Jose Jimanez. Baseball been berry, berry good to me!” How’s that for an answer for the ACORN/SEIU ‘cencis’ taker?
All but transgender, huh? Had you been thru gender ‘reassignment’, you might have qualified for a position in the Obama administration!
Oh…that pesky word “mostly.” Some are contending here that all that is Constitutionally authorized is a strict head count. The founding fathers own census data went beyond that, pure and simple.
One can argue about whether or not one was required under penalty of law to provide the info on age or what type of job they had, but so far there is simply unsubstantiated speculation as to whether it was not. The fact is the questions were authorized and asked by the same folks who wrote the Constitution.
Anything the government wants to do, these days, I view with suspicion. Yes, the census is perfectly Constitutional and needed for districting. There is so much pc and politics now, who knows how the information is used or what information is collected and by who? There was a time when the government was a nuisance but tolerable. Today, it has become intolerable and too political in too few hands.
Please aim several feet to the north…
Will they be counting the crowd in mistressjustice’s head?
Fine. They can get their information from the steaming pile my dog leaves them in the yard. He always eats my homework.
Quite literally, I will answer only the “how many people live here” question and on everything else write with a black Sharpie “None of your (bleeping) business.”
I will demand they conduct the census in Tagalog or Russian when they come. And when they come with an interpreter I will suddenly be able to speak only German…
Census? We don’t need no steenkin’ census!
It is always good to view with suspicion-these times and others.
Can I quote Hillary Clinton and say “I do not recall” for all of my answers?
Once again so-called “conservatives” will sit idly by while watching the corrupt census to be used to destroy our country.
The opportunity to fight against tyranny is nearly passed… will the oppressed ever rise up against the oppressors again? I don’t think so.
It’s really nice talking about how the Democrats and Barry Soetoro are destroying us, but talk is cheap. Our adversaries are counting on us not to do anything to oppose them. They have violated the Constitution over and over again and *no one* will oppose them.
Decades of conservative whining, exposing the facts, telling the truth, etc. has got us nowhere except defeated. Don’t you think it’s time to act?
Good, other celts.
I’m Scottish, Irish, and Welsh (alos with some English, Mexican, native American, and *shudder* French)
ALBA GO BRAGH!!!!!!!
Shame on us for celebrating Scottish heritage. Only non-caucasians can celebrate heritage. RAAAAAAAACIST!
/lib
alos = along
Aaaaaurgh!