Michele Bachmann is Cens(us)less
The constitution doesn't require much participation from the American people. It protects their rights -- free speech, to bear arms, a fair trial, etc – but it doesn't even make voting mandatory. The one action it does require is for citizens to stand up and get counted, which is why every 10 years the census bureau floods the postal system with millions of forms and deploys an army of counters.
However seemingly straight forward, the census has always been a political animal. Congressional districts live and die off of its results and control of the counting is a much guarded power – witness the concern when President Obama named Republican Senator Judd Gregg to head the Commerce Department, home of the Census Bureau. Still, lawmakers, servants of the constitution, are usually known to uphold its much revered instructions. Not this year.
Two-term Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is refusing to fully fill out her census form in protest that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a housing rights group known as ACORN, has been approved as one of 30,000 partners to help conduct the counting. Conservatives such as Bachmann say the group is overtly partisan and pushes the liberal agenda.
“There's great concern that's being raised because now ACORN has been named as one of the federal partners,” Bachmann told the Washington Times last month. “This is very concerning because the motherload of all data comes from the census.” Bachmann said she would fill out only the number of people in her household, but “we won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that.” She risks a misdemeanor charge and a fine of up to $5,000 for refusing to answer census questions.
Politifact, a Pulitzer-prize winning website, disputed Bachmann's claim that ACORN's involvement translates to a politicized census. “ACORN will not be ‘in charge' of going door-to-door and collecting data from the American public, as Bachmann said. The U.S. Census will be in charge of that,” the website said. “Some of the 1.4 million people who get Census-taking jobs may learn about the job through ACORN. Workers who apply to the Census through ACORN have no better shot at the job than those who apply through any of the 30,000 other partners. That's it.”
After failing to convince her privately, three of Bachmann's G.O.P. colleagues wrote her an open letter last week urging her to participate in the census. “Boycotting the constitutionally mandated Census is illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country,” Reps. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia and Florida's John Mica, members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Achieves, said in the letter. “[A] boycott opens the door for partisans to statistically adjust Census results. The partisan manipulation of census data would irreparably transform the Census from being the baseline of our entire statistical system into a tool used to wield political power in Washington.”
Bachmann, who is facing a tough reelection bid, says her office has been flooded with calls and e-mails of support. But she has also been on the receiving end of some scathing editorials in Minnesota, one of them calling her a conspiracy theorist. Another wryly noted that, given Minnesota's waning population, the state could well lose a House seat and the seat most in danger is Bachmann's. Is it wise, therefore, to be encouraging constituents not to fill out census forms?
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1
Nose, say farewell to face. And I hadn't thought it possible to make Patrick McHenry sound rational, but here we have it.
Palin-Bachmann '12 – Protecting America from Reality
Oh, and it's "mother lode." Also.
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"Bachmann, who is facing a tough reelection bid,"
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What makes you say that? I haven't seen any polling and that is an oddball district. If it's Tarryl Clark maybe but she hasn't committed to run, that I have heard anyway.
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And if it is Elwyn Tinklenberg then I hope he learned how to run a district wide race. He stunk last time when he had a ton of money, Bachmann being Bachmann, and a very popular top of the ticket. -
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Has anyone ever studied the incidence rate of raging paranoia and compared results across urban and rural settings? I wonder how well the effectiveness of raising ACORN as a cartoon villian correlates with people who avoid cities like the plague?
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4
Last time I was in an ACORN office, it certainly didn't look like a hideous hotbed of terrorist activities.
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There were two ladies helping some of the working poor in the community with their taxes. Another was a volunteer organizer, with all kinds of homey brick-a-brac lining the "wall" defining her cubicle.
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No AK47's piled in a corner, no explosive belts on the tables ore anything. Heck, there wasn't even ONE picture of Obama anywhere to be seen! -
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motherload...mother lode
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Amazing what they don't teach in school anymore.
The mining reference will soon be long lost....... -
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motherload is what Jonah Goldberg offers. Mother lode, on the other hand...
It's as bad as the idiots who write "reigns of power" not "reins of power" and don't get the original metaphor from controlling a horse.
Some day I hope a movie will be made entitled "Whacky Baccy Minnesota". If you just stuck to the facts of Madam Kooky's career, no-one would believe you. But as a stoner comedy, it would make perfect sense.
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I'd say Bachmann is the one serving up the muthaload.
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ACORN is just an item on the wingnuts' short list of cheap shot Big Lies. This deception and dishonesty will continue as long as reporters fail to understand the "issue" and confront them with the facts whenever the hatemongers refer to ACORN as some sort of latter-day SPECTRE.
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SPECTRE?
Not KAOS or THRUSH? -
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FO: Patrick Henry gave the speech. Fort McHenry withstood the bombs bursting in air.
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Perhaps Rep. Bachmann can persuade the Census Bureau to distribute tinfoil hats along with the questionnaires... -
12
Michele Bachmann has some serious fears. Like Charlie Brown's discovery from Lucy, does she have pantophobia, the fear of everything? (And Charles Schulz hailed from MN also, no doubt from a different area than MB.) She needs to embrace those fears. Can we help? I'd suggest:
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1.) Instead of ignoring census, BE a door-to-door census worker…in the worst areas of the Twin Cities counting those evil, troll-y homeless people. They count too, yes? no? maybe?
2.) Remember 3-24-09 congress hearing / spat vs. Bernanke and Geithner?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9DgMG-_6Ls She doesn't want to see a new global currency replace the dollar? Well, let's have Bernanke go to China and Russia and create one up anyway…and put Michele's face on the new bill, to be called the “Bachmann”.
3.) She must replace all light bulbs in her house – and her district – with compact fluorescents – remember THAT from 3/08? http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/house/17002506.html
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I know you're married, Michele *sigh* but call us anyway, we're here to help. -
13
1. Politifact is a trustworthy provider of Beltway CW, nothing more.
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2. Here's more on ACORN.
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3. Here's Census topic that no one at Time won't look into; note that millions of foreign citizens in the U.S. will have an effect on our political system via Cong. apportionment. -
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FlownOver and Paul Dirks: Michele with SPECTRE? Would she be #1 or #2? Imagine her sitting in a chair all day stroking a cat OR picture her as Largo with an eyepatch and trying to nuke Miami in scuba gear. Lovely! Beats having her in Congress, I guess.
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kbanginmotown:
Yeah, I was kind of aware of both facts. I'm sure you'll agree the merging of those two proud historical icons in the name of the U.S. Representative from the 10th District of North Carolina is an unfortunate coincidence. Having heard Rep. McHenry's overheated partisanship often during the '08 campaign I'm surprised he's now making more sense than Bachmann on this Census kerfuffle. -
16
Bachmann, like Palin, is one of scores of millions of people who believe in conspiracy theories and fairy tales.
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When I clicked on kattest123's link I stumbled into a world of kooks. The more links I clicked, the more I read, the more I realized I live in a country where millions of people are simply out of their minds.
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I found people wrapped around the axle about the census and refusing to fill out the form for reasons that included: Obama coming to take their guns, the Democrats wanted to round up conservatives and put them in re-education camps, the Democrats would turn over the census data for the UN so THEY would know who to round up.
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Of course, I also found the usual craziness about Obama lacking a birth certificate, Obama and ACORN committing election fraud, Obama working with Osama to take over the US. I also found ringing calls for "the people" to take back the US from the Democrats. Crazy.
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For the record, the Constitution states that the census should count everyone LIVING in the US. The Census Bureau can't decide on its own not to count undocumented immigrants.
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We can debate whether or not illegal aliens should count in Congressional apportionment. But let's lay off beating up on the Census Bureau. Michelle Bachmann's lunacy is already stirring up millions of well-armed right-wing nuts. And the result is going to be some census taker getting gunned down by some slack-jawed mouth breather. -
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More paranoid blather does not a convincing argument make; in fact, it sort of proves my earlier point – irresponsible wingnuts will say anything (loudly, endlessly and outrageously – the essence of the Big Lie technique) to incite fear and hatred of fellow Americans, especially when the extreme right itself lacks anything constructive to propose.
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choska is, of course, a liar. I don't even discuss Bachmann at either link, much less anyone refusing to fill out the form.
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As for BHO's cert, here's the truth about that issue. If anyone has a valid counter-argument (note: lying like choska is not a valid argument), feel free to post it. So far, no one's been able to come up with one. If you scroll down that page, you'll see a simple challenge that anyone can do: simply pick up the phone and confirm your assumptions. No one has tried to do something so simple (or they have and they didn't want to print what they found out).
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I've also got a corrections thread linked from every page (in the left sidebar). It's been up there for over a month and so far no requests have come in. If you spot something I need to correct, and - unlike choska you can provide a valid argument - feel free to leave a comment. -
19
I'm reading Nixonland right now. The good news is that as crazy as the US is right now, it is NOTHING like it was in the late 1960s.
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Back then the conservatives, led by Ronald Reagan, were busy telling the white folks that the black folks were the enemy. They were lazy, shiftless, and violent, and they were coming to burn down your house.
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Today, conservative politicians and wingnut no longer openly hate black people. They may hate gay people and Latinos, but they aren't using the police force to lynch them.
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Actually, I take that back. Just this past week there was a raid in Texas at a gay bar, and in San Diego the sheriff's dept. raided a meeting of middle-aged Democrats and pepper sprayed them.
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I stand corrected. 2009 is just as bad as 1969. Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley are dead, but Sarah Palin and William Kristol live. -
20
I hope the delusional Bachman convinces thousands of her fellow wing-nuts NOT to fill out the census.
This will be thousands fewer Republicans and conservatives recorded to figure out the make-up and money distribution for districts and States...and should benefit the Dems...
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kattest, I understand that nothing I say will convince you to change your point of view on anything. All I can do is point you to this link: http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate.
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My guess is that the reason no one is bothering to fill out your corrections thread is because (a) everyone who stumbles on to your site is a conspiracy theorist, or (b) they have the good sense to know that you are living in Bizarro world.
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As for your assertion that I'm a liar, I don't know what to say. I guess I take it as a badge of honor that a Birther thinks that I'm a liar. -
22
OT, Headline and caption from the NY times site:
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Bias Suit a Test of Resolve for Hispanic Man
By A. G. SULZBERGER
Called a turncoat by some, a New Haven firefighter has held to a view that merit should prevail over affirmative action in governing promotions.
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Which is not what the case is about. The MSM's embrace of ignorant merit vs. racial equality narratives in this case is so irritating. -
23
We do seem to be attracting a lower quality of troll recently. Just ignore kattest and he/she will vanish like the unlamented spob.
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24
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When I clicked on kattest123's link I stumbled into a world of kooks. The more links I clicked, the more I read, the more I realized I live in a country where millions of people are simply out of their minds.
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I've made that mistake before, myself. But heck, it's on the innert00bz, so IT MUST BE TRUE!
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Height of irony that a Sulzberger, writing a front page story the NY Times, is harping about merit prevailing over affirmative action when it comes to promotions.
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I guess promotions determined by your birth are ok in the Sulzberger family, as long as it is a Sulzberger being promoted.
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And you are right, rose, Mr. Sulzberger is completely missing the point about the Ricci case. Congress wrote a law. The Appeals Court read the law and said it had to affirm the case because the law was clear. The Supreme Court legislated from the bench and overturned the law.
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