3 posts tagged “acorn”
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Posted by Pat Dollard on his website.
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told the Washington Times that she and her family will not be fully filling out the 2010 census forms.
Bachmann, a Republican, said her family will only be indicating the number of people in the household, because “the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.”
Bachmann believes the upcoming census to be “very intricate” and “very personal” and expresses concerns about ACORN’s involvement in the data collection. The community organizing program came under scrunity after charges of voter registration fraud during the 2008 presidential elections.
“I think what the threat of ACORN would be deluding the ballot box and the effectiveness of our vote,” she said. “They will be in charge of going door to door and collecting data from the American public, this is very concerning.”
Bachmann also expressed frustration at the president’s backing for ACORN, saying he has supplied $8.4 billion to ACORN since he has come into office, a number that far surpasses the $53 million given in the past 15 years.
“ACORN has received $53 million from 1994 to today, but now, since President Obama has come into office, he is making available $8.5 billion – with a ‘b’ - to ACORN, an organization that is repeatedly under indictment for voter fraud in multiple states across the country,” Bachmann said. “This is the last organization that should have the taxpayer’s wallet open to them but unfortunately, under President Obama, he is multiplying the amount of money available to them.”
Bachmann has claimed the $8.5 billion available multiple times, but it should be noted that the St. Petersburg Times’ affiliated fact check Web site, Politifact.com, disputes its accuracy.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Bachmann may be in trouble if she
fails to fill out the entire census. Spokeswoman Shelly Lowe told the
Washington Times that anyone over the age of 18 must fill out all the
questions and any such person who refuses to answer “any of the
questions” faces a $5,000 fine.
I'm thinking we all should NOT answer all the questions.
Twana
Civic Lessons in the Census by Edward L. Hudgins - director of regulatory studies at the Cato Institute. This article appeared on cato.org on March 28, 2000.
Census Bureau director Kenneth Prewitt says it's each person's "civic
duty" to fill out the 2000 census form; indeed, he says that the census
is "the nation's first major civics ceremony of the new century." But a
surer sign of civic health might be the sound of millions of Americans
ripping up those forms. The current census is a damning indictment of
the current political regime.
The Constitution authorizes the federal government to "Enumerate" persons in order to apportion congressional representatives among the states. That implies one need fill out only the first page of the census, which is addressed to "Resident" and asks how many people live at the address. Gender, race and age are irrelevant.
But in the 53 questions in the long form you're asked about your income (#31-#32), how you get to work (#23), when you leave (#24), how many bathrooms you have (#38) and how much you pay annually for water and sewers (#45).
The first civics lesson of the census is that privacy is of little concern to political elites; your personal business is their business. The second lesson is proclaimed loudly by the Census Bureau. The information is necessary so political elites can redistribute wealth and limit liberty according to their vision of a "good" society. You're told that filling out the form "helps your community get what it needs." Census Bureau TV commercials show crowded schools and promise more education funds; they show a waitress forced to take her child to work and promise money for daycare. To control us they must know us. Of course, 50 years ago the federal government took only about 5 percent of the average family's income, compared to 25 percent today, so families had more control over their expenditures, and less need to ransom their own income from Washington by filling out census forms.
An indication of how political elites view most Americans is found in question #17, which asks whether you have difficulty "learning, remembering, concentrating? Dressing, bathing or getting around inside that home?" The third lesson is that political elites see us as helpless victims who cannot tie our shoes or wipe our noses without their federal programs. In the therapeutic state, they will take care of us, and limit our liberties for our own good.
The fourth lesson is that political elites are obsessed with race. Questions #5, #6 and #10 ask about your race and ethnic origin, give you a long list of choices (11 for Asians) and allow you to mix and match. The collectivists don't view us as the content of our character but, literally, as the color of our skins or some accident of birth. It is instructive that you're asked what race you "consider" yourself (it's not what you are but what you "feel" you are). This puts off until some future date the need for Nuremberg-type laws defining races and requiring DNA tests.
The fifth lesson is that families, churches and other private, civil institutions are to be made subordinate to and enlisted to aid political elites. The Census Bureau is enlisting 90,000 "community partners" to prod and pester the rest of us to fess up to the feds. The bureau is enlisting schools to send children home to harangue their parents and clergy to urge their congregations to bare their souls to bureaucrats. But shouldn't the 340,000 churches, synagogues and mosques in this country concern themselves with the souls and moral character of their parishioners rather than help the government to rob Peter to pay Paul?
Contrast the regime embodied in the census form with the civil society envisioned by the Constitution. Individuals should have the right to live in peace, as they saw fit, to share their lives with family and friends and to open their hearts to whom they choose. The challenges of life should be met through vibrant civil institutions. Individuals should be equal before the law, regardless of race, religion or ethnic origin. And the role of government officials should be limited to protecting the lives, liberties and property of individuals, not meddling in our affairs and managing our lives as a way of maintaining their positions of power and privilege.
Perhaps a proper response to the census and the regime it seeks to
strengthen is found in Homer's Odyssey. Odysseus and his crew were held
in the cave of the savage Cyclops who "knew nought of justice or of
law." To escape, Odysseus blinded the monster. Today political elites
need information about us in order to subject us to their will. We too
should blind the beast that is devouring us. A true act of civic virtue
would be to not answer the unconstitutional questions in the census.
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Art Phillips
Barack H. Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington DC
Art Phillips
Barack,
I am not a Democrat, Republican or any other political party member. I am not Black, White or Latino, I am not Asian or Arabic. I am , however, an American, and for many generations my ancestors have been American. I have always voted for the man I believed to be the best for the job regardless of party affiliation. I served in the Air Force and the Army . I served in the mid east as a Force Protection Officer. My father served in WW2 where he lost one arm and the fingers on his other hand. He was shot in the mouth and riddled with shrapnel from a grenade. My father and I both shed blood for our country as did many other family members. This holds true for many thousands of American families. Another thing that holds true for my family as well as thousands of other American families is the fact that we love our country and we are willing to die for it. We are willing to shed our blood for the freedom and liberty so many have died for. So that there is no misunderstanding I want you to know my priorities, they are God, Family and Country. I hope you, Reid, Pelosi, and Biden along with the rest of your administration notice that government is not included in my priorities. I value things like Honor, Duty, Loyalty and Morality, just as those like me do also, and there are millions of us, Black, White, Asian, Latino and Native American. I am telling you this so you can put into context what I write next.
Obama, you had in your hands the opportunity to be the greatest President America has ever known. You could have done great things and made an entire nation proud of their choice. It is hard to believe that you took the hope and trust of a nation and betrayed every man woman and child in it. I have no doubt that you are not an American citizen. You have dishonored and degraded our military men and women. You have abused our Constitution and called it flawed. You have deliberately bankrupted this nation while destroying business and millions of American jobs. You have lied over and over to the American people while you insulted some of our closest allies. You have been a friend to our enemies and an insult to our friends. You and those in your administration have made the office of president something to laugh at to the rest of the world. You have been the worst mistake the American people have ever made. You have failed miserably in record time. The American people are not fools as you believe them to be. We know the only reason this legislature lets you get away with it is the fact that most of them fear disclosure of things they have done while in office. You must know by now that the majority of Americans reject you and your policies. You have never known the hardships many Americans have known. You have never sacrificed as many Americans have. You have never done one thing to advance the lives of Americans. You spend your time and our money helping those who hate us. You aid our most dangerous enemies in acquiring nuclear status while you destroy our ability to provide the energy our nation so desperately needs . Obama you have proved you hate America and Americans. I suppose its because you were so spoiled by Americas generosity that put you through college on foreign student aid. In closing I have to recognize the liberals and progressives who depend on you. The liberals and progressives who have taken over the Democrat and Republican parties are the most vulgar, hate filled criminal element ever to walk the earth. I never thought Washington DC would become so disgusting, dishonorable, disloyal and untrustworthy. It is truly a sad day for all Americans, I hope the majority of you in this government now never get another vote, at least another honest vote. We all know ACORN will steal and cheat as many votes as the billions of our dollars Obama gave them will supply. We can only hope the FBI still has Honor and Loyalty and will stop them. By the way Mr. Obama, Black Americans have sacrificed for America and they are proud of their country just as all Americans are proud of each other. You, Sir, have never made a sacrifice for anything. This is what makes your arrogance and self righteousness so amusing and despicable. Men like Martin Luther King made the sacrifices and carried the load. I, like most Americans, am proud of men like Mr. King and most of those who followed him. Men like you who use their good names to boost your ego when you have done nothing more than tare this country down are frauds. You have done more to divide this country using class and race than any man in our history. America had great hope for you and you betrayed that hope. All I see in you is bigoted anti American white man hiding behind a dark complexion. Those who trusted you are starting to see your true ambitions and lack of values and they do not like what they see.
Respectfully,
Art Phillips
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In what may be the most important voting case since Bush v. Gore, the U.S. Supreme Court in January will hear a challenge to Indiana’s 2006 law requiring a voter ID to vote. If the court rules against the law, 22 state voter ID laws that were designed to prevent voter fraud could be eliminated.
Democrats and so-called voting rights groups such as ACORN, the ACLU and the League of Women Voters (all of whom are challenging the law) claim there has been little actual voter fraud, few federal prosecutions and convictions, and that the purpose of the Indiana law is to prevent minorities and the poor from voting.
This argumentation and legal challenge are being made despite numerous cases of voter fraud that have been reported by the media over the last 10 years. Adding fuel to this fire recently were stunning statements by two prominent political activists -- a Democrat and a Republican -- on opposite sides of the continent that show that voter fraud in the United States is very real.
The Albuquerque Tribune reported in January 2007 that the newly elected New Mexico elections director and former general counsel for the state Democratic Party, Daniel Ivey-Soto, frankly told county elections officials that voter fraud exists in that key swing state. “I have been in conversations with people who have told me that, at various times, they’ve voted more than once on Election Day.…It happens.” Asked by the clerks how he could guarantee that same-day voter registration laws would not cause more voter fraud, Ivey-Soto replied, “I can’t ... but I can’t guarantee there isn’t fraud going on now.…I know people who have gone on Election Day and voted multiple times because they knew people who weren’t going to vote. I’ve never participated in that, but I know people who have.”
And from the other side of the fence, Republican attorney and campaign volunteer Heather Heidelbaugh in Pittsburgh, Pa., pointed out the same thing from her experience in the campaign trenches. “When you send out a letter to people who have registered recently and the letter comes back as an address of an empty lot or is undeliverable, you tell me, is that fraud or not? When people say to me there is no such thing as evidence to commit voter fraud, it is false. I’ve seen it. I’ve witnessed it. I’ve lived through it,” said Heidelbaugh in a September 2007 statement to Steve Rosenfeld of alternet.org.
Widely Reported
Backing this up in 2005, the bi-partisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, led by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State Jim Baker, reported that the U.S. Department of Justice had conducted more than 180 investigations into election fraud since 2002. Federal prosecutors had charged 89 individuals and convicted 52 for election-fraud offenses, including falsifying voter-registration information and vote buying. That is why this bi-partisan commission supported laws that require voters to show a photo ID before voting using the Federal Real ID law.
Since the Democratic Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, numerous loopholes have been created that have permitted thousands of dead voters and former residents who have long ago moved to remain on the voter rolls for nearly a decade. Also, there is only one state -- Arizona -- that finally adopted in 2004 a law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Former Vice President of the Virginia Electoral Board Association Edward O’Neal recently testified before the U.S. House Administration Committee how the NVRA prevents election administrators from removing outdated and false voter information from voter-registration rolls for as many as 10 years. According to O’Neal and other witnesses who testified before the subcommittee, prohibiting the removal of erroneous information makes it impossible for election officials to maintain database integrity and prevent voter fraud.
Just a casual look at news reports over the last 10 years reveals a number of serious cases of voter fraud in key elections from President, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor and other offices down to the local level. From the White House to the courthouse, voter fraud has been widely reported but seldom prosecuted because of the difficulty of proving it.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel initiated an investigation of the 2004 presidential election in Wisconsin, which had one of the closest results, with Kerry winning the state by only 11,000 votes. The newspaper investigation resulted in a probe by U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic and Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann that found clear evidence of fraud in the election, including more than 200 felons who voted illegally and another 100-plus people who voted under bad addresses or false names or who voted twice.
Concerning the 2000 presidential election, the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund reported last July that “the Florida secretary of state’s office … found ‘legally sufficient’ evidence that some 60 people in Palm Beach County had committed voter fraud by voting both there and in New York State” in 2000.
One of the most comprehensive studies of the 2000 presidential election, “Democracy Held Hostage,” was conducted by the Miami Herald -- it found that 400 votes were cast illegally in heavily Democratic Broward County when poll workers allowed voters to vote who were not on the precinct voting rolls. And another 452 were cast illegally by felons in Broward. In Volusia County -- which supported Gore -- 277 voters voted who were not registered, including 73 voters at predominately black Bethune-Cookman University, which voted heavily for Gore.
The Herald review of votes in 22 counties (with 2.3 million ballots) found that 1,241 ballots were cast illegally by felons who had not received clemency. Of these voters, 75% were registered Democrats. And the Herald study counted only those who had been sentenced to prison for more than a year.
The Herald also found that it was a myth that many non-felons were removed from the rolls illegally in Florida. As the report says: “Instead, the evidence points to just the opposite -- that election officials were mostly permissive, not obstructionist, when unregistered voters presented themselves.” County elections officials removed only one out of every five voters whom the secretary of state suggested were possibly felons, despite the media hysteria about this state list. The list was supposed to be investigated by the county officials who instead largely ignored it. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement received only eight valid complaints from voters who were misidentified as felons on Election Day.
Across the Country
One of the most recent well-publicized voter fraud cases occurred in the Washington State governor’s race in November 2004 in which Democrat Christine Gregoire allegedly defeated Republican Dino Rossi by 129 votes after weeks of vote counting. The Washington State Superior Court found that 1,400 felons voted illegally, along with illegal votes cast by 53 dead people, two non-citizens and 27 double votes. Since Washington State does not have party voter registration, there was no way of proving exactly how they voted, so the judge ruled there was not enough proof to void the election.
In one of the few cases in which an election was overturned because of voter fraud, the Tennessee State Senate voided the results of a September 2005 special state senate election in which Democrat Ophelia Ford was initially elected over Republican Terry Roland by 13 votes. The results were thrown out on a 26-to-six bi-partisan vote after allegations of election wrongdoing that included voting by felons and nonresidents of the district as well as three ballots cast by dead voters in one polling place according to the Knoxville News.
In a case of voter fraud involving a Texas U.S. House seat, the San Antonio Express-News said in 2004 after Henry Cuellar won by only 58 votes: “We may never know if illegal votes propelled Laredo lawyer Henry Cuellar to victory in the 28th Congressional District Democratic primary. …On Tuesday, a district judge ruled that U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez cannot introduce evidence alleging ballot fraud and the illegal casting of votes.” This was after the newspaper reported that primary voters in almost two dozen residences in one Cuellar stronghold (Webb County) had moved out of the district and had not changed their voter-registration address.
In another case concerning a U.S. House seat in which voter fraud may have influenced the result, California Republican Congressman Bob Dornan was defeated by Democrat Loretta Sanchez in an upset, by the narrow margin of 984 votes in 1996. Dornan charged that Sanchez’s margin came from non-citizens, and an investigation by the House of Representatives found that 547 non-citizens had voted in the election, but not enough to void the election. Some believe that far more non-citizens who were not detected actually voted. John Fund, in his book Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, says that an INS investigation in 1996 into alleged Motor Voter fraud in California’s 46th District revealed that “4,023 illegal voters possibly cast ballots in the disputed election between Republican Robert Dornan and Democrat Loretta Sanchez.”
Another serious case of alleged voter fraud involved a U.S. Senate seat. Louisiana Republican Woody Jenkins filed charges of voter fraud in 1996 before the Senate Rules Committee after he lost to Democrat Mary Landrieu by 5,788 votes. According to the Almanac of American Politics, Jenkins “presented affidavits showing that more votes were counted in many New Orleans precincts than the number of voters who signed in, and testimony of campaign operatives, apparently from [Democratic Mayor Marc] Morial’s L.I.F.E. organization, ferrying people around to vote in one precinct after another.”
In April 1997, the Rules Committee agreed, by a nine-to-seven party-line vote, to broaden the investigation. By June, however, committee Democrats were complaining that the inquiry had failed to produce hard evidence of fraud and withdrew from the probe. Committee Chairman John Warner (R.-Va.) proceeded to hold closed field hearings in New Orleans without the consent of ranking Democratic member Wendell Ford (Ky.), and after the Justice Department pulled its agents off the investigation, the hearings produced little substantive testimony regarding the alleged improprieties by Morial’s political machine and state Democrats came forward with allegations that Jenkins’ investigators had engaged in witness-tampering.
Senate Republicans forged ahead with the election probe in September, belittling Democratic attempts to block committee meetings using parliamentarian tactics. By October, however, the Rules Committee voted unanimously to end the inquiry. While concluding that “isolated instances” of voter fraud did occur, Warner said there was no evidence to prove that there was a “widespread effort to illegally affect the outcome of this election,” or that Landrieu had any involvement in the violation of election laws.
Your right to vote will be at stake when the Supreme Court decides this case next year. It is now endangered unless there are adequate safeguards against voter fraud such as Indiana’s voter ID law. As former Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer warned recently, “In this day of illegals’ potentially gaining access to the driver’s license system, the verification of citizenship and accuracy of the connection of the ID card to the person voting is only common sense. Anyone who thinks that there is no stealing of votes should go home and next time don’t lock their doors or cars when leaving.”
Wright Talley is the pen name of a long-time congressional employee.
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