By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
“This is nothing more than a political land grab,”Congressman Jason Chaffetz,R-Utah,said of Barack Obama’s Chicago-style political decision to bring the influential role of conducting the U.S. Census under White House influence. This single act should end any further bipartisanship. Obama is executing raw power politics as taught by his role model,leftist Chicago organizer Saul Alinsky. Alinsky pioneered this in-your-face style of political move.
Practically this means that Rahm Emanuel,the White House Chief of Staff and the former Democratic congressional campaign chairman —who has tax problems,ethics problems and negotiated with impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich —will be in charge of the process that determines congressional redistricting and the makeup of the Electoral College.
The census has tremendous political significance. Political parties are always eager to have a hand in redrawing congressional districts so that they can maximize their own party’s clout while minimizing the opposition,often through gerrymandering. This explains some of the bizarre,crazy-looking congressional district maps in America. The census decides how many congressional districts are in each state.
Experts note that the method of counting can significantly skew the census. The well-known college textbook,“How to Lie with Statistics,” comes to mind. Democrats advocate using mathematical estimates,a practice known as “sampling,”to count urban residents and immigrants. Republicans say the constitution requires a physical head count,which entails going door-to-door and is much more accurate. As expected,the Democrats models overstate the population in urban areas,traditionally Democratic strongholds.
The census also determines the composition of the all-important Electoral College,which chooses the president. If one party controls the census,it could try to perpetuate its hold on political power. The system we have is the result of a finely crafted compromise by our Founding Fathers when the constitution was drafted.
When Obama nominated New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to be commerce secretary –who later withdrew for scandal reasons —he indicated that Richardson would be in charge of the census. All that changed with the nomination of New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg. Gregg,a Republican,favors actually counting individual citizens rather than using statistical samples and computer models. Therein lies the source of the debate.
So far the situation is still unresolved,Obama has yet to fill the commerce secretary post and the administration contends that they aren’t actually bringing the census inside the White House,quickly retracting an earlier White House statement. Either way,the most important issue at hand is the methodology of the census. This power play led to nominee Judd Gregg wisely removing his name from consideration for the post.
The Constitution is clear:“the actual Enumeration shall be made… ”,and enumeration means “to ascertain the number of,to count.” The Constitution is straightforward in setting up the purpose and practice of the census. America is supposed to count each person. As detrimental as it would be to have a hardened operative such as Rahm Emanuel playing politics with the census,it will be just as damaging to have whomever Obama finally appoints as commerce secretary if they violate the constitution by employing statistical sampling with the purpose of exaggerating the population count in urban areas.
If Obama and his Commerce Department bow to leftist pressure groups and trample the Constitution,our very democracy will be undermined. Our system of voting is a sacred trust. Attempts to manipulate that system violate that trust. This issue will be a test of Obama and the U.S. Constitution.
“The last thing the census needs is for any hard-bitten partisan (either a Karl Rove or a Rahm Emanuel) to manipulate these critical numbers. Many federal funding formulas depend on them,as well as the whole fabric of federal and state representation. Partisans have a natural impulse to tilt the playing field in their favor,and this has to be resisted,” says Larry Sabato,the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia,in an e-mail to Fox News. “I’ve always remembered what Joseph Stalin said:‘Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.’”
When President Obama hired Clinton-era players,he didn’t just signal a failure to grasp the fundamental lesson of that administration –loss of trust. Take Barack Obama’s CIA director,“nice,quiet,civilized”Leon E. Panetta. Bill Clinton’s White House chief of staff. California State University –Monterey Bay’s patron saint. Founder of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy. Leon Panetta,who flew back to Monterey at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal and announced to the CSU,“There has been a stalker in the White House. It was frightening.”Thanks to some rather adroit media manipulation,students heard only Panetta’s accusations,but learned nothing of Monica’s exculpatory blue dress from local KSBW TV News. Panetta controlled the school’s cable TV,from which even CNN disappeared. Fox News would never be an option. Panetta who,from his publicly-funded political institute opposed George W. Bush’s Homeland Security reorganization,and the detention of enemy combatants at Guantánamo Bay,Cuba.
When Leon Panetta denounced Bush’s policies form his Panetta Institute,located squarely on the former US Army Fort Ord,where both his so-called “think tank CSU,”and his namesake institute are located,it was Memorial Day 2002. So,Panetta told the national television audience he was located in Salinas,Calif. instead. Conspicuously absent from the CSU’s bookstore,and its own well-stocked tax-funded oppression studies library:any textbook by a Caucasian author,any text by a Christian author. Panetta even used KSBW News to deflect Gary Condit’s detractors during the Chandra Levy disappearance. (Remember Fox News commentator Barbara K. Olson? Remember Flight 77?) Perhaps not coincidentally,Panetta’s CSU opened its doors on 23 August:Italian anarchists Sacco &Vanzetti Memorial Day. Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis pardoned the Sicilians posthumously 23 August 1977,making Sacco &Vanzetti Day official. How the US Department of Education facilitated this hideous little “experiment,”and how the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC),conspired to accredit the boondoggle,and grant these Alinskyites a license to steal is yet another story.
Saul D. Alinsky,among other things,was a clotheshorse,who often donned a fedora. Louis Farrakhan always appears nattily attired. Al Capone’s official mug shot features “Big Al”in a three-piece suit. People tend to give Panetta a pass,if only because he wears a necktie. Interestingly,Panetta began his political career as a Republican. Panetta switched to the DNC because in his words,“They had a bigger tent.”Saul Alinsky passed away in 1972,in bucolic Carmel Valley,Sicilian Panetta’s fabled 17th congressional district. I first ran afoul of Panetta;while out trying to appease the radical professors,hate mongers and race baiters,he’d hired to inculcate Marxist philosophy into our daily lives. Personnel is policy. Anyway,the far-Left’s enforcer-in-chief would slip unannounced into my on-campus residence and surreptitiously replace my showerhead with a stingy water-conserving device. In like manner,my wall-mounted fire extinguisher vanished shortly thereafter. Gone without a trace. But things were about to get worse,much worse:http://theseedsof9-11.com