As usual, the Republicans and the Democrats have both made serious errors. 1. The Republicans think they are above the law and continue to send out deceptive mailers. 2. President Obama has not picked up his pen to sign a recently changed bi-partisan supported bill into law. Come on Barack, pick up the pen already! Thanks to Ryan Knutson of Pro Publica for continuing to keep this matter alive, even though it should have been forgotten by now:

The latest legislation [1] intended to stop deceptive “census” mailers [2] passed both chambers of Congress [3] earlier this month, but President Barack Obama still hasn’t signed it into law, and the Republican National Committee is still sending out mailers that the legislation is meant to stop.

Our inboxes continue to receive a deluge of e-mails from people across the country who are still getting fundraisers from the RNC [2] labeled  “Census Document,” a tactic that we’ve been following since February [4]. In an attempt to stop the practice, Congress passed a bill in March [5] requiring that any mailer with the word “census” on the envelope must also include a clearly labeled return address to prevent confusion about whether it’s really from the 2010 Census.

But the RNC got around [1] that requirement by moving the word “census” to a document inside the envelope — yet it was still visible from the outside through the envelope’s clear plastic window.

That move irritated even Republicans. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., proposed legislation [6] to close the loophole. “I would say to people who raise money, whether it’s the Republican National Committee or the Democratic National Committee or [anybody else], don’t use the Census,” he said at the time. “Because it’s wrong.”

The bill passed the House in April, and it breezed through [3] the Senate unanimously on May 5. But without Obama’s signature, it’s still not the law — thus the RNC mailers continue.

H/t to the venerable Ed O’Keefe of The Washington Post for the following…Looks like it only took a small piece of legislation and little more than 24 hours for Congress to make a bipartisan renunciation of the idiocy and ignorance of scumbag RNC Chairman Michael Steele and the rest of the “I don’t care about the opinions and values of mainstream Republican elected leaders” Republican National Committee.:

The House unanimously approved a bill Wednesday that closes loopholes in the “census mailer” law in an effort to stop the Republican National Committee from using the word “census” on fundraising mailers.

Lawmakers moved quickly to close the loophole as the Census Bureau continues its operations of the 2010 Census.

The bill, introduced Tuesday by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), removed any ambiguity from the law signed by President Obama this month that makes it illegal to use the word “census” on an envelope or document without a disclaimer stating that the sender is not associated with the U.S. government.

Issa’s bill clarifies that it’s illegal to see the word “census” without a disclaimer if it’s visible through the envelope or on an outside cover or wrapper or on the envelope itself.

Issa, a reliable critic of the Obama administration and Democratic lawmakers, introduced the bill and took a swipe at GOP leadership on Wednesday morning, saying their mailings “violated the spirit” of the original law.

“I would say to people who raise money, whether it’s the Republican National Committee, the Democratic National Committee, other political entities or nonpolitical entities who simply want to have their envelopes open to raise money or get their message out, don’t use the census,” Issa said. “Don’t even think about using the census because it’s wrong. If something is deceptive, then it’s wrong under the law we already passed.”

Democrats and minority and senior citizen rights groups had blasted the RNC and the National Republican Congressional Committee for sending such solicitations earlier this year.

Take a look at it HERE

Come on Michael Steele and the Republican National Committee, get with it!

Obviously, for me, the jury is still out on the above question. But on Monday, Ed O’Keefe of the Washington Post tackled this question:

At least 72 percent of American households returned their forms to the U.S. Census Bureau this year, matching returns for the 2000 headcount. Final numbers will be announced on Wednesday and Obama administration officials cheered the early numbers late last week as evidence of successful outreach efforts.

But a leading Republican Census critic phoned The Eye within minutes of Friday’s announcement and raised an interesting point:

“This census cost more than double what the census cost in 2000,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). He finds it curious that officials would be happy to only match 2000 figures despite a 2010 budget that was more than three times what was spent ten years ago.

“They spent $300 million on advertising that a lot of us were critical of and they’re getting poor results in the places we know we have problems,” he said, referring to a controversial Census Bureau Super Bowl ad panned by critics.

The agency’s 2010 budget was the same as 2000 on an inflation-adjusted basis, said Census Bureau spokesman Steven Jost.

“We spent just 5 percent more in equivalent dollars this year on a population that was 10 percent bigger,” he said in an e-mail. The 2000 Census was also the first conducted with a paid advertising campaign, so 2010′s headcount needed an equally robust ad strategy to stay even with previous numbers, he said.

In his e-mail Jost listed other reasons for only breaking even with 2000: The country has grown in size and diversity since 2000 and the last headcount was conducted at a time of economic prosperity when Americans had a better opinion of government.

“Most observers of the census during the last several years predicted these factors would make the job tougher in 2010 but so far the public has got us off to a great start,” Jost said, noting that the second part of Census operations kicks off soon when census takers start knocking on doors.

So who’s right? Chaffetz or Jost?

Leave your thoughts in the comments section below

Michael Steele and the national GOP are a bunch of ignorant individuals who are completely out of touch with their party’s mainstream. Even after Congress showed strong bipartisan support for a measure to ban deceptive census mailings (now a law signed by President Obama), these idiots continue to act illegally — and they are openly defending their actions. They should be prosecuted. Eric Holder and the Justice Department, I hope you’re reading this. H/t to Ed O’Keefe for the following…and I hope that Jon Stewart creates a segment mocking this BS on The Daily Show in the near future:

The Republican National Committee believes that a new round of mailings which use the word “Census” does not violate a new law banning such deliveries.

Democrats and news organizations in Nebraska, Utah and Washington state have called out the new Republican mailings as illegal and detrimental to 2010 Census efforts.

The mailings appear to violate a law signed by President Obama on April 7 that passed with bipartisan support in both chambers. The law requires mailings with an envelope marked “Census” to state clearly the sender’s return address and provide a disclaimer that the mailing is not from the federal government.

But the RNC will keep sending such mailings regardless of the new law, according to committee spokesman Doug Heye.

“In reviewing the new law, our legal department determined such mailings are not covered. Therefore, they will continue,” Heye said in an e-mail. He would not elaborate on the legal determination.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), who authored the bill, sounded incensed.

“What is with these guys?” she said in a statement. “Congress passes a law in record time, with unanimous bipartisan support in both houses, to reduce confusion about the real Census. But there they go again, trying to make a partisan buck on the Census!”

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service has been asked by Nebraska Democrats to weigh in on the matter. Under the old law, postal inspectors deemed such mailings legal.

Ranking Republican on the House of Reps. Committee for the 2010 Census Patrick McHenry has rightfully been criticizing members of his own party in recent weeks for their attempts to thwart progress on the decennial headcount. The St. Petersburg Times’ PoliFact blog has looked into McHenry’s claims and fact-checked them:

By Robert Farley

By now, most people have gotten the 2010 census in the mail. And for the first time, the U.S. Census has provided a way for the public to keep track of return rates — by state, city and zip codes.

With billions of federal dollars and political leverage at stake, most politicians are urging all residents to participate and be counted.

This year, however, some Republican leaders have raised questions about whether the census’s questions expand too far beyond the intent of the Constitution, and whether the government can be trusted to keep personal information private.

That has Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-NC., worried. As the ranking Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees the census, he’s concerned that skepticism about the census being fanned by “blatant misinformation” coming from “otherwise well-meaning conservatives” within his own party (Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, have been the most vocal census critics) will discourage Republicans from fully filling out their forms. And that’s bad for Republicans, McHenry said.

“Few things will make Nancy Pelosi happier than large numbers of conservatives failing to respond to the census,” McHenry wrote in an op-ed for the conservative Red State. “If we do not respond, we will not be counted, and if we are not counted, then we effectively will not exist. That would reduce conservatives’ power in elections, allow Democrats to draw more favorable congressional boundaries and help put more tax-hiking politicians in office.”

We took a look at several of McHenry’s claims about the census in the Red State article, as well as in a press release he issued.

The first relates to the very premise guiding McHenry’s concerns, that “Early census returns are showing that conservatives have been measurably less likely than liberals to return their census forms.” We found that claim was based on the thinnest of underpinnings, and is largely unsupported. It earned a False rating.

Next, we looked at two claims that seek to allay Republican fears that the census is too prying and cumbersome.

The first is that “the most private question on this year’s form asks for an individual’s race and that question has been asked by every census since the 1790 census conducted under then-President George Washington.” We examined the census questionnaires all the way back to 1790, and found that they provide interesting insight into changing attitudes about race over the course of U.S. history. While every census dealt with race issues, it hasn’t always been a matter of “check your race here.” In the first census in 1790, for example, the census asked about the number of free white males and females; the number of “other free persons” and the number of slaves. We rated this one Mostly True.

We also looked at McHenry’s claim that, “This census is also the shortest and least intrusive count in modern history.” The 2010 census has just 10 questions. That’s two more than the short form in 2000, but in 2000, one out of six households would get a long form, which had 53 questions. There is no short form this year — everyone gets the 10-question version. So it’s arguable which of those is shorter. No other census in modern history comes close to being as short as 10 questions. And so we rated this one Mostly True.

As a bonus, we draw your attention to one more census claim, courtesy of our friends at PolitiFact Texas. It’s a claim from U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, that a census audit found more than 370,000 Texans were missed by the 2000 census, costing $1 billion in federal aid. They found that Reyes’ claim relies on an outdated report based on numbers the Census Bureau has said were flawed. It earned our worst rating, Pants on Fire!

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the following opinion piece by Liz Peek of Fox News, but perhaps on the heels of Karl Rove’s 2010 Census PSA, the Republicans are finally doing the right thing…even if they are still highly critical of the process and making many unsubstantiated accusations about the White House’s influence in this headcount:

Republicans Have It Wrong, Census Forms Need to Be Filled Out Early and Often!

By Liz Peek

- FOXNews.com

I recently filled out my Census form and sent it in. It took about ten minutes, as advertised; four or five to actually write in the required information, and another several minutes to talk myself out of cheating.

Glenn Beck and Representative Michele Bachmann have it entirely wrong. Rather than bristle at the Census’ supposed invasion of privacy (you have to provide more info to join Costco, for heaven’s sake) they should be encouraging Republicans to respond…over and over again.

Instead of correctly marking down that two people live at my address, I wanted to write in fourteen. Why this sudden urge to fib? I’m afraid that others – many others — will cheat, and that I will lose out unless I do so, too. The more people who respond from my neighborhood, the more federal monies will flow in our direction. Over $400 billion in government funds is at stake. More important is that the Census totals determine how many Representatives your state sends to Congress. That means if you and the people who live next door are undercounted, you will also be underrepresented. That’s just plain stupid.

Why am I worried about widespread fraud? The 2010 Census is unusual in that the Obama administration has patched together a veritable army of people intent on increasing the count of those minorities historically considered to be “undercounted.” More astonishing, the Census Bureau was awarded an extra one billion dollars in Stimulus funds expressly to “hire additional personnel for partners and outreach efforts to minority communities and hard-to-reach populations.” One billion dollars! That’s a lot of outreach.

Not only will hundreds of thousands of Census workers fan out in coming weeks to press for higher response rates. Assisting them will be some 30,000 community organizations – such as the SEIU — resembling the coalition that helped elect President Obama. These “partners” of the Census Bureau will be mining Hispanic communities, in particular, where there is typically a high number of illegal aliens. These folks understandably shy from any contact with the U.S. government, for fear that filling out forms – any forms – might lead to their deportation. Those who advocate for illegals estimate that more than one million Hispanics were undercounted in the last Census, costing that community millions in support services.

While that is a reasonable purpose, it also invites fiddling with the numbers. Consider that such minority neighborhoods will almost certainly vote Democratic. The higher the numbers counted, the larger the number of Democrats in the House. That’s simple math.

H/t to Ed O’Keefe at the Washington Post for the following:

With just six days left until 2010 Census forms are due back, the Senate approved a measure Friday that bans deceptive mailings that use the word “Census” without a disclaimer.

Democrats, senior citizens and civil rights groups have denounced mailings by the Republican National Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee that prominently featured the word “Census” and “Official Document” on the document and envelope. Though the U.S. Postal Service ruled the mailings legal, opponents argued they could confuse Americans who were waiting for the government’s census forms to arrive in the mail.

The Senate unanimously approved the measure along with 12 other unrelated bills. It requires mailings with an envelope marked “Census” to clearly state the sender’s return address and a disclaimer that the mailing is not from the federal government. Mailers could still use the word “census” on an envelope or document so long as it carries the disclaimer. The House unanimously passed the bill March 10.

I know that I, along with millions of other people who applied for 2010 Census jobs (Full disclosure: I did this to investigate the hiring process for this blog) never received so much as a call to come in for an interview. Yet, I have now received three tips via e-mail that relatives of politicians (two Democrats and one Republican) have been hired/are employed by the Census Bureau. This is an official call to action for the Inspector General’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office to launch investigations into whether nepotism or other illegal forms of hiring took place during any phase of 2010 Census operations or at the Census Bureau in general:

MyTwoCensus have been tipped off about the following:

1. Austin Esposito, son of Democratic Senator from Missouri Claire McCaskill. Check out some screenshots from his FACEBOOK page. (Come on dude, you should know to up your privacy settings by now. You’re the son of a Senator! I’m surprised little old non-partisan me is the first person to post these rather than GOP operatives or right-wing bloggers!)

Editor’s Note: I am most concerned about the McCaskill/Esposito connection because there have been so many complaints about a lack of 2010 Census jobs in Missouri.

A few days ago, we wrote about CheckAmerican.org, the most recent waves from Conservatives in regards to the 2010 Census. This movement was the brainchild of Rush Limbaugh, the de-facto spiritual head and chief demagogue of the GOP. One Joseph Weathers  took Limbaugh’s gospel to heart (click HERE to listen to Limbaugh announcing his “Check American” policy on the air) and promptly created the CheckAmerican.org site. I had the opportunity to ask him a few questions via e-mail, and this was Mr. Weathers’ response:

We launched our website 4 days ago on Saturday evening, March 13^th.  Right now we have about 300 fans on our Facebook page, 100 followers on our Twitter page, and about 540+ visits to the site.

I got the idea when listening to Rush Limbaugh’s show on Thursday afternoon, and as soon as I got home I registered the domain name.  It took about 2 days to get the site designed and developed and ready to launch.

We are also talking to some other political figures and media outlets, but nothing concrete at the moment.

Our goal is to send the message that we as Americans are tired of being classified by racial and ethnic groups, and we just want to be considered as Americans.  I think this post on our Facebook wall sums up well how our supporters feel:

“Invited every single one of my friends. As a mixed family, we will be happy to check “American” and stop being labeled by our color!”