There’s been a great deal made of whether the unemployment rate dropped, or if the number of individuals in the job market dropped by some 1.2 million. If the American Spectator is to believed, this has all been much ado about nothing. Owing to a once-in-a-decade adjustment based upon census data, they make the case that the workforce didn’t lose over a million workers, but neither did the real unemployment rate drop.

In other words, the participation rate (employment-population ratio) was reported to have dropped by 0.3%, exactly the amount of participation rate “drop” created by changing the population number used in the calculation (due to updated census data.) Without this once-a-decade adjustment, the change in participation rate would have been reported as…wait for it…zero.

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Are you aware that the U.S. Census Bureau counts illegal aliens when determining how many seats in Congress a state should receive? That means states with large illegal alien populations are now receiving a disproportionate amount of seats in Congress and therefore more power in establishing national policy.

Judicial Watch is now involved in a high-stakes legal campaign to put a stop to this unconstitutional policy.

Recently, we filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the State of Louisiana challenging the current federal policy in which “unlawfully present aliens” were counted in the 2010 Census (Louisiana v. Bryson).

The government used these census numbers to reapportion seats in the House of Representatives and, as a result, the State of Louisiana lost a House seat to which it was entitled. Louisiana is asking that the Supreme Court order the federal government to recalculate the 2010 apportionment of House seats based upon legal residents as the U.S. Constitution requires.

Judicial Watch, in partnership with the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF), filed the brief on January 13, 2012, in a lawsuit filed by the State of Louisiana against John Bryson, U.S. Secretary of Commerce; Robert Groves, Director of the U.S. Census Bureau; and Karen Lehman Hass, Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Here’s a brief excerpt from our amicus:

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During a trip to India a few years ago and after observing the New Delhi traffic, I devised a great idea for Tata, the Indian car maker: manufacture the cars so that once the car is started the horn turns on and stays on until the car is turned off.  I was sure the drivers in New Delhi would appreciate such a feature, seeing that they drive with the horn on most of the time anyway.

Kind of like the way that politicians of Indian descent are making their presence known in the American political scene, except maybe not as noisy.  While there are others, two prominent Indian-American politicians stand out: Louisiana Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Following two terms in Congress representing Louisiana’s 1st congressional district in the House, and having been the Congress’ second Indian-American, Republican Bobby Jindal was first elected governor of Lousiana in 2007 and re-elected earlier this year in a landslide.  Throughout his term as governor he has become known as a fiscal conservative who refused to raise taxes.  After the BP Oil Spill of April-July, 2010, Jindal loudly criticized Obama administration’s response and eventually persuaded the administration into lifting a permit moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

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From National Journal:

As lawmakers continue to joust over how to accelerate growth and unleash job creation, the Census numbers are a timely reminder of how mightily the U.S. economy struggled over the last decade — and particularly over the last few years, during and after the Great Recession.

Consider:

• Last year, real median income dipped below $50,000 a year for the first time since 1996.
• By that measure — median income — this is the worst post-recession economy ever recorded by the Census Bureau (which began compiling this data in 1967). From 2009 to 2010, real median income fell by 2.3 percent, a steeper drop than the years that followed the end of recessions in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s.

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From the Associated Press:

Texas gained four House seats and Florida picked up two, while New York and Ohio each lost two seats in the new census count.

The Census Bureau released highly awaited 2010 census results.

Other winners included Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington. They each gained one seat.

States losing one seat each were Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Read the whole thing here. For the first time since the 19th Century, California did not gain a Congressional seat. The GOP will have unprecedented power to redraw congressional lines this year, especially in the states picking up seats. Also noteworthy that the states gaining seats had far lower levels of taxation than those losing seats. Hmmm…

Now, this must be one of the most flagrant instances of waste that I have ever read about. A “totem pole” that has been created to celebrate the 2010 Census is traveling thousands of miles from Juneau, Alaska to Washington D.C. I’ve already e-mailed Steve Jost at the Census Bureau to find out some more info about the cost of this commission and the transportation of this object. Here’s the report from the Juneau Empire:

JUNEAU – For the first time in history, the 2010 Census commissioned Sitka carver Tommy Joseph to design and carve a totem pole specifically for the Census. Since its completion this spring, the totem pole has traveled throughout many communities in Southeast Alaska during the census data collection process. The totem is currently on display at Goldbelt’s Mt. Roberts Tramway in Juneau.

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What happened last month at the Brooklyn census office was indeed unfortunate. But let us not be naive: Data collection inaccuracies and falsifications are happening throughout the entire New York Regional Area and possibly the entire nation, though perhaps on a smaller scale than in Brooklyn.

There are many luxury rental and condominum buildings where real estate management companies have a strict “no enumerator” policy, as well as tenement buildings  and brownstones where it is impossible to gain access. There are also one or two family houses where it is unclear how many people live there and a knowledgeable proxy could not be located.

For these units, some enumerators went to public search records on the Internet or merely wrote the names off the mailboxes. The mid and upper level census managers encouraged field staff to use techniques to “guesstimate,” creating major operational ambiguity for the once in a decade headcount.

What was acceptable inside the questionnaire was another problem. Most enumerators tried to get all the information but those who went to a proxy who gave them little, no, or inaccurate information, finished their areas quickly. These same field staff were rewarded with more work and allowed to clean up districts that were lagging behind.

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So, as usual, I was at the gym straddling the stairclimber (Sven, he’s Dutch) watching CNN against my choice, when the network reported some seemingly positive news: apparently the U.S. just saw the biggest gain in employment in a decade!

Break out the champagne! Do a little dance! Make a little love! Throw another houseboy on the rotating action pit!

Yep, thanks to President Obama, this month the economy added 431,000 jobs, the biggest monthly gain since March of 2000. But of those new jobs, 390,000 were government. Private sector jobs actually came crashing down from 218 thousand in April, to just 41,000.

Eh.

So the gain CNN was championing, it turns out, was made up of census jobs. Which, to me, is cheating. It’s kinda like saying you won the lottery, and proving it by flashing a large wad of Monopoly money.

That’s how I feel about census jobs. they’re phony. (more…)

From The Hill:

Hiring by the U.S. Census Bureau is expected to spike May’s job figures dramatically.

Economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s.com projects the economy will have added 575,000 jobs in May, while the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) rough projection is for 560,000 jobs.

Either figure would represent the largest number of jobs created in any month since the dot-com crash of 2000.

Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at a Democratic fundraiser on Tuesday, touted what he said would be a positive report for Democrats, who are hoping a revitalized economy will help them in this fall’s elections. He said the May report would be “well beyond” the 290,000 jobs created in April, according to Reuters.

The numbers pose a problem for the administration, however, in terms of their reflection of economic growth.

Zandi expects that only 150,000 of the jobs created in May will come from the private sector, with 425,000 new jobs sparked by the once-a-decade Census. (more…)

USA Today reports that the United States Census Bureau is overhauling its hiring and security procedures following James O’Keefe’s video exposing supervisors encouraging enumerators to falsify time sheets.

From the article:

The Census Bureau has made some changes to its hiring and security procedures after reports that a convicted sex offender was hired to go door-to-door in New Jersey and an undercover video surfaced showing Census supervisors paying workers for hours they did not work.

“No hire will be allowed into the field without passing a fingerprint process,” Census Director Robert Groves said at a briefing Wednesday. “Any name check that discovers a mismatch between name, date of birth, sex, or Social Security number … will stop processing of applicant.”… (more…)

From May 3rd to May 8th of this year, I worked for the United States Census Bureau in Lafayette, Louisiana.  With the aid of a hidden camera, I witnessed and captured evidence of wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars–one systemic failure after another of this a Constitutionally mandated entity during a time of great recession and high unemployment.

The training course consisted of four three-hour days and one eight-hour day. I was paid for a total of 20.75 hours, 3.5 of which I did not work. I was paid with your money, money that was stolen from you.

On multiple occasions I was given three 15-minute breaks over the course of three hours and was instructed to fill out false ending times. When I confronted the supervisor about the discrepancy, she said she was just “giving us this time” and told me “I think you’re worrying over nothing.”  At any business, this would be theft.

We were also coached to indicate government phone numbers were in fact our personal cell phone numbers (a blatant lie) in order to prevent people from calling and harassing us. (more…)

From ABC News:

The conservative filmmaker arrested this year for an undercover attempt to tape staffers at a U.S. senator’s office said his next target — the Census Bureau — is another example of government waste.

James O’Keefe, fresh off sentencing for his role in the attempted sting on Sen. Mary Landrieu’s Louisiana office in January, signed up to work for the Census in hopes of exposing what he alleges is the bureau’s waste of taxpayer money.

O’Keefe said in an exclusive interview today with “Good Morning America” that he has no plans to stop his undercover operations.

“You’re on notice…if you are doing things behind closed doors, we will find you and we will film you,” O’Keefe said.

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On April 27, 2010, I got a job with the United States Census Bureau in New Jersey. With a hidden camera, I caught four Census supervisors encouraging enumerators to falsify information on their time sheets. Over the course of two days of training, I was paid for four hours of work I never did. I was told to take a 70 minute lunch break, was given an hour of travel time to drive 10 minutes, and was told to leave work at 3:30pm. I resigned prior to doing any data collection but confronted Census supervisors who assured me, “no one is going to be auditing that that level,” and “nobody is going to be questioning it except for you.” Another Census supervisor only said he’d adjust my pay after I gave him a letter recanting my hours.

As to whether this is an “isolated incident” or if there are more Census videos showing more waste, fraud, and corruption, we’ll let you take a wild guess.

America, real journalism has been dead for a long time now. With $1500 Hannah Giles and I were able to break a story that the New York Times couldn’t have broken no matter how many times they mortgaged their building.  The government took our camera, so I bought another.  The government put us in jail and deleted our tapes, but we got out and we’ll just make more.  My travel was restricted to the state of New Jersey, so that’s where I got back to work. The media establishment is busy doing character assassinations on my friends and me but time and truth is on our side. Congress answered to our ACORN videos, now it will be up to the Department of Justice to explain why it edited out of a press release their admission we had no intent to tamper with Senator Landrieu’s phones. More importantly, it will be up to the Census Bureau to explain why their supervisors are systematically falsifying time sheets. (more…)

James O’Keefe turns his hidden camera from ACORN to the Census. Tune in at 7:30 EDT.

Just when we thought flag@whitehouse.gov–which appears to be alive and well when clicked–was scary and invasive–it seems the Obama administration’s Census Bureau has outdone itself.  A US census worker, driving a metallic gray Ford Taurus-type car, has been reported to be combing through the Memphis, TN suburb of Germantown knocking on doors asking people for information on their neighbors.

Yes, you read that correctly. The US census worker was asking how many people lived in the house next door on or about April 1, 2010. As if there wasn’t enough controversy with the census already, this just adds fuel to the fire.

According to the source, here’s what happened when Obama’s Orwellian Big Brother knocked:

The census worker identified himself, showed his credentials, and continued to ask if she knew if the house next door was occupied on April 1 of this year.  The census worker also indicated that he had “difficulty” contacting the neighbors.  After the source confirmed the house was occupied on April 1st, the census worker continued by asking, “How many people occupied that house?”

My source responded by saying, “If they haven’t filled out their census, I can’t help you and I have no intention of telling you anything about my neighbors and your recourse is to enforce your penalties.”

The worker replied, “Well you know why we take the census don’t you?”

My source replied, “Yes, in this case, to redistribute my wealth.  And you are not permitted to ask me about my neighbors.”

The worker went on to say that the census is used to figure out the number of representatives and federal monies that would be allocated.  The source still refused to answer and the census worker was asked to leave the property.

He then proceeded to knock on the other neighbor’s doors, apparently, to get the information he was sent our for.  Let’s just hope that these people are not attorneys because this is a clear violation of the privacy and security procedures of the census to ensure an accurate and secure count.  Nowhere in this information does it say your neighbors can provide census information.

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Barely three months after I advised Americans to Think Twice Before Opening Door to Census Worker, two Indiana women were allegedly attacked by 39-year-old Daniel Miller, a U.S. Census worker who had been on the job for two weeks and now faces rape and burglary charges, according to a news report out of Indianapolis.

A report issued by the Government Accountability Office Oct. 7 revealed that approximately 785 employees with disqualifying criminal records could end up working for the Census Bureau this year. Excerpts (below) show the exact wording of the agency’s frightening information about the people who go door to door conducting interviews and collecting information for the 2010 Census:

The Bureau’s efforts to fingerprint employees, which was required as part of a criminal background check, did not proceed smoothly, in part because of training issues. As a result, over 35,000 temporary census workers — over a fifth of the address canvassing workforce — were hired despite the fact that their fingerprints could not be processed and they were not fully screened for employment eligibility.

…of the prints that could be processed, fingerprint results identified 1,800 temporary workers (1.1 percent of total hires) with criminal records that name check alone failed to identify. Of the 1,800 workers with criminal records, approximately 750 (42 percent) were terminated or were further reviewed because the Bureau determined their criminal records — which included crimes such as rape, manslaughter, and child abuse — disqualified them from census employment.

…we estimate that approximately 785 employees with unclassifiable prints could have disqualifying criminal records but still end up working for the Bureau.

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In watching this year’s NCAA tournament, one finds it hard to miss the hip commercials for the 2010 Census. Invariably, the emphasis of these ads is on people gaining “representation” in the form of their piece of the public funding pie. Personally, I find the whole parasitic charade sickening.

The Founders must be turning over in their graves knowing how much something as simple as the Census has been twisted as a result of a government that has so obfuscated the General Welfare clause that it has deemed the Constitution worthless. Where the Census was created with the purpose of representative apportionment, with the parties in power in the states unfortunately gerrymandering districts so as to solidify their political strongholds and marginalize their opponents, reflecting the transformation of our country, this time around the focus of the Census is on ensuring the proper allocation of $400 billion of public money.

Where are we as a nation when it becomes the patriotic thing to do to fill out a form for the purpose of sticking our paws in a $400 billion honeypot? The commercials would be far more honest if they merely stated, “Make sure to fill out the Census so you can feed at the collectivist trough.” What kind of message does it send to immigrants and the poor when we say that the key to improving one’s lot is to make sure one gets one’s fair ration of taxpayer money?

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Census 2010: overreaching and out of bounds. Intrusive. Harassing. I have now received two Census forms and thirteen or fourteen notices from the Census Bureau, and they are still coming.

For the past month I have been called, harassed and visited numerous times by a Pamela Childs of the Census Bureau, who was pursuing me for an interview. Knowing my rights under the law, even under the current Obama coup, I did not respond. I filled out my form — that which is required by law — but still received calls, visits, and notes. Daily.

At one point, I left a message saying I would not speak to her. Period. Mind you, I already filled out and sent in my form the day after I got it.

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Knowing that federal and state money doesn’t come from Obama’s stash and does come from our own paychecks and our friend’s and neighbor’s paychecks, I found the 2010 US Census form letter puzzling. Yes, I know that the census is required (but not all forms are completed) and helps allocate federal funds, but this was much more in-your-face and clearly baits the reader with federal funds that they “need” as quoted:

Dear Resident:

About one week from now, you will receive a 2010 Census form in the mail. When you receive your form, please fill it out and mail it in promptly. Your response is important. Results from the 2010 Census will be used to help each community get its fair share of government funds for highways, schools, health facilities, and many other programs you and your neighbors need. Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share. Thank you in advance for your help.

Sincerely, Robert M. Groves
Director, U.S. Census Bureau

Go to for help completing your 2010 Census form when it arrives. [Note: this sentence is repeated in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Russian]

On the web it continues to tell about the 2010 census; this section does not appear on the actual form letter:

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