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…

The progressive Obama agenda has become so toxic, even at the state level, Reuters reports that the people not only flipped the DC House, but also their governorships, state houses, and entire legislatures.

This is important for two reasons:  redistricting and the ability to flex state’s rights against the Obama administration, which, as we know, has no problem suing states.  From Reuters:

In most states, legislatures will be redrawing electoral districts for the U.S. House — an adjustment of boundaries every 10 years that tends to favor the party in charge in each state.

The big Republican Party wins at the state level give it the edge in reinforcing its strength in the U.S. House.

Republicans took control of at least 18 state chambers from Democrats, according to Tim Storey, an elections analyst at the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures.

A firewall indeed.  There were significant gains by the Republicans as summarized over at RedState that bear repeating:

The whole of the Maine legislator has flipped to the GOP. Several people I have talked to said such a deep and thorough shift to any one party has not happened in one election in the past 100 years.

[snip]

GOP has moved to the right. More so, the Republicans picking up, in the worst case, seven seats is historically strong.

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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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Last week, I told you about a ridiculous FEMA firefighter grant that was awarded to ACORN in Louisiana.  Because of this website’s coverage of the issue and your action, the story grew, and FEMA finally made a statement saying that they would permanently withhold that grant from ACORN.  Thank you for raising awareness of this clear waste of first responder funding that could go to countless needy volunteer firefighter organizations or other first responders.

This week, I wanted to make you aware of a growing concern about the U.S. Census and illegal aliens and how the two could drastically affect congressional apportionment and possibly your own state’s congressional representation. 

In the past, some states have included illegal aliens in the collection of census data, and this has often resulted in the allocation of additional congressional seats to those states – at the expense of other states that lose seats because of the skewed data. 

Illegal aliens shouldn’t be included for the purposes of determining representation in Congress.  I don’t believe that this is what our founding fathers had in mind when they laid out our current system of representation.

Illegal immigration is a very real and significant concern for our country.  We shouldn’t let these states be rewarded for skirting our federal laws.

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