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Category: Michele Bachmann
Posted on: June 17, 2009 2:24 PM, by Greg Laden
Michele Bachmann has publically vowed to refuse to answer any of the questions aside from the number of people in her household for the upcoming census. This could land her a 5K fine.
Bachmann is avoiding the census because Acorn may be involved in recruiting people for the process. It is well known that anything Acorn touches becomes socialistic and Democratic.
The details are at Think Progress.
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Comments
It's okay if you're a Republican. It's doubly okay if you're Mme Mayor of Crazytown.
What? She's a congressman??
Posted by: Jason Thibeault | June 17, 2009 2:34 PM
You can be fined for not filling out the census? Seems a little harsh. Not that I'm agreeing with Ms. Wingnut Crazyhead there.
Posted by: CyberLizard | June 17, 2009 2:38 PM
Ah, a lawmaker who defies the law. Why does Michelle Bachmann hate America?
Posted by: Science Avenger | June 17, 2009 2:59 PM
She doesn't hate America. She just hates the libruls who have different ideas than her about what America should be. And puppies. She hates puppies.
Posted by: itzac | June 17, 2009 4:44 PM
Bachmann spreads her hae and ignorance as wide as she can. This is not surprising.
Posted by: NewEnglandBob | June 17, 2009 5:29 PM
nah, she hates kittens.
she likes puppies. they taste like chicken.
Posted by: rob | June 17, 2009 5:46 PM
CyberLizard: apparently it's in your constitution, and someone saw fit to write a law providing a monetary incentive to following it. Now, if only someone could make a fine per waterboarding...
itzac and rob: perhaps we should hold hearings to find out which puppies demonstrate anti-American tendencies. Then eat the ones that turn out to hate America.
Posted by: Jason Thibeault | June 17, 2009 6:00 PM
But I thought it was Ebil Liburls who ate puppies. They eat kittens and babbys too. That's obviously why she's American, and censuses are clearly un-American, because she never learned the difference between census and censor.
Posted by: Ouchimoo | June 17, 2009 6:04 PM
Oh, no, Ouchimoo, she's all for censors. Very supportive.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | June 17, 2009 6:15 PM
I think she has a point on this one, given the arguable unconstitutionality of the census long form, which asks questions about income, number of rooms and bedrooms in your house, value of home, amount of rent paid, whether you have telephone service, what vehicles you own, how long you've been in the country, your immigration status, employment status, languages spoken, etc.
Although the safeguards of confidentiality of census data were officially restored in 1947, it didn't take much to take them away in 1940, and the census data was used to aid identifying people to be sent to Japanese internment camps. This was confirmed in 2007 after decades of denials from the Census Bureau: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=confirmed-the-us-census-b
The Constitution gives enumeration for determining apportionment of representatives as the sole justification for a census.
Posted by: Jim Lippard | June 17, 2009 6:18 PM
Is she being callously consistent or is this a sign that she really does believe her schtich?
Posted by: GrayGaffer | June 17, 2009 9:11 PM
I feel for you Minnesotans, I know how it feels. We in Iowa have our own cross to bear in Steve King.
Posted by: Joel | June 17, 2009 11:17 PM
A whole lot of people objected to the long form last time, so it was decoupled from the Census, and now is called the "American Community Survey". This appears to be what she's objecting to.
Sometimes even crazy people get things right once in a while. I didn't fill out most of the ACS either. After a case of minor identity theft, I'm very careful about who gets that kind of information about me, and nobody seems to take proper care of information security these days. (Not to mention the historical abuses Jim Lippard points out.)
I've been unable to find a single case of someone actually being fined for not filling it out - people have been fined for not participating in the basic census, but so far as I can tell, not the ACS. It seems like the Census Bureau isn't anxious to put their authority to do the ACS to a judicial test.
Posted by: Ray Ingles | June 18, 2009 10:31 AM
I'll be very happy to see the middle class privileged white lady not counted.
Posted by: thom | June 18, 2009 10:34 AM