Because he’s freakin’ Clothahump! Does he ever have a reason for being a kneejerk neanderthal who was more than happy to swallow every steaming load Bush dropped but somehow suddenly becomes a government watchdog now that a Democratic president is in office?
The fact that liberals breathe, nay exist is sufficient to cause this.
You know, the Commerce Department is already under White House jurisdiction. Take a fucking civics class, dude.
That’s what I was about to mention after reading the OP. Uh, Clotha, you know that Obama’s not just like serving as a reference for these ‘Cabinet’ people don’t you? They kinda sorta work directly for him.
My hope is that they will do SOMETHING about that damned accursed Census web site. I was a GovDocs librarian for years and I still use it frequently, and for those who’ve never been there-
Okay, if you want to find out the population of Vincennes, Indiana*, it’s pretty easy (once you figure out there’s an extra click or two that doesn’t really need to be there). If you want to find out how many Asians or people over 80 are in Vincennes, not that terribly difficult. Wanna find out stuff like “How many gas pumps are in Vincennes?” or movie screens or same sex couples or unwed mothers or whatever? ALL of that information is on there, but I’m convinced they intentionally go to lengths to make it as difficult to access as possible.
Things that you can actually learn from the Census website:
—Average price of lettuce/average salary of a schoolteacher or maid/miles of railroad track/number of mules per state in any year 1878-present (Statistical Abstracts)
—The number of women who give birth each year by age (i.e. wanna know how many 11 year olds gave birth? Or 25 year olds, or 52 year olds? It’s there)
—The number of grandparents raising their grandchildren in a particular zip code
—Property sales and average house values by block
—The number of television sets sold in 1952
—The number of self-identifying same sex couples in a town or county (or, in a populous enough place, by block) in 2000
—The price of wool or iron or clothing or average income by colony/state from 17th century to the present
—The number of movie screens in a city
ALL of this stuff is on there. You can even make all manner of charts comparing it this data between Vincennes Indiana/Nacogdoches County, Texas/metro Baltimore/Ohio/the Nation, but it’s damned near impossible to figure out and once you do, it changes. (Hint: Summary Files is an important concept to know, and it’s one that I don’t think most people who haven’t had specific Census training would know to look up.) Anyway, hopefully they’ll make it a lot more user friendly, as it’s probably the single greatest statistical resource on the net for most academic disciplines or even professional needs.
Here’s another neat little thing that can be gotten with a single link: ever wonder how common your surname is or how many Americans share it? The top 90,000 are on here. Example: Obama’s not in the top 90,000, but his mother’s maiden name of Dunham is the 1,330th most common; Bush is 304, Eisenhower is 16,178th.
*A city I chose at random- nothing for or against it, don’t recall ever having gone there.
Without the invective, this was my first thought on reading the OP.
Commerce is a Cabinet position, under the direct supervision of the president, (with a Secretary appointed with the Advice and Consent of the Senate), so there is neither more nor less superviion by Congress, regardless of Presidential oversight.
Now, I agree that a statement indicating more White House direct involvement following protests by some special interests that they did not like the President’s choice for Secretary gives off an odor of political games. However, until Gregg attempts to make a ruling on procedure that is overridden by Obama, (or, worse, Emanuel), that cannot be demonstrated to be for cause, the OP is clearly just foaming over with partisan hatred.
I vote this post as the best SDMB post ever. It shows the utter futility of fighting ignorance.
Now in all fairness to the claim that it is worse than anything the “libs” ever claimed Bush did, I will point out that changing the cabinet department that the Census reports to is not worse than everything the “libs” claimed Bush ever did combined, but only worse than any one.
Katrina isn’t something Bush did: he only played guitar while New Orleans drowned, or so the “libs” claim
Killing upwards of half a million Iraqis isn’t something Bush did, he only ordered an invasion, soldiers and “terraists” did the killing
Putting us in the crapper for 10 trillion dollars in his last months in office isn’t something Bush did, Wall Street did it.
Bush didn’t torture anyone, soldiers and CIA did.
Not paying attention to the “Bin Ladin intent on attacking US” memo is something Bush, by definition didn’t do.
Ya know, Bush did commute Libby, and that by itself is a bigger travesty than the Census thing. It’s about the only thing Bush affirmative did himself. Uncle Dick did the rest.
I’m torn; I can’t make up my mind whether Clothahump is an embarrassment to the SDMB or a valuable asset in the way he makes every single other member look like a frikkin’ genius.
He’s both! He’s a dessert topping and a drooling subhuman.
Does **Clothahump **ever return to his Pit threads, or is he always like a senile old dog who drops a steaming turd and then wanders off, leaving it for everyone else to bury?
Damn. I was hoping for a floor wax and a drooling subhuman.
PS: Anyone else suspect that Clothahump noticed the recent bashings of Rand Rover and decided to remind us what real idiocy looks like?
Only when it goes his way, I think. So no, he’s never returned.
Honestly, though, I don’t mind these threads. I don’t like the idea that Obama should be slammed simply because turnabout is fair play. However, a large portion of the populace is in love with Obama, perhaps blindly so, and I’m mildly concerned that some real problems could slip through without notice because of that. So sure, Clothahump can scream his fool head off. When it’s groundless, it’ll be quickly proven as in this thread, and if there are grounds, well…I don’t expect the Democrats to notice.
I harbor no illusions about a “loyal” opposition. I think Clothahump and the politicians like him would happily burn America to the ground if it kept them in power. But I’d rather have someone raising potential issues to be looked into than nobody at all.
And now we have the real reason I voted for Obama: more hilarously retarded Clothahump pit threads.
Well, I don’t realy care about Clothahump one way or another, but I still have n eyebrow raised over the issue. Simply put, there have no reasons handed out at all for the move, and I can think of no logical reason whatsoever. Obama, and indeed no major White House staffer that I know of has any census experience or any rationale reason for getting involved. It’s too far down the ladder. Which begs the question: why? So far, I see people trying to fall over themselves claiming it’s meaningless, but if it is meaningless, then why was it changed in the first place.
The One is still far too important to explain his positions to us mere mortals. (Sorry, libsdopers, I still think he’s an arrogant jackass, and without any accomplishments as an excuse. But that’s neither here nor there, I guess.)
Check post 26.
Of course! There must be a sinister reason, because . . . well, just because! :rolleyes: Dick.
Well, at least you admit that it’s what you think, instead of being factual.
I’d like to address my liberal friends for a moment.
The OP was over the top, clearly. But you who are defending Obama reflexively and observing that the Cabinet reports to the president anyway should be careful not to go too far here. It wasn’t so long ago that you were taking the Justice Department and the Bush White House to task because there wasn’t sufficient distance between their activities.
I’m not suggesting any sort of equivalence here, merely pointing out an obvious danger.
Conspiracy theory? Well, at least I’m not alone in figuring it out.
Text of letter from Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.):
Dear Mr. President,
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has direct legislative jurisdiction and oversight over the Census, and as such we are shocked and dismayed at this morning’s press reports of the blatant partisan and political maneuvers your Administration is currently undertaking with regards to the Census Bureau.[1] Requiring the Census Director to report directly to the White House and circumventing the Secretary of Commerce is both outrageous and unprecedented.
Requiring the Census Director to report directly to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is a shamefully transparent attempt by your Administration to politicize the Census Bureau and manipulate the 2010 Census.[2] The Constitutionally-mandated Decennial Census needs to be fair, accurate and trusted. By circumventing the Secretary of Commerce’s oversight of the Census Bureau and handing it directly to a political operative such as Mr. Emanuel, you are severely jeopardizing the fairness and accuracy of the 2010 Census. Mr. Emanuel, who is a former colleague and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman, has a reputation that has been described as “one of hyper-partisanship,”[3] and thus has no business overseeing the activities of the Census Bureau, a division of the Commerce Department that needs to remain free and clear of any and all political considerations.
Moreover, requiring the Census Director to report directly to the White House and placing responsibility for administration of the Bureau outside the Department of Commerce may even violate Federal law. According to Title 13 of the U.S. Code, the Bureau is to be administered “within, and under the jurisdiction of, the Department of Commerce.”[4] According to U.S. Code, the Executive Branch is limited to providing support for the Bureau in the form of information and resources. Under Title 13, the Secretary of the Department of Commerce may interact with the Executive Branch, and the entirety of the federal government “for information pertinent to the work” of the Bureau.[5]
As you know, the Decennial Census is not only Constitutionally-mandated; the results of it are utilized in the allocation of federal funding and the apportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. As such, the Census process needs to be completely free of political manipulation and interference, in order to produce fair, accurate and trustworthy results. This will be impossible if you follow through with proposed plans to outrageously and without precedence circumvent the Secretary of Commerce and place direct oversight of the Census Bureau in the hands of the hyper-partisan White House Chief of Staff. This decision will also jeopardize Census Program funding and trigger unanimous opposition to your next Census Director out of fear that a respectable Federal agency is being politicized. For these reasons we respectfully request that you not follow through with a course of action that will shamefully politicize the operations of the Census Bureau and jeopardize the fairness and accuracy of the 2010 Census.
[1] “The director of the Census Bureau will report directly to the White House and not the secretary of Commerce, according to a senior White House official.” CQ Today, 2/5/09
[2] “Sources on the Hill close to these negotiations say the Census would, more or less by default, would fall under the jurisdiction of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.” Politico, 2/5/09
[3] The Baltimore Sun, Editorial, 11/12/08
[4] 13 U.S.C. 1 § 2 (“The Bureau is continued as an agency within, and under the jurisdiction of, the Department of Commerce”).
[5] 13 U.S.C. 1 § 6(a) (“The Secretary, whenever he considers it advisable, may call upon any other department, agency, or establishment of the Federal Government, or of the government of the District of Columbia, for information pertinent to the work provided for in this title.”)
There is no reason whatsoever for Obama to move the census into the White House unless he’s planning to manipulate the numbers to shift representation in the next elections.
Please post proof that I won’t return.
Thank you.
I think of all the shit our dear 'humpy brings to our “table” it’s this that pisses me off most.
If only our Clothahump could remember which drawer he left his brain in.
CMC fnord!
I forget where I found it, but I always love to do it this way,After reading your quoted cite, I fear you missed this,
[insert quote (preferably with the OP/posters quoted text included for context)]
Oh well, I’m sure you just didn’t notice it, after all, that it was the very next sentence/paragraph/etc did make it hard to spot.Of course “You fucking moron did you fucking read the fucking article you just fucking quoted?” works better here.
Or option 3: you’re an idiot who prefers to post stupid remarks like this instead of thinking.
I’ll take the third option.