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Why Do Republicans Trash the U.S. Census then Pretend to BE the U.S. Census? |
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Politically-motivated Republican resistance to the decennial U.S. Census has been well documented over the years. But a recent Republican National Committee fundraising letter masquerading as a "2010 Congressional District Census" appears to have been designed to create confusion among citizens by making them think it is the official decennial U.S. Census. (Google "RNC census fundraiser" for more than 2 million hits about this controversy.) Although the US Postal Service determined that the survey did not violate federal law, one of the criteria for evaluating this type of fraud accusation is the level of citizen confusion and compaints made to the U.S. Postal Inspector. You can file a complaint online here. From Politico.com: "Even some who have been involved with the program, however, acknowledged that it walks the line. 'Of course, duping people is the point...That's one of the reasons why it works so well,' said one Republican operative familiar with the program, who said it’s among the RNC’s most lucrative fundraising initiatives. 'They will likely mail millions this year [with] incredible targeting.'" (Read more here). By the way, conducting a "census" of citizens in Virginia's 7th Congressional District would mean that all citizens should receive the "survey." Did you get yours? Yeah -- didn't think so, not with all that "incredible targeting" going on. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) is co-sponsoring legislation to crack down on this sort of deceptive mailer and said on Feb. 10, "There are too many reports from too many places to ignore the fact that direct-mail fundraisers are deliberately attempting to confuse people into opening envelopes by imitating official Census documents, piggybacking on awareness generated by the Census Bureau’s multi-million dollar ad campaign now on the airwaves. We must do everything we can to prevent confusion and ensure an accurate, cost-effective census." She has more on her web page here.
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