The 2020 census is being ‘sabotaged,’ says leading U.S. statistician

Post by GavinMcG » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

ghufran_syed wrote: post #33

learc83 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The census bureau was original granted an extension that has been rolled back. It's not being cut "unusually" short, but the pandemic drastically impacted the census bureau's ability to do their work, and we are giving them less extra time than they say they need.

What government agency has ever said they need less time or less money ? So giving them less than they say they need is the normal state of affairs for government agencies. The only difference is that now the aggrieved bureaucrats have a receptive audience in credulous journalists who are always ready to write a story about how the current administration is "ending democracy" if they don't do exactly what the bureauc…

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

stdbrouw wrote: post #159

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine neutral, nonpolitical commentary on the census process, but that's not what Santos is offering. He says that the census wouldn't have been fair even if the count had been extended, due to factors such as "the public policy climate" and "toxic immigrant policies".

Santos does not offer neutral commentary, but he claims to offer objective commentary: it is objectively possible that public policy and immigrant policies will negatively affect the census. You can't discount that possibility and ignore the arguments made in favor of that possibility (read the article!) just because you don't like someone's politics.

Post by Mindless2112 » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

comex wrote: post #150

Auracle wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there wasn’t a constitutional question there wouldn’t be an upcoming Supreme Court case about it. And let’s be real - I find it pretty unlikely the constitution and 14th Amendment were written with massive amounts of illegal aliens being in the country in mind. Should we count tourists from other countries as well?

The Constitution was, however, written with massive amounts of slaves being in the country in mind. And even they were counted as three fifths of a person. Should illegal immigrants be counted as less?

Post by Retric » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

woo49 wrote: post #87

TallGuyShort wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the Democratic side here either. There's a question of citizenship, but census data is used to determine allocation of electoral college votes. The electoral college system being something that I support but that Democrats keep trying to undermine. Yeah if you come here undocumented, or illegally, there's pretty natural consequences. I don't think anyone should ignore that. And they seem to want un…

I agree. It would be much better if both sides were at least honest. for example, the Democrats could say "we understand some electoral college votes will be indirectly allocated to illegal immigrants, we also understand that because liberal states have more illegal immigrants it will help the left more than the right, but that's the price to pay for counting every actual US citizen." The republicans could say, 'we w…

Post by tasty_freeze » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 5:55 PM UTC

rubyist5eva wrote: post #51

tasty_freeze wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republican presidents placed 11 supreme court justices in a row, from Nixon through GH Bush. Clinton placed two, and republicans have been whining about needing to fix the liberal supreme court ever since. GW Bush placed two, Obama placed two, and it looks like Trump will place three. You are quoting someone, but I want to add on that "legislate from the bench" is a phrase that is invoked when the speaker doesn't agr…

It's not about having a "liberal" justice or a "conservative" justice. It's about having a court that does what is supposed to do - _interpret_ the law, not create it. Republican Presidents have been very bad at choosing justices that do this as well, David Souter being probably the worst example.