Too stupid to breathe: Jay Wolff

Occasional Blast Off! commenter D.P., Clearwater Wingnut has brought my attention to today's letters to the editor in the Naples Daily News. The letters, which actually were posted last night, led off with a really odd missive about how they can't speak freely in Uzbekistan and so they wouldn't have a health care debate. Um, okaaaay ...

But what really caught my eye was this unhinged screed by one Jay Wolff of Naples, who unflinchingly spewed forth wingnut talking points in this classically fact-free letter:

Editor, Daily News:

The Obama administration has, indeed, moved the Census Bureau from the Commerce Department — where it was since it was created — into the White House.

The president signed the order on Jan. 27, in his first week. I wondered why.

I wondered why he put the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in charge of the counting of the census.

July 30, on its own Web site, the Census Bureau announced that in the 2010 census it would count every resident of the United States, citizens and noncitizens. The count will control the apportionment of congressional districts for the 2010 elections.

If they include illegal aliens in that count, I understand why.

— Jay Wolff

Naples

Two assertions highlighted above: first, that the Census Bureau has been moved to the White House from Commerce, and second, that ACORN will be doing the counting. Now, how can I put this ... oh, I know: WRONG and WRONG.

It took me all of five seconds to go to the Census Bureau's website and see the link at the bottom to the U.S. Department of Commerce. But just to make sure, I dug a little deeper and found this:


What's that, Mr. Wolff -- a liberal conspiracy on the website? Or maybe, just maybe, you're a dumbass. You make the call ... (Also, I can't figure out what January 27 order Mr. Wolff may be referencing. Odds are he -- or Fox News -- just made that up, too.)

Turning now to ACORN ... okay, this took a little longer than five seconds to track down. More like twenty seconds:

Q: Is ACORN providing workers for the 2010 census?

A: No. ACORN employees will not be taking the census. The group is one of more than 30,000 "partners" that will help publicize the event.

The article continues:

We’ve received questions about ACORN’s activities in connection with the headcount ever since a Fox News story, headlined "ACORN to play role in 2010 census," appeared in March. As retold by and filtered through blogs and chain e-mails, the news left some people with the impression that ACORN, the liberal community organizing group whose voter registration activities became an issue in last year’s presidential campaign, would be a big player in running the census effort.

ACORN "will be in charge of going door-to-door and collecting data from the American public," said Rep. Michele Bachmann in mid-June. "This is very concerning." Saying she was worried about ACORN’s supposed involvement in gathering census data, the Minnesota Republican announced that she won’t participate in the census beyond answering how many individuals reside in her household, "because," she maintained, "the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that." Actually, the Constitution, under Article 1, Section 2, simply requires that an "enumeration" be done every 10 years to apportion the members of the House, but that it be done "in such manner" as Congress "shall by law direct." And Congress has seen fit to require everyone to answer truthfully whatever census questions they are asked, under threat of a $100 penalty for failure to answer and $500 for lying.

And Bachmann is flat wrong about ACORN going door-to-door and gathering data. Being "partners" with the Census Bureau doesn’t entail as close a relationship as one might think. For the most part it involves getting the word out that it’s important for everyone to participate in the decennial event that helps determine where federal money goes and how House of Representatives district boundaries are redrawn.

Michele Bachmann wrong? Who could have thought? Obviously not Jay Wolff, who, by virtue of his fawning reliance on the propaganda broadcast (and likely invented out of whole cloth) by Fox News, also is indisputably, inarguably, immutably wrong.

Which, in turn, makes Jay Wolff, according to Blast Off!'s rigorous standards, too stupid to breathe.