Schumer Baffled By NYC Census Count

Let's see: We had a $340 million campaign in an effort to get people to respond to the 2010 Census. We've got a Democrat administration in Washington running the show during that time, along with a Democrat Senate and Congress. Obviously some chicanery must be afoot, right? Of course there was! Now we must investigate!

Sen. Chuck Schumer called on the federal government Saturday to probe the 2010 U.S. Census' finding that New York City had grown by a mere trickle.

"These numbers cry out for investigation," Schumer said, adding his voice to a chorus of critics, including Mayor Bloomberg, who have railed against the decennial count.

"I'm going to put a lot of pressure on them to do it," he said. "For the census director to just shrug his shoulders ... isn't good enough."

The U.S. Census reported that the city grew by 166,855 over a decade to 8.175 million despite a Census estimate last year that reported the city was home to 8.3million people.

Schumer called for the investigation in a letter to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Groves.

I guess not enough illegals filled out their forms.

I suppose it would never occur to this idiot that people are fleeing New York.

There's a logical answer, of course, but don't anyone tell Chucky. He needs some attention.

"We reported today early quality indicators that show a stronger Census than in 2000 thanks in part to higher levels of participation by the public than many projected," said Steve Jost, Associate Director for Communications for the Census Bureau "Nationally the growth rate from 2000 was one of the lowest measured in the last century. The pattern in New York City as like that seen in many other large cities — higher rates of growth in suburbs than in urban cores."

Amazingly, It Took Eight Days for Chuckie Schumer to Inject Himself Into Arizona Shootings

Now that the narrative that Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh were to blame for Jared Loughner's homicidal act in Tuscon has imploded, we can finally move on the real culprit: gun clips.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that he is penning a letter to President Obama asking him to close one of the gun-control loopholes that may have contributed to last weekend's shooting at a meet-and-greet in Tucson, Ariz.

The shooting left six people dead and 13 wounded, included Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot in the head and remains in critical condition.

The suspect, Jared Lee Loughner, 22, is suspected to suffer from mental illness on the account of various reports and ramblings he had posted online.

Loughner had tried to get into the Army, but was denied for "excessive" drug use.

That, Schumer said on NBC's "Meet the Press," should have prevented Loughner from legally buying the Glock pistol allegedly used in the shooting rampage.

But the Army was not required to notify the FBI of the "excessive drug use" rejection, which would have let law enforcement add his name to the database that would show up when checking a customer purchasing a gun.

"There are certain things that can be done that don't even require legislation," Schumer said, adding that he was "writing to the administration this morning" to get President Obama to close that gap between the armed forces and law enforcement.

Yeah, why bother with the will of the American people and Congressional legislation when with the stroke of a pen King Obama can fulfill the wishes of an imperious demagogue.

Meanwhile, New Jersey crank Frank Lautenberg was exhumed in time for the Sunday mornings babblefests.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), with the backing of gun-control groups, are drafting a bill that would ban the sale of magazines such as the one reportedly used by Loughner.

"The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly," Lautenberg said in annoucing plans to introduce the bill when the Senate returns. "These high-capacity clips simply should not be on the market."

Another reason could be target practice, of course. But hey, why let a good crisis go to waste?

Douchebag of the Day: Councilman Calls Cops on Kids Selling Cupcakes

I'm surprised this slob didn't confiscate the evidence and eat them all himself. Sure looks like he hasn't skipped dessert in some time. What a dick this guy is.

When Andrew DeMarchis and Kevin Graff, two 13-year-olds from Chappaqua's Seven Bridges Middle School, set up shop at Gedney Park on a fall weekend last month, they were expecting a tidy profit.

Instead, the two wannabe entrepreneurs selling cupcakes, cookies, brownies and Rice Krispie treats baked by them for $1 apiece got a taste of cold, hard bureaucracy .

New Castle Councilman Michael Wolfensohn came upon the sale and called the cops on the kids for operating without a license.

The boys' parents are incensed and can't believe a Town Board member would handle the situation that way.

"I am shocked and sad for the boys. It was such a great idea, and they worked hard at it," said Laura Graff, Kevin's mother. "But then some Town Board member decided to get on his high horse and wreck their dreams."

DeMarchis and Graff, along with two other classmates, Zachary Bass and Daniel Katz, had a simple, if half-baked, business plan: sell their treats at Gedney Park for a couple of years and save up enough to open a restaurant.

Their first day was wildly successful, the boys said. They netted $120, of which they invested $60 to buy a cart from Target and added water and Gatorade to their offerings on their second day, the next Saturday, Oct. 9.

After about an hour of brisk business , during which DeMarchis and Graff — Bass and Katz were not with them — said they made $30, police arrived at their stand and asked them to shut it down.

"The police officer was extremely pleasant. He said he was sorry to have to do this, but that he was following up on a report filed over the phone by a Town Board member," said Suzanne DeMarchis, Andrew's mother, who was called to the scene. "Kevin was so upset, he was crying all the whole way home. He was worried if he was going to get arrested or have a criminal record."

Nice. I hope this schmuck is proud of himself.

Oh, and yes, he's a Democrat.

Where Do You Rank on the Schumer Scale?

Is this guy an out-of-control megalomaniac or what?

Are you smarter than a senator?

You'll need to be able to match wonky wits with New York's senior senator, Chuck Schumer, if you want to work for him, passing a political brain-teaser that's become one of the most famous interviews in New York politics.

Schumer examines the political IQ of job candidates by asking them to rank members of Congress, including himself, on a 1-to-100 continuum -- with 1 representing an arch-conservative and 100 an ultra-liberal.

For Schumer, it's not a matter of opinion: There are right and wrong scores for his fellow lawmakers, he insists.

Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash in 2002, defines the liberal end of the spectrum, at 100. The late Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina is at the opposite end of the scale, with a 1.

The senator usually opens with an easy one -- "Where does Olympia Snowe rank?" he'll ask about the moderate Republican from Maine.

Answer: Snowe gets a raw score of 50.

It's in between, however, that Schumer puts the political savvy of potential staffers to the test.

"Where do you put Ted Kennedy?" he often asks.

The correct answer for the late iconic Massachusetts lawmaker is a 90.

"What about Mitch McConnell?" he asks, looking for an answer that gives a raw score of 20 for Kentucky's Republican senator.

Schumer's former Senate colleague Hillary Rodham Clinton rates an 80 -- exactly five points to his left. Schumer gives himself a 75.

"He wants to be seen as the middle of his party," said a former Schumer staffer who recalls watching Schumer give the test as far back as 1998, when he was first elected to the Senate.

"It's very important that staffers understand that Clinton, in his mind, lies to his left on the liberal continuum," said the former staffer.

I'd rank Schumer as a 100 on the Schmuck Scale.

Begala: Bush Is A "Dead Duck"

Congress approval rating just 10% as Bush goes from 'lame to dead duck'

The controversy over the failure of the Bush administration's unpopular financial bail-out is infecting every aspect of government and the presidential election campaign.

Eminent reputations lie in ruins; the august institutions of Congress, the treasury, the Federal Reserve tremble; the presidency itself is shaken. In America's year of living dangerously, few will emerge unscathed.

The consensus view, if there is one in so divided a nation, is that the US has suffered a calamitous, across-the-board failure of leadership. The bankruptcy is political as well as economic. This conclusion is widely held among both supporters and opponents of the bail-out.

"Monday's crash and burn of the Paulson plan on Capitol Hill reveals a Washington elite that has earned every bit of the disdain that Americans have for it. This crowd can't even make sausage," snarled a Wall Street Journal editorial yesterday. Black Monday's shambles marked a "historic abdication".

Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives were excoriated for political cowardice, childish disputatiousness, and a selfish desire to get re-elected next month at any cost. It's clear, whatever they do next, the public simply does not trust them to do it right.

"A political establishment held in higher regard may have been able to hold together some kind of coalition of the willing," wrote Joel Achenbach in the Washington Post. "But distrust of the nation's leaders, from the leaders of Congress to the president, foreclosed that possibility."

This was not mere rhetoric. Congress's public approval rating was down to 18% before the crisis hit. By some estimates, it is now 10% and falling. Washington has seen a "throw the bums out" mood before, notably Newt Gingrich's 1994 anti-government "Republican revolution". But this is something else. Like some others, Gingrich is calling for the resignation of Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary, for presiding over a train wreck and then failing to persuade people why $700bn was needed to get back on the rails.

Other heads enthusiastically recommended for the chopping block include Democratic house speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for being "too partisan" and the Republican house minority leader, John Boehner, for not being partisan enough.

An unhappy Boehner said before the vote that the bail-out was a "crap sandwich" that he and colleagues were obliged to eat. As it turned out, 133 Republicans and 95 Democrats found it too much to swallow.

Many members of Congress found themselves caught between party leadership and angry constituents and sought to explain themselves.

"We are now in the golden age of thieves. And where I come from we put thieves in jail, we don't bail them out," said Pete Visclosky, an Indiana Democrat who voted 'no'.

The signal failure, as critics see it, of President George Bush to show a lead out of the morass has provoked a new crop of political obituaries.

"No longer a lame duck, he's a dead duck," said Democratic strategist Paul Begala.

I share with Begala the same sage advice Dick Cheney gave to national security risk Loony Leahy: Go fuck yourself.

Via The Guardian