Census Completion WrangleJudge says 2020 census must continue for another month
Updated Sep 26, 3:41 PM; Posted Sep 26, 3:41 PM
2020 Census
By The Associated Press
By Mike Schneider
ORLANDO, Fla. — A federal judge has stopped the 2020 census from finishing at month’s end and suspended a year-end deadline for delivering the numbers needed to decide how many seats each state gets in Congress.
The preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in California late Thursday allows the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident to continue through the end of October.
Koh said the shortened schedule ordered by President Donald Trump’s administration likely would produce inaccurate results that would last a decade.
The judge sided with civil rights groups and local governments that sued the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees the statistical agency, arguing that minorities and others in hard-to-count communities would be missed if the counting ends this month.
In granting the preliminary injunction, the judge said the plaintiffs were likely to succeed at a trial. Despite concerns raised by top Census Bureau officials about the shortened schedule, the Trump administration failed to consider its duty to produce an accurate head count and neglected to adequately explain a reason for it, she said.
Koh said inaccuracies produced from a shortened schedule would affect the distribution of federal funding and political representation over the next 10 years. The census is used to determine how $1.5 trillion in federal spending is distributed each year and how many congressional seats each state gets.
Before the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, around the same time the census started for most U.S. residents, the bureau had planned to complete the 2020 census by the end of July.
In April, in response to the pandemic, it extended the deadline to the end of October. Then, in late July or early August, the deadline changed once again to the end of September after the Republican-controlled Senate failed to take up a request from the Census Bureau to extend the Dec. 31 deadline for turning over the numbers used for deciding how many congressional seats each state gets.
Attorneys for the Census Bureau had argued that the census must finish by the end of September to meet the Dec. 31 deadline and have enough time for crunching the numbers used for deciding how many congressional seats each state gets, in a process known as apportionment. But Koh said that argument “runs counter to the facts.”
“Those facts show not only that the Bureau could not meet the statutory deadline, but also that the Bureau had received pressure from the Commerce Department to cease seeking an extension of the deadline,” she wrote.
Koh’s preliminary injunction suspended that end-of-the-year deadline, giving Census Bureau statisticians time to crunch the numbers for apportionment from the start of November until the end of next April, for the time being.
Previously, the Census Bureau had only half that time for data processing, from the start of October until the end of December.
The San Jose, California-based judge earlier this month issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Census Bureau from winding down field operations until she ruled.
Attorneys for the Census Bureau and the Department of Commerce said Friday they would file an appeal and asked the judge to suspend the injunction while that happens.
“Were the Bureau to miss these deadlines, Congress could well decide to disregard the 2020 census results in conducting apportionment, as it previously did for the 1920 census,” the attorneys for the federal government said in court papers.
The civil rights groups and local governments alleged that the decision to shorten the schedule was made to accommodate a directive from Trump that tried to exclude people in the country illegally from the apportionment numbers. A three-judge panel in New York blocked Trump’s directive, saying it was unlawful. The Trump administration is appealing to the Supreme Court.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross directed the Census Bureau to come up with a shortened plan, despite concerns raised by top bureau leaders who worried in internal communications that cutting a month off would produce a count with “fatal data quality flaws,” Koh’s order said.
The bureau was facing a shortfall in census takers after large numbers reported for training but then dropped out.
An email from Tim Olson, associate director for field operations, to his colleagues called it “ludicrous” to believe a full count could be completed before Oct. 31 and that anyone thinking the apportionment numbers would be turned in by Dec. 31 “has either a mental deficiency or a political motivation.”
Koh’s decision ensures that hard-to-count communities won’t be overlooked and produce an incomplete count, said attorneys for the plaintiffs after the ruling.
“As the court recognized, the Census Bureau has itself repeatedly recognized that a full, fair, and accurate count takes time, especially when faced with a historic pandemic,” said Melissa Sherry, the lead plaintiff’s attorney. “Every day that the 2020 Census count continues, and Census operations appropriately continue, will help ensure the accuracy and completeness of this once-in-a-decade tally.”
Seminar with Brandon Sensei - Sat 26 SeptemberCome join us on Saturday, September 26th, 2020, for an international seminar!
Practice Conflict Done Well, the missing set of skills that can make the world a place that works for everyone.
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5th dan Ph.D. and find out how #Somatics and Archetypal Psychology integrate with Aikido 2, Martial Nonviolence, and Peace Practices.
Understanding Stuff You Can't Change By Yourself(Means Not Feeling Like Everything In Your Way Is Somehow Your Fault)
As you know, and contrary to what gets said out loud, bias is everywhere, certainly at every level of hiring and employment, and is handled poorly more often than not. We are in a terrible labor market brought about by the way current leadership has handled the economy and pandemic. For certain, i.e. having been studied way beyond politics or opinion, we also suffer from an economy almost entirely controlled by the wealthiest of the wealthy and constructed with a bias toward short-term gain pushed as high up the chain of ownership and as quickly as possible. This feels like every last drop of time and effort (life) is being squeezed from the workforce because the institutional support that our (grand)parents' tax dollars paid for, like early education (serving as childcare so parents can work), healthcare, retirement and banking we can count on, etc. are being stripped away to increase the investments, influence, and systemic control of those in power. Here is a basic introduction to how that works.When the workforce lives in uncertainty, those providing "opportunity" have exponentially more power to call the shots. This is not lost on the owners of enterprise, especially at a global level. To achieve this, certain divisive ideas have been repeated over and over in corporate media and political messaging, and labor organizing has been ground down since the 1980s. That removes the largest force powerful enough to lift all boats, the minimum wage, and keep afloat institutions that support workers in need of healthcare, education/childcare, etc. This passes value up the chain of ownership. Studies show that this structure leads to specifically constructed outcomes, most of which are attributed to "society" as though we wanted it that way, including stereotypes about people of color and "the poor", an obsession with youth, the idea that Technology Will Save Us, and an avoidance of consequences/death, even at the planetary/ecological level.Looking specifically at the prejudice against age, the drive to undermine expertise and devalue lived-experience continues because the inexperienced are typically willing to "pay their dues" (not be paid an appropriate wage for their work), are in an understandably more independent/individualistic phase (Those people are having a hard time, but I can beat the odds!), and don't know yet how much the status quo will cost them and their families. When young people take jobs offered to them because a more experienced (valuable/expensive) worker has been squeezed out, they seize a piece for themselves in a way that guarantees that The System will also force them out when they have experience.To those I help find jobs, who also happen to be Of A Certain Age:You are already doing what I do when I realize I am being discriminated against. Every time I hear that I am "overqualified", or "surely don't really want/won't stay in this position, given your experience", or get radio silence in response to an application that moved into the realm of actual human contact and then stalled. I feel depressed and hopeless, then I talk to others who are well informed and sympathetic, read well written articles about the problem and write publicly, and find out which companies seem to be hiring more experienced folks and reward them with my purchasing power. Then I revisit my application materials, expectations about what does and doesn't matter, and online profile, from which I remove all obvious traces of age, which is only possible to a certain level, unless you have years of obviously position-relevant experience all in the last decade. Then I apply for positions for which they are obviously seeking a more experienced candidate, after which all the usual advice applies:
- Network like Who You Know is the only reason you will get hired.
- Be fearless about asking for what you really want, but ready to accept odd routes to your goal.
- Track everything you do and apply for many more positions than seems to make sense.
- Put your best foot forward, whatever that means for you and whatever it takes.
- Follow up respectfully but relentlessly
From a good article at the WSJ https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-overqualified-trap-can-hit-you-at-any-time-11566207000 I will add:
Avoid the Overqualification Label
* Explain up front why you’re applying for a position that seems beneath you.
* Research the job in depth so you can describe how it matches your experience.
* Be consistent in explaining your reasons for applying throughout all interviews for the job.
* Show openness and flexibility by talking about things you want to learn.
* Line up references who will vouch for your commitment.
* Network with contacts who also know insiders at the target company.
UnHeard Immunity.
KG: Hey folks,
Me and an old Marine medical corpsman buddy started thinking about the insanity of proposing to open up early and just let herd immunity fight the virus. These fools need to do the math. They have no idea what they are talking about.
Virologists say for herd immunity to work about 70% of the population must become infected and survive. In the US, with a population of 331 million, 70% surviving a COVID19 infection comes to around 245-250 million people infected. How do I arrive at that number? It’s estimated that about 20% of the infected will need hospitalization. That’s 45-50 million people. About 6% of the infected population will die. That’s around 14-16 million. 70% of 331 million is 231 million, plus the 14-16 million who you must compensate for because they will die, getting us to around 245-250 million.
Think about those numbers folks. There are only around 924,000 hospital beds in the USA. ICU beds? A fraction of that number. Even if spread over 2 years, there is no way we can hospitalize around 25 million people annually in the USA, our health infrastructure would be disastrously overwhelmed, so the death rate of 6% from the virus alone would actually be much much higher, likely 15-18%.
It gets a lot worse.
And what about all the people with life threatening heart conditions, cancer, and all the other life threatening illnesses. Cancer diagnoses alone are around 1.75 million annually. Heart disease and stroke kill over two million with access to medical treatment. Over 70 million Americans have some sort of cardiovascular disease. Without any access to proper healthcare, how many of these millions would die?
What about all the victims of automobile accidents or other spontaneous life threatening events? They’d have scant access to lifesaving healthcare, so they’d just be left to die too? And what about the frontline healthcare professionals. How many of them would die from exposure to the virus, further comprising our healthcare system? How would we replace them, and with who?
It gets even worse.
If 45-50 million are are hospitalized over 2 years what will happen to our food production and distribution chain? Who grows our food? Who processes our food? Who delivers our food? People were fighting over toilet paper for God’s sake. If it comes to food, it will not be fist fights in a parking lot, not in a country with over 300 million guns. How many will die from random violence and malnutrition or starvation?
But there’s more.
Will we maintain proper sanitation, or will pestilence run rampant? What will we do with the millions and millions of dead bodies? If we can’t even give the people in Flint, Michigan clean water in the best of times, imagine what will happen without properly maintained city services and sanitation.
So, how many will really die? It’s too horrific to imagine, and still there are people saying they won’t wear a mask because it violates “their rights”, and herd immunity should be allowed to take its course, you know....... because .......the economy.
News Flash! There won’t be an economy folks!
Social distance, wear a danged mask, and vote Trump’s goddamn GOP into the Stone Age, they’ve done enough damage already. Sadly, November may be too far away to prevent a massive loss of life.
Damn.......
https://www.google.com/.../why-herd-immunity-will-not.../amp
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Incomperable Tromp.
In order to secure financial gain or increase in power, he materially betrayed his office and people/country through several intentional breaches of trust or confidence, many of which he admitted publicly in order to shrug them off. That is The Reason For the #Tre45on. This is not an insult, not a personal attempt to hurt somebody's feelings by running them down. We are not acquainted and he has made absolutely clear that he couldn't care less. It is a public condemnation. If someone commits crimes and then, upon being accused, says "that's how the game is played" or "so what?" it is not an insult to call him a criminal. I don't hate him. I don't know him. I am furious but not irrational about what he has done to us, admitted, and shrugged off. He has explicitly made himself the poster boy for I Could Kill Somebody On 5th Ave And Not Lose Votes. That and what followed is not comparable to any other American politician alive, as far as I know. I am not comparing him to the most infamous war criminals of all time. I am taking seriously all the admitted outrages to which he has sold tickets so everyone can see them riveted to the forehead of his public persona. His entire strategy hinges on being The Biggest Trump Ever, the most hated by his enemies and followed without question by his worshipers, the most lethal to cross, the most impossible to anticipate (erratic and not subject to rational predictability). He must pretend to be bigger than life and mortal consequences, more outrageously powerful, uber dispenser of outrages, such that Nobody Can Stop Me. The actual man is irrelevant. It is not Oedipus one decries, but Hubris. That does not make me an NeverOedipuser; it makes me a citizen invested in civilization and the more humane side of humanity.
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Consistenly Bugbearish“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Covid-19 contagion and mortality rates discussed.
TET: So, are contagion and mortality rates hyped? Very soon we will exceed the number killed in the Vietnam War over a decade, and that in only 6 weeks from the initial reported deaths.
Mar 20, - 249 dead.
Apr 20, - 42,604 dead.
Now consider this. The number of deaths at the top of the curve approximates the half point. Chances are that another 40-50,000 people will die on the way down the curve if the social distancing continues and widespread testing is not implemented. If we reopen too early without testing, the downslope of the curve could be very long, if not spike a second time.
Estimates of over 100,000 are almost guaranteed.
AH: Confirmed not fake news.
MV-H: AH, There will be thousands more people who think this way who end up dead. It's pathetic and tragic. But what's worse is they spread it to others and put health care workers at risk.
AH: MV-H, Exactly.
AH: People in Jacksonville don't get it. Florida is going to cause problems. BTW I live in Jacksonville. People here are awful regarding this.
DG: Sad but hard to argue with the math.
TS: Living in a country that is predicted to potentially have the highest death rate in Europe, I am appalled that the USA is so complacent about this threat. It is a sad fact that the history books will look very poorly on the needless deaths, compounded of course by the nature of the US health system. Hopefully, when all of this has blown over (which will be a very long time) the good people of America will have a chance to rethink the folly of leaving the national health system in the rapacious hands of the free market.
KT: you are spot on....well articulated!!!
TS: Btw, the reason we are likely to have the highest death rate is because we were two weeks behind the curve, and were so sloppy on testing. Product of an arrogant, complacent, lazy government and Prime Minister
TET: We can relate to that Tim......
KT:....boy oh boy can we relate....
the numbers are not hyped...in fact most experts say the deaths and the confirmed cases are way UNDER reported....THAT is the scary part...I maintain that one of the reasons that trumpf and admin are dragging their feet on testing is because they don't really want us to know how much worse this is....and remember, if someone dies at home-they are not counted as a covid 19 death....and that is in the thousands per day across the country....
DLH: KT, And they’re looking for a way to profit from this. Didn’t focus on testing because it wasn’t profitable. Sold PPE to China for profits. Someone posted a meme- Billionaires urging workers to go to work, just proves they don’t make their money, workers do.
KT: precisely!....the bourgeois will sit comfortably and safely in their mansions while the workers (a.k.a. sacrificial lambs) will do the work for them.....
BS: The longer we refuse to take the medicine, the longer we stay sick. Tough concept, I know.
LJR: One thing I've read - and heard, from reliable sources - is that if the deceased is positive for COVID-19 they count it as a covid death, even if they actually died from heart or kidney disease or some other cause. They've been inflating flu death statistics like this for years.
TET: LJR, You have it backwards in what we are seeing now. I know someone who had COPD, died of symptoms related to COVID19 but on the death certificate it says COPD. This means COVID19 numbers are likely underrepresented, and without more comprehensive testing, we’ll never know for sure.
LJR: TET, You'd better inform NPR then.
TET:LJR, https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/2973481001
Fact check: Is US coronavirus death toll inflated? Experts agree it's likely the opposite
usatoday.com
TET: “Deaths due to COVID-19 may be misclassified as pneumonia or influenza deaths in the absence of positive test results, and these conditions may appear on death certificates as a comorbid condition.”
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)
cdc.gov
TC: It's become a deadly numbers game, almost assuredly a game we don't want to lose. This administration was given a game plan, it threw it away and is now winging it day by day with now plans in place to deal with the next pandemic.
RLPS: As I've mentioned elsewhere, these reopen protesters don’t see that they are pawns for multinational corporations and the elite 1%. Instead of trying to force governments to reopen economies, they should be working to apply pressure to test and track on a wide scale. Until that happens, we’re all riding a yo-yo.
GF: Look at the numbers, tremendous numbers, I have the best numbers, the number are far greater than anything you have ever seen before...
TS: Reliable figures are hard to come by. Different countries record their deaths in different ways. Here in the UK, until recently they have left out the care home statistics, which made a considerable difference.
As I understand it, in the USA one significant problem is that because of the high cost of medical treatment the poorest people have ducked medical treatment because of the cost and therefore have built up a catalogue of 'underlying conditions', it is these same 'underlying conditions' that will mark them out as victims of this highly contagious virus, thus the death rate of these highly vulnerable people will be astronomic! They may well die of these 'underlying conditions' as well as Covid-19, but how will it be reported?
JR: Two additional points: (1) the density under the curve is not symmetric so the risk ratios are not equal, e.g. relative risk of infection or death at day 10 pre peak does not equal the same risk 10 days post peak. Given that we see a right skew, the deaths post peak will be more infrequent but likely equal up to the peak (same number will die over a longer period).
(2) given that the likelihood ratios for antibody tests are no better than 1:2 right now, the true number of asymptotic but infected individuals is ostensibly a guess even with tests, so a dual peaked distribution (all of this ramping back up again) is a real possibility.
Brandon WilliamsCraig: This conversation is not public at this time. Can it be so it may be shared? If not, may I reproduce it somewhere with names rendered as initials?
TET: Brandon WilliamsCraig, absolutely
EVM: Also consider that we well may NOT be at the top of the Curve as of yet.
AMI: Here is a fb friend’s analysis:
https://www.facebook.com/1466350593/posts/10223245773280408/?d=n
[copied in]
JC: My friend, AN, asked me about a week ago if I still believed we would see a million (or more) dead in the US from CV19. At that time I told him I was wavering. Over this last week, I have learned some new things about how the disease presents in statistics. The new calculus is this:
Let's say we have 100 people who test positive for the disease. It appears, based on several independent studies, that of that 100 only 40 will show any signs of being sick. It also looks like the mortality rate among the ones who are symptomatic is relatively high - between 8% and 20%. These are preliminary numbers that are likely to change over time, because this disease is still only a few months old and testing, at least in the US, is abysmal. We also need to have a reliable antibody test in order to see who's been exposed and how long immunity lasts after recovery.
Bottom line, though, on estimates of the number of dead USians from CV19, I think I may be back up in the million range. Spain and France continue to climb the deaths/million plot at an alarming rate with 428 nd 296 respectively. Both are about 14 days ahead of the US on the infection curve. We're at almost 120. If we're at 300 in two weeks (where France is now), that will mean there will be almost a hundred thousand dead here in the US. Even if we're only at 200 (deaths/million) - two-thirds of France's level and only 80 more than we are right now (which seems very unlikely) - that will mean 66,000+ dead [dramatic pause] just by the end of April.
God forbid, we might be where Spain is and still climbing, as they are. If that is our destiny we'll be at nearly 150,000 dead by the end of the month. Then we still have the months that follow, until an interventional therapy or vaccine comes to our rescue. 150K dead by the end of this month followed by, say, twelve additional months at a steady pace of 50K per month - remember, "flattened curve" doesn't mean people stop dying it means the number who die each month doesn't continue to climb - we will be at three-quarters of a million dead this time next year.
Meanwhile, there are those who say the death toll is an acceptable loss to get our economy up and running again. What they don't say is that getting back to work will blow my numbers, above, out of the water. Remember that *those* numbers were based on us continuing to do what we've been doing to "flatten the curve." If we stop our efforts to flatten the curve, we might find ourselves back in the million-plus or even multi-millions dead arena. May THAT never be.
Stay at home. If you have to go out, wear a face covering and wash your hands often. If it starts to feel difficult (the staying at home) try to remember whose life you may be putting at risk by going out..
The Journey of the Hero In The Time of CovidWhat part do mythology and psychology play in deciding how to respond in a time of internaitonal crisis?
A Massive Wave Of Evictions Is Coming"A massive wave of evictions is coming. Temporary bans won't help.
Before the novel coronavirus struck, 300,000 evictions were filed in the United States in a typical month. With nearly 10 million people filing unemployment claims last month, evictions would clearly skyrocket, absent intervention from the government. In one hint of the trouble to come, researchers...." SFGate https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/A-massive-wave-of-evictions-is-coming-Temporary-15186836.php
Brandon WilliamsCraig: #RentStrike. Not for me while I have income and can pay as I have agreed, but for those forced to live in housing designed to be unaffordable and those who have been ordered into staying home and sinking further into poverty to protect public health.
SM: Small landlords won't like rent strikes at all. Unintended consequences abound.
Brandon WilliamsCraig: Very true, and the temptation to say "I know we are all suffering right now, but that can't get passed on to/shared by me" is very strong. "You aren't getting paid but I must be" is especially hard when it ends in fatalities.
SM: I feel for the people who have to show up for work every day in dangerous (infectious) situations in order to keep society functioning. Too many of them are earning minimum wage already.
Brandon WilliamsCraig: SM, Amen.
DI: Indeed, I’m in that situation – accountant/landlord has been pushing me to move out the entire time of shelter in place, as I was doing a room trade with someone who went into residential care on March 8. Stressful!
LD: My girlfriend has two small rentals and runs a solopreneur hospitality based business to make ends meet. Of course her business is shut down. The rent she was charging her tenants was barely enough to cover mortgages and taxes on the rentals, and all upkeep came out of her pocket. She never raised the rent because they're long term tenants and it didn't seem fair as long as she was breaking even. So if they stop paying rent the banks foreclose and they're evicted anyway.
Brandon WilliamsCraig:
Makes sense. There are two ways out of a crisis like this. Solidarity (nobody has money so nobody pays or gets foreclosed/evicted all the way up) or crushing the people with less power--bank foreclosures drive landlord evictions drive the working poor into homelessness. With an almost complete lack of leadership from D.C., the States must hold everyone together so the poor are not sacrificed until the election can generate additional options and some hope.
LD: Brandon WilliamsCraig thats part of the issue. In Oregon the governor passed a "no eviction" regulation. But any mortgage relief or freeze? That HAS to be federal, and there's nothing even being talked about right now because the mortgage market is already in free fall. This totally false idea that "rich landlords are getting rich off of the backs of the poor" is total garbage, but its pervasive enough that when most renters hear they won't be evicted? They "hear" I don't have to pay rent and my fat cat landlord can't do anything about it. Its complete BS all the way around.
Brandon WilliamsCraig: Absolutely agree. Solidarity means nobody gets hung out to dry, and the only way to get an Everybody solution is at the federal level. Too bad we've accepted that the federal government, our only overall instrument of protecting ourselves, should be destroyed.
JZ: For small time landlords I understand it’s hard on them too. But it is an investment like anything else - a risk.
AL: Jessica Zane but that risk is mitigated by tenants paying. The inability to rent is the risk. Yes, people not paying is also a risk, but there is a typical process to deal with non-payment that they can’t utilize.
AL: Mortgages are being placed in a forebearance status and foreclosures are being delayed in some instances out to 180 days. That is in place right now. But, as a lender, even if I give you a forbearance, at some point the bill comes due. Landlords need to be making similar payment arrangements with their tenants. If a tenant believes they can’t be evicted, they might be right for 120 days or so, but eventually the bill will come due. The stimulus bill is to help weather this storm, not for a new TV or iPhone but I suspect, we will see many tenants buying new TVs and iPhone instead of making good with their landlord. In those instances, I have little sympathy on the tenant.
BW: Agree. And, in my direct experience working with groups around class issues, people with privilege almost always reach for "we will see many [Poor People] buying new TVs and iPhone instead of making good" when studies show that working/poor people most often make recovery purchases--those things privileged people think of as essential and wouldn't think of doing without, but which people who will never Own must wait to afford--like preventative medical work, dental work, a used but working replacement vacuum cleaner, etc. Beliefs about The Poor by those with social power are one of the single most potent contributing factors to supporting public policy which further undermines society as a whole based on "in those instances, I have little sympathy."
WP: At least here in California, the moratorium on evictions only applies to people with direct financial impact because of Coronavirus or shelter in place orders. And tenants need to provide documentation of reduced financial capacity if they want to avoid eviction. This is not and should not be a rent holiday for everyone.
Brandon WilliamsCraig: Agree.All the news... (includes older items)
