This is a rush transcript from “Hannity,” February 4, 2010. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST: The federal government is becoming more and more brazen when it comes to wasting your hard-earned tax dollars. Now this government now has the audacity to spend your money on the grandest stage of all, the Super Bowl.
That’s right, the U.S. Census Bureau is dishing out $2.5 million to pay for a 30-second commercial this Sunday. But that is just a small part of the census ad campaign. Now according to the USA Today when it’s all said and done, they would have blown $340 million on their efforts to encourage people to cooperate with the census.
But TV spots and billboards aren’t the only weapon the Census Bureau is using to get its message out. Your children are also part of the game plan.
They are spending $13 billion on a public information effort which includes a program to integrate census-related material in schools. Now according to the chief of the program, quote, “Any child is a good spokesperson.”
Well, my next guest thinks that all this could be a way to spread propaganda in our school system. She is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller, “Culture of Corruption.” Michelle Malkin is back.
All right, tell me my tax dollars, our tax dollars, is not being spent on a Super Bowl ad by the government? Just tell me I’ve misread this. Help me out.
MICHELLE MALKIN, “THE CULTURE OF CORRUPTION” AUTHOR: I wish I could tell you, you were wrong, Sean. But this is a $2.5 million waste of money down the toilet on a 30-second ad.
And let me tell you something — a little bit of something about the people who are being paid for this ad. There’s a company called Draft FBC. They’re based in Chicago, coincidentally or not, and New York.
And the ads that they have already placed on YouTube have been up there for a couple of weeks. They’ve been universally panned by folks in the advertising industry. You’re not getting a lot of bang for your buck. They put this up there on YouTube expecting it to be a viral video, and a whopping 6,800 people have viewed the darn thing.
And you’ve got D-list celebrities like Ed Begley who were involved in this.
HANNITY: Ouch.
MALKIN: And it really is a waste of money, Sean. Look, even Pepsi has decided not to advertise on the Super Bowl. It’s not cost-effective, it’s not wise in a recession. I wish that the federal government were as fiscally responsible as Pepsi in this case.
HANNITY: Michelle, I don’t have a problem with people advertising on the Super Bowl. You know what? It’s got to be one of the most watched television events of the year. I don’t have a problem with that.
It’s a 30-second ad, it’s a lot of taxpayer dollars, and — so that doesn’t bother me as much as it’s not appropriate for the government to spend this money. That’s the point.
All right, go into this issue of integrating this into the schools and $13 billion there. Why do you think this is indoctrination?
MALKIN: Well, look, the kind of people who are in charge of this are writing curriculum material. The program is called Census in Schools. And if you look at the Web site where much of this is already posted, you’ll see they want to teach about the census, not just the plain history of it. Not just the fact that it’s a constitutional mandate.
But they put it in the cultural context. And you’re talking about people who are trained in Alinsky-ite methods who see themselves as social justice activists. And that’s exactly how they see these kids.
And remember that the census has to be seen in a completely politically context. The Democrat Party has long seen the census as a way to ensure a permanent ruling majority. They are the ones that want to count illegal aliens.
They are the ones spending all of this federal money on open borders groups and left-wing interest groups, ACORN style groups, community activist groups, who are getting out the message and doing things like not just the Super Bowl ad, Sean, but a $15 million census road show using 13 vehicles and buses to get the message out there.
These are census bureaucrats in flax who are partying on our dime at places like they’re going to ride down to the Super Bowl, the Daytona 500, Mardi Gras.
HANNITY: All right. Let me.
MALKIN: It’s quite a party when the rest of America is hurting.
HANNITY: Let me — I agree with that. But let me get into some of the other political dangers and how the Democrats want to use the census for their own political advantage. And they think obviously this is advantageous to them in the end.
But there’s one other factor, too. I want you to comment on that and the jobs numbers may be artificially inflated. In other words, it will seem or appear because we’re going to send about, what, a million plus people out on the streets to be census workers, so for a short time at least probably until July or August, they’re going to be showing up in the jobs numbers.
But these aren’t real jobs that are created, right?
MALKIN: Yes, that’s exactly right. And remember that there is an extra $1 billion that is being siphoned away from the stimulus money to beef up these temporary staffers for the Census and for the PR campaign as well, Sean.
HANNITY: All right, well, now, go to the political aspect of the dangers politically for the Republicans. And what — the things that they’ve got to watch out for and why the census matters because if the numbers aren’t right the Democrats get more congressional seats, and certainly that has an impacts on their ability to take back the House and the Senate. It has a really huge ripple effect. Explain it.
MALKIN: Of course. This is a huge financial and electoral enterprise, Sean. He who counts the beans controls the Democrat political machine. And they are trying to do nothing less than radically alter the electoral landscape.
And we’ve seen it in past census counts, where the beefed up illegal alien numbers are helping redistrict in many of these congressional areas and giving more Democrat votes and Democrat seats to that ruling majority.
And I think — I think it’s very important that the math be right, that the science be right. But we’re dealing with people who are experts at fuzzy math.
HANNITY: All right. Michelle Malkin, very informative. Thanks for being with us. Appreciate it.
— Watch “Hannity” weeknights at 9 p.m. ET!
Content and Programming Copyright 2010 Fox News Network, Inc. Copyright 2010 Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Leave a Reply