This is only the beginning, I'm afraid. I blame Rush Limblaugh, Glenn Buck, Fox News and the rest of the conservative media, and the Republican party for this. This is exactly the type of thing they have been promoting and rooting for ever since Obama was elected.

Hysteria's first casualty. A census-taker is a poor substitute for Obama, but the crazies will take whatever they can get, and whatever they can get away with as a victory for their cause, however they define it. This murder must be solved and the solution publicized as quickly as possible or the hysterics will have their first heroes.

Sad and scary. They should likely have better security procedures in place to protect census workers. For example, there could be phone-in contact before each interview contact commences and after it ends? Or work with partners?

This is clearly a terrorism case, so why no media coverage. They've devoted hours to an Arab-American who rented a car to buy lots of beauty supplies, saying he may be building a bomb.

'the death was "an apparent homicide," ' nah, you think?

maybe if these people hate the government so much, we should conduct an experiment: Stop all social security and medicare payments...in all red states!

Tight-lipped indeed. Like others, why are we just hearing about this now over a week later? This is a lynching. Tacitly condoned for decades, shouldn't the media be screaming about this? Where are the right-to-lifers? Didn't this man have a right to life in their eyes? Where are the folks who claim this is a Christian nation? Jesus calls us to love one another above all.

I spent 32 years in government service, including three years in the military in the south- south Alabama, South Viet Nam, and south Georgia. (Viet Nam was the most friendly) The anger toward government I found was consistent and always from "right -wingers", even during REAGAN YEARS! That Beck, Limbaugh and the others foment this to a further degree of hatred today is clear. There is a mental incapacity in this nation among those who oppose "big government" until they realize THEY are the beneficiary- which they invariably deny.

Taxes are not taken through coercion - people are free to live elsewhere, and not be burdened with the tax system of this nation or any given local municipality. And the Census Bureau is not evil. If you blame the victim through subtle means, you are still blaming the victim.

Skanner Constant makes a very good point. I live here in Kentucky and feel obligated to comment. I don't care much for t.v. so I cant really say if it has been reported in local news although it would be a shock if it hasn't, because after all "if it bleeds it leads" in a profit-motivated and thus sensational news media. Regardless, I have not, nor have any of my friends who do own t.v.s heard of this crime and I find that very disturbing. What I do find uplifting is the lack of commentator stereotyping about southern states (except of course for 18:55 "captain pneumo" ) b/c i hope we can all agree that kind of language gets us no where. I would also like to note that despite the Glen Beck/Bill o' Reilly, and Fox crowd which IS disproportionately southern, there is still a very strong progressive sentiment here in Ky, only....well...when it comes down to it, we're mostly poor so the media and powers that be don't care to report our feelings. (unless they're birthers!) "Terrorism" has no religion. Terrorism is simply a function of fear- an irrational, reactionary and ultimately self destructive byproduct of people whose environments (there is NO human nature mind you, only human behavior) have led them to the conclusion that they should be fearful of what they do not understand, instead of of curious and investigative. Whoever did this fears what they do not understand, or more importantly, don't care to understand, and worse, believe violence helps anything. I wouldn't be surprised if this murderer goes to church on sundays. As Ghandi said, "I love your Christ, I just don't like your Christians.... they are so unlike your Christ!"

It's time to start demonizing the right as crazies. Call MoveOn and Organize For America and lets manufacture some phony partisan hysteria and outrage. Maybe this time MediaMatters will be totally successful in scaring off all of the advertisers for Glenn Beck.

i'm as conspiratorial and liberal as anyone else, but i think a lot of people are jumping to conclusions here. i know i'll someone's going to get hysterical on me for questioning, but unless there is more info to indicate that this is the work of a right-winger(s) with a deadly agenda, it's hard for me to automatically assume so.

Anon 9:24. The folks like Rush Limbaugh & Glen(n?) Beck are not authentic conservatives in the least as they are just PAID SHOWMEN & ACTORS whose main purpose is to vilify authentic conservatism by making it look ridiculous [ they are warmongers who ridicule true conservative values as they do with Ron Paul whom they vilified WORSE than Obama! ] because violence only benefits the STATE & not the actual folks who are languishing under the State. I bet you anything that whoever killed this census worker was part of the State himself as per the usual agent provocateur type operation. Do not let yourself be fooled by false flag operations a la Operation Gladio [ European governments engaging in terrorism setting of bombs & blaming it on the "left". ] / The Boeremag [ a media coined term for a violent South African state directed plot aimed at implicating a non existent Boer freedom group in order to demonize Boer Republicans. ] / Algerian Muslim Bombings [ whose government bombed places as "Muslim Extremists" in order to demonize extremist Muslim opposition. ] / Operation Northwoods [ a USA government document which aimed at blowing up American planes & blaming it on Cuba. ] / German Reichstag fire [ wherein the Nazis burned down the Reichstag & blamed it on their political opponents. ] This latest event has all the hallmarks of ANOTHER infamous false flag operation because only the State & its rulers ever benefit from anti-state violence as the examples above [ & others ] have demonstrated in the past.

Don. Glen Beck did an entire program "debunking" the concentration camps. This is the whole point of that slick scumbag Glen Beck. To marginalize legitimate issues of concern. Because as you will recall the concentration camps were exposed with Rex-84 & have been admitted to in the past.

The problem isn't news casts, it's the "GOOBERMENT". The Constitution allows for the collection of the number of people in a household ONCE ever TEN Years. The problem is the snooping of government and asking - no DEMANDING answers to questions they have no right to know! Most people do know this and resent the violation of their privacy. Now, I don't condone these actions, but if the government doesn't get out of the private rights and affairs of the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES of AMERICA, more of the same will happen. We have entered an era of Totalitarianism, and We the People are not taking delivery!!! Again, the actions of whomever killed this man are criminal - but the actions of our "GOOBERMENT" in the last nine years are worse yet! Past and present administrations included. Throw out every elected politician in the next election and vote for a trusted neighbor who thinks like you! Whooo Hoo-It's time to take back our Republic and Constitution!!

The census bureau is using GPS tracking to pinpoint where we live from outer space...why would they need to find my house from outer space? Kinda creepy! Reading the posts here only reaffirms my belief that Civil War 2.0 is coming to America in the very near future...it's impossible to avoid it at this point, I think. Heck, it seems like the current social climate was tailor-made for Civil strife! Who would want to pit us against each other? Who would benefit from such a thing? What group would have the power to do that? On February 17, 1950, one James P Warburg (a Jewish banker) stood before the Senate and confidently proclaimed..."We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.". The Illuminati would definitely have the wherewithal to instigate a Civil War in the US...and it would serve their goals for world domination quite nicely!

I wish you people would get off your high horse. People on the left have perpetrated violence countless times against their opponents. No one called for liberal commentators to be shut down as a result. So if someone takes a shot at Bush or any of his compadres, can we blame the eight years of hate directed at him for that? Anthony V

Again this mindless drivel of posts continuous support my theory that we are indeed a nation that loves to categorize each other to the point that the word "American" is essentially gone. Gone are the days were respect and courtesy has been replaced with tribalism and paranoia. This has got to stop. Take a clear example from the few posts above me: from 1:40's post: dictator, red, blue, white gay, and straight. from post 1:21 : liberal, right-winger, conspiratorial, from post 1:12 : Republican and big government from post 00:59 : demonizing, right, crazies, partisan, and more from other posts as well. I am sick and tired of this kind of type of enablers of violence.

Nobody has mentioned how the census takers are recording the GPS coordinates of peoples front doors. This unmentioned fact is a huge contributor to the concern and agitation that has developed among some folks with regard to the census takers this year. When the purpose of the census is to identify numbers of occupants in a residence and demographic trends, what non nefarious or obtrusive reason is there for recording GPS coordinates for someone's front door? Also why not alert the public before hand to the new practice with the explanation? Sure would alleviate any concerns. I think it's safe to say that either someone is totally inept at the census or they knew full well there would be an outcry against it. Obviously killing a census taker who is doing his job is a tragedy and clearly not the answer. However, it is interesting how late this was reported and we should be asking to who's benefit?

Blindedby.... So please educate us all on just how Obama is acting like a dictator? Have you ever lived under a dictator? Or do you just watch Fox news and repeat what you've heard? The last president said that "the constitution is just a god dammed piece of paper", and then went out and tried to eliminate whole sections of it. The last vice president ran secret, illegal military operations, held secret, illegal white house meetings and tortured people to death. That seems a little more dictatorial to me. And I suppose that trying to get affordable health care for the entire country and lower taxes for the middle class is what you call "no concern for you or me". I'd rather have a president who cares more about the well being of the citizens than the well being of corporations and military industrial complex. Blindedby... we are all waiting for your expertise on dictators and their behavior.

Capt. Neumo is correct below. Read it and weap.

The Fed? Written on a chest of a dead person? Who would wish to "stage" such a contrivance to further impair the credibility of those who wish to "end the fed". Why, probably the same people who "ginned up" and "staged the 90 year KKK stooge who found himself with a rifle at the holocaust museum taking shots at toy cops. MKULTRA? With all that we know about domestic "false flags" and the history of the fed (all conspiracy theories, you know), who would be so naive as to be distracted by something so contrived. If the poor worker killed himself our emotions are heartfelt- if he was murdered this is a horrific crime and those responsible need be brought to justice. But just think about it- who would be so intelligent as to understand the workings of the fed and understand its vile pursuits and be so stupid as to kill a seemingly innocent and irrelevant census worker- and put an oblique message on the fellow's body in order to "send a message". Unfortunately it is likely not the people you think did it- but rather those whose message was presented to distract.

Honestly, have you, the posters read all these comments? Conspiracies, the Feds, the Loonies. ....Omigod....THE CENSUS. " Gooberment" intrusion. Have any of you had any education? Didn't you study Western Civ. in school? Census taking is as old as the Pharoahs. What would you geneologists do without the census data? For the Cliff Notes version might I suggest a quick tour through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census ? The Census isn't some US gov't. conspiracy to find out what size panties your Aunt Thelma wears. This gov't. conspiracy stuff is getting out of hand. You've all lost your collective minds. A big dose of American History 101-102 might help with a side shot of World History. Take a deep breath and relax. Then tell a good friend a juicy secret and see if they can keep it secret for a week. Now try to keep the deliberate killing of a few thousand New Yorkers or the folks in Pearl Harbor quite for more than a few months. Good luck with that one. I jokingly told the local census guy to take care of himself when he went back on the mountain to query the neighbors. Now I'm not so sure I shouldn't have offered to go along as backup.

The 2008 missing persons statistics showed over 800,000 people reported missing . Over 100,000 have not been found. nearly 2000 of them were recovered deceased. During WWII in Germany a few million went missing never to return, and those who survived and found out about the horror of the concentration camps at the end of the war claimed they did not know where all those people went. It would be quite easy for census workers to disappear relatively unnoticed. Especially some of the homeless recruits that Acorn might send out to knock on doors. It is not so far fetched that this could be the tip of an iceberg. Time will tell.

Seriously people, and I thought I was a fan of the x-files when I was in 6th grade.... Now, im not saying I couldn't see a gobment interest in documenting our front doors' g.p.s. coordinates in this era of wire tapping and lack of habeas corpus and extraordinary rendition, but where on earth are people getting some of this stuff??? What happened to public discourse being based upon observable and peer-reviewed evidence? This isn't even far leftist or rightist stuff, just pure sensationalism. Take a deep breath chicken little, the sky isn't falling just yet

Life insurance won't pay out for suicides. This is a single father who may have killed himself but tried to leave insurance for his kids. This whole scenario smells. No one kills a census worker and puts 'fed' on his chest. There just isn't that kind of fury out there toward some guy with glasses just doing his job. Especially not in a poverty stricken area where 70% of the people are on the dole.

Mysterioso is right in his or her partisan way. Bush-Cheney destroyed this country during their reign. Some Republicans are in denial. Others are smarting from the blast burn of what they realize went wrong. Problem is, the pendulum swing didn't help. We still have renditions. Even more troops are going to Afghanistan. Denial of healthcare/Kill Granny Bill is not "providing" for everyone, unless you consider euthanasia "compassionate." The American people are getting it stuck to them by both parties. The reason I spoke up was because of the pinhead labeling of "right-wingers" when the problem of anger at expansive government is so much deeper and broader than most imagine. Totalitarian? Obama just presided as the Chairman of the United Nations Security Council. Articles in media across the country are proclaiming him "president of the world!" when they should be proclaiming his act of treason against his oath of office as our president. On the Left are voices proclaiming again the advent of a New World Order, . . . the very self-same that the Left has accused the Right of tinfoil wingnut conspiracy theorism. There may not be anything inherently malefic about global governance, but I would ask all of whatever political persuasion to consider how this is being forced upon us. As far as the label of "conspiracy theory," if you investigate most of it is actually fact. I heard report of the internment camps from a black helicopter pilot I interviewed (160th Aviation) back in 1997. He was also an assassin for the gov't in 1992 and had faced a charge of treason for refusing a direct order from the then sitting president, GHW Bush to neutralize a presidential candidate, Ross Perot. Quite a story! And you can see it on YouTube or Google video by just googling "Gene Tatum." You might even hear my voice asking questions in the background. Before you affix me with a label, just consider that I was sent on the interview by a former head (SAIC) of the Los Angeles FBI. If you watch the videos on Tatum maybe you will consider setting aside partisan politics long enough to cognize that the cratering of America, debauching of the dollar, onset of global governance, has all been planned decades ago. Maybe we could have stopped it if y'all had been paying attention rather than labeling "conspiracy theorists."

its interesting all the different cans of worms an article on a slain man with fed scrawled across his chest can open. to me it speaks to the precarious house of cards we've built here in this country through the ridiculous corroding of education and communication, which allows the most atrocious things to be gotten away with while everyone snores and talks in there sleep. i just don't get this 'expansive government' focus...from what i see its expansive private corporate i.e. banking, energy, military-industrial $ minded to- big-to-fail stuff. yes the government is aiding and abetting the process, but thats just because they're all bought and paid for by the corporate giants who have expanded to control all governments through economic market monopoly. $ talks, everything else listens and does what $ says. big business has government in one hand and the little people in the other through consumerism via lousy education and company-town-writ-big pressure. the trump card they keep in their back pocket: the media; controlling the debate and focus and so the 'truth'. Intended or not, this murder is an amazing polling device. but the truth here is: we don't know who committed it and why.

Tom Martin (not verified) said on Thursday, 09/24/2009 - 18:38 — presumably referring to the Census Bureau: "an organization that is funded by money coercively taken from tax payers" How do you call it coercion when the Census Bureau was set up by our elected representatives in congress? Is this not (supposed to be) a democratic republic? I have myself been extremely critical of many aspects of how our government is functioning, but taxes will always be associated with any government, and there will always be some things you don't care to support. Casting aspersions about those working, often diligently, in the Census Bureau, because they are funded by tax dollars, is ridiculous. I hate the fact that my tax dollars are funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a military that equals the totality of the rest of the world's military. I hate the fact that my tax dollars have bailed out the Wall St billionaires, while the middle class and poor folks have been getting screwed for 35 years. But is it coercion involved in taking my tax dollars? No, I think any government must make decisions about what is worth spending money on in the public interest. Is the public interest abused? Yes, often. But I think it is our electorate who must always bear responsibility for the actions of government because we elected those who are doing all of this. Unless you want to live on an isolated island somewhere in the middle of some ocean, you will never be able to avoid being disappointed with some of the actions of even the most fair, and least imperfect, government. And no, I don't think our government is the least imperfect. But it is up to us to change it.

For those who wonder how this could happen in a non-census year, the Census Bureau has been verifying addresses earlier during 2009: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/2010_census/013441.html and conducting various preparatory activities in earlier years: http://2010.census.gov/2010census/about_2010_census/007623.html

I am absolutely astounded and appalled at the paranoia expressed in these comments.

Yeesh! You don't need a GPS unit to find the coordinates of someone's house. Just pull up a satellite image and start looking. Then hover your mouse over it. Done. I would guess the GPS was tied into a way to take the census faster, doesn't have to write down the address. Done. Next. ri, 09/25/2009 - 03:23 — Anthony V said, "People on the left have perpetrated violence countless times against their opponents." PLEASE GIVE EXAMPLES. The violence of domestic terrorists lately have all been right wingers like the Holocaust museum shooter, the Dr. Tiller Killer ... And 04:04 — it seems that years ago said, "Calm down or I'm leaving." LETS GO ! ... where? If we don't get some stable non-fossil energy sources going to make us energy independent from carbon and uranium that will both run out ... and some civilized health insurance. I plan to leave the US. But I'm curious where and why where others will go ? I started a FaceBook group, EmigrateForHealth where I hope folks can compare notes on finding a civilized country to start their small businesses and nonprofits in. Really, America seems to be completely falling off the hinges. I was quite frantic until I realized, "Hey, there's a whole planet out there! I don't have to stay here for this insanity!"

It's sad that innocent people keep paying for the crimes of very evil people in government who keep getting away with the most atrocious crimes including torture and mass murder.

So much heat and so little light. Facts are often inconvenient to paranoiacs and conspiracy lovers. Truth is often hard to swallow and the outcome of fair elections difficult to accept. While all major media outlets offer shows that are more entertainment than news with commentators replacing journalist newspersons, FOX is by far the worst (an exception being Sheppard Smith). Almost nothing that comes out of the mouths of Beck, Hannity, or "O'Really" squares with factual evidence. A harmless census worker is dead and the evidence seems to point toward a lynching--it's difficult to believe that he would print FED across his chest before hanging himself. Until the FBI and local authorities release more information, that is ALL that is known. For those of you feel the need to rail against the government and demonize its personnel, I would remind you that we hold elections in a democracy and rational adults live with the consequences. If you don't like the outcome of an election, vote against the person in the next election OR you could move to someplace like Somalia where the inconvenience of government has been effectively done away with.

No, John at 1:21 on 9/25, you're not conspiratorial or liberal, and we are not jumping to conclusions. I was born in California but lived in Kentucky for seven years and I can aver on good authority that this is the work of crazy right-wingers; Kentucky is crawling with them, despite the beautiful countryside and proximity to Cincinnati and Memphis. There is a Progressive presence there, also - and I can go on any record about that because I sheltered among them. That presence, however, is not the majority in that part of the country, that benighted, under-educated, fearful part of the country that shares the same Constitutional rights I do.