ACORN Hysteria Bites Back! - UPDATE

Last week, considerable media attention was given to a "sting" performed by a couple of conservative activists, who presented themselves as a pimp and prostitute seeking tax assistance from ACORN employees. Conservatives have accused ACORN of being a criminal enterprise, and being engaged in all sorts of illegal and otherwise nefarious activities. The ethically questionable behavior of Acorn's employees that the "sting" exposed was presented as Exhibit "1" in support of the Conservatives' accusations.

Although I'm no ACORN expert, I recently read an 88 page "Staff Report" compiled by the office of Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking republican member of the congressional committee having oversight over these matters. While the report pointed to clear instances of internal corruption and mismanagement, as well as low level wrongdoing, I saw precious little evidence of any criminal conspiracy. This may be why there is no Justice Department investigation of ACORN. Those who think the report proides compelling evidence supporting the "ACORN is Evil" thesis are hereby advised to research the distinction between "facts" and "evidence" on the one hand, and "conclusory allegations" on the other.

Enough said on that issue.

But what's truly remarkable about the ACORN hysteria is that it appears to have caused Congress to inadvertently defund the entire Military Industrial Complex!

I'm not kidding . . . just read this!

So, in a mass hysteria over a phantom enemy, Republicans lash out and, in the process, screw scores and scores of their corporate supporters.

I wish I had a Miller Lite right now because, entertainment wise, it doesn't get any better than this!

Joe H.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting comparison. The total amount of federal money that has gone to AACORN in the last 20 years is roughly equal to the amount of federal money paid to Haliburton and its subsidiaries each and every day of the Iraq war.

Also, for those of you who are wondering why Congress didn't simply vote to defund ACORN, the answer is that doing so would be unconstitutional. Our constitution forbids congress from passing "Bills of Attainder," or laws designed to punish a single entity. The idea behind the constitutional provision is that Congress is a legislative body, not a judicial body. Bills of Attainder allow the government to sanction individual entities without due process, so they are forbidden.

The irony is, in order to make what was clearly meant to be a Bill of Attainder constitutional, Congress had to write the law to address corruption and misuse of government funds in general - and this standard captures all of our nation's biggest defense contractors. Unlike ACORN, who has been accused but never charged, much less convicted, of fraud or making false statements to the government, each of our nation's top ten defense contractors have been convicted of such offenses.

And while I'm pretty sure that none of our biggest defense contractors will be defunded, it will get interesting if someone takes the government to Court to force it to comply with its own statutory requirements.

So how crazyily partisan (or craven and cowardly in the case of the Democrats who supported the bill) do you have to be to do something this (politically)stupid? Don't get me wrong, I think we should have such a law. But this clearly shows that there is no one thinking clearly among the Republican Congressional leadership - there is no one left who is able to say, "hold on a minute - let's think this through."

Very amusing.

Joe H