ACORN’s favorite unpaid spokesman, Brad Friedman, goes to bat for the organization once again.  This time he’s latched onto a statement by Ed Morrissey which he thinks whitewashes everything, much how he thinks the question of what O’Keefe wore clears them of any wrongdoing in the pimp scandal.

Ed mistakenly said the indictments were against ACORN as an organization, instead of against ACORN employees.  Brad is right to point out the important difference here.  But that’s where the merit of his defense ends.

At what point does an organization – which has the registering of voters as one of its primary functions – have to be responsible for the continued failure of its employees to carry out this task honestly and in compliance with the law? Brad’s line of argument, as much as it can be determined when reading between the lines of his hysterical references to “the shameless Republican assault on verifiable truth and American democracy,” would have us believe that, because no smoking gun has emerged to show that ACORN ordered such criminal behavior, they are not responsible for any of the repeated and consistent wrong-doing of their employees.

I wonder.  Would Brad extend that same defense to a private company whose employees had a pattern of consistent criminality? If cashiers in Wal-Mart stores all across the country were routinely overcharging customers, would he distinguish between the company and its employees? Or would he reach the reasonable conclusion that Wal-Mart has a responsibility to ensure the quality of its hires and protect its customers from fraud on its watch?

That responsibility is even greater for ACORN, which receives gobs of taxpayer funds to engage in its registration activities.  Whether or not they are an organization that explicitly encourages criminal behavior, or are merely so reckless in their employment practices as to be littered with criminals and enablers of criminal behavior in locations all across the country, is a distinction with an ever diminishing difference.

As a matter of public policy, both possibilities raise the same question.  Why should we give taxpayer money to such an incompetent organization, whose employees frequently engage in illegal, unethical or immoral behavior?

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One of the biggest applause lines at CPAC not involving a chalk board was when Rep. Mike Pence called for an end to all federal funding for Planned Parenthood.  It’s not just that the organization performs abortions, as other pro-life lines didn’t get the same level of enthusiastic response.  It’s that the organization is as morally and legally corrupt as ACORN.

Video via Blogger of the Year Ed Morrissey at HotAir:

The film was produced by Lila Rose and Live Action Films, who have now exposed criminal behavior at multiple Planned Parenthood locations.

This is the kind of raw journalism we need, like what James O’Keefe did with ACORN.  The traditional press won’t do it.  They refuse to expose the organization that make up the base of the Democratic Party. We have to do it ourselves. Kudos to these people for exposing such corruption of our taxpayer dollars.

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My latest post on Big Government reports on a recent study on stimulus spending, and ties its findings to the methods of Democratic hero FDR:

…Barack Obama has broken many campaign promises since taking office, but when it comes to the comparisons to Franklin Delano Roosevelt saddled on him by his adorning followers in the media, he has worked hard to live up to the hype.  We already knew that both dishonestly campaigned against the excessive spending of their predecessors before breaking the bank on their own watch.  Now we also know that President Obama, like FDR, has abused a crisis atmosphere to direct economic relief funds for partisan purposes…

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Anyone who has studied cult-based strong-man governments, of the type we have now in America for the first time (or perhaps the second counting FDR), knows that constant propaganda is necessary to maintain the appropriate level of control over the populace.  The latest comes from the Department of Health and Human Services:

Senate Finance ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is raising concerns that a Department of Health and Human Services Web site that urges visitors to send an e-mail to President Barack Obama praising his health care reform plan may violate rules against government-funded propaganda.

…In a letter sent to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius Tuesday, Grassley warned that “any possible misuse of appropriated funds by the executive branch to engage in publicity or propaganda in support of an Administration priority is a matter that must be investigated and taken seriously,” noting that in 2005 Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) argued that “the use of official funds for similar activities were ‘underhanded tactics’ and that these tactics ‘are not worthy of our great democracy.’”

The form letter on the “state your support” page includes language hailing Obama’s efforts. “We strongly support your commitment to comprehensive health reform. This is not a luxury. The continuing, sharp escalation of health care costs for families, businesses, and government is unsustainable. Reform is imperative. We believe that health reform must be enacted this year,” the letter says.

“We strongly support regurgitating your vapid talking points…”

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Is it any coincidence that such a blatant “culture” of corruption just happens to occur in an exclusively Democratic city? Perhaps, perhaps not.

A long-secret cost of Detroit elections — paying for endorsements — is generating controversy in the City Council election, even though most candidates defend the expense.

To many, it’s a simple investment, part of what candidate Jai-Lee Dearing calls Detroit’s “culture.” To others, it smacks of pay to play. Either way, candidates who want three or four endorsements from prominent groups in the Nov. 3 election may have to shell out about $5,000.

…”There is a certain way things get done in Detroit,” said Dearing, a businessman making his third run for the council. “And this is part of that political process. It is part of our culture.”

Exit question: Is the problem merely a lack of partisan competition, which at least somewhat keeps each side in check?  Put another way, would an equally heavy Republican city see similar practices?

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Liberals and other leftists have by necessity gotten quite good at hiding their agenda.  When the people learn just what it is they want to do, it’s almost always soundly rejected.  Their solution to this is never to change their agenda, but to hide it.  Yet sometimes the truth just slips out despite their best efforts.  Here are a couple of recent examples:

Yes, we’re buying votes

The Washington Post collected commentary from economists, pollsters and other politicos regarding the President’s request to provide a one-time $250 check to Social Security recipients. The reason given by the President is that seniors need help because they won’t be getting a cost of living adjustment this year (because there was no inflation and thus no increase in the cost of living).

One democratic pollster strayed from this narrative, however, and let their true motivations slip out.  Acknowledging that the proposal should be adopted “for political reasons,” he suggested the $250 benefit “will go a  long way toward holding on to a voting bloc that will be critical in next year’s midterm election.”  This is what is known as vote-buying, a cynical practice of stealing from Peter to bribe Paul that big government liberals are especially, though not uniquely, prone to.

We need economic pain for environmental gain

Web editor for The Nation, Emily Douglas, let a big one slip at a recent panel discussion on the environment.  When asked how to “reverse our culture of consumerism here in the United States,” Douglas immediately fired back, “make the recession worse.”  Although she claimed later this was a flippant answer, she also confirmed in her closing what many of us have said about the environmental movement for some time: it seeks to sacrifice human well-being in the name of environmental protection.  Its primary target is capitalism, because it has done more than anything to elevate the living standards people throughout the world.

Giving her final thoughts, Douglas stated flatly that she thinks “things should be more expensive” for Americans.  In other words, she wants people to be able to afford less conveniences, and thus to have a lower standard of living.  Sadly, this seems to be the dominant view in the modern environmental movement.

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When it came to campaigning against George W. Bush, unfunded mandates were despicable.  Now they’re just a convenient way to hide the costs of annexing health care:

The more we inspect Max Baucus’s health-care bill, the worse it looks. Today’s howler: One reason it allegedly “pays for itself” over 10 years is because it would break all 50 state budgets by permanently expanding Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor.

Democrats want to use Medicaid to cover everyone up to at least 133% of the federal poverty level, or about $30,000 for a family of four. Starting in 2014, Mr. Baucus plans to spend $287 billion through 2019—or about one-third of ObamaCare’s total spending—to add some 11 million new people to the Medicaid rolls.

Not every state is hit equally, though. Some states have politically connected crooks to insulate them from the burdens they place on everyone else.

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A curious item in Politico today suggests that there might be a constitutional challenge to the recently passed Defund ACORN Act:

Article 1, Sections 9 and 10, of the Constitution explicitly prohibit the passage of “bills of attainder”: legislation targeted to benefit or penalize an individual or group, most often by excluding it from government service.

Does the House’s Defund ACORN Act, which passed 345-75 last week, constitute a bill of attainder? The case law on the issue is inconclusive, but it’s provided a glimmer for ACORN’s diminishing cadre of defenders.

A bill of attainder is basically a congressional finding of guilt.  Congress could not, for instance, determine that Joe Bob committed treason and then send him to hang.  That’s properly considered a judicial function.

There is no application to the present situation.  Congress has neither concluded guilt nor imposed punishment on ACORN.  As is so often said, Congress has “the power of the purse,” which means they have the authority to fund constitutionally permitted programs and policies as they see fit.  They also must have the authority to defund them.  Moreover, they can do so at their prerogative without offering any sort of explanation beyond what their constituents demand.

Some seem confused by the fact that Congress acted on the appearance of criminality by ACORN.  Therefore, they conclude, ACORN was “punished” by having its funding revoked without a trial.  This is mistaken.  While it was the appearance of criminality that politically forced the hand of Congress, the actual commission of a crime was not relevant to the legality of the legislation.  They no more had to conclude ACORN’s guilt of anything than they would have to first show the commission of a crime before halting funding for the F-22, or any other government program.  It was more than enough that Congress had finally lost faith in the ability of ACORN to carry out its charge in recieving federal dollars.

As it works with government agencies, ACORN is expected to execute certain functions with a degree of competency. Congress has a responsibility for oversight to ensure that they fulfill these obligations.  Their determinations are not the equivalent of criminal findings as dealt with by bills of attainder.  This is clearly a last ditch, desperate attempt by ACORN supporters to keep the Democrats from losing an important political arm of their party.

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…because they’re poor and black?  That’s what NPR seems to suggest:

It’s also important to keep in mind that ACORN’s workers are coming from the same low-income neighborhoods the organization serves, with all that entails — poor schools, high crime and the sorts of social problems that have been documented for decades.

So the flaws conservatives are pointing out about ACORN are not so much problems associated with that organization per se but more about the problems of being poor and minority in urban America.

So much talk about racism lately – like senile old fool Jimmy Carter saying Joe Wilson’s interruption of Obama was racially motivated – that it’s important to look at just how much even those with good intentions regarding race are contributing to its salience in society.  The “problems of being poor and minority in urban America” are real, but they might just be a little bit smaller if so many didn’t perpetuate the racism of low expectations on the assumption that some ethnic groups are just less capable of doing right than others.

Hat tip: Big Government

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Judging by Charlie Gibson’s not-so-shocking admission that he’s clueless about the explosive ACORN scandal, it seems unlikely.  And if they do notice, it’s only to frame ACORN as a victim.

Meanwhile, another video has “surfaced” (kudos to James O’keefe for this slow drip strategy, because we know that if the videos had been released all at once, the media would have had a much easier time ignoring and burying the scandal) at Big Government.

Congressional Republicans are also finally showing some backbone. Fresh off the successful de-funding of ACORN from the Housing and Urban Development budget, Republicans are moving on to all sources of federal funding for ACORN. John Boehner today introduced the Defund ACORN Act.  The organization has received $53 million dollars in direct funding from the federal government since 1994.

It’s time to put an end to the activist-liberal-organizing complex.

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