The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.

jerseyhoya wrote:That's actually really funny, dajafi

Maybe this is why Congress takes years to do anything. When they rush it they do something somewhat obviously stupid.

(Someone comes in whining about the USA PATRIOT Act)

dajafi wrote:Too good to be true?

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.

pacino wrote:this a conversation, not a thesis defense

jeff2sf wrote:

pacino wrote:this a conversation, not a thesis defense

Hey man, he doesn't have to prove anything. He just has to simplify his language (dumb it down if you will), because he's not conversing with us. He's PTK style pontificating.

pacino wrote:

jeff2sf wrote:

pacino wrote:this a conversation, not a thesis defense

Hey man, he doesn't have to prove anything. He just has to simplify his language (dumb it down if you will), because he's not conversing with us. He's PTK style pontificating.

I should've been clearer. I agree with you and werthless. He seems to be purposely wordy.

jeff2sf wrote:We can't all be wrong, my friend. Liberal, Conservative, Muddled Middler... we're united. You're too wordy.

?

pacino wrote:

dajafi wrote:Too good to be true?

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who's Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.

i'm failing to see the problem. one bill targeting one non-profit just seems ridiculous to me

I spoke with Rep. [Alan] Grayson [D-FL] this morning regarding the consequences of all of this. He is currently compiling a list of all defense contractors encompassed by this language in order to send to administration officials (and has asked for help from the public in compiling that list, here). The President is required by Constitution to "faithfully execute" the law, which should mean that no more contracts can be awarded to any companies on that list, which happens to include the ten largest defense contractors in America. Before being elected to Congress, Grayson worked extensively on uncovering and combating defense contractor fraud in Iraq, and I asked him to put into context ACORN's impact on the American taxpayer versus these corrupt defense contractors. His reply: "The amount of money that ACORN has received in the past 20 years altogether is roughly equal to what the taxpayer paid to Haillburton each day during the war in Iraq."

The irony of all of this is that the Congress is attempting to accomplish an unconstitutional act: singling out and punishing ACORN, which is clearly a "bill of attainder" that the Constitution explicitly prohibits -- i.e., an act aimed at punishing a single party without a trial. The only way to overcome that problem is by pretending that the de-funding of ACORN is really about a general policy judgment (that no corrupt organizations should receive federal funding). But the broader they make the law in order to avoid the Constitutional problem, the more it encompasses the large corrupt corporations that own the Congress (and whom they obviously don't want to de-fund). The narrower they make it in order to include only ACORN, the more blatantly unconstitutional it is. Now that they have embraced this general principle that no corrupt organizations should receive federal funding, how is anyone going to justify applying that only to ACORN while continuing to fund the corpoations whose fraud and corruption is vastly greater (not to mention established by actual courts of law)?

4. Michael Oakeshott was a 20th century figure, and it still fairly widely cited. What distinguishes his conservatism from Burke’s?

CFP wrote:Does someone want to give me a brief answer to this question:

4. Michael Oakeshott was a 20th century figure, and it still fairly widely cited. What distinguishes his conservatism from Burke’s?

Thanks in advance.