Dead horse

By Mustang Bobby

Republicans have introduced legislation to defund ACORN.

No, that is not a headline from 2010. That’s from yesterday.

Struggling with the bad publicity and loss of federal funds, ACORN dissolved in early 2010. Just to be sure, however, Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) included this language in a government funding bill introduced on May 28 of this year: “None of the funds made available in this Act may be distributed to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) or its subsidiaries or successors.”

Section 545 of a bill put forward the next day by Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) delves still deeper into faux certainty, extending the funding ban to “any prior appropriations Act.”

In fact, ACORN has no subsidiaries, because it has not existed for three years. Neither bill defines “successors,” but the broad language of the original 2009 funding ban left little room for leeway, extending to “Any State chapter of ACORN registered with the Secretary of State’s office in that State,” “any organization that shares directors, employees, or independent contractors with ACORN,” and any organization that “employs” someone “indicted” for violations that ACORN was initially charged with.

“Is it too late to defund Saddam Hussein?” mocked Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.).

Why are we paying these people?

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Watergate redux: Right-wing ratfuckers busted for trying to bug Landrieu

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Evidently, James O'Keefe, the right-wing "activist" who posed as a pimp to bust ACORN last year (but with doctored tapes), is not just a douchebag but a criminal douchebag.

O'Keefe and three other ratfuckers like him were arrested yesterday in conjunction with what The Times-Picayune calls "a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans."

That's right, this jackass tried to bug Landrieu's phones.

There's been a ton of reaction in the blogosphere -- check out Memeorandum -- but here are a few highlights:

-- Digby: "[I]t's interesting that the ratfuckers are still out there doing their thing and that the media still falls for it every time.

-- Libby Spencer: "And what will the 31 House Republicans who sponsored a resolution honoring O'Keefe have to say now, I wonder? Probably nothing unless the "liberal media" decide to ask them. Don't hold your breath."

-- Larisa Alexandrovna: "There is a pattern in far right politics that I have yet to see on the left, despite various levels of extremism on both sides. The right appears to have a pattern of Cold War type tactics when it comes to domestic politics, illegal surveillance of political opponents being one of the key features."

See also Roy Edroso.

What's interesting is how conservatives are covering this. Take Fox News, for example, which has long been one of O'Keefe's major boosters. I'm not sure it was outwardly "devastated," as Think Progress put it, but its initial report included the "context" excuse: It's a "very weird story," but the "context," namely, that they might have been looking for ACORN-related evidence, could excuse them.

Thankfully, other conservatives are being less combative. Even Michelle Malkin was unusually resigned to the facts of the case, though she got her digs in nonetheless, suggesting that these four ratfuckers were acting a lot like Democrats. Huh? Whatever. It's just the sort of partisan bullshit you expect from her. Meanwhile, the far, far more sensible Ed Morrissey called O'Keefe "an idiot."

That's putting it nicely.

Millions, billions, trillions...

By Capt. Fogg

I'm pretty new to Twitter, but the place sounds like an aviary today with all the giggling about Sean Hannity's statement that Acorn, the subject of much hilarity this week, is slated to receive eight and a half TRILLION dollars from the government. I'm not sure that Sean is aware that the Census Bureau dropped ACORN a week ago, as Fox reported. Even so -- $8,500,000,000,000.00? Sean, thousands, millions, billions, trillions -- there's a difference!

So I'm wondering if maybe the next time I call him Insanity Hannity y'all won't say I'm over the top. I mean, I'm just sayin'.



(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Plan 9 from Outer Space

By Capt. Fogg

Mention ACORN to a Republican and watch him start to hiss and twitch. Some are still telling me that because a few ACORN workers registered fake names like Micky Mouse, the will of the majority was overturned and Obama managed to sneak in the door. Of course, Micky never actually showed up at the polls -- for obvious reasons -- and Obama won by 10 million votes, but reality never has stood in the way of any Republican belief system. They're still out in the streets with signs shrieking about Obama and corruption and ACORN. They have to, since the Marxism thing, the birth certificate thing: the death panels, the death book, and the other accusations have succeeded at best at looking like the ad hoc plot of an Ed Wood movie.

The silly symphony probably won't drop the theme now that the government has decided not to use that organization to collect census data in the interest of avoiding the appearance of impropriety. They'll take it as an admission that the Pod people from planet Zorchtron did indeed rig the election, but maybe it will weaken the inevitable claim that the government is using the census to round up Republicans to feed them to brain eating zombies in a secret cave underneath Philadelphia. Maybe not. The chances of someone leaving a comment arguing that there are insane Democrats, that I've rewritten the popular vote margins (like all lefties do) or that any mention of the unprecedented, gun-toting madness out in the streets is all part of plan nine from outer space to smear the sacred name of George W. Bush.

Wait for it.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Obama stands up to bogus ACORN claims

By Creature

Here's Keith's rundown of the facts and his interview of Obama's lawyer on this unprecedented PRE-election call to stop the intimidation.



More from CNN.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)