The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress enacted a law banning the government from providing funds to the group.It may be lawful, but who in their right mind would pay a contractor for providing "services" subversively? They did nothing in my interest. Nothing. I don't want them to be paid any more than I would want to pay an electrician who I had found to be installing surveillance cameras in my bathroom. This is just common sense.
The department's conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group's activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it.
You want to distance yourself from them? Don't pay them.
Since 1994, Acorn, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has received about $53 million in federal aid, much of it grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for providing various services related to affordable housing.
I'd like to take that money back. All of it. Of course, the only channel I have for that to happen is my federal government. Federal government, get to work for me.
But the group has become a prime target for conservative critics, and on Oct. 1, President Obama signed into law a spending bill that included a provision that said no taxpayer funds -- including funds authorized by previous legislation -- could be "provided to" the group or its affiliates.
Make it happen. Or is the Obama paying for this out of his own pocket?
A Housing and Urban Development lawyer asked the Justice Department whether the new law meant that pre-existing contracts with Acorn should be broken.
A-CORN already broke them. Pi$$ off.
But in a memorandum signed Oct. 23 and posted online this week, Mr. Barron said the government should continue to make payments to Acorn as required by such contracts.
NO NO NO. Weasels.
The new law "should not be read as directing or authorizing HUD to breach a pre-existing binding contractual obligation to make payments to Acorn or its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations where doing so would give rise to contractual liability," Mr. Barron wrote.
Since when am I obligated to pay for services outside the scope of the original contract? Which I'm sure a large portion of those services were. And on top of that, they were subversive. NO!
The deputy director of national operations for Acorn, Brian Kettenring, praised Mr. Barron's decision.
I don't care what he has to say.
"We are pleased that commitments will be honored relative to Acorn's work to help keep America's working families facing foreclosure in their homes," he said.
You're a large part of the reason these families have homes to lose, idiot. They should have been in something more affordable.
Mr. Barron said he had based his conclusion on the statute's phrase "provided to." This phrase, he said, has no clearly defined meaning in the realm of government spending -- unlike such words as "obligate" and "expend."
Idiot. Get me a farmer and we'll have him decide what all this hair-splitting should really mean.
Citing dictionary and thesaurus entries, he said "provided to" could be interpreted as meaning only instances in which an official was making "discretionary choices" about whether to give the group money, rather than instances in which the transfer of funds to Acorn was required to satisfy existing contractual obligations.
I'm sure the lawyers had their thesaurii out when they came up with this contract. Why don't you a$$holes ask me what it means, eh? I didn't think so.
Since there are two possible ways to construe the term "provided to," Mr. Barron wrote, it makes sense to pick the interpretation that allows the government to avoid breaching contracts.
Moreover, he argued, requiring the government to abrogate existing contracts with a specifically named entity -- "including even in cases where performance has already been completed but payment has not been rendered" -- would raise constitutional concerns best avoided by interpreting the law differently.
YOU ARE FUNDING A SUBVERSIVE ORGANIZATION!!! The Constitution is not a suicide pact!
The Constitution prohibits "bills of attainder" -- legislation aimed at punishing specific people or groups. Acorn has filed a lawsuit arguing that the statute banning the government from providing it funds amounts to an unconstitutional bill of attainder.
It's not punishment. Bad service ==> No pay. Simple.
Founded in Arkansas in 1970, Acorn describes itself as the nation's largest grass-roots community organizing group. It provides financial services to poor and middle-income families, conducts voter registration drives, and advocates for higher minimum wages and more affordable housing.
Git yer roots out of my yard. Go to work for my enemies.
Conservatives have long complained about Acorn's voter drives in poor neighborhoods, citing instances in which workers fraudulently registered imaginary voters like "Mickey Mouse." Acorn has argued that it is the real victim of such incidents, which its employees have often brought to the attention of the authorities.
What is wrong with the authorities that they can't figure this out?
Criticism of the group escalated last September, when two conservative activists made public footage they had recorded using secret cameras of Acorn workers in several cities. The activists had posed as a pimp and a prostitute seeking financial advice. Instead of raising objections, the Acorn employees counseled the couple on how to hide their illicit activities and avoid paying taxes.
We should pay for this kind of crap?
Conservatives seized on the videos to further criticize the group, highlighting that the Obama campaign had paid an Acorn affiliate for get-out-the-vote efforts. Congress then enacted the ban on providing funds to it.
So this organization is allowed to pick sides politically? Why am I required to fund it?
Acorn has fired the employees depicted in the videos.
That's the least it could do. The very least. And that's all it did, besides throwing a bunch of incriminating records in the dumpster.