A little know fact about Eisenhower’s Military-Industrial complex speech:
In the penultimate draft of the address, Eisenhower initially used the term military-industrial-congressional complex, and thus indicated the essential role that the United States Congress plays in the propagation of the military industry. But, it is said, that the president chose to strike the word congressional in order to placate members of the legislative branch of the federal government.
And then you have this:
Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately — but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.
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.
Can a brother get a “Heh-Indeedy?”
Dreggas
and just think, all those savings could fund health care.
burnspbesq
Bug or feature? Hmmm …
dmsilev
Hmm. Stripping away funding to provide weapons for Our Troops In The Field. Why do the GOP lawmakers Hate America?
-dms
Xecky Gilchrist
The Utah legislature did a good one of these unintentional Trojan Horse things some years ago – in passing a really mushily-worded law to allow the formation of Mormon student clubs in Utah schools, they also made it legal to form LGBT clubs there.
There were some pretty serious legal gymnastics trying to walk that one back. :)
Leelee for Obama
I read on another thread here that it was Alan Grayson (D-FL) who discovered the wide ranginess of this defunding! I wish he was my guy. This is delicious, even if it’s not used to its maximum effect. There will be calls about “Did you read the Bill?”, right, right?
JK
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Whatever happened to the LGBT Mormon Gymnastics Club?
burnspbesq
As an experienced litigator, I can recite the applicable legal mumbo-jumbo from memory.
“Plaintiff’s proposed construction of the statute, while perhaps supported by its literal language, should be rejected because it would achieve a result that is demonstrably at odds with the overall statutory scheme and the intent of Congress.”
JK
@Leelee for Obama:
Why do John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Michele Bachmann hate America?
Mike E
Ike believed in habeas corpus, too — he was so pre-9/11
Zifnab
Amen to that.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
It proves Reagan wrong: If you dig through enough horseshit sometimes you can find a pony!
I am looking forward to seeing the mayhem this unleashes. The whole ACORN ruckus on the right has been bullshit from day one. It would be sweet justice if this law can be used to go after their corrupt business partners in crime and put them out of business.
Just goes to show that when powerful legislation is passed, it is almost always by accident. The law of unintended consequences indeed…lol
General Winfield Stuck
It’s like Wile E Coyote brought a bazooka to a chess match.
Beep Beep!
demkat620
Does this mean those Blackwater asshats are defunded?
I’m liking this bill more all the time.
joes527
@burnspbesq: So if the measure of this bill is Congress’s intent, how it is not a bill of attainder?
That obviously IS congress’s intent here.
General Winfield Stuck
@demkat620:
This idea has merit. We go to the wingnuts and offer a deal that we will investigate Acorn and we get one on the Bushies.
Both sides quit whining about nation of laws sheeat, and we see how far the Acorn falls from the Bush,
Comrade Darkness
You’ll get a “hey indeedy” as soon as I stop laughing.
KG
fuck, I love the law of unintended consequences. and I still wonder why so few lawmakers don’t actually stop to think things through. That’s why Obama runs circles around these fools though: they are playing tic-tac-toe against a chicken, he’s playing three dimensional chess
Ryan
Of course, there would still have to exist the political will to enforce the law in that manner. I sincerely doubt that will ever exist in our lifetimes.
Zam
It would help if anyone would actually take serious the wording in law, rather than what they just want
whetstone
The only mistake Ike made was not going into a military contractor’s offices dressed in a zoot suit and secretly recording the whole thing.
If only he wasn’t so dignified, the entire history of the second half of the 20th century would be different.
stacie
You know who’s loving this? John McCain. Congress has finally solved the problem of waste and fraud in pentagon procurement. Well done!
The Bearded Blogger
@General Winfield Stuck: that acorn falls from the bush… masterful
@KG: actually, he’s playing negotiate sensible legislation, they are playing destroy the black man…
I actually agree with this legislation!
handy
Count me skeptical this legislation will prevent Congress from funding present and future boondoggles and wars of fortune. Just sayin’.
Keith
IIRC this came up in one of the presidential debates. I wanna say McCain pushed Obama on agreeing that something like this was a good idea, and Obama said the problem with such a law is that any DA can find an org they want to go after, find a violation (as such individual violations are somewhat common in large orgs), and get the entire org shut out of funding. I wish I could find the vid of this, but I distinctly remember this being precited to some extent.
MikeJ
They’ll have to let the defense contractors back in. They’re too big to jail.
Alan
Yes, but would it have any bite on the Wall Street-Corporate-Congressional Complex? Doubt it…but I can dare to dream.
aimai
I saw this today. I really love this grayson guy. We need about a four hundred more just like him.
aimai
AJ
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
The real question is who’s going to step up from the Dept. of Justice and file the first charges against one of these “organizations” and haul them into court? And put them in jail?
AJ
Many years ago someone I respect said Ike got it wrong; that it was the military-industrial-POLITICAL complex that was the cause.
Looks like Ike got it right.
Where have you gone Ike Eisenhower
A Nation turns it’s lonely eyes to you…
joes527
I think Stuck broke the hardball thread.
Trinity
This is just delicious. May congress drown in their own legislative vomit.
ericblair
@burnspbesq: “Plaintiff’s proposed construction of the statute, while perhaps supported by its literal language, should be rejected because it would achieve a result that is demonstrably at odds with the overall statutory scheme and the intent of Congress.”
Like, seriously, would any court listen to this? It’s one thing to worry about Congressional intent when the law is vague, but if a judge will actually agree with “the law clearly reads X, but actually means not-X” we don’t have laws anymore.
Calming Influence
Heh, Indeedy!
And I’ll raise you a Sch-weeeet!
Omnes Omnibus
@ericblair: I concur. Legislative intent is not going to be given credence over the plain language of the statute.
Brian J
It could, but I doubt it will. There’s probably just as much electoral power in trying to defund (either literally or fictionally) ACORN is there is in actually supporting military contractors. If you can find me some people who will make a big stink and work to get something passed, then we’ll talk.
tigrismus
@Omnes Omnibus: Legislative intent is not going to be given credence over the plain language of the statute.
I’d like to hear the lawyers explain to the judge how exactly their found-guilty-of-applicable-crimes organization is different from ACORN and so should be exempted. Military contractors could probably make a non-ridiculous case, but I can’t say the same about the “faith-based” organizations for which the Bush administration pushed funding.
Violet
Oh, please, oh, please, will someone step up and start the process to defund
BlackwaterXe, et al. I’ll get the popcorn ready. Heck, that might even call for a margarita.Kilkee
@burnspbesq: BINGO!
Wilson Heath
As to language, intent, and bills of attainder, my two cents:
The language is that broad. The courts will try to find a reading that enacts a valid Congressional intent in the event of ambiguity. If it’s only applicable to ACORN, it’s a bill of attainder and invalid for all.
The courts will sometimes override plain language that is in conflict with Congressional intent. But how would that be so in this case? Either it’s a law effective to prevent Federal funding of ACORN or it’s a bill of attainder. If you don’t want to draw in others like ACORN, you do some resolution; you don’t enact a law. A non-bill of attainder, like the plain language, does that.
I thoroughly look forward to the contortions when this is walked back.
John C. Randolph
” The whole ACORN ruckus on the right has been bullshit from day one”
No, ACORN is a corrupt organization, and they never should have been given any tax money in the first place.
The legislation that defunds ACORN is certainly “necessary and proper”, and if it applies as well to any military suppliers, so be it.
-jcr
John C. Randolph
” The whole ACORN ruckus on the right has been bullshit from day one”
No, ACORN is a corrupt organization, and they never should have been given any tax money in the first place.
The legislation that defunds ACORN is certainly “necessary and proper”, and if it applies as well to any military suppliers, so be it.
-jcr
Midnight Marauder
You know, I think all that crazy finally led them to overreach. I hope that Grayson takes this thing as far as it can go. POGO is now on the case, and they’ve already been doing some fantastic work recently on the Embassy scandal situation in Afghanistan–you know, the one with people eating potato chips from asscracks on the taxpayers’ dime.
That’s POGO’s site with the current list of offenders.
That’s the link to dig through the spreadsheets and do the dirty work yourself.
I, for one, am thrilled with this turn of events.
General Winfield Stuck
@John C. Randolph:
How so? some corrupt elements, maybe, But not the entire organization – but I understand why the GOP hates it, for entirely political reasons. And if corrupt elements called for the organizational death penalty, then the GOP should go to, for all it’s voter suppression antics over the decades.
ominira
Repeat post: This bill could also end up defunding many universities whose researchers rely on federal grants: Johns Hopkins, University of California, and MIT are on the contractors misconduct list. Heck, even the “Government of the United States” (whatever that means) is number 18 on the list. This will be walked back so fast.
gwangung
@General Winfield Stuck:
It seems to me that the problems found in ACORN are not due to corruption, which comes from excess power and money, but from the exact opposite, a severe deficit of money and power, trying to do much without money or legal power to perform thorough training and oversight.
flyerhawk
Not to pick nits but the original phrase wasn’t military-industrial-congressional complex. Congress was implicitly involved in the process.
The original phrase was military-industrial-scientific complex.
Ike’s science adviser, James Killian, urged the President to remove scientific from the triumvirate.
Ken
ericblair wrote: Like, seriously, would any court listen to this?
We can certainly rely on Justice Scalia to hold strictly to the letter of the law as written. At least, if the case is heard on a Monday or Wednesday…
General Winfield Stuck
@gwangung:
I said “maybe” and it was just for sake of argument. But all large organizations have bad actors in them, just natural.
RememberNovember
Methinks some are going to get the shaft from the POGO stick.
Tom
dmsilev,
We Republicans don’t hate anyone! We just have different ideas on what the definition of government is! Democrats want government to control everything. Too bad they didn’t want to put the controls on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when Bush told them they should in 2003 or when McCain said they should in 2006. Fact is that the Democrats only want to control things when it suits them.
Republican’s think that less government is the ticket! We don’t go calling everyone racists because we don’t agree! I do laugh at the Democrats though and the Wilson thing. They seem to forget that they boo and hissed at Bush during his speech and Clinton rolled her eyes when she knew the camera was on her. They are now complaining about a Republican that was looking at his Blackberry during the speech. Wish that they would look at their past deeds when criticizing!
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Count me skeptical this legislation will prevent Congress from funding present and future boondoggles and wars of fortune. Just sayin’.
Nah, but it could be used to pick on one reasonably sized scummy organisation and pound them into the pavement. Xe/Blackwater would do very nicely.
gwangung
@General Winfield Stuck: Yeah, I realize that, but I think that pointing out that these problems come from a deficit of resources, not a surplus, shows that critics have got it wrong and are going at it ass backward.
gwangung
@Tom: Parsing this should take an afternoon of work.
slippy
@ericblair: We have laws?
Please, elaborate on this. I was unaware of this situation.
slippy
@Tom:
Too bad that the overwhelming problem with mortgages had very little to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and worlds to do with flaky financial instruments created on Wall Street which bundled mortgages up and sold them off to separate investors, separating them from their notes and often making it completely impossible to tell who really owned what.
Tom, Republicans want to have things both ways when it comes to government and you can’t possibly expect a well-read and literate audience such as the BJ readership to fall for that “less government” line of bs. Conservatives had their unfettered way with the government for 6 of the last 8 years, and only loosely fettered for the rest of the time, and it’s been a complete catastrophe since the word go.
Anticorium
Well, that certainly explains why the last budget Bill Clinton submitted to Congress was $1.9 trillion dollars, and the last budget George W. Bush submitted was $3.1 trillion.
Brett
A little late to the party, but: taken literally, wouldn’t the Defund ACORN Act also mean that nobody who wants to avoid the prohibitions could ever hire Tom DeLay? He’s an individual “who has been indicted for a violation under Federal or State law relating to an election for Federal or State office,” isn’t he?
Jerry 101
I think it could actually defund a lot more than that. I’d be willing to bet that a striking number of States, Municipalities, and other agencies have filed fraudulent paperwork with the Federal Government at some point or another.
Could this be used to withhold salaries from elected officials who violate campaign laws and/or campaign finance laws?
This bill could cause a lot of unintended consequences.
I’m looking forward to the lawsuits that defund Halliburton, Blackwater (or whatever its called now), the big oil companies, and the other Iraq War criminals/profiteers.