Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The GOP lights another exploding cigar.

In a self-satisfied bit of political theater, the GOP pushed through a bill that defunded the community action group, ACORN.

This was after two brazen filmmakers caught ACORN employees on tape helping what they believed were a pimp and his prostitute evade the law, even to the point of claiming underage Salvadoran prostitutes as dependents on their taxes.

That's some ugly shit right there.

The Fox News crowd could hardly keep from wetting themselves (OK, Glenn Beck peed a little, but that's hardly news) as the liberal community action group, with close ties to Obama, was caught with its dick in a wringer.

The employees were fired, but the GOP wanted to squeeze ACORN so they drafted a bill defunding the group and pushed it through the House with the now expected, spineless Democratic support.

But the wonderful postscript of this story is here.

Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to go through its database and identify other government contractors who might not measure up to the GOP's high standards as written into this new law.

As Gomer would say, Surprise, Surprise!

The first corporations that popped up on this new, upright moral radar were Lockeed and Northrup, two of the biggest defense contractors in the USA.

But, let's not cheer the death of the military-industrial complex yet. After the bill passed, Jerry Nadler, a Democrat of New York, said that the measure appeared to be a "bill of attainder." That means, as I understand it, that the bill targets a specific company or organization and is, therefore, unConstitutional.

So the GOP (and their cowering enablers in the Democratic party) have shown once again how little they know, or care about, the Constitution.

And the delicious fallout is that, in their rush to punish ACORN, Republicans may have caught some of their biggest corporate contributors in the net as well.

There are going to be a few overzealous GOPers spanked by their corporate bosses in the next few days. Because it's one thing to target a community organization that helps poor folks.

It's another thing when contractors like Lockheed Martin are collateral damage.

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