Donkasaurus Post

The far right has been constantly complaining about how the “media” has not covered the latest Acorn scandal enough.  That is, the fact that the already scandal plagued poverty assistance organization had some random employees caught on film giving rather nefarious business advice to 2 undercover operatives, posing as pimp and prostitute. (The most damning transcript is here, and while somewhat riveting, it’s not exactly as it’s been commonly portrayed, either.)

Yet the media has covered the story quite a bit. As they have covered ACORN for quite some time now, on the continued rantings of those who think ACORN is the biggest thing in America.

But still, why hasn’t the media covered this latest “pimp” scandal even more?  Salon Columnist Glenn Greenwald, clearly, wonders as well why the media has not covered the  huge, enormous ACORN scandal as the very huge, enormous, once in several years type scandal that it quite clearly is.  Some hyperbole aside, his piece is well worth reading.

But even if the media “ignored” this HUGE story — which according to the far right means not making it one of the bigger stories in ages –Congress didn’t, and promptly passed a bill to address the situation. (As Congress often does, most particularly this decade, to address “situations.”)

However, there was a little problem.

So a few days ago Greenwald “interviewed”  Florida Representative Alan Grayson on just exactly this problem was.  Grayson, it should be noted, is a pretty formidable attorney.  (Here, he is lovingly described by Rolling Stone reporter and latest “in” commentator guy Matt Taibbi, in a pretty hilarious and entertaining post that describes Taibbi’s “personal experience” with him.  The video of Grayson grilling the Chief Counsel for the Federal Reserve, embedded at the bottom), gives a pretty good indication of Grayson’s skill set.)

Glenn Greenwald: You discovered that there was a potential consequence in this bill that was probably not intended by the bill’s sponsors. Can you talk about [that]?…

Alan Grayson: Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but I will say that it is true that 10 out of the 10 biggest defense contractors have been convicted of fraud at one time or another in the past few years, and ACORN hasn’t, it’s difficult to frame any bill, whatever one’s intent, to punish ACORN and keep ACORN from being funded by fed contracts…[and] This bill, taken literally, at its words, actually forbids and prohibits fed funding of virtually every large defense contractor in America.

Glenn Greenwald:Why couldn’t the bill just have simply said we will defund ACORN, and left it at that?…

Alan Grayson: The Constitution specifically prohibits bills of attainder; bills of attainder are actions by Congress that are directed toward one individual or one organization. And the reason for that is that Congress is a law-making body, not a judicial body. We [Congress] don’t actually decide guilt or innocence; we don’t decide liability, and therefore the Constitution understandably forbids a law that singles out ACORN or any other organization for punishment.

Glenn Greenwald: …Before you got to Congress, one of the things you were known for was working on fraud and abuse among contractors in Iraq. Can you put, in terms of the cost to the taxpayer of funding ACORN versus, say, the waste and abuse that comes from fraud on the part of military and defense contractors in Iraq [in context]?….

Alan Grayson: AG: …The amount of money that ACORN received in the past 20 years, all together, is roughly equal to what the taxpayer paid to Halliburton each day, during the war in Iraq.

We  agree that the ACORN scandal bears looking into.  But it also seems fair to ask the far right, if some dime store low level employees of already scandal ridden ACORN, engaging in some two bit, and somewhat hilarious, if not disturbing, ”free” pimp and prostitute and income sheltering advice is a national scandal of such epic proportions as to warrant a full court press of ongoing national news coverage; where was the same cry for more glaring media coverage, with respect to the far more significant — from a taxpayer standpoint – fraud convictions of each of our nation’s top defense contractors?

True, the ACORN story is more salacious.   But from a taxpayer standpoint, as Grayson points out, Halliburton – which has already been convicted of fraud with respect to expenditure of Taxpayer funds (awarded via not bid contracts, as well, upping the price to taxpayers considerably) – received from taxpayers each and every single day, roughly the same amount that ACORN had over 20 years. (The far right is also calling out for an investigation of Obama, as if he has been ACORN’s CEO just before becoming president;  Dick Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO.)

If we are talking about taxpayer support of fraud and improper purpose, it seems like Congress was focused on making an issue out of a pretty small ACORN, that fell from the mighty Oak tree of taxpayer funded fraud and abuse, instead of also going after, say, an actual mighty tree of fraud and abuse itself.  Wouldn’t all those Independent, anti Big Government, anti Fraud and Abuse, anti Waste of Taxpayers’ Money Tea Partiers agree with this?

Probably not. And therein lies the political problem that America is facing today.