For those of you ready to toss Holder to the hyenas - SHAME ON YOU!!!!

[clang1]

39. Regarding ACORN

Why Did Obama Join Reactionaries in Dumping on ACORN?
http://my.firedoglake.com/valtin/2010/06/20/why-did-obama-join-reactionaries-in-dumping-on-acorn/

But when, after Federal District Judge Nina Gershon struck down the illegal ban on funding for Acorn on March 12, the Obama administration appealed this decision to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. I have never seen this reported at Daily Kos.

Here’s how it was reported at Law.com back on April 21 (emphasis added):



A federal appeals court was asked Tuesday to allow enforcement of legislation stripping the embattled activist group ACORN of government funding….

Tuesday, [Mark] Stern was asking the circuit for an emergency stay pending appeal of a March decision by Eastern District Judge Nina Gershon, who granted a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the funding restrictions.

Gershon found that the legislation was an unconstitutional bill of attainder, a rarely litigated bar in the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 9) on legislation punishing a single person or group.

She denied the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal on March 31 and Stern headed for the 2nd Circuit, where he argued Tuesday before Judges Roger J. Miner, Jose A. Cabranes and Richard C. Wesley in ACORN v. United States, 10-992.

Stern claimed that Congress had the right to instruct agencies to withhold funding from ACORN amid "indisputable reports of ACORN mismanagement nationwide."

"This is a case of taking steps on the appropriation of federal funds," Stern said. "And if Congress sees widespread mismanagement, it says ‘time out.’"

WTF? ACORN had already been cleared by this time. What is Stern and the Obama DoJ talking about? And, btw, don’t tell me Stern is a right-wing Bush left-behind. Stern’s years at DoJ go back to the Clinton administration, and he received a DoJ special commendation award in 2007 for his work in the U.S. v Philip Morris landmark case.

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powwow June 21st, 2010 at 10:21 am 21


The Circuit Court, by the way, reserved decision on the ACORN appeal from the Obama DoJ, and in the meantime left the ban on funding in place, until the appeal was decided.

That funding ban had been removed by Judge Gershon in December, 2009 (via a preliminary injunction which she made permanent in March), and was therefore not in effect at the time the Second Circuit panel acted.

Thus, a three-member panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously decided, in April, 2010 – within a day of a hearing held in response to the Obama administration’s request to lift Judge Gershon’s injunction – to reinstate the punishing Congressional/Presidential ban on consideration of federal funding applications from ACORN.

That is, those three appellate judges speedily reinstated – apparently without regard to the obvious harm that would accrue to ACORN and its clients as a result – a funding ban for the duration of the Second Circuit’s consideration of the merits of the government appeal – a funding ban that Judge Gershon had determined to be an unConstitutional Bill of Attainder, and ordered lifted, starting in December, to protect ACORN’s rights. This in the face of both multiple independent investigations publicly clearing ACORN and Judge Gershon’s considered findings of the month before:


Plaintiffs [ACORN] have prevailed on their bill of attainder claim. They have also established irreparable harm and the need for both declaratory and injunctive relief. Therefore plaintiffs’ motion for declaratory relief and a permanent injunction is GRANTED.

- United States District Judge Nina Gershon, March 10, 2010

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Why?


----- There is more that is quite good
powwow June 21st, 2010 at 10:21 am 21 ...
As I further elaborated here, in response to Jeff’s helpful follow-up reporting in his DailyKos diary (as cross-posted above) about the government appeal of Judge Gershon’s decision, two of that Second Circuit panel’s three appellate judges – Jose A. Cabranes and Richard C. Wesley – were also part of the shockingly-unjust and Constitutionally-hostile Second Circuit en banc majority in Arar, which casually tossed Maher Arar’s case out of federal court after six years of Arar’s fruitlessly trying (now that the Supreme Court has decided to look the other way by refusing to review the Second Circuit decision) to simply be heard on the merits of his rendition-to-torture claims in an American courtroom.

The unjust and power-serving thinking of too many of our federal appellate judges (however their actions may be disguised by misleading labels or political affiliations), like that evidenced in the actions of members of the three-member Second Circuit panel in ACORN’s case in April, is castigated in no uncertain terms in the powerful dissents of the 7-4 Arar decision itself.


It's like peeling an onion with these people and I feel as though I am drowning some days. ACORN helped people. There have also been similar scams (to what brought down ACORN) against Planned Parenthood which provides more than just reproductive services to women, for some women it is their ONLY healthcare option. The rot is thick on both sides and We the People are caught in the middle of it all like flies in a trap.