Congress, it seems to me, is using its complete discretion over the power of the purse to fund whatever groups it does or does not please.

The problem is in the language of the bill itself. They were well aware of the peril inherent in trying to do what they are attempting. More from Glenn's earlier post (link @ sig):

The irony of all of this is that the Congress is attempting to accomplish an unconstitutional act: singling out and punishing ACORN, which is clearly a "bill of attainder" that the Constitution explicitly prohibits -- i.e., an act aimed at punishing a single party without a trial. The only way to overcome that problem is by pretending that the de-funding of ACORN is really about a general policy judgment (that no corrupt organizations should receive federal funding). But the broader they make the law in order to avoid the Constitutional problem, the more it encompasses the large corrupt corporations that own the Congress (and whom they obviously don't want to de-fund). The narrower they make it in order to include only ACORN, the more blatantly unconstitutional it is. Now that they have embraced this general principle that no corrupt organizations should receive federal funding, how is anyone going to justify applying that only to ACORN while continuing to fund the corporations whose fraud and corruption is vastly greater (not to mention established by actual courts of law)? -- Glenn

Grayson from Glenn's interview:

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, without a lot of what the Republicans would consider to be collateral damage, and that's exactly what we saw in this bill. This bill, taken literally, at its words, actually forbids and prohibits fed funding of virtually every large defense contractor in America.

It's really not all that hard to understand.

One doesn't even need to like ACORN to enjoy the spectacle of them....tripping over their own body parts when faced with a reasonably competent opponent.

I especially enjoyed Grayson whacking Sennsennbrenner when he had the nerve to start waving his tiny shriveled member in self-important expectation that he would be able to distract Grayson from his prey. Judging from the audio, I wasn't the only one who appreciated that.

I haven't seen such phenomenal clock management in years!

Defunding some organization is absolutely not a bill of attainder. ACORN doesn't have any right to the funds and are in no way punished by being denied them.

Are you any chance the "counsel" that the "gentleman" (and I use that phrase loosely) from Georgia consulted with on this bill?

Glenn already dealt with your objection.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) -- my guest on Salon Radio today -- yesterday pointed out that the bill passed by both the Senate and House to de-fund ACORN is written so broadly that it literally compels the de-funding not only of that group, but also the de-funding of, and denial of all government contracts to, any corporation that "has filed a fraudulent form with any Federal or State regulatory agency." By definition, that includes virtually every large defense contractor, which -- unlike ACORN -- has actually been found guilty of fraud.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/radio/2009/09/23/grayson/

The idiots in Congress who wrote this bill tried so hard to get around the Bill of Attainder issue that they actually cut off the balls of all the defense contractors to spite ACORN's nose. That's how fucking stupid they are.

And, if you were the counsel who advised them, or are some kind of lawyer at all (which I doubt due to your inability to even read a simple bill) then you are equally stupid.

was the title of an email I received the other day. Grayson's got a money bomb coming up.

Dear Pedinska,

The Federal Reserve is extremely powerful, and totally out of control. You know it, I know it, and millions of other people know it.

When I questioned Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman about the whereabouts of trillions of dollars printed by the Fed, and put that video online, it became the most widely watched Congressional hearing in history. Though you won't see it in the mainstream media, a few days ago, this video hit three million views.

On November 2, we're organizing a money bomb for our re-election campaign. This November 2 is exactly one year before the 2010 elections. It is our chance to show the world that when someone speaks out for our values, for American values, for Constitutional values, he will have the support he needs to win.

Please join us. Visit this special website I set up -- Fed.CongressmanWithGuts.com -- and pledge to donate to my November 2 money bomb.

Ya gotta love the website name. I took the pledge. How 'bout you?

(Link @ sig)

Someone might have already mentioned this.

A third example of an illegal act involving free speech is treason: if some right-wing wacko like Limbaugh or Beck gets on their show and preaches violent overthrow of a democractically elected government by a group of armed loons, he is advocating treason, and is a traitor.

You mean like this article that was initially posted on Newsmax (before they decided it would be more prudent to retract it?

There is a remote, although gaining, possibility America’s military will intervene as a last resort to resolve the “Obama problem.” Don’t dismiss it as unrealistic.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/08/anti-obama-violence/

The original article can still be read here:

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/pdf/newsmax-20090929-perry_coup.pdf

As far as I know, no one has arrested John Perry. I wonder if they've even had a little conversation with him....