How many offices/states did he pull this stunt? I see now he also went after HUD.
There is a pretty good chance none of us are talking about the same location/event.
Bricker, as a lawyer, what would you make of this as evidence? You have a guy that went into several offices, a few of which called the cops. He doctored at least one of the tapes to give a false impression of events.
I think back to all the bad cop dramas I’ve watched. Where they are so desperate to get a guy that they get sloppy. In the end, having one good piece of evidence doesn’t make up for the 12 shitty things they did. It’s all tainted.
“…sure, we planted THAT evidence. But THIS evidence is solid, trust us.”
The result here being that a charitable organization has been destroyed. Hooray.
It was in the NYT editorial. Now, will we ever really know if those were unedited? Probably not. But if the Public Editor is satisfied, and the attorney hired by ACORN to do the investigation is satisfied, I think the burden of proof falls back on those crying foul here.
It seems the reaction by Congress was not to make sure organizations are staffed well, but instead to simply go after ACORN.
Wouldn’t the correct thing be to address the actual issue of staffing problems? O’Keefe went after ACORN because of his political bent towards it. If we set up a task force to go into all charitable organizations receiving federal funds, how many do you think would pass this litmus test?
Without actually knowing where you work, I’m pretty sure that someone could go into your office and get someone on tape saying something stupid. What does that prove? Note that it’s just “saying” something stupid, not “doing” something illegal.
Hell, if I posted on your front door, “Bricker believes that it is acceptable for people to die because they cannot afford proper treatment,” what do you think the outcome would be?
The district court’s opinion is not precedent. It doesn’t make law.
The circuit court’s opinion will make law, at least in the circuit. And since the circuit in question is the DC circuit, which is the circuit in which all such cases regarding bills of attainder would be heard, then it effectively makes THE law.
Given the vast number of pivotal laws we have that saw their birth in a circuit court overruling a district court, and given the lack of precedent carried by a district court, the distinction I’m making seems quite reasonable.
So let me ask again: I’ve already said once that if the circuit court comes down affirming the district court, I’ll admit error and apologize.
Are we talking about the correct thing to do, meaning the wisest? or the correct thing to do, meaning the thing that was actually done is unconstitutional?
I’ll happily give my opinion of what the wisest move would have been. Is that what we’re discussing now?
Apologize for what? No, I’m not going to apologize for my opinion which I’ve held since before the district decison, why should I? neither should you. Yor opinion is your opinion.
I think you’re also being disingenuous in your assertion that the current decision doesn’t mean anything. If the District Court had ruled that this was not a Bill of Attainder (which it totally is), then you would be citing it until the cows come home.
If you really want to play the game of waiting until all the appeals are strung out, then you have to wait for all the appeals. You can’t declare victory after the Circuit Court decison, you have to wait for SCOTUS.
I really don’t think even you have any doubt, if you’re completely honest, that this was a bill targeted specifically (and as we now now, completely unjustifiably) at ACORN.
If SCOTUS decides that it wasn’t a BOA, then I would expect you to begin agitating for the immediate defunding of all the military contractors which have been adjudicated as guilty of far more egregious offenses than anything ACORN was merely accused of (and falsely accused at that, as we all know).
No. My opinion was an opinion about what the law of the land is, when applied to these facts. It amounts to a factual assertion. If I’m wrong, if the courts rule otherwise, then obviously I’m wrong.
It’s NOT a Bill of Attainder, at least as that term was used in any caselaw predating this.
Had it gone the other way, I would have pointed out that at least one federal judge agreed with me, but acknowledged that the law was not yet defined for the issue.
No. Because this is a question on what the law is. The district court’s opinion resolves a case, but does not settle the law. The circuit court’s opinion does. Of course the Supremes might come along and change things again, but that’s true of any case or controversy. But when the circuit court’s opinion comes, it makes law for that circuit. And as I said earlier, in this case, that’s effectively law for the whole country, since the DC circuit is where these types of challenges would always be heard.
Now, I suppose I could wait to see if there’s a motion to rehear the question in the DC Circuit en banc, because that would change things more immediately, but let’s not confuse the issue even more.
Yes, it was targeted at ACORN. I have never denied that.
The key salient fact, AFAIAC, is that there’s not a single case on record of ACORN advising actual criminals on actual criminal behavior. Not one. And it seems overwhelmingly likely to me that if they were in the habit of giving such criminal advice, it would’ve come out by now. Criminals get caught a lot, they give other people up a lot to reduce their sentences, and some lowlevel pimp or dealer would’ve tattled by now about how ACORN help them set up their accounts or whatever.
But that doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t.
A good organization that did good work was destroyed because someone may have figured out how to con a few low-level employees at ACORN into giving stupid advice.
That sucks. I’m not qualified to discuss the legality of the dropping funding, but I’m certainly qualified to discuss the ethics of the con artist and of their Congressional patsies, and what both of them did sucks.
Still, a very valuable lesson has been gained here, and that is that community organization works! Empowering the disenfranchised is a weapon of awesome, but gradual, political power. The pubbies didn’t expend all this energy to cripple ACORN just for recreation, the did it because ACORN was hitting them where they live. Especially in the more or less evenly split communities, the gradual upcreep of Dem voter registrations was a threat, a real threat, a growing threat.
They won this one, and, surprise! they played most foully for it. But the people who really comprised ACORN are still out there, ACORN itself was really just an umbrella coalition of the like-minded. No body was executed, no printing presses smashed, none of that sort of thing.
The lefty leadership should have paid more attention to this sort of work, they should have listened to Saul Alinsky and his ilk, rather than putting all their effort on playing the national stage, they should have put more money and time into the dull, plodding, excruciatingly slow process of WINNING!
If the left takes this bitter lesson to heart, the sacrifice of ACORN may prove to be well worth it!
Come on, this is sophistry. It will certainly be appealed to SCOTUS and THAT will determine the law. In no way will it be settled until SCOTUS says it’s settled (even if they settle it just by declining to to hear it).
So far, the courts disagree with you.
Here is a list of violations by defense contractors which put those contractors into the definition of “covered groups” as defined above. You will need your scroll wheel.
ACORN, for the record, was never even formally charged with anything.
If true, was does that have to do with anything? Or can you not directly address his arguments? I don’t agree with the guy often enough, but he certainly thinks about what his argument is, and has at times provided the best insights into law of anyone posting on the SDMB.
So, my advice is address his argument, otherwise you’ve got nothing but childish name-calling. You may as well say “Bricker is a poopy-head.”
The problem with asking just that question, elucidator, is that you and I may disagree with the answers, each of us acting in good faith.
We need to agree on some sort of system, then. Some method of arriving at a conclusion that each of us agrees in advance to be bound by, even if we disagree with it. We could… flip a coin?