Federal Judge Orders Government to Start Funding ACORN Again

Always helpful to have a friendly federal judge on your side when you're a criminal enterprise running low on taxpayer dough.

A federal judge who found it unconstitutional that Congress tried to cut funding to the activist group ACORN has rejected a government request to change her mind and has ordered government agencies to make it clear the funding isn't blocked.

In a written ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon made permanent her conclusion last year that the cutoff of funding was unconstitutional. She ordered all federal agencies to put the word out about it.

The Brooklyn judge said ACORN was punished by Congress without the enactment of administrative processes to decide if money had been handled inappropriately. She said the harm to ACORN's reputation continues because the government never rescinded its advice to withhold funding after it was distributed to "hundreds, if not thousands, of recipients."

Of course ACORN's "reputation" is that of a far-left arm of the Democratic Party, and most recently found a couple of its members charged with felony voter fraud. ACORN's defenders, naturally, whine of alleged right-wing smears.

The legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which says it's dedicated to protecting the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, welcomed Wednesday's decision.

"The judge's ruling is a complete rebuke to the right wing's smear tactics that unfortunately Congress fell for," legal director Bill Quigley said. "This is why we have a system of checks and balances."

I guess it's a "human right"for this crime syndicate to help themselves to taxpayer money.

Gershon, a Bill Clinton appointee, is no stranger to controversy.

Gershon showed a similar contempt for the legislative branch previously. In 1999 she ruled then-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani had no right to cut off city funding of the Brooklyn Museum of Art when it displayed dead animals and a painting of the Virgin Mary decorated with elephant dung. Gershon's not exactly courageous, by the way. She managed to get out of taking accused Al Qaeda terrorist Najibullah Zazi's case when a courthouse computer randomly assigned it to her.

If Gershon's absurd ruling remains undisturbed it will mean every parasitic leftist group in the country will have due process rights in the appropriations process. At worst, Congress will not be able to cut off any group for any reason. At best, Congress will have to jump through hoops in order to de-fund any group. The rights of tax eaters will become paramount to the rights of taxpayers.