ACORN's Death Throes

After these two mortal blows, Big Bertha is going to need either smelling salts or embalming fluid:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
FROM: Peter R. Orszag Director
SUBJECT: Guidance on section 163 of the Continuing Resolution regarding the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)

This memorandum provides guidance to Executive Branch agencies regarding the implementation of section 163 of the Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2010, Division B of Pub. L. No. 111-68 (CR), which states:

SEC. 163. None of the funds made available by this joint resolution or any prior Act may be provided to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations.

Your agency must immediately commence all necessary and appropriate steps to comply with section 163. This includes the following:

• No future obligations of funds. No agency or department should obligate or award any Federal funds to ACORN or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries or allied organizations (collectively “affiliates”) during the period of the CR. To the extent your agency already has determined that funds should be obligated or awarded to ACORN or its affiliates but has not yet entered into any agreement to provide such funds to ACORN or any of its affiliates, your agency should not provide such funds, or enter into any such agreements to do so. As section 163 makes clear, its prohibition applies not only to the funding that is made available by the CR, but also to the funding that was made available by previously enacted statutes. In addition, the text of section 163 is sufficiently broad to cover funding that was made available for fiscal year (FY) 2009 and prior fiscal years, as well as funding that is or will be made available for FY10.
• Suspension of grant and contractual payments. If your agency has an existing contract or grant agreement with ACORN or its affiliates, the agency should: (i) where permissible, immediately suspend performance of any obligations under the contract or agreement, including payment of Federal funds; and (ii) consult promptly with the agency’s general counsel and, if necessary, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Department of Justice concerning the legal considerations that bear on the performance of such obligations under the existing contract or agreement.
• No funding of ACORN and its affiliates through Federal grantees or contractors. Your agency should take steps so that no Federal funds are awarded or obligated by your grantees or contractors to ACORN or its affiliates as subgrantees, subcontractors, or other subrecipients. Because section 163 states that “[n]one of the funds . . . may be provided,” this prohibition applies not only to a direct recipient of Federal funds but also to a subrecipient (e.g., a subcontractor, subgrantee, or contractor of a grantee). We recommend that your agency:
  • notify all Federal grant and contract recipients of the prohibition contained in section 163, and provide them with a copy of this guidance document; and
  • advise all Federal grant and contract recipients (a) not to provide Federal funds to ACORN or its affiliates as subgrantees, subcontractors or other subrecipients, consistent with this guidance, and (b) to notify your agency of any existing subgrants, subcontracts or other subrecipient agreements with ACORN or its affiliates and of how the grantee or contractor is planning to comply with the prohibition with respect to those subgrants, subcontracts or subrecipient agreements.

Wow.  Evidently this is not the ACORN Red Barry thought he knew.

Or is it?:

This assumes, of course, that the coast will be clear in a month or two for business-as-usual ACORN fun & games to resume on the taxpayer dole.  I find that highly unlikely, particularly heading into an election year.

But this is slobberknocker is a PR TKO given the source:

Dear Attorney General Holder,

As you are aware, the Commission on Civil Rights investigates, among other things, complaints alleging that citizens are being deprived of their right to vote by reason of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability and national origin, or by reason of fraudulent practices. Referred to as the “conscience of the nation,” the Commission and its individual members have historically stood against systemic efforts to corrupt the electoral process and disfranchise qualified voters…

…In November 2008, several commissioners wrote to your predecessor, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, urging him to launch a nationwide investigation into ACORN’s practices in the face of widespread evidence that it has engaged in filing possibly hundreds of thousands of fraudulent voter registration applications in some fourteen states - in invidious invitation for corruption in our electoral process…

…We respectfully urge the Department of Justice to undertake such a full-fledged, nationwide investigation of ACORN, including an assessment of whether ACORN’s conduct violates various applicable federal statutes, and to conduct its work with all deliberate speed. The integrity of our electoral system demands no less.

There's about as much of a chance of Eric The Red launching this investigation as Roman Polanski being elected the next Pope.  But the very specter of the CCR lowering the moral boom on ACORN will, I think, be more than sufficient to RSVP Big Bertha and friends a special spot beneath the wheels of the messianic bus.