Ha! Take that, Glenn Beck!

Just when you thought ACORN suffered its death blow by populist nonsensical cable network bufoonery, a Brooklyn, N.Y., judge lets everyone know that Congress had no business punishing the group before any guilt had been determined.

Thank goodness we have something in this country called "rule of law/" and America's actually getting better at it. That means you really can only be punished if you've done something wrong, and that's what U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon ruled on Wednesday, regarding a government request that funding to ACORN be blocked.
Last week, we reported that ACORN was found by a U.S. District Court to have not done anything wrong, when two hyperconservatives, who call themselves "activists," tried to entrap them on video, going between several organization offices posed as a pimp and a hooker.

Gershon's new ruling backs that up even further, because last year the Senate voted to block housing grant funding coming from agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. But the joke is on the Senators -- even so-called "liberals" like Al Franken, who voted for this because you can't actually take away that federal funding unless you've determined that an organization has mishandled it, which they have not.

The only thing ACORN is guilty of is having a few incompetent employees, and not even in every office. If having a few people who couldn't do their jobs correctly were a crime, then President Bush and his entire cabinet should have been canned right after Hurricane Katrina.

According to the judge's finding in December, ACORN was "singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding in the absence of any judicial, or even administrative process, adjudicating guilt.

But the government asked her to change her mind and keep the cutoff of funds current and tie ACORN's hands. But Gershon, known as a no-nonsense justice, turned around and told the feds not only was the cut off of funds unconstitutional, but that they should spread the word that agencies cannot punish the group on this basis.

All this means that Congress has been made a fool of, getting caught up in a bunch of right-wing soundbyte garbage - all designed to pick on an organization that directly helps poor minorities find housing for them to actually own, thus giving them the same advantage as white, middle class Americans: a neo-con's biggest fear.

So bottom line, the chickens are coming home to roost. Blathering idiots, like Beck, Rush Limbaugh (who I hope really does leave the country when health care is passed) and others don't run this country. And if the people in Congress had any balls, they'd know that and not be intimidated.