Cat Fight! Michele Bachmann and Barney Frank Duel Over ACORN
MEOW! Go get ‘em Michele!
Two partisan heavyweights did battle Thursday over an amendment prized by conservatives, as House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) withdrew backing for a bill that would have toughened regulations for community organizing groups.
Frank withdrew his support from an amendment offered by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) that would forbid groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) from receiving federal grants if any of their employees have been indicted for voter fraud.
Good! Why should any groups that claim to be non-partisan receive our taxpayer funds when they are anything but non-partisan? I personally wouldn’t care if the group was conservative or liberal, I don’t want my taxpayer funds going to either.
After approving the amendment by a unanimous voice vote, Frank announced Thursday he was mistaken to back the bill, and said he’d offer a substitute that would apply the amendment only to groups with employees who are actually convicted — not just indicted. Frank’s version would also take into account the employee’s position in the organization, and how long ago the conviction had been handed down.
Frank is flip-flopping because ACORN and groups backed by George Soros have more power on Capitol Hill than most want to admit. He wants to make it appear that he is writing legislation that will not be misconstrued (funny how that’s never what Democrats want in any of their bills – they prefer being vague so they can find loopholes to help themselves). Stipulating that an actual conviction is necessary would delay the withdrawal of funds which is all that Frank is trying to do.
“Focusing on an indictment and letting an indictment be the trigger of penalties would be a violation the basic rules and fairness of American law,” Frank told The Hill. “So if one person is indicted, the whole “innocent until proven guilty, etc”� just goes totally out the window.”
When has fairness or the law ever applied to Democrats? These groups shouldn’t be getting taxpayer money anyway – especially since they are trying to pass themselves off as non-partisan when they most definitely are not!
“The temptation to indict someone you don’t like — after the Ted Stevens thing, I don’t even know how anyone could think about that,” he said.
Typical liberal counterpoint (passive-aggressive) and typical Barney Frank – lay the blame elsewhere and try to make the person asserting the statement out to be mean-spirited or bigoted.
Bachmann blasted Frank for “siding with ACORN,” a group that had stoked the ire of many conservatives for their efforts to turn out the vote for President Obama during the 2008 elections.
“Are we expected to keep forking over tax dollars to these organization when they’re under the cloud of suspicion of a public criminal indictment?” Bachmann asked in a statement.
“If nothing else, this shows us just how much influence ACORN and others have over Chairman Frank and the Democrat party,” she said. “Your tax dollars are being abused.”
Right you are Bachmann - keep on fighting the good fight!
Another funny side note:
Chairman Barney Frank accepted the amendment right there in front of the whole committee — I assumed because it was his very own language as passed under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008 — and the amendment was then passed by unanimous voice vote.
So he originally approved all of this when he wrote it – but something made him change his mind. He thinks that these facts aren’t on record and that the media will be able to cover all of the Democrats’ messes up forever. This is similar to Pelosi’s amnesiaon waterboarding.
