The scandal-ridden Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, needs money. And more than ever it's counting on the federal government to deliver it. A December 11 ruling by a federal judge in New York overturning a funding ban in the current budget may well reopen the floodgates. Ironically, it's the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that stands in the way. On December 16, the department filed a memorandum opposing the New Orleans-based nationwide radical nonprofit "anti-poverty" network's claim that it had been unjustly singled out for a funding cutoff for Fiscal Year 2010. In other words, the government, for a change, was protecting taxpayer interests. Whether those interests prevail in court depends on interpretations of the Constitution's ban on bills of attainder and its protection of due process and freedom of association.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known by the acronym ACORN, exists only in shell form, having formally disbanded on April 1. Yet whatever name(s) the radical nonprofit organizing network and its countless affiliates currently go under, the issue of its right to receive federal funds is anything but a dead letter. A court ruling several days ago ensures as much. On Wednesday, April 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit 
Radicals long have used the judicial system as an effective last-ditch weapon to circumvent decisions by the legislative branch. This past Friday, one of their leading lights, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN, showed the advantages of having a sympathetic federal judge in one's corner. This past Friday, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon of the Eastern District of New York, a Clinton appointee, 
