Oh no, people might have birth control and houses!

Now the squawking about the economic stimulus has moved onto stoking racist fears about ACORN. And yes, I mean racist---speaking as someone who hails from the land of race-obsessed crazy white people, I can speak with assurance that the "community organizer" thing and endless squawking about ACORN during the election was old-fashioned dog whistle racism. Your average wingnut had never even heard of ACORN before we had a black candidate for President. And "ACORN" is being used as a battle cry now because of the racist implications that have been attached to that word. But, as Media Matters reports, ACORN isn't actually mentioned in the bill.

The false claim is based on a misrepresentation of a provision that would appropriate $4,190,000,000 "for neighborhood stabilization activities related to emergency assistance for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes as authorized under division B, title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008." The provision requires that money will be distributed through competitive processes. It states that, "not less than $3,440,000,000 shall be allocated by a competition" to "States, units of general local government, and nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities." It also provides that "up to $750,000,000 shall be awarded by competition to nonprofit entities or consortia of nonprofit entities to provide community stabilization assistance."

Which presumably could mean ACORN, or any other number of non-profits.

What this should make clear to Obama and the Democrats is that the Republicans aren't seeking compromise---they're never going to like this bill, and they're just using the false promise of votes on it to get important provisions taken out before it passes. The only way to resolve this is probably LBJ style. We are, after all, talking about Republicans, i.e. a bevy of perverts and closet cases. I fail to see why this can't be resolved by letting a few of them know that they vote for the bill as is, or they get their sexual habits involving diapers, congressional pages, or airport bathrooms leaked to the press.