Ben Sheffner, at Copyrights and Campaigns Blog, has the breaking story:

A state court in Baltimore has dismissed ACORN’s lawsuit against James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles, and Breitbart.com LLC after the plaintiffs failed to serve the complaint on the defendants within Maryland’s 120-day limit.

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It was with great fanfare that ACORN, along with two recently-fired employees of its Baltimore office, sued last September over thesurreptitious taping of the employees advising O’Keefe and Giles on running a prostitution business out of a house. ACORN’s general counsel, Arthur Schwartz, told the Washington Post at the time that the defendants, young filmmakers O’Keefe and Giles, plus Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart.com LLC, which disseminated the videos, had committed “clear violations of Maryland law” against audio recording without consent from all parties. But ACORN appears to have lost interest in the case since filing it, confirming my suspicion that it was little more than a press release on pleading paper.

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ACORN’s friends, with a fresh court ruling backing the organization, are finding new ways to send taxpayer dollars to it.  The Weekly Standard exposed an amendment offered by Sen. Rolland Burris (D-IL), President Obama’s replacement in the Senate, to the main piece of legislation enacting ObamaCare.

Specifically, Burris’ amendment would require an “Office of Minority Health” be established in several different agencies.

On page 241 of the amendment (yes, the amendment is over 241 pages):

In carrying out this subsection, the Secretary … shall award grants, contracts … with public and nonprofit private entities, agencies, as well as Departmental and Cabinet agencies and organizations, and with organizations that are indigenous human resource providers in communities of color. … Such measures shall evaluate community outreach activities, language services, workforce cultural competence, and other areas as determined by the Secretary.

Can you say ‘ACORN?’

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As Fiscal Year 2010 finally begins, a judge has struck down Congress’ law ending federal funding of ACORN. It’s ironic in that de-funding ACORN was the only example of fiscal restraint we’ve seen from Barack Obama, even more so since he’s now stacking the courts with judges that will continue to issue such rulings. And perhaps that’s what he’s wanted all along.

ACORN has shown America what the audacity of hope really looks like. In the aftermath of the videos showing ACORN employees engaged in conversations that should have triggered a federal racketeering probe for tax fraud and underage prostitution, Congress reacted to the overwhelming public revulsion to ACORN by enacting a federal law blocking ACORN from receiving any more of your tax money.

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File this one under the category of Predicable News of the Year: A Brooklyn federal judge, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, adopted the argument of hometown Congressman and ACORN apologist Jerrold Nadler that Congress’s efforts to “defund” ACORN amounted to a bill of attainder, and thus were unconstitutional.

Judge Nina Gershon imposed an injunction on the Congress to prevent it from cutting off funds, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit in Brooklyn federal court on behalf of ACORN.  That’s curious, given that ACORN is now headquartered in Washington, DC.  Not to mention the Congressional action, of course, occured in Washington, DC.

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The Harshbarger investigation is getting a lot of attention this week; and rightly so.  ACORN hired former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger to conduct an “independent” review of the organization in an effort to provide ACORN some cover to show that they were serious about reform.  The Harshbarger report concludes that ACORN was not at fault, rather the blame should rest with its founder Wade Rathke, the intrepid aspiring journalists Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe who revealed ACORN’s most recent corruption, and the low level ACORN employees and members who were featured in the videos.

This attempt to whitewash ACORN and its employees’ wrongdoing has been appropriately decried by Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican National Lawyers Association, and contributors to Biggovernment.com.

ACORN’s pending litigation against the federal government has received less attention.  Last week, unbeknownst to all but avid court or ACORN watchers a pivotal moment occurred in the lawsuit.  Peter D. Leary, an attorney at the Department of Justice filed a brief defending the Congressional efforts to defund ACORN.  His brief defended the defunding, while severely narrowing its scope and application.

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Today the Center for Constitutional Rights sued the federal government on behalf of ACORN.  They are alleging that Congressional efforts to defund ACORN constitute an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder.  This tired argument has been thoroughly rebutted, but the Center for Constitutional Rights is going to make it anyway.  Republican National Lawyers Association Chairman David Norcross has noted that: “The actions of Congress to defund ACORN clearly do not meet the definition of a Bill of Attainder.”

Real Estate Developer Bruce Ratner and Bertha Lewis

The Center for Constitutional Rights is going to stand up for this corrupt organization, and I think I know the reason why.  It’s all about family.

The President of the Center for Constitutional Rights is Michael Ratner.  Michael Ratner is a well known liberal lawyer who has fought against the Patriot Act and Guantanamo Bay.  He also teaches at Columbia Law School.

If you haven’t heard of Michael, that’s all right, I’m sure you’ve heard of his brother Bruce.  He’s a prominent developer and owner of the New Jersey Nets.  His company is Forest City Enterprises.

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From Politico:

A non-profit organization filed a lawsuit against the federal government Thursday morning, seeking to overturn a law stopping the flow of federal funds to ACORN.

The suit, filed in federal court in New York, claims that bills passed by the House and Senate to defund the group qualify as bills of attainder, legislation that unfairly targets one group. Such bills are unconstitutional.

The suit will seek to restore funding and roll-back the ban, which was passed as part of the legislative branch appropriations bill in September.

ACORN claims that the legislation was of “malicious and punitive intent.” The suit also claims Congress violated the Fifth Amendment by skirting due process before doling out the punishment of the funding cut. OMB Director Peter Orszag and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner are listed as co-defendants in the suit.
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In the first two of what will inevitably be a multitude of ACORN Baltimore lawsuit related media hits, Andrew Breitbart spoke with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News Channel last night while Hannah Giles (and her attorney Kelly Shackelford) spoke with Sean Hannity:

The clips give a basic overview of a lot of arguments that we’ll be seeing as the case unfolds. Breitbart chastises ACORN for infringing on free speech, Giles finds ACORN’s arbitrary $5 million dollar figure “funny,” and both make the case that it is at least a bit ironic that ACORN plans to waste more of our tax dollars in a law suit against the people who exposed the extent to which they are wasting our tax dollars….

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