So let me see if I understand this correctly- on the one hand Halliburton is convicted of bribery, had SEC complaints lodged against it for accounting irregularities and is accused by the Pentagon of ripping of US taxpayers to the tune of $2 billion (with a “b”).

On the other hand a few ACORN employees act unprofessionally but the organization doesn’t actually DO ANYTHING illegal. The result? ACORN gets singled out and Halliburton continues to feed at the public trough.

How about the drug manufacturers Pfizer, Astra-Zeneca and Lilly all of whom were actually convicted of ripping off the federal government? They paid their fines and continue to do business with the Feds.

But Congress makes a special case for ACORN, an organization that works in cities across the United States to help low income people deal with foreclosures.

It is important to understand the historical context for the latest attack on ACORN. This isn’t the first time conservatives have focused on ACORN.

During the last election, Senator John McCain hysterically proclaimed that ACORN, “is on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history” and “may be destroying the fabric of democracy.”

As it turned out this was a misrepresentation of reality and the accusation didn’t stick. According to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice, voter fraud is as widespread as “death by lightning.”

But that didn’t stop Karl Rove from pushing the Department of Justice to pursue “voter fraud” cases. The Bush’s Department of Justice went so far as to fire Attorneys who refused to spend time on politically motivated non-existent voter fraud cases. The resultant scandal eventually brought down Attorney General Gonzalez and Karl Rove.

Why single out ACORN? Perhaps the conservatives are upset that ACORN has helped register millions of people of color all across America and that those voters are more likely to vote Democratic.

It isn’t a crime to register voters in low income neighborhoods in American cities. But it might motivate conservative operatives to try to entrap irresponsible employees and then smear the whole organization.

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There’s a lot of white men in Congress puffing out their feathers on this immigration verification stuff for health insurance in the proposed health care exchange.

So let’s be clear, we’re talking about setting up a governmental bureaucracy to prevent people from spending their own money on health insurance (and god forbid, drawing down a subsidy).

The best I can tell from the Lou Dobbs spew is that immigrants are costing us money. So it’s kinda like a bottom line thing, if I’m not mistaken in my honest attempt to understand their articulated Reasons (picture me squinting sincerely as I try to understand what they are saying).

If that’s the case then it’s an easy cost benefit analysis- Does the cost of hiding bureaucrats under beds to ferret out illegal immigrant consumption of the aforementioned health insurance cost more than the loss of subsidies to these Illegally Residing Humans (IRH’s).

Time for data. Here’s what I’ve got:

Maybe somebody can help find some data that would explain how we save money by denying health insurance to IRH’s.

It’s an honest question.

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