FTA: "It's shocking that taxpayer money is being used to support a researcher who seemingly showed little regard to the basic tenets of science - a dispassionate search for the truth," said Tom Borelli.
There certainly isn't an "is the organization already solvent" test for stimulus cash; and to add one would be silly and self-defeating. Really, it doesn't matter where the money goes as long as it's spent. All spending is stimulatory. The biggest problem with the stimulus bill was actually finding "public good" projects (i.e. ones that don't look like pork) that can spend the money fast enough.
The biggest problem with the stimulus bill is that it passed.
Sure that guy was employed. But assuming his corner of academia works like the rest of academia there are a lot of other people who are now not unemployed. See researchers (Ph.D's) are more like project managers. They hire grad students, interns, staff, etc to do the actual work. The phds just just supervise, put their names on papers, etc.
Now, when this grant was awarded the researcher probably had a secure job. All the people I just mentioned however, were subject to cutbacks. Further depending on specifics, a job or two may have been created.
For a similar thing I know of first hand, we were awarded a grant out of stimulus money. I got to keep my job. Several grad students got to keep their appointments (and not require student loans). We may be hiring a staff member or two. The official PI (principle investigators) on the grant all have tenure. I don't know how you count "works", but a job saved is about the same as creating a different job instead by my reckoning.