http://biggovernment.com/jd...tlement/#more-203741

quote I have 200 acres in Arkansas and have raised hogs. Pigford is the biggest rip-off this country has ever known, and there are lots of people in positions of power that know it. Politicians are using it to buy votes. Trial lawyers are using it to get rich. I personally know of people who have no connection to farming at all who got Pigford checks. People with potted plants in their apartments claimed to be farmers and got paid. I saw an instance where eight Pigford checks went to one house. There are drug addicts and pushers who have received payments who have never farmed a day in their life. There was discrimination at the US Department of Agriculture. It needed to be dealt with. I was suing the USDA before Timothy Pigford even filed suit. I wrote to attorney Al Pires, who eventually filed a class action lawsuit against the USDA, but he saw that there wasn’t going to be a huge amount of money for him. So he passed. What he did find was a way to work a scam from inside the Star City, Arkansas USDA office by paying a USDA employee to process claimants. This employee would take from $5,000 to $25,000 for each successful Pigford claim. Pires was in this totally for the money. He’s made far more money than any black farmer. John Boyd heads up the National Black Farmers Association and his business isn’t straight. He worked with James Myart and Tom Burrell. Boyd has his agenda and it’s making money. He has 70,000 members now. He wants people that file Pigford claims to join his group and pay $100 in dues every year. And when he holds meetings about Pigford and gives updates he sometimes asks for another $100 per person for the updates. Some of these meetings include hundreds of people so he does okay, if you know what I mean. I saw the fraud coming. Whenever you put money out there, people are going to take advantage. I told John Boyd about this and he told me I wasn’t being a team player. John Boyd, Tom Burrell, and James Myart know about the massive fraud. I don’t know what team they are on, but I’m not going to be on any team that ignores widespread fraud. Congress needs to investigate Pigford immediately. I believe that probably 80 to 90% of Pigford claims are fraudulent. I know that its at least 300 cases in Arkansas alone. By investigating this fraud we are opening up a can of worms. But it needs to be done. Justice demands it.

For those wondering what this settlement is about.
http://www.blackenterprise....rmers-in-settlement/

quote Obama Proposes $1.25 Billion for Black Farmers in Settlement Group leader says more money is needed President Barack Obama has allotted $1.25 billion in the FY 2010 budget to settle discrimination lawsuits by thousands of black farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "This is an issue I worked on in the Senate, and I'm pleased that we are now able to close this chapter in the agency's history and move on," Obama said in a statement Wednesday. "My hope is that the farmers and their families who were denied access to USDA loans and programs will be made whole and will have the chance to rebuild their lives and their businesses." Although he calls the settlement a “huge step in the right direction,” National Black Farmers Association President John Boyd said that more money is needed. “We need around $2.7 billion to compensate all of the eligible farmers,” said Boyd. “We are appreciative that the administration is in dialogue with us, but as the advocate for [black farmers] I want to make sure there are enough funds to compensate all eligible farmers.” The black farmers’ case named after one of the original plaintiffs, Timothy Pigford, a black farmer from North Carolina, was settled in 1999. The USDA agreed to pay farmers for past discrimination in lending and other USDA programs. Nearly $1 billion in damages were paid out on almost 16,000 claims, but nearly 75,000 additional black farmers filed their claims after the deadline. Boyd says that the USDA did not effectively notify the farmers that there was a settlement, or where farmers could file their complaints. He said that farmers who didn’t have telephones or indoor bathrooms were told to go online for more information about the settlement. “The USDA was supposed to provide that information and they didn’t. We got the word out ourselves on very limited funds,” says Boyd. “There was no ad campaign.” As a senator, Obama led the charge to pass the 2008 farm bill allowing the government to reopen the case to farmers who missed the deadline. Earlier this week, Sens. Charles Grassley, (R-Iowa), and Kay Hagan, (D-N.C.), introduced legislation that would allow access to an unlimited judgment fund at the Department of Treasury to pay successful claims that were not part of the original lawsuit. With the additional claims, some estimate the case could cost the government another $2 billion or $3 billion.

This whole thing is ripe for abuse and fraud.

[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 12-07-2010).]

You think the fraud is bad with this, Katrina funds and SS/Medi wait until Obama care kicks in hard core.

"At last count, more than 94,000 black farmers have signed up for payments under the settlement.

Based on census data, however, there were only 33,000 or so black farmers in existence during the period in question. Based on that number and the number of denied applications, the department had originally estimated that only 2,000 such claims would be filed."

http://www.investors.com/Ne...en-Pigford-Flies.htm

quote Reparations? When Pigford Flies Posted 12/07/2010 07:00 PM ET Redress: Congress has OK'd nearly $5 billion for black and Native American farmers who claim they were discriminated against. This is redistribution of wealth in the name of environmental and social justice. Reparations have begun. Redistribution of wealth has been an underlying purpose of this administration and Congress, and one of the most glaring examples has been its welcoming of a series of lawsuits alleging past discrimination by black, Native American, Hispanic and female farmers. Pigford v. Glickman was a class action lawsuit against the Department of Agriculture alleging discrimination against black farmers in its allocation of farm loans between 1983 and 1987. With all our other economic difficulties, it has flown under the media radar. A separate suit filed by 300,000 American Indians claimed they had been cheated out of land royalties dating back to 1887. One of the fruits of this lame-duck session has been the approval of $1.15 billion to the black farmers and $3.4 billion to the American Indians to settle the two lawsuits. At last count, more than 94,000 black farmers have signed up for payments under the settlement. Based on census data, however, there were only 33,000 or so black farmers in existence during the period in question. Based on that number and the number of denied applications, the department had originally estimated that only 2,000 such claims would be filed. This is what happens when government rings the dinner bell, and it's an indication of just how loose the rules are for vetting past injustices, real or not. Throw in the cult of victimology permeating modern liberalism and you have a cash cow ready to be milked. Victims will come out of the woodwork. As BigGovernment.com reports, the only "proof" required was a form stating that the claimant had "attempted" to farm, perhaps planting tomatoes in the back yard, and to have a family member vouch for that assertion. The government would then send the aggrieved "farmer" a check for $50,000. The bill is headed to President Obama's desk for his signature Wednesday or Thursday. It was then-Sen. Obama who introduced the original Pigford legislation in 2007. Saying "the numbers just don't add up," Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., has called for a federal investigation. "Pigford is rife with fraudulent claims," she believes, "and to settle before an investigation can take place does the American taxpayer a disservice." Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, has been less subtle, calling them "slavery reparations."

This is just wealth redistribution under the guise of reparations. Not only is fraud being committed by many of those, that filed for these monies, but also by the government itself, for making it so easy for anyone to claim the money, wether they are entitled to it or not.

Steve King Digs In: Congress Will Investigate 'Reparations' Settlement For Black Farmers
http://tpmmuckraker.talking...nvestigate_repar.php

quote Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is continuing to blast the government's recent discrimination settlement with African-American farmers as "reparations" -- and even predicting that the new Republican-led House will investigate it. In an interview with local western Iowa radio station KCIM, King discussed the oversight efforts that the new GOP House would undertake. First and foremost, he said, would be his pet cause of investigating ACORN -- which no longer exists as a national organization, but whose activists at the state level could be targeted. "And there'll be other investigations looking into the Pigford farms issue," King added, "which I think is full of fraud, that's -- what it amounts to is paying reparations to black farmers in America. We don't do reparations in America." King has previously attacked the settlement for discrimination in past decades by the Department of Agriculture as "slavery reparations". He also famously described a hypothetical fraudulent claim that might result from the settlement: "The fraudulent claims might be, well Johnny, yeah he was raised on a farm but he wouldn't help his dad. He went to the city, became a drug addict, and when Daddy needed the help, Johnny wouldn't come and help his daddy. But now his daddy's died and Johnny wants the $50,000 that comes from the USDA under this claim." The full quote from the new interview: "There has been a list of government oversight and investigations that needs to be taken up. And it's just a natural thing that people that are in charge don't want to investigate their own party. I saw that happen to some degree when Republicans were in charge, and I clearly see it happen now with Democrats controlling the presidency and the House and the Senate. "So I think that you will see investigations of ACORN, for one. You'll hear a lot more in the news about ACORN, and about the insidious nature of them -- about how the national organization of ACORN now has been fractured, but they're reforming in the states with the same people, the same players, the same intentions. "And there'll be other investigations looking into the Pigford farms issue, which I think is full of fraud, that what amounts to is paying reparations to black farmers in America. We don't do reparations in America."

The time is right to end things like this and to prevent them from happening in the future.

Leftist radical tactics, if you can't beat them sue them.
Andrew Breitbart: Courts an Instrument of Leftist Thuggery
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=42451

quote Politicians and their supporters use interesting tactics to intimidate and silence their critics, from rumor-mongering to editorial cartoons, even dueling pistols. But the target of a high-profile lawsuit who is also a relentless investigator of the Obama administration says the judicial system is being used to retaliate against him. “The President of the United States has an unprecedented and uncanny desire to silence those who report the truth about him,” says media mogul Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart first came under fire last year after posting a video on one of his websites of a speech given by an Agriculture Department employee during an NAACP conference. The speech, Breitbart said, elicited racist responses from the audience. The speaker, Shirley Sherrod, says she was then fired at the behest of the White House, but when she was offered her job back days later, she declined. Rather than targeting the administration for its actions, or accepting its peace offer of what appeared to be a better job, Sherrod is suing Breitbart in the District of Columbia Superior Court for defamation of character and emotional distress. Breitbart concedes that Obama is “noticeably absent” from the lawsuit, but says it is part of a pattern of isolation and intimidation that is being orchestrated by the Obama White House that threatens to marginalize media critics through the courts. Exhibit A, he says, is the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis that is representing Sherrod. “All you have to do is look at who Kirkland Ellis is and where their money went in the 2008 election cycle,” Breitbart said. Through employee donations, Kirkland Ellis was a top 20 contributor to Obama’s presidential campaign, with nearly $494,000 in donations, according to Wikipedia. “This is a man who wants to shut out and silence his enemies,” Breitbart told HUMAN EVENTS. “The courts are a lovely place to take away the energy and resources of the President’s critics,” Breitbart said. “He thinks he can use the courts as a war of attrition against his political enemies.” Exhibit B, Breitbart says, is how the Left used the apparatus of the mainstream media to target other enemies, such as author David Freddoso and commentator Stanley Kurtz. Freddoso, who wrote The Case Against Barack Obama, a New York Times best seller, “was called a hack, and whatever else they could think of,” Matthew Vadum, a senior editor at Capital Research Center tells HUMAN EVENTS. In an American Spectator article Vadum penned during the campaign season, he outlined an Obama campaign memo he obtained urging followers to stir up trouble for Freddoso. "The author of the latest anti-Barack hit book is appearing on WGN Radio in the Chicagoland market tonight, and your help is urgently needed to make sure his baseless lies don't gain credibility," the memo said. "David Freddoso has made a career off dishonest, extreme hate-mongering. And WGN apparently thinks this card-carrying member of the right-wing smear machine needs a bigger platform for his lies and smears about Barack Obamao—n the public airwaves." Kurtz says he was also the target of “Alinskyite tactics” during a Chicago radio show appearance in 2008. “The Obama campaign tried to shut me down when I went onto a radio station,” Kurtz told a Hudson Institute audience that same year. “About half an hour before I got there, they had been called by 7,000 people demanding that I not be allowed on the air. So they called the Obama folks and invited them to have someone come on to debate me. They refused, demanded that I not be allowed on the radio, and then they asked for the name of the head of the station so they could call and demand that I not be allowed in the radio. They did the same thing to David Freddoso. These are Alinskyite tactics, and Obama is using them in the campaign,” Kurtz said. Vadum told HUMAN EVENTS that “leftist radicals don’t really like free speech unless it goes their way.” The courts, it appears, are their final option to shut down the opposition. “When they don’t like what you stand for, they want the police to harass you or they take you to court. That’s not supposed to happen in a constitutional Republic like the United States,” Vadum said. “This is thug politics straight out of Chicago,” Vadum said. “Al Capone would have been pleased.” Exhibit C is the so-called Pigford settlement. Breitbart says it is the most controversial story he has ever uncovered. What initially started out as Breitbart’s mission to defend the Tea Party against attacks of racism by the NAACP has now evolved into a mission to expose how federal payments to black farmers for racial discrimination in farm aid has been hijacked as a reparations movement. “This is about politics, this is about my continued attempts to expose the rotten-to-the-core alliances of the alleged objectivity of the mainstream media and organized groups like the NAACP who have gone to war against the Tea Party for its attempts to bring fiscal responsibility to an out-of-control government,” Breitbart said. “And I am being attacked because of my effectiveness in exposing how the President’s propaganda is being created. And I am being attacked because I have been a relentless force in reporting and propagating narratives that show that hope and change have been nothing more than organized thuggery and false propaganda,” Breitbart said.

“leftist radicals don’t really like free speech unless it goes their way.”

[This message has been edited by avengador1 (edited 03-25-2011).]

Are there even 94,000 black farmers in the US? I grew up in Illinois, the middle of farm country, and never heard of even one black farmer in Illinois. I know they must exist, I just never heard of any.