Posted on 11/19/2010 4:36:28 PM PST by Dallas59
WASHINGTON The Senate has approved almost $4.6 billion to settle long-standing claims brought by American Indians and black farmers against the government.
The money has been held up for months in the Senate as Democrats and Republicans squabbled over how to pay for it. The two class action lawsuits were filed over a decade ago.
The settlements include almost $1.2 billion for black farmers who say they suffered discrimination at the hands of the Agriculture Department. Also, $3.4 billion would go to Indian landowners who claim they were swindled out of royalties by the Interior Department. The legislation was approved in the Senate by voice vote Friday and sent to the House.
Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe from Browning, Mont. and the lead plaintiff in the Indian case, said Friday that it took her breath away when she found out the Senate had passed the bill. She was feeling despondent after the chamber had tried and failed to pass the legislation many times and two people who would have been beneficiaries had died on her reservation this week.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Just sayin!
I score if I’m really well tanned. SHOW ME THE MONEY!
to settle long-standing claims brought by American Indians and black farmers against the governmentThanks Dallas59.
Well I can see settling up the treaties with the Indians, but shouldn’t the black farmers be getting an acre of land and a mule?
Just think of the 30% Lawyer's cut.
>> Democrats and Republicans squabbled over how to pay for it.
My guess they agreed to use tax dollars.
Please tell me why ANY Republican is voting ‘yes’ on ANY bill while Senator Kirk remains unseated? Of the three Senators who were to be seated immediately following the election (Manchin, Coons, and Kirk), both Democrats have been sworn in and are now voting while the one Republican watches from the sidelines while a Democrat casts votes on his behalf. Why in the hell are Republicans letting them get away with this? They’ve got 41 votes right now. Shut it down until Kirk is seated and Burris is removed.
Yeah. Of your great-grandchildren.
I thought it was left-handed redheads...
They don't have to be farmers to collect.
This is actually a back-door reparations scam.
Most blacks collecting from this second round of payments are city and town dwellers whose closest encounter with a farm was a bucket of KFC chicken.
All they have to do to collect is say they would have liked to be farmers but never pursued it because they knew they would be discriminated against on the basis of their skin color.
Is your REAL last name Soetoro?
Yeah; sorta like "Judge, I was gonna buy a Lottery ticket, but....."
Any YOU WIN!
I’m ambi—I’ve got it covered both ways—LOL!
this reminds me of what that negro congress woman was doing with federal funds for education....steering them to her relatives and friends..... !! discrimination by any other color....
I know why the Indians got together in this with the Negroes... to get money from the feds! The Indians have been shafted enough by Americans, both negroes and whites.... they finally figured how how politics is played...
There are numbers that prove they are claiming way more black farmers than the department of agriculture has EVER had on record as existing. Make no mistake ... this is all about reparations that could not pass any other way.
Why settle? Let them go to court, and then try and collect.
Because it is a payoff...they are buying votes!
I am an Indian Black farmer, I get double!!
I say lets pass reparations. Give every poor minority a million dollars. It ends the discussion forever, and is a drop in the bucket compared to the deficit anyway.
Within 6 months, every dollar given in reparations will be spent in the economy. The recipients will be poor again, but at least it will give a temporary boost to the economy.
As Neal Boortz sais, the rich are rich because they do things that make them rich, and vice versa.
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