Free Republic

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann pointed to one program in particular Monday when talking about wasteful government spending: a multibillion dollar settlement paid to black farmers, who claim the federal government discriminated against them for decades in awarding loans and other aid. The issue came up after Bachmann and Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa toured flooded areas along the Missouri River. During a news conference, they fielded a question about whether farmers affected by the flooding also should be worried by proposed U.S. Department of Agriculture cuts. The two responded by criticizing a 1999 settlement in what is known...

Allen West says that he didn’t do enough due diligence on the Pigford amendment and says he may have to take this one ‘in the shorts’: [audio interview at link]

Acorn, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, and slavery reparations are the real agenda driving the Pigford Settlement, the multi-billion dollar Black farmers’ pay out according to conservative investigative journalist Andrew Breitbart. Pigford was the lead plaintiff in the original class action suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The distribution of subsidies in the early 1980s to mid l990s was at issue, with “sympathetic USDA administrators” agreeing to settle the case at taxpayer expense. Breitbart recently told a radio audience these were the factors behind Obama’s largest fleecing of U.S. taxpayers in history. Breitbart maintains Acorn is being used in this...

Rep. King’s amendment failed – here’s the roll call vote. Every Democrat voted against it – but it lost because 78 Republicans also went against stopping over a billion dollars in money being paid out for fraud. Two votes jumped out at me. Tea Party favorite Allen West (R-FL) voted with the Congressional Black Caucus to keep Pigford funding flowing to fraudsters. But worse, Darrell Issa (R-CA), who would be the one to get investigations going.

(CNSNews.com) - A Republican lawmaker is trying to protect taxpayers from what he calls fraudulent racial discrimination claims filed against the government by black farmers. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on Wednesday filed an amendment to an Agriculture appropriations bill that would prevent any additional taxpayer money from being used to settle claims associated with the government's "fraud-plagued Pigford II program." The money, King said, “is being used primarily to build political goodwill for the President.” As CNSNews.com previously reported, the USDA allegedly discriminated against black farmers in dispensing federally funded farm loans between 1981 and 1996. In 1999, the federal...

Susan Daniels is a licensed private investigator who has researched the use of the social security number currently being used by Barack Hussein Obama which she has determined was issued in the state of Connecticut, where Obama has neither lived nor worked. Daniels has stated that the number had originally been assigned to a man from Connecticut born in 1890. Daniels is president of Daniels and Associates Investigations Inc., which is located in Ohio and was incorporated in 1995. Prior to opening her own company, Daniels worked as a private investigator for Friedrick Investigations in Lakewood, OH, including in the...

Shirley Sherrod, the U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who was forced out after a portion of a videotape was misleadingly used to show her making a racially insensitive remark, will start working for the USDA again, the department told POLITICO Friday. But she’s not getting her old job back. Instead, Sherrod will help the USDA improve its dismal civil rights record.

Minority farmers have complained for decades that the U.S. Department of Agriculture denied or delayed giving them farm loans because of their ethnicity or gender, costing them their crops and land. Now, the USDA has acknowledged the discrimination. It is urging Hispanic and female farmers who can prove they were wronged to apply for settlements of up to $50,000. Frederick Pfaeffle, the department's deputy assistant secretary of civil rights, recently met with farmers and ranchers in Kissimmee and South Florida to promote the program. The settlement, which some Hispanic farmers have criticized for offering too little and placing the burden...

Want to get a check from the government for $50,000? If you’re black and willing to say you once “attempted to farm,” the money could be yours. Why? In the 80’s and 90’s, some Black farmers were allegedly discriminated against by the Agriculture Department. Department loan officers supposedly did the opposite of what Shirley Sherrod was accused of: they granted government-subsidized farm loans to whites but not to blacks. Government shouldn’t be giving out government subsidized loans to anyone. But that’s another story for another time. When some black farmers sued, claiming discrimination, the USDA agreed to pay $50,000 to...

Is this Pigford II? WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is offering at least $1.3 billion to settle complaints from female and Hispanic farmers who say they faced discrimination from the Agriculture Department. The Agriculture and Justice departments announced Friday that farmers who could prove discrimination could receive up to $50,000. The proposal comes after the government settled with American Indians over similar discrimination issues last fall and Congress provided money for the second round of a black farmers settlement.......

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is offering more than $1.3 billion to settle complaints from female and Hispanic farmers who say they faced discrimination from the Agriculture Department. The Agriculture and Justice departments announced Friday that farmers who could prove discrimination could receive up to $50,000. The proposal comes after the government settled with American Indians over similar discrimination issues last fall and Congress provided money for the second round of a black farmers settlement. The government first announced its intent to settle the complaints in May. The more detailed offer announced Friday does not cap the amount of money...

John Boyd is the president of the National Black Farmer’s Association and has been the main media face of the Pigford settlement for over a decade. He’s been featured on numerous TV shows and in print. He’s been lauded by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and often appears beside them in public appearences. He’s been recognized by President Obama and was present at the private signing ceremony when the Pigford II settlement was signed. Here’s a question that should be simple to answer — does he actually have a doctorate that allows him to refer to himself in professional...

One unhappy night in 1992, 40-year-old Timothy Pigford, a fourth-generation black farmer having a terrible time of it trying to grow soybeans in North Carolina, sat in the living room of the house he was barely holding on to and drew up the outline of a lawsuit against the federal government. It was a decision more than 15 years in coming, ever since the first of the many times he’d been denied a USDA loan because — he was convinced — of the color of his skin. Before all was said and done, he would spend 20 years of his...

The Pigford Scandal. Chances are you’ve never heard about it unless you frequent Andrew Breitbart’s websites- which is unfortunate given the level of corruption involved. Breitbart’s Big Government has been leading the charge on the investigation, yet the mainstream media has remained completely silent. I wonder why? If you are unfamiliar with the scandal, please take a look at this blog post which explains everything in the most simplistic manner possible. It is a very complex issue, but the more people know about it, the better. Here’s an exclusive interview of Rep. Steve King with documentarian Lee Stranahan looking into...

On Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011, Internet entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart, the impresario of the ACORN scandal and a growing investigative force in the conservative media, held a press conference at the Conservative Political Action Conference. At that press conference, he laid out evidence of a concerted effort by government officials, race-baiting lawyers and certain black non-farmers to defraud the federal government of millions of dollars by exploiting a legal settlement called Pigford. On Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011, Shirley Sherrod, the single largest recipient of cash from the Pigford settlement, filed a lawsuit against Breitbart for defamation. Sherrod, you may remember, was...

Shirley Sherrod, the public face of the $1 Billion Pigford Scandal, Is Suing Andrew Breitbart– In July of last year, Andrew Breitbart and Big Government released video of former Ag employee Shirley Sherrod admitting during a speech to the NAACP that she did not assist a poor white farmer as much as she could have because of his “attitude” and race. Sherrod said it was years ago, she said she learned from her experiences, she said blah-blah-blah… The state-run attacked and smeared Andrew Breitbart and FOX News for showing only a segment from Sherrod’s speech. In late July an anonymous...

Andrew Breitbart held a press conference today on the Pigford controversy, and it began with high-profile Congresswoman Michele Bachman’s introduction. Bachmann asked why Eric Holder has yet to investigate the allegations of widespread fraud. Bachmann said that “people are milking the system for all it’s worth,” and that the money belongs to black farmers who actually suffered discrimination. “We have a tremendous story to tell today,” Bachmann said, calling it “a stunning story.”

Black lawmakers are roiled over the Obama administration’s move to potentially cap billions of dollars in compensation owed to black farmers, saying the position contradicts legislation the president championed as an Illinois senator. In a meeting Wednesday, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) vented frustration at recent court filings by the Justice Department that could severely limit compensation owed to black farmers discriminated against in the past by the Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Justice Department has estimated that it could cost as much as $4 billion to repay the farmers, yet the recent filings suggest it may cap the total...

How easy is it to file a false claim in the Pigford settlement? Have people been signing up for Pigford under the belief that it’s reparations for slavery? Was the settlement intended to help black farmers hijacked to benefit people who had never farmed? There has been conjecture and circumstantial evidence about these controversial questions surrounding the Pigford “Black Farmers” settlement for years but a complicit mainstream media’s lack of serious investigation has meant there has been little ‘hard evidence’ to prove or disprove these allegations. Until now. On Thursday, February 10th, at CPAC, I will release to the press,...

Obama's initiative ignores corrupption to redistibute wealth Race hustlers are shaking down taxpayers for payoffs, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is falling for the scam. The controversy involves a discrimination claim against the USDA for allegedly denying loans because of race. A federal judge approved payments of $50,000 or more based on low levels of proof. This encouraged a mad scramble for cash based on false claims. The “Pigford Settlement,” an agreement that came out of the original 1997 lawsuit by Timothy Pigford and 400 southern black farmers, resulted from some apparently legitimate instances of discrimination. However, plaintiffs’...