Today is “Everybody Blog about Pigford Day.” In the old days, we’d call it a “blogburst.” It’s been said:
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. (Alexander Fraser Tytler?)
Never before have we seen such widespread disrespect of the American Taxpayer as we’re seeing under the Obama regime.
You may remember that the housing boom and bust was brought about by government forcing banks to give out free money loans on racial grounds, disastrous policy that led to the housing bust. Now, Pigford and other lawsuits have accomplished a similar fleecing of the American taxpayer via the Department of Agriculture.
In Pigford v. Glickman, a group of black farmers charged that the USDA was racist in its handling of administrative complaints and in how it administered farming loans. Then came more $1 billion in settlement money, to be paid to 15,500 individuals through a process that made it easy to collect on phony claims. Then a second round of payments, Pigford II, came along, with an additional $1.5 billion.1
The New York Times even acknowledged that the Pigford settlements are rife with fraud, vindicating the late Andrew Breitbart and his team of investigators.2
The compensation effort sprang from a desire to redress what the government and a federal judge agreed was a painful legacy of bias against African-Americans by the Agriculture Department. But an examination by The New York Times shows that it became a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees. In the past five years, it has grown to encompass a second group of African-Americans as well as Hispanic, female and Native American farmers. In all, more than 90,000 people have filed claims. The total cost could top $4.4 billion.
This includes people who claim they ATTEMPTED to farm, and excludes the white farmers who tried to jump on the gravy train - Whites were turned down, presumably because they can only be victims of white “privilege.”
As long as you’re a minority victim class, the Obama administration gives you freebies and tickets for cash. Keepseagle is the Native American equivalent of Pigford, which leaves an even wider opening for fraud.
The settlement of the Indian lawsuit, Keepseagle v. Vilsack was $760 million, just two weeks before the November election. Giving Indians cash incentive to vote for democrats.
In the Keepseagle settlement, any claimant who was self-identified as an Indian as of 1999 could receive money, solely based on allegations of discrimination. The beauty of it was the allegations don’t even have to be proven: The USDA was not allowed to dispute the status, challenge any claims or documents, or point out any errors or inconsistencies. The agreement includes “non citizen nationals” and “qualified aliens,” opening the U.S Treasury to claims by illegal aliens.
“A 2010 settlement with Native Americans was contentious for its own reasons,” reported the New York Times:
Justice Department lawyers argued that the $760 million agreement far outstripped the potential cost of a defeat in court. Agriculture officials said not that many farmers would file claims.
That prediction proved prophetic. Only $300 million in claims were filed, leaving nearly $400 million in the control of plaintiffs’ lawyers to be distributed among a handful of nonprofit organizations serving Native American farmers. Two and a half years later, the groups have yet to be chosen. It is unclear how many even exist.
Middle American News reported:
Although claims will be paid under the authority of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, claimants will not have to meet the fundamental requirements of that law, nor will they have to prove there was any actual discrimination, that they were treated differently than any other program participant.
As in Pigford, the Justice Department settlement subverts and apparently ignores a federal law requiring all participants to have filed a discrimination complaint with USDA prior to July 1, 1997 — thereby eliminating the one provision designed to minimize fraud in this series of race- and sex-based lawsuits against USDA. (The Obama Administration has also vowed to pay plaintiffs in class actions filed on behalf of Hispanics and women, even though those suits have already failed in U.S. District Court.)
The Keepseagle settlement comes after extensive discovery, at a cost of untold millions to taxpayers, for the better part of a decade without plaintiffs’ attorneys finding a viable case to take to court. In desperation, additional discovery was conducted on USDA’s guaranteed loan program where loan decisions were made not by USDA, but by participating banks and other commercial lenders. As intended, the Obama Administration’s action rescues the plaintiffs from having to prove allegations of discrimination that, for the most part, very likely did not occur and could not be proven in court.
The settlement also commits USDA to actively discriminate against other ethnic groups by providing special treatment for Indians in the future, including the creation of a Native American Farmer and Rancher Council to “make USDA’s programs more accessible” to Indians, opening ten to fifteen additional offices to provide special assistance specifically for that group, and commitment to a “systematic review” of all regulations and policies and making changes so these rules “better assist” Indians.
It’s what’s now known as “Jackpot Justice.”
In a separate lawsuit, Cobell v. Salazar, a settlement agreement of $3.4 billion for “fraudulent accounting” of billions of dollars’ in trust and royalty money was awarded in another Native American suit.
Related articles
- N.Y. Times Confirms Massive Fraud At USDA In Pigford; Breitbart Vindicated (thedaleygator.wordpress.com)
- NYTimes Confirms: Massive Fraud at USDA in Pigford; Breitbart Vindicated (breitbart.com)
- National Review: Pigford Scandal as Big as Andrew Breitbart Warned (breitbart.com)
- Breitbart Was Right About Pigford (minx.cc)
- Help me find Media Matters’ apology to Andrew Breitbart on Pigford (legalinsurrection.com)
- Andrew Breitbart vindicated on Pigford after years of attacks from Media Matters and others (legalinsurrection.com)
- Pigford: NYT Pegs Obama for Vote-Buying Scheme (breitbart.com)
