My contribution to Everybody Blog About Pigford Day is to re-embed this video:
If you have any interest in the Pigford story at all — even if you don’t understand it (perhaps especially if you don’t), you really, really should watch it.
The video has to be seen to be believed. It shows someone coaching an audience on how to fill out the paperwork to get their $50,000 check. Watch the video to make your own judgment about the general attitude towards the truth in that room — both on his part, and on the part of the laughing audience. He tells people that there are four questions on the form, and that they must all be answered yes to get a check. He analogizes it to the four bases you must touch to score a run in baseball — and if all the bases aren’t touched, you go back to the dugout, meaning you don’t get a $50,000 check. He carefully explains that if they SAY they tried to farm, they DID attempt to farm, as far as the government is concerned. To call this a “wink and a nod” is being kind.
My most recent post on this video noted that it had only 891 views. Today, it has 1538. OK, that’s several hundred more views in a few days — which is a good thing, I guess — but the total number is still pathetic. Therefore, I am linking it again and all but insisting you watch it (to the extent that a smallish boutique blog owner can actually “insist” upon anything from his readers . . . which is not a very great extent).
Andrew Breitbart would tell anyone who would listen, at great length, about the Pigford fraud. Pigford was a class action lawsuit brought by black people who claimed to be farmers, and said the Agriculture Department had discriminated against them in making loan decisions. A court case had identified 91 potential claimants — but the Obama administration decided to engage in a more massive payout: $50,000 to virtually anybody who claimed that they had “attempted to farm” but could not because of discrimination.
Dangling $50,000 checks in front of people, while requiring almost no documentation (an affidavit from a pal backing you up was plenty good enough), predictably led to rampant fraudulent claims:
“It was the craziest thing I have ever seen,” one former high-ranking department official said. “We had applications for kids who were 4 or 5 years old. We had cases where every single member of the family applied.” The official added, “You couldn’t have designed it worse if you had tried.”
. . . .
In 16 ZIP codes in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and North Carolina, the number of successful claimants exceeded the total number of farms operated by people of any race in 1997, the year the lawsuit was filed. Those applicants received nearly $100 million.
In Maple Hill, a struggling town in southeastern North Carolina, the number of people paid was nearly four times the total number of farms. More than one in nine African-American adults there received checks. In Little Rock, Ark., a confidential list of payments shows, 10 members of one extended family collected a total of $500,000, and dozens of other successful claimants shared addresses, phone numbers or close family connections.
The scope of the problem runs into billions of dollars:
[A]n 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.
Especially infuriating: when prosecutors were given a test case of fraud, in which the claimant admitted lying in his application, they declined to prosecute — and the reason both amuses and infuriates:
In Arkansas, prosecutors rejected a test case against a Pine Bluff police officer who had admitted lying on his claim form. Paula J. Casey, the United States attorney in Arkansas in 2000, said that singling out one individual raised questions of selective prosecution.
“The defendant could go to the jury and say: ‘Everybody else did this. Why am I standing here?’ ” she said.
There’s so much fraud, you see, that you can’t prosecute just one person. So you can’t prosecute anybody.
This is, of course, absurd logic. If it’s hard to prosecute people for reasons of proof, and you have someone who confessed, it’s not “selective prosecution” to charge that person. This reasoning, followed to its logical conclusion, would make it impossible to prosecute Internet fraud, which is certainly rampant and difficult to prosecute.
But, you see, there is a difference. The government does not aid and abet Internet fraud as a general rule. Prosecuting an Internet fraud case would not be embarrassing for the Obama administration.
Not so for a Pigford fraud case.
The article is stunning — and an incredible vindication of Andrew Breitbart:
I wish to God that Andrew Breitbart were alive to see this. He fought this fight for years, was totally right and never got credit for it.
Andrew’s site actually gets a nod in today’s article:
Public criticism came primarily from conservative news outlets like Breitbart.com and from Congressional conservatives like Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, who described the program as rife with fraud. Few Republicans or Democrats supported him. Asked why, Mr. King said, “Never underestimate the fear of being called a racist.”
The Pigford fraud is not news to you folks. It was featured prominently here in several posts, many by Lee Stranahan, who worked closely with Andrew on the story. You can read the posts by searching the site for Pigford (just hit this link), but in all the coverage, one video stands out in my memory. It was published in this post. When I went to grab the embed code, it had a pitiful 891 views.
The video has to be seen to be believed. It shows someone coaching an audience on how to fill out the paperwork to get their $50,000 check. Watch the video to make your own judgment about the general attitude towards the truth in that room — both on his part, and on the part of the laughing audience. He tells people that there are four questions on the form, and that they must all be answered yes to get a check. He analogizes it to the four bases you must touch to score a run in baseball — and if all the bases aren’t touched, you go back to the dugout, meaning you don’t get a $50,000 check. He carefully explains that if they SAY they tried to farm, they DID attempt to farm, as far as the government is concerned. To call this a “wink and a nod” is being kind.
Excellent article by the New York Times. Congratulations to them, to Andrew Breitbart, and to Lee Stranahan for getting out the truth on this story.
Want to hear the sound of people making a difference on the Pigford story?
I mentioned in a previous post that Allen West had voted no on Rep. Steve King’s amendment to stop Pigford funding. This vote struck me as strange because of Rep. West’s reputation as an opponent of wasteful spending.
Talk show host David Webb asked West about his vote today and Rep. West seems to feel that he made an error in his vote. I watched the ‘lightning round’ of fourty (40!) or so amendments live on C-SPAN and I can see where an honest error is certainly possible. I accept his explanation and appreciate his straightforward answer.
But listen to what Rep. West as soon as Webb asks him about Pigford – he says he’s answered the question about his Pigford many times. And THAT is the sound of the tide turning. Pigford is clearly getting onto people’s radar, thanks to you. If you haven’t done so, please sign the Pigford Petition.
Here’s Rep. West explanation from his newsletter (h/t to Peresphone from Right Scoop’s comments)
FY 2012 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations – On Thursday, June 16, the House approved H.R. 2112 by a vote of 217-203, I voted YES. The bill would provide a total of $17.25 billion in non-emergency, discretionary budget authority in FY 2012 for government programs funded through the Agriculture and Rural Development Appropriations Act. The bill would represent a decrease of $2.67 billion or 13 percent below the FY 2011 funding level and a reduction of $5.03 billion or 22 percent below the President’s request. H.R. 2112 meets and surpasses House Republican’s pledge by bringing discretionary budget authority for Agriculture and related agencies down to nearly FY 2006 spending levels.
There were some 40 amendments to this piece of legislation and there are those who questioned my NO vote on Rep. Steve King’s amendment on Pigford. I accept full responsibility for not doing a complete due diligence and personal research on this amendment. I am mortal and a fallible human being who seeks to do his best daily, and improve as such."
Congressman King reacts to strong showing of Congressional disapproval for settlement program funding unresolved Pigford v. Vilsack claims
Washington D.C.- Congressman Steve King (R-IA) released the following statement after 155 Members of Congress voted in favor of an amendment he offered to the Agriculture Appropriations bill in an attempt to block an additional $1.15 billion in spending allocated for the fraud-plagued Pigford II settlement program.
"The vote on my amendment revealed that 155 Members of Congress are prepared to join me in pulling the plug on funding for unresolved Pigford v. Vilsack claims because of the concerns that have been raised about widespread fraud," said King. "These concerns are well placed."
"How is it possible that Secretary Vilsack can identify 94,000 ‘victims’ of USDA discrimination against black farmers from a total universe of only 18,000 black farmers? The original USDA estimate predicted that 3,000 of 18,000 black farmers would file a discrimination claim. Now, Tom Vilsack and Eric Holder have taken it upon themselves to negotiate a $1.15 billion agreement in Pigford II with the anonymous representatives of a universe of anonymous claimants that has swelled to 94,000. When added to the tab of the Pigford I settlement, this new $1.15 billion agreement brings the total taxpayer funded Pigford payout to $2.3 billion."
"We do not have the list of all the attorneys who are collecting commissions as part of these settlements, but we do have video footage of one of them admitting that 10% of his clients are frauds. Despite this, Secretary Vilsack asserts there are only three cases of fraud in the 94,000 — yet the USDA has not identified, let alone disciplined, a single employee who discriminated against even one of these 94,000."
"We’ve all heard the expression ‘victimless crime’, but now we have ‘crimeless victims’ –- individuals who, without basis for a grievance, claim to be victims even though no one can be identified as having discriminated against them. In light of the strong showing of support for my effort to block funding for Pigford II, the House should now be prepared to initiate a Congressional investigation. The 155 votes my amendment received indicate that the stage has been set for this Congress to investigate Pigford II fraud fully."
And here’s King on the House Floor arguing for the amendment a couple of days ago…
Here’s a chance to stop the Pigford fraud in its tracks – Rep. Steve King (R – IA) has introduced an amendment to halt Pigford Funding. This is about the multi-billion dollar “Black Farmers Settlement” that we’ve been exposing as a fraud for over six months at BigGovernment.com
The last time that King tried to introduce a bill to stop Pigford II funding last year, he was blocked by the Democrat controlled congress and it wasn’t allowed to come up for a vote. Now we have a chance to do the right thing and end the fraud.
Exclusive Interview With Rep. Steve King
How to help stop Pigford fraud in less than five minutes
You can make a difference, right now – this is a vote we can win.
You just need to make 4 quick calls, visit one site and then send and email or a Tweet.
Tell a friend – Tweet, like on Facebook or email a link to this page.
Do it right now – the vote is in the morning. Just leave a message. for your Congressman.
Want more information on Pigford? Share with your friends…
Michele Bachmann speaking at our Pigford Press conference earlier this year; you’ll notice farmer Eddie Slaughter in the background: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKLl8BRn3vY
An interview with Georgia farmer Luscious Abrams, talking about the Pigford Settlement and how it’s hurt the real black farmers:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmjtN5u431I
A short expose about “Dr.” John Boyd, one of the people behind Pigford II – you’ve got to see this to believe it:
Just got this press release…this is a big deal; it’s chance to stop the fraudulent Pigford II funding. I’ll have more information later but the short version is – contact your Congressman!
More on this later…
Congressman King’s amendment to Agriculture Appropriations bill protects taxpayers from additional exposure to Pigford fraud
Washington D.C.- Congressman Steve King (R-IA) released the following statement after filing an amendment today to H.R 2112, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2012, that prevents any funds appropriated under the act from being used to settle claims associated with the controversial and fraud-plagued Pigford II program.
"In the 2008 Farm Bill, Congress limited taxpayers’ exposure to the Pigford IIsettlement program at $100 million, a figure that was deemed sufficient to resolve the racial discrimination claims leveled against the United States Department of Agriculture by black farmers," said King. "Since that time, a lame-duck Democratic Congress agreed to President Obama’s request to pump an additional $1.15 billion into the PigfordII settlement program, doing so even though the program is rife with credible allegations of massive fraud that have not been fully investigated. This was an irresponsible act, and it violated Congress’s responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayers’ money."
"The new majority in the House of Representatives should not ratify the lame-duck Congress’s decision to increase American taxpayers’ exposure toPigford II fraud. I believe that an investigation into the program will reveal that the majority of the claims that have been filed are fraudulent, and Congress should not turn a blind eye to the real possibility that the money is being used primarily to build political goodwill for the President instead of being used to properly redress the much smaller universe of people who have actually suffered harm. If passed, my amendment would put the brakes on PigfordIIfunding, and it would prevent the Secretary of Agriculture from paying fraudulent claims one $50,000 check at a time."
There’s been a lot of media fallout from Andrew Breitbart’s appearance last week on the Fox Business News show Stossel where he confronted Pigford mastermind Al Pires. I’ve already pointed out how Media Matters prevaricator Adam Shah deceptively edited the piece by removing any reference to the black farmers who have been trying to expose Pigford fraud for over a decade. It seems like MMFA actually helped give the story more exposure.
Two things happened that I consider fairly significant.
First, the story was covered last night on The O’Reilly Factor, bringing the story of the Pigford fraud to Bill O’Reilly large audience for the first time. O’Reilly seems to understand that there’s a real story here and although there are certainly points I would’ve made differently had I been a guest (hint hint) the exposure is great.
The other thing is happened is that some large liberal sites have begun to pick up on the story. I’d already mentioned Raw Story but now add Crooks and Liars to the mix. Looking at the statistics on the site it seems that about 8000 people over there watched the C&L edit of the original John Stossel piece.
Now, Crooks and Liars is a site where readers really hate Andrew Breitbart. The headline of their story was " Breitbart gets pwned by ‘Pigford’ attorney, targeted in his latest smear campaign” so they don’t even pretend to be objective in any way.
But a funny thing happened. The performance by Al Pires was so bad that a number of commenters on C&L were actually forced to look beyond their Breitbart hate and realize that Al Pires was actually the one who was ‘pwned’ in this appearance. Here are a few of examples of comments…
It looked like Breitbart did the slapping at the end and I hate the the guy. The lawyer had to sit there and take a beating at the end and that is just a fact.
And
How do you get that Pires came out looking good here? He answers serious questions with insults and when the subject of whether he lied about his compensation comes up he ends the interview. he made Breitbart look sane and reasonable. No mean feat.
And
I’m all for watching Breitbart get the hell knocked out of him, but honestly It looked like they won to me. I see these kinds of posts quite a bit. There are always claims that someone got pwned or really showed them what was what. Really, Stossel and Breitbart won that. That lawyer was effectively set up to look like a money grubbing, snake oil salesman.
I want to see the left beat the lies, but really… this was a huge loss. He presented no real facts and always looked like he was desperately trying to deflect accusations of fraud by Breitbart. I just don’t understand how anyone saw that clip as a "win for the left."
If the right is good at anything, it’s making us look like exactly what they want the narrative to be. They are masters of that.
I consider this a turning point that might actually make a few people on the left start to notice the story and realize that there’s more to it than the lies they are being spoon fed by the USDA and left-wing media.
Media Matters has hit an absolute new all-time low, defending not just the Pigford scam but Pigford’s mastermind, attorney Al Pires. Worst of all, they do it in an article entitled “Stossel Once Again Attacks Black Farmers Who Were Victims Of Discrimination By The Federal Government” and by using video where Media Matters deliberately edited out footage of a black farmer.
This is another in a series of race baiting attacks by Media Matters’s cowardly Adam Shah, who has consistently refused to retract or correct any of the numerous errors he’s made about the Pigford story. Shah has previously defended "Dr." John Boyd and now he’s in bed with Al Pires, too. I have personally offered Shah the phone numbers of farmers like Lucius Abrams and Eddie Slaughter so he can get the facts about Pigford straight from black farmers himself, but Shah is more interested in protecting people like Pires and Boyd, who we have shown are profiting from and victimizing the black community.
To understand the heinousness of what Media Matters in this article, you have to watch the entire segment from a recent John Stossel show that featured Al Pires and Andrew Breitbart. Try to imagine defending Pires and attacking Stossel after you watch this. It’s unfathomable.
Here’s the Media Matters article, which includes numerous screen grabs and then the first minute or so of the piece. But the entire piece included a significant section where black farmer Jimmy Dismuke explains in detail why Pigford is a scam. Media Matters makes no mention of Dismuke and cuts him out of the piece entirely. That’s because they want to be able to claim that Stossel and Breitbart are quote “attacking black farmers” when in fact this entire story came out of complaints FROM black farmers who saw their case being hijacked back in 1999 by Al Pires.
These farmers have been fighting this battle for over a decade to get their story out. Breitbart has only been involved in the story for less than a year. Men like Jimmy Dismuke have called every network, the FBI, politicians and others trying to expose the massive fraud that the USDA has perpetrated on the American people. Anyone doing the slightest amount of research can quickly find concerns that Pigford is a scam that completely predate Breitbart or Stossel’s involvement.
Media Matters is attacking these black farmers who have tried to get this story out for over 10 years. MMfA obviously watched the entire Stossel segment, saw the clip with Dismuke and then made a deliberate and calculated choice to remove all evidence of Dismuke from their piece. Media Matters and Shah have absolutely no credibility on this issue. Further, the reason they did this was to stir up racial animosity as a smokescreen. I’m calling on them to issue a retraction but I’m not holding my breath.
I spend a good deal of time discussing the specifics of the Pigford case but I’d like to step back for a moment and discuss the moral and spiritual aspects of the case.
When I first met Andrew Breitbart, one of the things that struck me in our initial conversations was that he was deeply, viscerally antiracist. This is, of course, exactly the opposite of the story that liberals are constantly pushing where Breitbart is called a race baiter, apologist for racists and a racist himself. One reason that he gets painted this way is that he’s taken the risk that few have in today’s overheated knee-jerk political climate — he actually talks about the subject of race, and specifically the strange situation that African-Americans find themselves in the modern American political landscape,
I spent three months recently on the road in the South and doing interviews about the Pigford case. Almost all of the interviews were with black Americans who have an involvement with the case. I spoke to attorneys, farmers, activists and politicians with a variety of viewpoints. During this trip, I was struck time and again with just how poisonous our political climate has turned our views of race.
And if there’s one aspect of Pigford I consider the most important, it’s how this one case has played a significant role in hurting the state of race relations. When things stagnate, dangers soon follow. Just as stagnant water brings insects and disease, our stagnant politics of race has brought genuine hardships to our entire nation.
I hope that by exposing the mechanics of how the politics of race is played on Pigford, it will help people move closer to the moral ideal of judging men not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I realized before jumping into the Pigford investigation that it was a Gordian knot and I prayed that I would be able to rise to the challenge of explaining it in a way that healed racial division, not exacerbated it.
What I did not know when I started on the road was the extent to which "liberal" groups like Media Matters for America would fight to defend Pigford even when it was clear that the injustices in Pigford were often most unfair to the black community. I naïvely assumed that people on the left would see the unfairness being heaped upon black folks in this case and at least give the facts a fair hearing. Instead, I’ve seen people on left time and again bend over backwards to ignore the truth in Pigford, knowing full well that black farmers are being harmed.
Whenever I debate Pigford with people on the left, I always say “take my word for it”. I’ve offered time and again — talk to the farmers. I’ve offered to give the farmer’s phone numbers to people who attacked the Pigford investigation, because the farmer’s stories are passionate and detailed.
Not once – not one single time I’m aware of — has any critic of the Pigford investigation taken me up on this and spoken to the farmers.
Here’s what eats at me; I can walk away from the Pigford story. At the end of the day, it’s a project for me. But for these farmers, it’s their life. When Pigford defenders like Eric Boehlert and Media Matters, James Rucker and Color of Change, Anderson Cooper, and Ta-Nehisi Coates attack (or worse, ignore) the video interviews with these farmers, it’s really not me or Andrew Breitbart who they are hurting or demeaning – it’s those men who have been trying to bring the truth about Pigford to light for over a decade.
The Pigford story has had a much wider effect because it bolsters the feelings of both black people and white people that our political system is rigged against them. White folks can look askance a system where thousands of black people committed perjury and collected $50,000 checks. Black folks can shake their heads that nothing was done to correct the injustice of the USDA and that white folks like attorney Al Pires made millions. Everybody, black and white, comes away feeling that the dice have been loaded by the other side.
And this is the real moral disaster of Pigford. Those racial tensions that have been stirred up by petty hucksters like "Dr." John Boyd and Thomas Burrell are just a puppet show — a distraction so that politicians from Sanford Bishop to Chuck Grassley to Tom Vilasck to Barack Obama can grease the wheels of the political machine.
At root, Pigford is a story about fraud but it’s a fraud that goes far beyond financial concerns. It’s about the fraud that keeps us separate. It’s about the fraud that is intentionally perpetuated by profiteers and politicians to keep us from recognizing that we must remain vigilant, honest and brave to move beyond the stagnant waters of the entitlement mentality that has only served to keep our brothers and sisters down.
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