Althouse: "They were trying to show that my intention was to get Pigford defunded."

December 9, 2010

"They were trying to show that my intention was to get Pigford defunded."

"And, I had never heard of Pigford, so for the last four and half months, all I’ve been doing is eating, breathing, sleeping Pigford, researching Pigford, finding whistleblowers who are hiding in plain sight who have been wanting to tell the story of how this was rigged."

25 comments:

garage mahal said...: Breitbart sleeping with pigs? Sounds about right.; 12/9/10, 10:10 AM
kent said...: namely how 400 black farmers in a class action suit ballooned to over 90,000 claimants when even one of the most energetic advocates for Pigford, John Boyd, founder of the National Black Farmers Association, has admitted that there are only 18,000 black farmers in the country.

"Hope! Change! PRAGMATISM -- !!!"; 12/9/10, 10:10 AM
Anonymous said...: This is reparations pure and simple and utterly disgusting.; 12/9/10, 10:12 AM
Anonymous said...: There's that mysterious government hand in your pocket again.

Your department of agriculture was racist in administering a program your congressmen voted for so now your tax dollars must pay for your implicit mistake.; 12/9/10, 10:21 AM
Triangle Man said...: "Hope! Change! PRAGMATISM -- !!!"

Wrong decade Kent!; 12/9/10, 10:26 AM
Fen said...: Garage: Breitbart sleeping with pigs? Sounds about right.

Shirley Sherrod made the same points.

But then she didn't show proper respect for Saint Elizabeth, so I'm sure you'll damn her along with Hitler and fantasize about pissing on her grave.; 12/9/10, 10:27 AM
Unknown said...: What Not Your Typical said. This thing isn't even subtle. I read where one "farmer" applied 9 times.

PS You can tell Breitbart, like Miss Sarah, is hitting the Lefties where they live.; 12/9/10, 10:29 AM
john said...: So garage, does a $13 million payment to Sherrod and her husband - before the settlement - and a USDA position for her to allocate the rest of the Pigford billions, assuage your white liberal guilt?; 12/9/10, 10:29 AM
pm317 said...: Being pragmatic about getting AA votes! I think Obama sponsored that bill when he was a senator. I also read somewhere that there was a settlement for a small number of farmers during Clinton years but apparently that was not enough.; 12/9/10, 10:32 AM
garage mahal said...: So garage, does a $13 million payment to Sherrod and her husband - before the settlement - and a USDA position for her to allocate the rest of the Pigford billions, assuage your white liberal guilt?

Why aren't you asking Chuck Grassley?

“When I first started working on this issue, I had hoped to resolve these civil rights issues through the administrative process,” Grassley explained in a prepared statement. “I knew that if we had to pass legislation, it would take years. As we’ve seen, the legislative process did take years, but these farmers who were wronged by our own federal government agency will now, once President [Barack] Obama signs the bill, finally be able to plead their case in front of a neutral party and be judged on the merits.”.; 12/9/10, 10:50 AM
Phil 314 said...: I saw this earlier. If this was his ultimate intention then he blew. He can only preach to the choir now. Pajamas Media had opportunities with the ACORN videos and other good stuff. But they just blew it. They didn't fully appreciate O'Keefe's skills and deficits; they didn't understand how releasing the Sherrod video would play out.

I just think Breitbart's "edge" gets in the way of his goals.; 12/9/10, 10:53 AM
Phil 314 said...: Mr. Breitbart, is this any way to run a news website?; 12/9/10, 10:56 AM
Hagar said...: I do not know where this $13 million figure comes from. If I remember correctly, the Sherrods got an additional $350,000 for some specific abuse they had suffered as the leaders of a group of, I think, 160 black farmers that was awarded $50,000 apiece.

I have not seen it stated anywhere that the Sherrods have had anything to do with the Pigford settlement taking on a life of its own and expanding to now 90,000black "farmers" according to this article.; 12/9/10, 11:00 AM
David said...: That Pigford got funded pretty much tells you how serious the Congress critters are about reducing the deficit.

Wait 'til you see the little baubles they add to the tax bill to get it passed. These baubles will outspend Pigford.; 12/9/10, 11:50 AM
The Drill SGT said...: Quayle said...
Your department of agriculture was racist in administering a program your congressmen voted for so now your tax dollars must pay for your implicit mistake.

I guess I'm old fashioned in that I'd like to see some basic personal accountability here.

If we pay out a couple of Billion dollars (Pigford I and II) to pay for a lot of evilness done by the USDA, then, I want to see some heads roll, yet not one USDA county agent ever got fired. Many of these folks have moved up higher at USDA, but nothing happened.

If the USDA done wrong, then I want to see some ass kicked...; 12/9/10, 11:52 AM
Larry J said...: Sadly, some black farmers were harmed by racial discrimination at the Department of Agriculture. Compensation for them is fair and just. In typical government fashion, those guilty of wrongful discrimination will suffer no consequences.

Hold government officials personally responsible for their actions? Why, that's just crazy talk! No, we'll have the American taxpayers pick up the tab and let those who did the damage go about their business.

As for the 90,000 number, that's yet another example of government inepitude at preventing wholesale fraud.; 12/9/10, 11:56 AM
nobody said...: "Breitbart released a now infamous video of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) official Shirley Sherrod’s speech before the NAACP describing how she had discriminated against a white farmer. Her comments were met with nodding approval by the members of the audience."

Total bullshit.

William Saletan:

"Breitbart's followers have parroted this indictment in messages to numerous media outlets, including National Review and Slate. But is it true? Let's look at the video. The key section starts around 16 minutes in. I'll quote the speech and describe the reactions from the audience, to the extent I can discern them. You can check my version by listening to the audio as you follow along. Here's Sherrod:

"When I made that commitment, I was making that commitment to black people, and to black people only. [Pause. Silence.] But, you know, God will show you things, and He'll put things in your path so that—that you realize that the struggle [Audience: Alright] is really about poor people. [Audience: Alright, alright.]

"Racial appeal met with silence; non-racial appeal met with approval. Sherrod's next words:

"You know, the first time I was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm, he—he took a long time talking, but he was trying to show me he was superior to me. [Audience: Alright. Murmurs.] I know what he was doing. [Audience: Alright.] But he had come to me for help. [Audience: Amen.] What he didn't know, while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me, was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him. [Laughter.]

"The audience seems sympathetic to Sherrod's resentment of the farmer's arrogance, as she perceived it. How should we interpret the laughter? Is it laughter at her power to withhold help from a white man? Or is it laughter at her power to withhold help from a guy with an attitude? The evidence so far suggests the latter: The audience has embraced an appeal for "poor people," shunned an appeal for "black people only," and given Sherrod her only Amen when she noted that despite the farmer's attitude, "he had come to me for help." But let's keep listening.

"I was struggling with the fact that so many black people have lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. [Audience: Mm-hm.] So, I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. [Sherrod smiles and pauses. There's a single staccato noise somewhere in the room. No words, no laughter.] I did enough so that when he—I assumed the Department of Agriculture had sent him to me, either that or the Georgia Department of Agriculture. And he needed to go back and report that I did try to help him. [Pause. Silence.]

"This time, Sherrod has mentioned only the farmer's race, not his attitude. She delivers the crucial line—"So, I didn't give him the full force of what I could do"—with a smile and a wry tone that invites any racist to laugh or blurt out approval. But she gets nothing. I had to listen to this clip more than a dozen times before I realized that the "applause" Breitbart describes could only be the staccato noise. To interpret this as applause, you would have to believe that a single person, representing an otherwise silent audience, suddenly decided to change the congregation's language of affirmation from call-and-response to clapping—and just as suddenly, after a single stroke, decided to stop."; 12/9/10, 1:13 PM
nobody said...: "Breitbart released a now infamous video of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) official Shirley Sherrod’s speech before the NAACP describing how she had discriminated against a white farmer. Her comments were met with nodding approval by the members of the audience."

Total bullshit.

William Saletan:

"This time, Sherrod has mentioned only the farmer's race, not his attitude. She delivers the crucial line—"So, I didn't give him the full force of what I could do"—with a smile and a wry tone that invites any racist to laugh or blurt out approval. But she gets nothing. I had to listen to this clip more than a dozen times before I realized that the "applause" Breitbart describes could only be the staccato noise. To interpret this as applause, you would have to believe that a single person, representing an otherwise silent audience, suddenly decided to change the congregation's language of affirmation from call-and-response to clapping—and just as suddenly, after a single stroke, decided to stop."

http://www.slate.com/id/2261552/pagenum/all/#p2; 12/9/10, 1:14 PM
nobody said...: "So, let's review the Breitbart gang's allegations:

"When … she expresses a discriminatory attitude towards white people, the audience responds with applause. False.

"The NAACP … is cheering on a person describing a white person as the other. False.

"The NAACP audience seemed to have approved of her actions when she talked about not helping the white farmer. False.

"They weren't cheering redemption; they were cheering discrimination. False.

"As Ms. Sherrod recounted the first part of her parable, how she declined to do everything she could for the farmer because of his race, the audience responded in approval. False."

[...]

"...with the full video in hand and posted on their Web site, they're lying about the reaction of the NAACP audience."; 12/9/10, 1:16 PM
nobody said...: Oh, my longer first attempt was posted after all. Sorry for the double post.; 12/9/10, 1:18 PM
Hagar said...: Correction. The Sherrods' $350,000 apparently is $50,000 as part of the original Pigford settlement and $300,000 for some additional misbehavior they were subjected to by the USDA.

There apparently has been a payout of $13 million, but note that this is too much for the Sherrods' immediate group and not enough for the entire 400 of the original suit ($20 million).

There is still no explanation for the now 80-90,000 claimants and $2 billion+ debated in Congress.; 12/9/10, 1:39 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I don't think that this is going away anytime soon.

I don't disagree that the USDA treated a bunch of small black farmers badly. But, as Breitbart pointed out, is likely has nothing to do with skin color, and everything to do with the fact that they were small farmers.

And, like AB, I think that the small number (likely less than the 400) of farmers who were actually harmed by the USDA should be made whole. The suit, and settlement, should better have been for the benefit of small farmers in general, or at least a lot of them, of all colors, national origin, and sex (or gender) (and, yes, apparently, there is a new suit based on gender too).

BUT, that is not what the Pigford settlement is about. The multibillions to 90,000 or so claimants is pure political payoff, and in this case, the stench comes right out of the White House. It appears right now that their DoJ agreed to the deal in an almost direct payoff to support given Obama in his 2008 primary campaign.

The stench gets worse, with Mike Espy, the African-American USDA Secretary when some of this was supposedly happening, being one of people soliciting for claimants to a lawsuit that partially concerns actions of his department while he headed it.; 12/9/10, 2:38 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: The other interesting thing about Pigford is that it appears, from Brietbart's point of view, that the MSM in particular grossly overreacted to his original article about Sherrod, and kept it in the news cycle for much longer than they normally would have.

Now, he believes that the reason that so many people got so hot about the subject is that they were worried that he might have gotten the payout to the 90,000 alleged farmers defunded, esp. if anyone asked too many questions. Now, that the funding has been apparently signed into law, the pressure is off.; 12/9/10, 2:55 PM
Big Mike said...: I've got an idea. Let's take all of the claimants and make them be small farmers for two whole years. They only get their money if they're still farming after 24 months.; 12/9/10, 9:21 PM
Fen said...: So, let's review the Breitbart gang's allegations:

When … she expresses a discriminatory attitude towards white people, the audience responds with applause. True.

The NAACP … is cheering on a person describing a white person as the other. True.

The NAACP audience seemed to have approved of her actions when she talked about not helping the white farmer. True.

They weren't cheering redemption; they were cheering discrimination. True.

As Ms. Sherrod recounted the first part of her parable, how she declined to do everything she could for the farmer because of his race, the audience responded in approval. True.

[...]

Wow. This argument by assertion is easier than I thought.; 12/9/10, 11:12 PM