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Back Door Reparations ? Pigford II - USDA Settlement
TownHall.com ^ | 2/23/2010 | Regis Matejcik

Posted on 02/23/2010 2:54:05 PM PST by crescen7

Last Thursday, February 18th, 2010; the United States Department of Agriculture agreed to pay "Black Farmers" an additional 1.25 billion dollars to settle a previously "settled" class action discrimination suit.

This "settlement" is emblematic of everything wrong with the current state of Government in the United States. It is rife with corruption, crony-ism, racial exploitation, and legislative pandering. If one is to wonder what is the motivating force behind the phenomenon of the Tea Party movement, this case provides a strikingly clear illustration. . . .

. . . In 1997, a class action suit was filed against the USDA claiming racial discrimination in the approval of agricultural loans made by the USDA during the periods of 1983 through 1997. The case was never tried in court. In 1999, the U.S. Justice Department and the USDA agreed to "settle" the discrimination claim by Consent Decree. The Decree identified two "tracks" for filing claims under the decree, a detailed long form, and a "short form" which, upon approval; would confer a $50,000 judgment to the applicant. Amazingly, the burden of proof in adjudication of claims was placed predominantly on the USDA, to show that there was no discrimination...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: obama; pigford; reparations; usda
I stumbled across this issue this past weekend. I hadn't seen any other posts or stories on it, so I dug up as much as I could. The more I found, the uglier the story became. I don't usually pimp my own stuff here, but it doesn't seem like a mere billion dollars in corrupt government activities is worth reporting for "the big guys" these days.
1 posted on 02/23/2010 2:54:05 PM PST by crescen7
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To: crescen7

Any white, hispanic, asian, etc. farmer could probably sue on racial discrimination. This is absurd.


2 posted on 02/23/2010 2:56:08 PM PST by RobRoy (The US today: Revelation 18:4)
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To: crescen7

Isn’t this like what ACORN and others did to the mortgage loan business????


3 posted on 02/23/2010 2:57:31 PM PST by goodnesswins (Tagline, oh, tagline, whereart thou tagline....)
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To: crescen7

It is all about reparations.


4 posted on 02/23/2010 2:58:54 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

Ping to the top.


5 posted on 02/23/2010 3:19:09 PM PST by justrepublican (Screaming like a keynote speaker at a Wellstone memorial...............)
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To: RobRoy

Yeah, and it seems that they are. But this seems particularly irritating because they already SETTLED the suit 10 years ago, then re-opened it in the 2008 Farm Bill so that they could pay another 70,000 people 50K each - that probably never even farmed, let alone applied for a USDA loan.


6 posted on 02/23/2010 3:19:24 PM PST by crescen7 (game on)
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To: crescen7

You elect a hybrid with 95% black vote , you get this, and you are surprised?


7 posted on 02/23/2010 3:21:12 PM PST by Venturer
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To: Venturer

True, but what happened to the good ole days when people at least hid their corruption rather than bragged about it?


8 posted on 02/23/2010 3:28:29 PM PST by crescen7 (game on)
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To: goodnesswins

“Isn’t this like what ACORN and others did to the mortgage loan business????”

Sort of, only more brazen. These people never even really applied for loans, nor did they take out loans after the settlement. They just took 50K each for “discrimination”.

That 50K was paid out over 14,000 times under the OLD settlement. Now that the settlement has been discarded their are 71,000 new pending claims of discrimination.

There were only about 25,000 total black farms in existence during the period of the claims. So total claims of racist discrimination exceed the total farms by 4 to 1. What’s more, only 200 of the claimants ever went on to apply for a loan with the USDA again.


9 posted on 02/23/2010 3:34:09 PM PST by crescen7 (game on)
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To: crescen7

>>...they already SETTLED the suit 10 years ago...<<

Yeah, but they do not have the authority to allow the government to discriminate merely by “saying” they were wrong regarding a lawsuit. This is clear and undeniable racial discrimination absolutely prohibited by the Constitution.

If particular parties can prove they were discriminated against, then they each, individually have a case, but that’s as far as it goes.


10 posted on 02/23/2010 3:44:37 PM PST by RobRoy (The US today: Revelation 18:4)
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To: crescen7

..those that got turned down for loans did not meet credit standards...what next?...cash for any black that got turned down for a home loan?....or any black that got forclosed on their house?....if only my ancestors had picked their own cotton!!


11 posted on 02/23/2010 3:47:38 PM PST by STONEWALLS
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To: crescen7

2/19/2010

http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaLatest.htm#reparations


12 posted on 02/23/2010 4:09:30 PM PST by Beckwith (A "natural born citizen" -- two American citizen parents and born in the USA.)
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To: STONEWALLS

A major reason the case was “re-opened” was because the National Black Farmers Association claimed that many of those wrongly denied credit were illiterate and therefore unaware of the filing deadline for claims.

Not even a single thought that maybe being ILLITERATE was a reason to be denied a loan.


13 posted on 02/23/2010 4:10:55 PM PST by crescen7 (game on)
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To: crescen7

This type of corruption will get him that 95% vote again.


14 posted on 02/24/2010 2:46:40 AM PST by Venturer
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To: crescen7

Never heard a word about this on Rush, Fox News or on the CAGW site. It may be up now but this needs to be sent out in mass emails and to the media. Even if we have to write letters to the editor.
When he told Joe the Plumber he was for redistribution of wealth he meant he was going to steal from whitey to satisfy the black man? either we are equal or we are not...which is it?


15 posted on 02/24/2010 9:34:39 AM PST by katiedidit1
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To: katiedidit1

Obviously I agree, and I’m relieved that at least one person shares my sense of outrage at this openly corrupt governmental theft. You may be able to see from most of the comments, even here at free republic, that most seem to be willing to tolerate this level of obvious criminality.

I’ve emailed the blog post, the video link, and an email re-cap to Rush, and many others. Nobody seems to be interested. Rush has used my stuff before, even directly quoted me for a couple days - but this one seems to be DOA.

It might help if you follow up by emailing links to the original blog post to all the folks you mentioned. They tend to notice if it comes up from more than one source.


16 posted on 02/24/2010 11:33:52 AM PST by crescen7 (game on)
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To: crescen7

Forwarded the info to Rush, Fox and CAGW. Now it is “wait and see” if they mention it. I was very surprised that the Citizens Against Government Waste site didnt have it up. They are excellent at posting waste, fraud and excess spending for whatever purpose.
Also, sent it out in a mass email.


17 posted on 02/24/2010 1:28:04 PM PST by katiedidit1
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