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Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) has chosen to go through an ethics trial, like the one lined up for New York Rep. Charles Rangel, rather than accepting charges made by an ethics subcommittee, a source familiar with the process tells POLITICO. The back-to-back trials of a pair of black lawmakers represent an unprecedented use of an ethics adjudication system that has rarely been used by House members accused of breaking House rules. Waters' case revolves around allegations that she improperly intervened with federal regulators to help a bank that her husband owned stock in and on whose board he once served.

As an Arab American, I can empathise with Shirley Sherrod, the Georgia Department of Agriculture official who, last week, after being falsely accused of making anti-white racist comments, was forced to resign from her post. For those who don't know the story, on 19 July a rightwing blogger posted a video excerpt of a speech Sherrod gave to a Georgia NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People) dinner in which she related an event that had occurred 24 years ago. A poor white farmer had come to Sherrod asking for assistance and she told her audience how she...

Had Andrew Breitbart dutifully written a column detailing how an obscure USDA official, Shirley Sherrod, and her husband, Charles Sherrod, had scammed the government out of millions, the story would have had the range and lifespan of a fruit fly. Instead, as the world knows, Breitbart released an edited version of Shirley Sherrod's speech before the NAACP that provoked national headlines and caused the NAACP to denounce her and a panicky Obama administration to fire her from her position as the Georgia Director of Rural Development for the USDA. Then, of course, when the full version of the speech emerged...

Via Ben Smith at Politico, the utterly predictable next step in the swamp that has become the Sherrod story has taken place: Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted an edited video of her making racially tinged remarks last week.The edited video posted by Andrew Breitbart led Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to ask Sherrod to resign, a decision he reconsidered after seeing the entire video of her March speech to a local NAACP group. In the full speech, Sherrod spoke of racial reconciliation and lessons she learned after initially hesitating to...

Howard Dean, continuing to spew lies that Fox News was the reason Shirley Sherrod was fired from excessive coverage, went on MSNBC and claimed Chris Wallace wasn’t being accurate by saying Fox didn’t run one story on Sherrod before she was fired; claiming they pushed the story hard all day. Of course there’s one tiny, little problem with this statement: and that’s the fact that it’s completely false. MSNBC did not correct him. But now Bret Baier has –almost embarrassingly– showing all the programs that aired throughout the entire day on Fox sped up. Shirley’s story was not mentioned until...

Shirley Sherrod: "I think that he [Breitbart] would like to get us struck back in the times of slavery. That's where I think he would like to see all black people end up again." Anderson Cooper: "You think he's racist." Sherrod: "I do."

Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted an edited video of her making racially tinged remarks last week. Sherrod made the announcement in San Diego at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention. The edited video posted by Andrew Breitbart led Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to ask her to resign, a decision he reconsidered after seeing the entire video of her March speech to a local NAACP group. In the full speech, Sherrod spoke of racial reconciliation and lessons she learned after initially hesitating to help a white farmer save...

Secretary Vilsack admitted in a press conference today, "I did not think before I acted." It is clear from Agriculture Secretary Vilsack’s press conference today that he failed to do his job appropriately in his treatment of United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) employee, Shirley Sherrod. Sherrod was fired after her superior, USDA Deputy Under Secretary Cheryl Cook asked Sherrod to pull over on her drive from south Georgia to Athens, Georgia and quit her job after a speech made by Sherrod to the Coffee County NAACP was aired on a Douglas County TV cable access channel and then posted...

AKIE BERMISS: Let us take a minute and think about the amount of time that has elapsed since the first Shirley Sherrod video broke. Just about week ago the media/blogosphere was all a twitter over a video of the Georgia State Director of Rural Development for the United States Department of Agriculture[ speaking at an NAACP function and APPARENTLY confessing to having committed reverse racism. Just a week ago, but of course it seems like ages ago. What are we talking about today? Probably the final death throws of the not-so-important Wikileaks/Afghanistan story, right? I mean, before the Sherrod story...

President Obama is making history by participating in a daytime talk show. But why "The View"? And why now? Though no sitting president has ever appeared on a daytime talk show, when Barack Obama tapes "The View" on Wednesday, it will actually be his second visit with Barbara Walters & Co. The last time "The View" ladies welcomed him, during his 2008 presidential campaign, their questions weren't entirely soft-ball. So why is Obama returning now? And is it a good idea? Here are five takes: (Watch Whoopi Goldberg's announcement) 1. The president is doing PR repair after the Shirley Sherrod...

Newsmaker Shirley Sherrod is set to appear before thousands of journalists on Thursday, July 29 at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Annual Convention in San Diego, Calif. Sherrod has made headlines over the past two weeks for her forced resignation from the U.S. Department of Agriculture after conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted video excerpts of Sherrod's address at a March 2010 NAACP event on his website. The NAACP initially condemned her remarks and U.S. government officials called on her to resign. Upon review of the unedited video in context, the NAACP, White House officials, and Tom Vilsack, the...

The Sherrods have become the gift that just keeps on giving. Despite a liberal media and liberal politicians, talking heads and the activists that would lead you to believe you didn’t really hear what you really heard… or see the reaction from the NAACP that you know for sure that you saw… Shirley Sherrod is back in the spotlight after only a few hours break. But this time, we get to meet Mr. Charles Sherrod through his own video clip giving a speech in January 2010 on the “white man and his Uncle Tom.“ Keep in mind, this speech was...

Do we believe that Sherrod was called and told to pull over and resign and that the White House aided in her ouster, or do we believe what Vilsack said? Given the aforementioned, we can see why the media is trying to spin this as being a case where Fox News website, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck are to blame. But the lady who called Shirley Sherrod never mentioned Fox News website posting of Sherrod's speech or Bill O'Reilly as the reason for her ouster. The lady who called Shirley Sherrod mentioned Glenn Beck's airing of her speech as the...

Even those of us who warned against the "canonization" of Shirley Sherrod didn't expect that right-of-center commentators would propose that her radical manifesto become part of the canon. Yet that's what Peggy Noonan is calling for: " This September, when school begins, we should make [Sherrod's] speech required viewing in the nation's high schools." Gee, can't this wait until February, when Black History Month rolls around? JOHN suggests: Or May Day perhaps, when socialist views are traditionally celebrated?

With recent controversial race topics entering the spotlight, such as the voter intimidation incident and Shirley Sherrod story, the media has been more than willing to open their arms and turn on their cameras to hear the opining of the National Chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Malik Zulu Shabazz. Shabazz has appeared on Fox News, issued a statement through CNN, and done exclusive interviews for various media outlets. The Anti-Defamation League has described Shabazz as anti-Semitic and racist, trying "to recast himself as a serious civil rights leader in recent years by cloaking his bigotry and intolerance in...

A new Sherrod video has surfaced, this one of the sainted Shirley Sherrod's husband Charles making a black separatist speech, reportedly given this past January.The video was published by the Riehl World View blog at YouTube today. Like the infamous BigGovernment.com video of Shirley Sherrod, this video is presented as an excerpt and the precise setting is not given. However, Charles Sherrod's comments are unambiguous in their anti-white, black separatist sentiments.The four-minute-thirty-three-second excerpt, apparently unedited, shows Sherrod talking about the $13 million settlement by the USDA for the racial discrimination lawsuit brought by Sherrod, his wife and their black farmer...

President Obama, who just a few weeks ago said he doesn't have time for TV "theater," will appear on ABC's "The View" Thursday. The show claims it is the first time a sitting president has done daytime TV. It follows a pattern of this presidency I've described often here as: When the going gets rough, the president goes on TV -- often in entertainment venues that guarantee he wil;l be celebrated and can control his message. This visit looks like a direct response bto the criticism he has received for his administration firing USDA worker Shirley Sherrod last week.

Again, how can the NAACP (along with the Obama administration) say that they were "snookered" when the NAACP had the entire video of Shirley Sherrod speaking to the NAACP? Second, why does the Obama administration say on the one hand that Fox News isn't a legitimate news source and that they pay no attention to it, yet they throw Shirley Sherrod under the bus and are involved in her ouster (per what Sherrod said) BEFORE the video clip even makes it onto Fox News?

I am sick of black or liberal racist "activists" branding all conservatives as "racists," I thought that Bush advanced blacks like: Condi Rice and C. Powel, so did the GOP with M. Steele. But I guess according to Shirley Sherrod's theology if a white person is victim of a black person he/she's allowed to be racist against blacks... First they went after the TeaParty to defame all whites as "racists" now it's all conservatives-bashing-fair-game time... Jul 23, 2010 ... Sherrod: Breitbart wants to take us back to the days of slavery. ... It could also be that Anderson Cooper does...

CNN's "Reliable Sources" from Sunday is worth watching. American University's Jane Hall has the best quote, in my opinion: The former Fox contributor said Shirley Sherrod was the victim of "virtual world McCarthyism." I wasn't that disciplined or clever in my comments. I was angry at the attempt to make this story about the Obama administration (I've already stated my objections to how Obama handled the mess), to whitewash the role of Fox in the scandal, and to try to turn the tables on Shirley Sherrod and insist she's wrong to call either Fox or Breitbart "racist." Our conversation quickly...