The Pigford Scandal — Pigs Feeding at the Taxpayers’ Trough (Open Thread)

© Miri WTPOTUS May 1, 2013

Today is national Everybody Blog about Pigford Day, so WTPOTUS will do its part.  Although we have known about and griped about this scandal for several years, unfortunately most of our fellow citizens, who are on the hook for the payments to these fake farmers, are kept in the dark, deliberately, by the lamestream media.  That held true–at least until, inexplicably, the New York Times finally ran an in-depth story about the scandal, which involved compensating black “farmers” for alleged discrimination by the US Dept. of Agriculture. [emphasis added to quotes]

[A]n examination by The New York Times shows that [an effort to redress discrimination] 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.

From the start, the claims process prompted allegations of widespread fraud and criticism that its very design encouraged people to lie: because relatively few records remained to verify accusations, claimants were not required to present documentary evidence that they had been unfairly treated or had even tried to farm. Agriculture Department reviewers found reams of suspicious claims, from nursery-school-age children and pockets of urban dwellers, sometimes in the same handwriting with nearly identical accounts of discrimination.

Yet those concerns were played down as the compensation effort grew. Though the government has started requiring more evidence to support some claims, even now people who say they were unfairly denied loans can collect up to $50,000 with little documentation.

As a senator, Barack Obama supported expanding compensation for black farmers, and then as president he pressed for $1.15 billion to pay those new claims. Other groups quickly escalated their demands for similar treatment. In a letter to the White House in September 2009, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a leading Hispanic Democrat, threatened to mount a campaign “outside the Beltway” if Hispanic farmers were not compensated.

The late, great Andrew Breitbart covered this growing scandal initially, so he gets much of the credit for exposing this outrage (even from the New York Times)!

Breitbart (the media entity) now leads the way to try to call more attention to this outrageous fraud perpetrated deliberately upon US taxpayers, in what can only be considered back door reparations:

… Sharon LaFraniere’s story is a huge breakthrough because it vindicates all the work of Andrew and the Breitbart News team, confirming the major conclusions we reached and adding new details. 

The New York Times sets the agenda for much of the mainstream media, and it’s already had an effect, but we need your help to keep the momentum going. …

May 1st is a crucial date because corrupt farmers’ settlements for women and Hispanic farmers are STILL open –the claims form is at FarmerClaims.gov–but the deadline for these schemes is May 1st.

And schemes they are, indeed.

May Day. How appropriate for a communist-style fraud to redistribute the wealth of a nation to favored groups, to whom the regime is beholden for its very existence.

The NY Times story reports that one family alone collected a half million dollars in “compensation” by having 10 extended family members file claims.

In another instance, the residents of an entire URBAN apartment building each received payments of $50,000, no questions asked.  Will black women, previously compensated as blacks, now be re-compensated as women?  Don’t be surprised if they are.

No wonder so many Obama voters were ebullient when Obama won in 2008.  They knew; even if we did not suspect.

Remember the woman who famously cried out that now that Obama was president, she wouldn’t have to pay her mortgage any more?  We laughed, thinking she was misguided, if not totally off her rocker.  Perhaps now she’s laughing–all the way to the bank!

Obamaphones, Obamacare, Obamareparations.

We the People are stuck with the bill for this egregious fraud, which was aided and abetted by Obama, Eric Holder’s DOJ, and many members of Congress.

Looting the Treasury on behalf of selected groups of citizens.

If Hispanics also end up getting reparations for pretending to be farmers, would it surprise you to eventually learn that many of those recipients weren’t even US citizens? It’s probably coming …

Reparations for illegal alien “farmers”, too!  Why not?

All things are possible in the Obamanation.

Links to some of our many discussions of Pigford, and related scandals, are here.

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