LARRY HOGAN (R-MD) IS RE-ELECTED, DEFEATS BEN JEALOUS (D)

LARRY HOGAN (R-MD) IS RE-ELECTED, DEFEATS BEN JEALOUS (D):

JEALOUS WAITED TOO LATE TO GAIN MOMENTUM.

DEMS TRIED TO USE FAKE PROVISIONAL BALLOTS & FAKE SAME DAY VOTER REGISTRATION/ BALLOTS & STILL LOST.

WHETHER YOU LIKE HIM OR NOT, HOGAN WON THIS ELECTION FAIRLY.

CONGRATS


Post Sources: The Intercept, NY Times


***** WHY BEN JEALOUS LOST THE MARYLAND GOVERNOR’S RACE


LAST NIGHT, BEN JEALOUS, the Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, lost his race to incumbent Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, 56 percent to 43 percent.

Jealous would have been Maryland’s first African-American governor and was running on one of the most left-wing policy platforms in the country,

Although polls had been showing Hogan with a significant lead for months, progressives hoped a strong blue wave on Election Day could bring about a major upset. After all, Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-1 ratio in Maryland.

But Jealous didn’t lose because he ran on issues like “Medicare for All,” a $15 minimum wage, and legalizing marijuana. In fact, voters in Maryland largely agree with Jealous on his signature policy issues.

A Goucher College survey released in mid-September found that 54 percent of Maryland residents hold a favorable opinion on “Medicare for All” or single-payer health care, with 33 percent holding an unfavorable view. Support for other key parts of Jealous’s plan polled even higher. Seventy-one percent of Marylanders support raising the statewide minimum wage to $15 dollars per hour, with just a quarter of residents against it.

This was actually a substantial jump from February, when Goucher found 66 percent of Marylanders supported the $15 minimum wage. On legalizing marijuana for recreational use, 62 percent of Maryland residents support it, with just one-third opposed.

A Hobbled Campaign

The primary reason Jealous lost is that his campaign couldn’t pull in the necessary funds to compete effectively. Despite winning 22 out of 24 counties in the state’s crowded Democratic primary, the Jealous campaign’s own internal polling revealed that as of July, one-third of Maryland voters, and one-quarter of the state’s Democratic voters, did not know who Jealous was. He had never run for office before, but had earned the teachers union’s endorsement in the primary, which many believe helped secure him his June victory.

Meanwhile, Hogan started out with a big fundraising advantage and a high approval rating. Although Jealous assumed he could turn things around after Labor Day, by then it was too late to change the narrative.

At the end of August, Hogan had $9.4 million to spend for his re-election campaign, compared to Jealous’s mere $385,000. And the gap never closed. In the final two weeks of the campaign, Hogan had almost 12 times more cash than Jealous, or $3.3 million to the Democrat’s $275,000. Few people wanted to donate to a race that seemed uncompetitive, which in turn made it even less competitive as the weeks went on.

While Hogan’s campaign and the Republican Governors Association have blasted negative ads against Jealousnonstop since July, Jealous’s campaign didn’t run its first TV ad until mid-September, and the Democratic Governors Association didn’t run their first ad against Hogan until late October. Jealous couldn’t afford to compete on television, or even really through mailers.

The Jealous campaign understood that it needed to invest more in on-the-ground organizing to make up for the complacency that gripped Democrats in 2014, when Hogan eked out his upset victory. So this year, 70 Democratic organizers were hired to work across the state, compared to 15 field organizers for the state’s Democrat-coordinated campaign in 2014.

But even Jealous supporters noted that his campaign was making it difficult to rally support for his team. On his campaign website, there was nowhere for supporters to order lawn signs, bumper stickers, or other paraphernalia to demonstrate support — unlike on Hogan’s website, where such ordinary purchases were made prominently visible and available. Supporters had to ask around to learn that they had to show up in person at a campaign office to get any swag. That information wasn’t even available on the website.

And while Democratic candidates across the country have been leaning on new media platforms like viral two-minute online-only campaign ads, the Jealous campaign relied predominantly on awkward and less popular tools like Facebook Live.

Lack of Endorsements

The Washington Post has been writing favorably about Hogan for years, so much so that a reader wrote a letter to the editor in June asking, “Seriously, has Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) changed his name? Apparently so, at least according to The Post. In nearly every reference to the governor, The Post’s writers insist on referencing him with a new first name of ‘popular,’ as in the popular Maryland governor.”

As a result, it was unsurprising when the Washington Post gave its endorsement to Hogan, praising him for having the “agility and sense to govern as a moderate — that disappearing breed of American politician.” The Post dismissed Jealous’s plans as mostly “politically unrealistic” and “unwise.” But more staggering was the Baltimore Sun, which endorsed Jealous in the primary but endorsed Hogan in the general election, despite literally acknowledging in its own endorsementthat Hogan’s “actions in office have too often treated [Baltimore] as an afterthought, if not with outright contempt.” (Hogan’s decision to cancel the Red Line light rail, a project that had been in the works for a decade and to which the federal government was going to contribute $900 million, was a disastrously cruel move for the long-neglected city.)

Outside Maryland, the national press was also largely uninterested in Jealous’s general election challenge, especially when compared to the attention paid to Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum, black candidates running to be Georgia’s and Florida’s first African-American governors, respectively. The Maryland race was deemed uncompetitive, and thus less exciting to cover.

During the primary, most of Maryland’s Democratic establishment lined up behind Rushern Baker, the outgoing county executive in Prince George’s County. (Kevin Kamenetz, the county executive for Baltimore County was also a frontrunner, and had raised more money than other candidates in the primary, but he died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest six weeks before the election.)

After Jealous won, several dozen Maryland Democrats announced their support for Hogan, though most were older white men who hadn’t served in office for years. Others had received political appointments from the governor, or had records of supporting Republican candidates in the past.

Jealous did end up securing endorsements from the Democratic Party’s current elected officials, but some were much slower to voice their support, and many remained muted in their enthusiasm. The long-serving state Senate president, Mike Miller, was a prime example. He was guarded in his support for Jealous, while being enthusiastic in his praise for Hogan’s work. Ike Leggett, the outgoing executive of affluent Montgomery County, at first withheld his endorsement of Jealous over tax issues that he said would hurt his wealthy constituents. When he finally did endorse Jealous in in mid-October, he did so in the world’s most half-hearted way. When the Washington Post asked him if Jealous would be a better governor than Hogan, Leggett declined to say yes. “That’s a good question,” he said. “I’m simply for the Democratic nominee.” About 45 percent of Montgomery County ended up voting for Hogan.

It’s unlikely that vocal enthusiasm from Leggett and Miller could have really changed Jealous’s fundraising numbers in a substantial way, but they certainly didn’t help.

Jealous also tamped down enthusiasm from some otherwise natural allies. Despite running on one of the most progressive platforms in the country, he didn’t even try to court some of the newly established Democratic Socialists of America chapters or get their endorsements. He also upset a lot of leftists over the summer, when he disavowed socialism in a way that not even Barack Obama did during the eight years he was blasted for being on the left. After Hogan called Jealous a “far-left socialist” in an interview, a different reporter followed up by asking Jealous if he identified as a socialist. Jealous responded, “Are you fucking kidding me?” The Republican Governors Association funded a TV ad this summer that featured Jealous saying, “Go ahead, call me a socialist,” cutting off the rest of his sentence, in which he went on to say, “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m a venture capitalist.” The Jealous campaign demanded that local stations pull the ad for being false and too misleading.

Larry Hogan Was a Better Campaigner

Hogan’s schtick of acting moderate was largely successful, in part due to the light press coverage his administration has received over the past four years. Over the summer, for example, he earned glowing national headlines by recalling Maryland’s four National Guard troops from the southern U.S. border — thus appearing to be someone willing to stand up to Trump and his family separation policy — but his actual record on immigration was far more hostile and overlooked. Hogan also moved to the left when he felt he needed to politically: In July, he announced a new student debt relief plan and announced he would no longer take donations or an endorsement from the National Rifle Association. In 2014, he took the gun lobby’s money and endorsement, and also received an A- rating.

It also helped that while Maryland voters are generally Democratic, they’re not always very progressive. Fifty-six percent of Marylanders think their state taxes are “too high,” and Hogan spent the bulk of his campaign emphasizing that he’d continue to cut taxes and that Jealous would significantly raise them. While the Jealous campaign was banking on major turnout in the city of Baltimore to push him over the edge, in the end, nearly one-third of Baltimore went for Hogan, up from 22 percent in 2014.

In the Maryland legislature, however, Democrats maintained their veto-proof majority. Republicans had targeted eight Democratic seats and hoped to flip five, but failed. Baltimore’s three largest suburban counties will now also be led by Democrats, with Anne Arundel and Howard counties flipping blue.

Ben Jealous Chokes On NAACP's Endorsement Of Gay Marriage; NAACP Does NOT Speak For All BLACKS!

NAACP president chokes up over support for marriage equality

NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous on Monday became emotional as he spoke to reporters about his organization’s decision to support marriage rights for LGBT couples.

“Our calling as an organization is to defend the U.S. Constitution,” Jealous told reporters during a press conference at the NAACP headquarters on Monday. “We are here to speak to matters of civil law and matters of civil rights.”

The NAACP president added that he wasn’t worried about a backlash from religious members of NAACP over support for marriage equality.

“I’ve spoken to many clergy who feel differently, different sides, different theologies, different doctrines. All are very clear that if this is a difference, it is a difference, not a division. If this is a contrast, it is a contrast, not a conflict.”

“To a one, they understand that they are a well…,” he said, pausing as he choked up.

“You have to excuse me,” Jealous explained, his voice trembling. “I’m a bit moved. My parents own marriage was against the law at the time and they had to return here to Baltimore after getting married in Washington, D.C. And the procession back was mistaken for a funeral procession because it was so quixotic to people to see all these cars with these headlights on, having to go from one city all the way to the next just so they could have a party after they got married in their own home. This is an important day.”

The NAACP announced on Saturday that it had passed a resolution affirming support for same sex marriage rights.

“At a meeting of the 103-year old civil rights group’s board of directors, the organization voted to support marriage equality as a continuation of its historic commitment to equal protection under the law,” a statement said.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional in its 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision. By 2005, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld determined that 7 percent of all marriages in the U.S. were interracial.


Sources: CNN, Fox News, Raw Story

Breitbart & Sherrod Force Obama To Pay Black Farmers $1.15 Billion! Pigford USDA Settlement

Obama Signs Measure Funding Black Farmers Settlement: Pigford vs Glickman


President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed a $1.15 billion measure to fund a settlement initially reached between the Agriculture Department and minority farmers more than a decade ago.

The 1997 Pigford v. Glickman case against the U.S. Agriculture Department over claims of discrimination against black farmers was settled out of court 11 years ago. Under a federal judge's terms dating to 1999, qualified farmers could receive $50,000 each to settle claims of racial bias.

The legislation signed by Obama also funds a separate $3.4 billion settlement reached with the Department of Interior for mishandling Native American trust funds, along with four separate water rights lawsuits brought by Native American tribes.

"It's vindication and justice for black farmers," said John Boyd, founder and president of the National Black Farmers Association, when the bill won congressional approval last month. "This is what I wanted. I wanted a final restitution from the government so the black farmers can move on."

Attorney General Eric Holder has called the settlements "historic" and said they "offer a new relationship between many deserving Americans and the federal agencies that play an important role in their lives," while Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said last month the measure would help his department "move beyond this sad chapter in our history."

Boyd acknowledged that the $50,000 compensation for eligible farmers will far exceed the amounts of individual loans many were denied under discrimination cited in the case. However, he said, no amount of money could properly compensate for the discrimination experienced by black farmers.

"I don't think this is about the money. I think this is about justice," Boyd said.

He rejected claims by Republican critics of the settlement that the claims process was fraudulent.

Vilsack's statement when the bill won congressional approval also rejected the fraud claim, saying, "the bill that passed the Senate and House includes strong protections against waste, fraud, and abuse to ensure integrity of the claims process."













Shirley Sherrod, The Pigford Settlement & Obama’s Andrew Breitbart Smokescreen


(Left Coast Ledger)


Back in July I was one of the first conservatives to criticize Andrew Breitbart for releasing the tape of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod making a seemingly racist comment at a NAACP dinner.

I was wrong.

Not only was Shirley Sherrod not innocent in telling a white farmer to seek “his own kind” for help, but she had a $13 million reason for doing so.

While I still feel Breitbart’s release of the now infamous tape was inappropriately framed, there is no question the NAACP audience in that room reveled in the “his own kind” comment. But, like thousands of other Americans, I still had a nagging question in the back of my head: “Why did they fire Sherrod so quickly and without a hearing?”

My concern wasn’t misplaced.

Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, of all people, provided part of the answer. “This woman has been a thorn in the side of the Agriculture Department for years. She was part of a class-action lawsuit against the department on behalf of black farmers in the South. For years, she has been operating a community activist organization not unlike ACORN.”

The class-action Brown was referring to has become known as the “Pigford Settlement,” and Shirley Sherrod used her “not unlike ACORN” organization to personally profit from that settlement. Shirley Sherrod and her husband received $13 million and she was hired by the USDA for her end of the settlement.

Pigford v. Glickman is one of those stories that reads dry, but at its core is a leviathan of corruption and race-baiting Democratic Party abuse.

Pigford v. Glickman was a class action lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), alleging racial discrimination in its allocation of farm loans and assistance between 1983 and 1997. The lawsuit ended with a settlement in which the U.S. government agreed to pay African American farmers $50,000 each if they had attempted to get USDA help but failed.

In essence Pigford, while originally a legitimate grievance by about 400 black Southern farmers against USDA, has become a reparations Ponzi scheme that will cost taxpayers billions when the Obama orchestrated “resettlement” is paid out. It is rife with fraud, corruption and even murder.

In the end, virtually any black person who ever grew a pansy on their windowsill could file a claim as a farmer. There are no more than 33,000 black farmers in the US; 94,000 have filed claims. And Pigford opened a floodgate of lawsuits by other minorities to settle claimed injustices by the USDA. This week Native Americans who jumped on the bandwagon were awarded $4.55 billion, as well.

This is Pigford II.

Says Breitbart: “It is a classic story of a legitimate grievance by a small group of individuals that has been exploited personal profit and political gain.”

Andrew Breitbart had no knowledge of any of this when he released the Sherrod “His own kind” tape in July, but he had one of the most shocking stories of taxpayer fraud by the horns.

Breitbart’s breaking story, released today, on how this legitimate cause by 400 black farmers was hijacked by scoundrels like Sherrod, is a masterfully crafted exposé of Barack Obama’s blueprint to buy the Southern vote for his upcoming 2012 election bid.

The new GOP Congress should immediately open investigations and should not relent until every single person who participated in this fraud is brought to justice.






Breitbart & Mrs. Sherrod And The $1.25 Billion Pigford II Black Farmers' Settlement


I knew I was going to be whacked hard, but I didn’t know when.

On Thursday, July 15th, I warned NAACP president Ben Jealous to stop the race-baiting. I directed my ire at Jealous on the Scott Hennen radio show:

“I have tapes, a tape, of racism, and it’s an NAACP dinner. You want to play with fire? I have evidence of racism, and it’s coming from the NAACP.”

This was part of an ongoing defense of the Tea Party, and in particular, a volley back against the NAACP for creating a week-long mainstream media-enabled attack built upon the provably false premise that a “mob” of the Tea Partiers hurled racial epithets at Congressmen Andre Carson (D-In) and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga).

“You are manufacturing this in a summer in which the economy is the No. 1 issue affecting blacks and whites in this country,” I said on Hennen’s show. “This country can ill-afford the schism of race to be exploited the way you are, based upon the false premise of the Tea Party being racist… This is absolutely manufactured for political gain.”

My warning to Jealous was received with modest coverage in the conservative blogosphere.

I strongly believed, and still believe, that I had irrefutable evidence that showed the NAACP caught in an act of racism far worse than anything the media and the Democrat Party had attempted to manufacture in a year and a half of relentlessly trying to destroy the Tea Party.

On Monday, July 19th, all hell broke loose.

My 1400-word article featuring two separate video clips of Shirley Sherrod speaking before the NAACP hit the Internet on Big Government. Before the article and clips were analyzed in their entirety and put into its proper context, President Obama via the USDA chief Tom Vilsack, fired Shirley Sherrod.

The story and the videos perfectly hit their intended target — which was the NAACP, not Shirley Sherrod.

Ben Jealous apologized immediately for the NAACP crowd’s positive response to the moment when Sherrod describes one time when she treated a white farmer differently from how she would treat a black one.

My BigGovernment.com story made the target unambiguously clear: “Sherrod’s racist tale is received by the NAACP audience with nodding approval and murmurs of recognition and agreement. Hardly the behavior of the group now holding itself up as the supreme judge of another groups’ racial tolerance.”

“The reaction from many in the audience is disturbing,” Ben Jealous said in an official NAACP statement. “We will be looking into the behavior of NAACP representatives at this local event and take any appropriate action.”

At this stage, Sherrod, too, understood that this was not about her. Before aligning herself with the partisans at the NAACP and the Obama administration, Sherrod rightfully blamed the NAACP saying, “They got into a fight with the Tea Party, and all of this came out as a result of that.”

All of this was put into excruciatingly clear context in a Big Government post, which included the two video clips, both received from an anonymous source who also described in broad strokes that she later sent the farmer to a white lawyer for help.

“Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help,” I wrote. “But she decides that he should get help from ‘one of his own kind.’ She refers him to a white lawyer.”

Jealous and the NAACP had clearly gotten my intended message — those that live in glass houses should not throw stones. And I reveled in knowing that once again I had stopped the media-enabled, venomous, and artificial campaign by the left to destroy the Tea Party on the grounds of alleged racism.

That’s when I got whacked!

The media ignored my 1400-word piece that accompanied the videos and falsely reported over and over (and over and over again, as I recall) that I only “released an intentionally deceptively edited video on the Internet.”

That’s when the activist left and the mainstream media kicked into high gear, falsely framing the story as an intentional hack job meant to hurt Sherrod personally.

The roar of this narrative was almost unanimous although at one point, MSNBC host Chris Matthews came to my defense by pointing out more proof that the media was ignoring the context provided.

Matthews did a segment with guests Howard Dean and Salon editor Joan Walsh where he replayed the clip and focused on Sherrod’s words: “I opened my eyes. I realized it wasn’t about black and white. It was, but it was about other things, about poverty.”

“That part in there about redemptive revelation was actually in the initial tape,” Matthews told Dean, who admitted that he was pontificating on this serious subject without having bothered to have watched the short clip, let alone read the written piece that accompanied it.

Matthews, to his credit, then asked Dean, “Why do you think if this was a complete slime job, why do you think Breitbart kept that in there, Governor? Why did he keep in that part… Why did he put the redemptive part in here at all?”

When that segment aired, news spread and clearly the politically guided producers at MSNBC took notice. Usually “Hardball” airs a repeat of the taped show. In this extraordinary instance, “Hardball” re-taped that one segment with clueless Howard Dean gone. It was an Orwellian moment that affirmed everything I had come to loathe about the Democrat Media Complex. My whacking, facts be damned, was politically and media-wise officially ordained.

Despite the firestorm, there was still an unanswered question — why on God’s green earth was Shirley Sherrod fired?

My 1400-word piece said Sherrod helped the white farmer. The controversial video clip featured the basis for her defense, The President and Tom Vilsack were doubly informed of the whole story by both me and Sherrod herself.

My first clue came, ironically, from the epicenter of Breitbart-hate — MSNBC. It was a week into the controversy. Nation editor Chris Hayes was filling in for Rachel Maddow and reported that I was responsible for black farmers not getting their settlement money.

“Conservative con artist, 1; black farmers, 0,” liberal Journolist Hayes said snarkily.

Black farmers? Settlement money? I had no idea what he was talking about. None.

Later I became aware that on a CNN discussion on “the Sherrod fallout,” April Ryan of Urban Radio Network mentioned the Pigford settlement. Ryan described Pigford as a “litmus test” of the Obama Administration’s relationship with black Americans.

A quick Google search revealed that Ryan and Hayes had been alluding to the incredibly conspicuous news that days after Sherrod was fired by the Obama administration, funding for the $1.15 billion Pigford II settlement was pulled out from a supplementary war funding bill.

The Google search also revealed that Senators Obama and Biden had been two of four Pigford legislative sponsors in the Senate.

Even more interesting, Rep. Steve King (R-Ia), who is on the House Agriculture committee, was on AM radio drawing attention to what was previously not known to me, and it was a blockbuster: Shirley Sherrod, and her husband, Charles, along with their decades-long defunct communal farm, New Communities Inc., were set to receive over a whopping $13 million in the Pigford settlement, the largest amount of money allocated in the history of the Pigford settlement.

California political legend and African American former mayor of San Francisco Willie Brown, of all people, started to connect the dots for me in the San Francisco Chronicle:

As an old pro, though, I know that you don’t fire someone without at least hearing their side of the story unless you want them gone in the first place. This woman has been a thorn in the side of the Agriculture Department for years. She was part of a class-action lawsuit against the department on behalf of black farmers in the South. For years, she has been operating a community activist organization not unlike ACORN. I think there were those in the Agriculture Department who objected to her being hired in the first place.

All of this led to me to wanting to know more about Pigford. My gut instinct to fight back hard and immediately against the charges that I was a racist who had heavily edited videos to do a hit job on Shirley Sherrod. None of that was true, but now I was seeing there was something larger going on behind the scenes and that it somehow related to Pigford.

I started to research Pigford and the more we looked into it, the more I realized that this was not a story that could be researched and told quickly. In fact, it was still unfolding. And even now, it still is.

This coming Wednesday, President Obama is slated to sign the Pigford II settlement.

But that will not be the end of the story. The American people deserve a full investigation and accounting.

Today, we’re releasing a report called “The Pigford Shakedown: How the Black Farmers’ Cause Was Hijacked by Politicians, Trial Lawyers & Community Organizers — Leaving Us With a Billion Dollar Tab.”

What have we discovered about Pigford so far?

Treasure troves of information from Lexis and Google. USDA whistleblowers. A former FBI agent who was on the verge of indictments. One of the originally discriminated-against black farmers with the goods. All these people paint a very clear picture of widespread fraud, and can testify to a complex web of bad players, including politicians, trial attorneys and community organizers.

I stumbled on the Pigford story in my defense of the Tea Party, so it’s a sweet irony that the Pigford story is exactly the kind of mess that makes the Tea Party so necessary. Politicians and trial attorneys bonded together to rip off the taxpayer, and even those farmers that were discriminated against were royally screwed.

Let me be clear, our investigation convincingly leads us to believe the USDA practiced discrimination against black farmers. Those wrongs must be rectified. But Pigford is wrought with a grotesque amount of fraud, while the truly aggrieved were mostly left high and dry.

The Pigford tale is about government run amok. It is also an indictment of the American media that is so blinded by ideology that it missed the big story yet again because taking out a political enemy was far more expedient. And furthermore it is why the American people need the Tea Party and new media as a checks and balances on corrupt politicians and their corrupt journalist counterparts.

Today will be the first of many days that BigGoverment.com will release information, testimony and documents to make the case that, at the very least, the American taxpayer (and ESPECIALLY those legitimately discriminated-against black farmers) need a full accounting of the Pigford I and II settlements.




Shirley Sherrod's Disappearing Act: Not So Fast!

My oh my, that happened quickly. Perhaps too quickly.

Until yesterday, Shirley Sherrod was Georgia Director of Rural Development for the USDA. Earlier in the day at Big Government, Andrew Breitbart put up a video that exposed Ms. Sherrod as someone all too willing to discriminate based on race.

Within hours of the video's release, USDA Director Tom Vilsack announced Sherrod's resignation, and in the process issued an exceptionally strong condemnation ("We are appalled by her actions ... Her actions were shameful ... she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man").

The NAACP, at whose Freedom Fund Banquet Sherrod spoke of her discriminatory posture, and at which the audience seemed to indicate approval of her outlook, followed a short time later, virtually echoing Vilsack.

So I guess we're supposed to forget about Shirley Sherrod from this point forward.

Not just yet. Luckily, she's not going away quietly, and is complaining about Fox News and the Tea Party causing her dismissal. Keep it up, ma’am, because you and the USDA both deserve further scrutiny.

Ms. Sherrod's previous background, the circumstances surrounding her hiring, and the USDA's agenda may all play a part in explaining her sudden departure from the agency. These matters have not received much scrutiny to this point.

An announcement of Ms. Sherrod's July 2009 appointment to her USDA position at ruraldevelopment.org gives off quite a few clues:

RDLN Graduate and Board Vice Chair Shirley Sherrod was appointed Georgia Director for Rural Development by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on July 25. Only days earlier, she learned that New Communities, a group she founded with her husband and other families (see below) has won a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack.

What?

The news that follows at the link, which appears to pre-date the announcement of Ms. Sherrod's appointment, provides further details:

Minority Farm Settlement

Justice Achieved - Congratulations to Shirley and Charles Sherrod!

We have wonderful news regarding the case of New Communities, Inc., the land trust that Shirley and Charles Sherrod established, with other black farm families in the 1960's. At the time, with holdings of almost 6,000 acres, this was the largest tract of black-owned land in the country.

... Over the years, USDA refused to provide loans for farming or irrigation and would not allow New Communities to restructure its loans. Gradually, the group had to fight just to hold on to the land and finally had to wind down operations.

... The cash (settlement) award acknowledges racial discrimination on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the years 1981-85. ... New Communities is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit (Pigford vs Vilsack).

The Pigford matter goes back a long way, and to say the least has a checkered history, as this May 27, 2010 item at Agri-Pulse demonstrates (bolds are mine):

As part of a April 14, 1999 class action case settlement, commonly known as the Pigford case, U.S. taxpayers have already provided over $1 billion in cash, non-credit awards and debt relief to almost 16,000 black farmers who claimed that they were discriminated against by USDA officials as they “farmed or attempted to farm.” In addition, USDA’s Farm Service Agency spent over $166 million on salaries and expenses on this case from 1999-2009, according to agency records.

Members of Congress may approve another $1.15 billion this week to settle cases from what some estimate may be an additional 80,000 African-Americans who have also claimed to have been discriminated against by USDA staff.

... Settling this case is clearly a priority for the White House and USDA. Secretary Vilsack described the funding agreement reached between the Administration and advocates for black farmers early this year as “an important milestone in putting these discriminatory claims behind us for good and in achieving finality for this group of farmers with longstanding grievances."

However, confronted with the skyrocketing federal deficit, more officials are taking a critical look at the billion dollars spent thus far and wondering when these discrimination cases will ever end. Already, the number of people who have been paid and are still seeking payment will likely exceed the 26,785 black farmers who were considered to even be operating back in 1997, according to USDA. That’s the year the case initially began as Pigford v. (then Agriculture Secretary) Glickman and sources predicted that, at most, 3,000 might qualify.

At least one source who is extremely familiar with the issue and who asked to remain anonymous because of potential retribution, says there are a number of legitimate cases who have long been denied their payments and will benefit from the additional funding. But many more appear to have been solicited in an attempt to “game” the Pigford system.

Here are just a few questions about Ms. Sherrod that deserve answers:

* Was Ms. Sherrod's USDA appointment an unspoken condition of her organization's settlement?

* How much "debt forgiveness" is involved in USDA's settlement with New Communities?

* Why were the Sherrods so deserving of a combined $300,000 in "pain and suffering" payments -- amounts that far exceed the average payout thus far to everyone else? ($1.15 billion divided by 16,000 is about $72,000)?

* Given that New Communities wound down its operations so long ago (it appears that this occurred sometime during the late 1980s), what is really being done with that $13 million in settlement money?

Here are a few bigger-picture questions:

* Did Shirley Sherrod resign so quickly because the circumstances of her hiring and the lawsuit settlement with her organization that preceded it might expose some unpleasant truths about her possible and possibly sanctioned conflicts of interest?

* Is USDA worried about the exposure of possible waste, fraud, and abuse in its handling of Pigford?

* Did USDA also dispatch Sherrod hastily because her continued presence, even for another day, might have gotten in the way of settling Pigford matters quickly?

The media and the blogosphere shouldn't be so quick to forget about Shirley Sherrod.




Shirley Sherrod Named Georgia Director of Rural Development

RDLN Graduate and Board Vice Chair Shirley Sherrod was appointed Georgia Director for Rural Development by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on July 25. Only days earlier, she learned that New Communities, a group she founded with her husband and other families (see below) has won a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack.

In announcing the appointment of Shirley and other new officials, Secretary Vilsack said that "These individuals will be important advocates on behalf of rural communities in states throughout the country and help administer the valuable programs and services provided by the USDA that can enhance their economic success."

Shirley is a graduate in the first group of RDLN Leaders and serves as Vice Chair of our Board of Directors.

She earned her master's degree from Antioch through RDLN, has helped orient every group of RDLN participants, and has taken leadership in many other ways. She serves as Georgia lead for both the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund and the Southern Rural Black Women's Initiative (SRBWI).

Minority Farm Settlement

Justice Achieved - Congratulations to Shirley and Charles Sherrod!

We have wonderful news regarding the case of New Communities, Inc., the land trust that Shirley and Charles Sherrod established, with other black farm families in the 1960's. At the time, with holdings of almost 6,000 acres, this was the largest tract of black-owned land in the country. Now with a cash award of historic proportions, the group will be able to begin again.

In 1969, New Communities received a planning grant from OEO and was encouraged to expect substantial funding for implementation, but Governor Maddox would not permit further funds for the group to come into the state.

Nevertheless, New Communities built up farming operations to help retain the land. They had highway frontage where they had a farmers market to sell their crops. They raised hogs and sold the processed meat in a smokehouse they built on the highway. Their sugar cane mill on the highway also attracted customers.

New Communities was ahead of the times in raising eight acres of Muscatine grapes, which are now widely grown in the area. They also farmed 1,500 acres of row crops, including corn, peanuts and soybeans.

Over the years, USDA refused to provide loans for farming or irrigation and would not allow New Communities to restructure its loans. Gradually, the group had to fight just to hold on to the land and finally had to wind down operations.

In 1985, as the land was being lost, Shirley entered the RDLN program. Previously, she had worked behind the scenes, but as she participated in RDLN, she began to realize her capacity as an up-front leader.

She invited the Federation of Southern Cooperatives to sponsor her in the RDLN program, earned her master's degree with a thesis that continues to provide a blueprint for her ongoing work with black farmers and others, helped orient all succeeding groups of RDLN Leaders, and became vice chair of RDLN's Board of Directors.

As you all know, Shirley is Georgia Lead for both the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund and the Southern Rural Black Women's Initiative.

She has also chaired the board of the Farmers Legal Action Group, which has been active in the minority farmers law suit, along with the Federation and other groups. FSC and SRBWI hosted RDLN's National Network Assembly in 2006, during which Network members had a chance to immerse themselves in Civil Rights history, with the guidance of Shirley and Charles (the first field director of SNCC), Albany singers and others, and to visit the economic development projects that have grown out of that Civil Rights history.

The cash award acknowledges racial discrimination on the part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the years 1981-85. (President Reagan abolished the USDA Office of Civil Rights when he became President in 1981.)

New Communities is due to receive approximately $13 million ($8,247,560 for loss of land and $4,241,602 for loss of income; plus $150,000 each to Shirley and Charles for pain and suffering). There may also be an unspecified amount in forgiveness of debt. This is the largest award so far in the minority farmers law suit (Pigford vs Vilsack).

The attorney for New Communities has been Rose Sanders of Chestnut Sanders and Sanders, sister of National Rural Fellows graduate Harold Gaines and Advisor for RDLN Leaders Lillie Fields and Rose Hill.

No one can compensate those involved with New Communities for the difficult history they experienced. The award covers only a few of the years in question. Nevertheless, with these funds, New Communities will be able to start work again -- forty years later -- to realize the promise of their original dream, reconnect with the legacy of the Civil Rights movement, and meet the challenge of the needs and opportunities of the current historical moment.


View Larger Map

Sources: AP, Biggovernment.com, Breitbart TV, CNN, Left Coast Ledger, MSNBC, NY Daily News, Rural Development.org, Washington Examiner, Youtube, Google Maps

NAACP AccusesTea Party Of More Racism Prior To 2010 Elections

NAACP Goes After Tea Party Again


The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People released a new study Wednesday that claims to tie members of the Tea Party to white supremacist groups, anti-immigration organizations, anti-semitic groups and independent militias.

The study, conducted by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights analyzed the membership of six Tea Party organizations in the country.

According to the NAACP, five of the six Tea Party groups are headed by "birthers," people who believe President Obama is not a citizen of the United States.

The study looked at Tea Party literature as well as their websites and information about those associated with the Tea Party movement to analyze their ties. The report claims that Tea Party events are now forums for extremists "hoping to push these (white) protesters toward a more self-conscious and ideological white supremacy."

"These groups and individuals are out there, and we ignore them at our own peril," Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP said in a statement. "They are speaking at Tea Part events, recruiting at rallies… the danger is not that the majority of Tea Party members share their views, but that left unchecked, these extremists might indirectly influence the direction of the Tea Party and therefore the direction of our country."

Amy Kremer, Chairman of the Tea Party Express responded to the report.

"Here we are two weeks out from a historic midterm election and they're doing this to attack us and change the message," Kremer said. "This is ridiculous, that's not what this movement is about. We're focused on the issues and we're going to continue to work to get conservatives elected."

Rev. C.L. Bryant, founder of One Nation Back to God responded on behalf of FreedomWorks, a conservative non-profit grassroots organization that provides much of the logistics and organization behind Tea Party events.

"It is unfortunate that the Chairman of the NAACP, Ben Jealous is making these kinds of statements at this time," Bryant said. "(It is) designed to distract would-be voters from the true issues of this election season to something as divisive as race."

In July the NAACP passed a resolution that condemned what if felt was rampant racism in the Tea Party movement. At the time, Tea Party activists denounced the action as unfounded and unfair as well.









Charges Of Voter Fraud Ignite Accusations Of Racism Against Justice Department, Tea Party


With two weeks to go until Election Day, charges of voter intimidation and voter fraud are flying, and the Justice Department, which has been rocked by accusations of reverse racism in its handling of similar allegations, is likely to take on as many cases as it did in the 2008 presidential year.

The Justice Department is looking into allegations of voter intimidation by poll watchers in predominantly minority neighborhoods in Harris County, Texas, during the first day of early voting. A liberal blog suggested that some of the poll watchers could be members of a local Tea Party group.

But the Justice Department has made clear that its investigation has nothing to do with the Tea Party.

"There is no investigation into any specific political organization, including the Tea Party, at this time regarding this matter," DOJ spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa said in a written statement.

In another set of fly-by charges, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, who is battling to capture President Obama's old U.S. Senate seat in Illinois, accused his Republican opponent, Rep. Mark Kirk, of setting up voter fraud-watch areas in Chicago in an attempt to discourage black voters.

That claim, disputed by Kirk -- he argued that Giannoulias might be the last person in Illinois to think the state doesn't have fraud problems -- could benefit Democrats among an energized urban electorate in a non-presidential cycle likely to be dominated by suburban voters.

Taken together, the complaint and the report shifts the spotlight back on past and current accusations of racism against the Obama administration and the Tea Party movement.

The Justice Department has been fending off charges of reverse racism ever since two former Civil Rights Division attorneys alleged that the department under Attorney General Eric Holder follows a policy of not bringing civil rights charges against black defendants on behalf of white victims.

The Tea Party movement has been repeatedly accused of harboring racist elements ever since some Tea Party activists catcalled U.S. lawmakers, including some minority members, during an anti-'Obamacare' protest on Capitol Hill earlier this year.

Sources: CNN, Fox News

Pres. Obama To Attend NAACP 100th Celebration In NYC

Newsday----

President Barack Obama will visit New York City next month as part of the NAACP's 100th anniversary celebration, the group said Tuesday.

The NAACP, which got its start in a New York City apartment in February 1909, celebrates its centennial next month, from July 11 through July 16.

The six-day conference in New York will feature Obama, who will make his first official visit to the city as the leader of the free world.

"It's humbling to think of the progress made possible by ordinary folks who refused to settle for the world as it was and instead stood up and fought to remake the world as it should be," Obama said in a statement.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined NAACP president Ben Jealous at Cooper Union in Manhattan Tuesday to announce Obama's visit and unveil a plaque honoring the organization. The plaque will hang in the great hall of Cooper Union, site of the organization's first conference.

Obama is the keynote speaker on the final day of the conference. Other speakers include former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Political officials scheduled to attend the event include Gov. David A. Paterson, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) and Bloomberg.

The conference, expected to attract more than 10,000 and generate $7.5 million, is a platform for the national organization to unveil several new programs and its legislative agenda for the upcoming year. The multiracial organization is the country's oldest and largest civil rights group.

The NAACP continues to advocate for civil rights, conduct voter mobilization and monitor equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.

"We gathered here in Cooper Union 100 years ago last month to launch a movement that would transform . . . the entire world," Jealous said.

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have traveled to the city since he became president, but it was not an official visit. They came 11 days ago to catch a Broadway show, a "date night" promise he made to his wife during the presidential campaign.

(Then Senator Barack Obama and Michelle at the 2005 NAACP Awards enjoying "American Idol" winner Fantasia Barrino's performance.)




View Larger Map

Sources: Newsday, NAACP, Flickr, Youtube, Google Maps