Andrew Breitbart, the conservative firebrand and new media pioneer who died suddenly at just 43, had told friends he was poised to take his jihad against the Left deeper into the mainstream media with a regular show on CNN.
Last weekend, Breitbart told friends he was in early talks with CNN about a Crossfire-style show in which he would argue from the Right alongside former US House representative Anthony Weiner taking him on from the Left.
Such a show could have been a blockbuster. In what was perhaps his finest hour, Breitbart was the man who ended the political career of Weiner by revealing that the married congressman he had sent lewd photographs sent to young women via Twitter.
Articulate, outspoken and - before his fall from grace - a darling of the Left, Weiner was one of the few liberals who might have given Breitbart a run for his money.
It would also have been a dramatic move for CNN, which previously brought in disgraced Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as New York governor after his trysts with a high-end prostitute were revealed, for a show that was subsequently dropped.
Separately, Breitbart had been asked last Friday by Hollywood screenwriter ans producer Aaron Sorkin about how he might be portrayed in Sorkin's new HBO series The Newsroom, about the inner workings of a cable news network.
Sorkin told me via email: 'I e-mailed Andrew last Friday because the episode of The Newsroom I'm currently writing takes place during the week the Anthony Weiner photos were in the news.
'Andrew and I had struck up a friendly e-mail relationship and so I reached out to ask him if he could give me a timeline of the events from his point of view. I got a quick response -'I'm in' - and we were supposed to meet for coffee at the end of the day today [Thursday].'
Sorkin said that the coffee would have been 'about Andrew shedding any new light on the Anthony Weiner incident' and 'we'll likely see shards of Andrew during his various appearances that week' in news footage from that time.
Confidants of Breitbart say he had some reservations about a CNN show but would probably have signed up for it. He was intrigued by the notion of a show with Weiner, believing it could be a vehicle for real discussion of ideas.
Edie Emery, spokeswoman for CNN, said that CNN had no comment.
I first met Breitbart in 2007, when he was still working in relative obscurity for the Drudge Report. Engaging and irrepressible, he had a passion for taking on liberals and delighted in doing so from his native Los Angeles, which he viewed as the belly of the beast.
Working from the basement of his home in Brentwood, he would post stories on the Drudge Report that would be read by millions and help shape the media narrative. In each pretty much each corner of virtually every room was some kind of Apple device so that he would always be connected to the world outside.
He was proud that the house was right next to the LA National Cemetery, where many American troops were buried and military funerals were often held. He told me that his real estate agent had told him the proximity to the cemetery meant the house was worth less but to him it increased its value.
Although he saw the mainstream media as the enemy, he understood it and knew many of its main players. This enabled him to use the media, sometimes from with, as well as oppose it. I remember him telling me that the internet had been invented for him because is provided an outlet for his Attention Deficit Disorder, with which he had been diagnosed.
Shortly afterwards, Breitbart burst onto the national scene, leaving Drudge to set up his Big Government websites. Almost overnight, he became a conservative megastar.
The next time I saw him in LA was last September, when we met for drinks at Barney's Beanery in Westwood with mutual friends. By this time, one of the weapons he used to fight the Left was Twitter. As he approached, wearing a t-shirt from a Tea Party group he had spoken to, he was walking and tweeting.
Although he could come across as an angry figure, particularly when on the defensive on television, the reality was that Breitbart loved life and had an immense capacity for humour and mischief. Adopted by a secular Jewish couple, he had grown up holding conventional political views (his natural father was an Irish musician; he knew who his birth parents were but had no interest in meeting them).
Despite his fearlessness, he was also a sensitive soul and a very affectionate husband to Susie and father of four. He gloried in his battles, re-tweeting the vilest things said about him to shame and expose their authors.
But he told me that he had wondered about the effect of his public persona when his son had been upset relating how a school friend had said to him: 'My father says that your father is evil'.
But Breitbart was happy to have made a hundred new friends for every friend he had lost because of his new celebrity as a Right-winger.
That night, he recounted how he had received an agonised - and completely unsolicited - email from a college friend who had explained at great length why he could no longer be his friend. Breitbart laughed at the presumptuousness of the whole thing and how he had replied with two words: 'Oh well.'
He also said that night that he had recently gone to the hospital emergency room with a tightness in his chest. When a nurse had 'freaked out' at how high his blood pressure was, he had responded: 'Don't tell me that - you'll make it even higher.'
Breitbart had looked overweight and stressed that night. I and the others with us told him he needed to ease up on his insane travel schedule and he talked about trying to exercise more, taking downtime with his family and getting a personal assistant to take charge of his diary.
But he always seemed to be on Twitter, on TV, on the phone or on a plane - and sometimes seemingly two or three of these at once. A few months ago, he set up a part-time base on Capitol Hill, spending time in Washington working out of a wonderfully kitsch historic house decorated by a rich Egyptian and right next to the US Supreme Court.
I last saw Breitbart on Saturday in Troy, Michigan. He was appearing at the Tea Party-linked Americans For Prosperity conference, where Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney also spoke. That morning, he had uncharacteristically slept in until 10am and there had been a panic about where he was.
During his speech, however, he was on vintage form, describing Barack Obama as 'the metronome' and his allies as 'the alligators'. He declared proudly: 'I'm out there fighting with the metronome.
I'm out there fighting with the alligators.' At another point, he said: 'I'm fighting these people as hard as I can. They're totalitarians.'
He urged conservatives to 'stop acting like Leftists' in denouncing those who backed Republican candidates who might not pass this or that purity test and said it was essential to get behind whoever was the nominee.
As usual, he was extremely funny, joking about how he had shaved his stubble and cut his hair after Occupy people said that 'I look like a bum'. In describing an anti-Republican media narrative designed to divert attention from unemployment and gas prices by highlighting social issues, he said: 'I have four children.
I took care of the thing down there. Contraception's not in the top two billion things in my world.'
He branded MSNBC 'race card television' and that if a conservative said 'gymnasium' on television, the response would be: ''Gym' originates in antebellum South Carolina.
You're all racist!'
The next day, he took a car to Detroit airport with filmmaker Ann McElhinney, another speaker and a close friend. As he got in, he told her: 'I feel awful. I feel really bad.' She put it down to a hangover.
In the car, they discussed Aaron Sorkin - on Friday night, he had shown her the email from Sorkin - and the prospect of a CNN with Weiner. Breitbart felt that such a CNN show would rehabilitate Weiner but he wanted to ensure it would be serious and would involve going out and talking to real people as well as back-and-forth in the studio.
They talked about Fox News, which Breitbart felt was stuck in the past with too many blonde presenters and outdated formats. One of the journalists he admired most, he said, was Dana Loesch, who worked for him as Big Government and is now also CNN contributor.
He described her as a 'warrior princess', effective because she was cool and modern.
Breitbart thought that the Left feared people like Loesch most because she was an attractive, engaging, hip person who did not fit the stereotype of dour, fusty conservative. Essentially, the same thing could have been said about him.
One of Breibart's central arguments was that conservatives had allowed themselves to be excluded from popular culture - film, television, music, even art. He was a central figure in the largely undercover world of Hollywood conservatism.
At the end of his speech in Troy, he said that conservatives would have to endure the race card and the 'fairness' card being played against them in the coming election. 'This is warfare. They're at war with you and the very idea that you're still here shows that the Tea Party mindset is alive and kicking.'
Who would have thought that the fiercest and most formidable conservative warrior of all was about to leave the battlefield.
Andrew Breitbart, a Conservative Blogger is DEAD at 43 Supposedly from "Natural Causes".
He later launched his own Successful site: "Big Government".
Call me Crazy or Call me a "Conspiracy Theorist" (I'm NOT) but I truly believe Andrew Breitbart Knew Something. Something that could upset the 2012 Election.
He was probably getting ready to expose what he knew & now Suddenly he ends up DEAD in Los Angeles at 43. NOT A Coincidence!
Even if Breitbart was a Pain-in-the-butt Politically for Liberals, GOP Establishment Leaders & some Conservatives, he still had the right of Freedom of the Press.
Someone on Twitter wanted to know if former Congressman Anthony Weiner is happy Andrew Breitbart is Dead.
I seriously doubt Anthony Weiner will issue a Public Statement Celebrating Breitbart's Death despite what he did to him.
On a Personal level, I am NOT happy to see Anyone Die regardless of what they have done because I'm NOT God.
I'm telling ya'll Los Angeles is Corrupt! This includes LAPD & the Coroner's Office.
When Powerful People want to get rid of Someone In the Political or Entertainment Arena, for the past several years their deaths have occurred in Los Angeles.
The Cause of Death is Always Mysterious and listed as Natural Causes, Suicide or Prescription Drug Overdose.
As this Election closes in, the American People are going to see even more Strange Things Occurring. I Suggest We ALL Begin to Pray.
Andrew Breitbart, the noted conservative Internet publisher and author, has died. He was 43.
A statement posted on his website said that Breitbart died "unexpectedly from natural causes" this morning.
The Los Angeles Coroner's Office confirmed to ABC News Radio that Breitbart died shortly after midnight at UCLA Medical Center.
The following statement was posted on Breitbart's website today:
"With a terrible feeling of pain and loss we announce the passing of Andrew Breitbart. We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.
Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love.
Andrew recently wrote a new conclusion to his book, Righteous Indignation:
'I love my job. I love fighting for what I believe in. I love having fun while doing it. I love reporting stories that the Complex refuses to report. I love fighting back, I love finding allies, and—famously—I enjoy making enemies.
Three years ago, I was mostly a behind-the-scenes guy who linked to stuff on a very popular website. I always wondered what it would be like to enter the public realm to fight for what I believe in. I've lost friends, perhaps dozens. But I've gained hundreds, thousands—who knows?—of allies. At the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror, and I sleep very well at night.'
Andrew is at rest, yet the happy warrior lives on, in each of us."
A conservative blogger and journalist, Breitbart helped launch the Huffington Post and was an editor at the Drudge Report.
He also founded his own news network, acting as the publisher of several news websites including Breitbart.com, Breitbart.tv, Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism and Big Peace.
Big Government broke the ACORN child sex trafficking scandal and also, in 2011, the "Weinergate" photo scandal that led to the resignation of New York Rep. Anthony Weiner.
Breitbert was known for publishing controversial exposes and wrote a best-selling critique of celebrity culture, "Hollywood, Interrupted." His newest book "Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!" was on the New York Times bestseller list.
He later launched his own Successful site: "Big Government".
Call me Crazy or Call me a "Conspiracy Theorist" (I'm NOT) but I truly believe Andrew Breitbart Knew Something. Something that could upset the 2012 Election.
He was probably getting ready to expose what he knew & now Suddenly he ends up DEAD in Los Angeles at 43. NOT A Coincidence!
Even if Breitbart was a Pain-in-the-butt Politically for Liberals, GOP Establishment Leaders & some Conservatives, he still had the right of Freedom of the Press.
Someone on Twitter wanted to know if former Congressman Anthony Weiner is happy Andrew Breitbart is Dead.
I seriously doubt Anthony Weiner will issue a Public Statement Celebrating Breitbart's Death despite what he did to him.
On a Personal level, I am NOT happy to see Anyone Die regardless of what they have done because I'm NOT God.
I'm telling ya'll Los Angeles is Corrupt! This includes LAPD & the Coroner's Office.
When Powerful People want to get rid of Someone In the Political or Entertainment Arena, for the past several years their deaths have occurred in Los Angeles.
The Cause of Death is Always Mysterious and listed as Natural Causes, Suicide or Prescription Drug Overdose.
As this Election closes in, the American People are going to see even more Strange Things Occurring.
Andrew Breitbart, the noted conservative Internet publisher and author, has died. He was 43.
A statement posted on his website said that Breitbart died "unexpectedly from natural causes" this morning.
The Los Angeles Coroner's Office confirmed to ABC News Radio that Breitbart died shortly after midnight at UCLA Medical Center.
The following statement was posted on Breitbart's website today:
"With a terrible feeling of pain and loss we announce the passing of Andrew Breitbart. We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.
Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love.
Andrew recently wrote a new conclusion to his book, Righteous Indignation:
'I love my job. I love fighting for what I believe in. I love having fun while doing it. I love reporting stories that the Complex refuses to report. I love fighting back, I love finding allies, and—famously—I enjoy making enemies.
Three years ago, I was mostly a behind-the-scenes guy who linked to stuff on a very popular website. I always wondered what it would be like to enter the public realm to fight for what I believe in. I've lost friends, perhaps dozens. But I've gained hundreds, thousands—who knows?—of allies. At the end of the day, I can look at myself in the mirror, and I sleep very well at night.'
Andrew is at rest, yet the happy warrior lives on, in each of us."
A conservative blogger and journalist, Breitbart helped launch the Huffington Post and was an editor at the Drudge Report.
He also founded his own news network, acting as the publisher of several news websites including Breitbart.com, Breitbart.tv, Big Hollywood, Big Government, Big Journalism and Big Peace.
Big Government broke the ACORN child sex trafficking scandal and also, in 2011, the "Weinergate" photo scandal that led to the resignation of New York Rep. Anthony Weiner.
Breitbert was known for publishing controversial exposes and wrote a best-selling critique of celebrity culture, "Hollywood, Interrupted." His newest book "Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World!" was on the New York Times bestseller list.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sources: AP, Biggovernment.com, Breitbart TV, CNN, Left Coast Ledger, MSNBC, NY Daily News, Rural Development.org, Washington Examiner, Youtube, Google Maps
Newly released documents give the public its first look inside the Obama administration's internal deliberations over whether to fire Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod, and the hundreds of e-mails clearly confirm officials pushed her out for political reasons despite knowing they did not have the full context of the explosive video that thrust her into the national spotlight.
There is no smoking gun proving Sherrod's original allegation that the White House forced the Agriculture Department to fire her in order to contain any political damage. But the documents do show that top White House aides like then-Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel were keeping tabs on the matter as it unfolded, and in the initial hours after her firing other White House officials were thankful that Sherrod had been ousted so quickly.
"Just wanted you to know that this dismissal came up at our morning senior staff meeting today," Christopher Lu, who serves as the White House's liaison to the Cabinet, wrote to senior Agriculture officials on the morning of July 20, the day after Sherrod was fired.
"Everyone complimented USDA on how quickly you took this action," Lu wrote, noting that the swift move helped stop an "unpleasant story" from gaining any "traction" in the early hours of the flare-up.
"Thanks for the great efforts," Lu concluded to the Agriculture officials.
Another Agriculture Department e-mail later on July 20, as public outrage grew on the second day of the imbroglio, shows that Emanuel spoke at least once to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack as the administration weighed whether to apologize to Sherrod and offer her a new job. "Rahm calling Secy now," the e-mail said.
The e-mails, obtained by CNN through a Freedom of Information Act request, also show that Vilsack pressured his staff to get rid of Sherrod even though officials within his department knew full well that there may have been more context to the video showing that in fact Sherrod was not racist.
The story first blew up on July 19, when conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted online a brief video clip of Sherrod, who is African-American, delivering a speech to an NAACP convention earlier this year. Breitbart only posted the part of the speech where Sherrod recounted an episode where she decided to not help a white farmer who needed government aid to stay afloat.
Breitbart, however, did not include longer parts of the speech which showed that Sherrod explained to the audience that the incident occurred many years ago - not during the Obama administration - and that she eventually helped the white farmer. Her message in the speech was all about reconciliation and helping people of all races, a point that was drowned out in the selectively-edited clip that gave the impression that an Obama official had deliberately let a white farmer go belly up.
The e-mails show that after the Agriculture Department learned that the partial video had been posted, and that other media outlets like Fox News Channel might be following up on it, there was alarm within the Obama administration about potential fallout.
"I was just informed of a video of the Georgia State Director that was posted on the Internet earlier this afternoon," Agriculture Department official wrote at 1:56 p.m. on July 19. "It speaks for itself and you need to watch it right away."
But the e-mails also show that some Obama officials were cautious and urged that the full video be tracked down before there was a rash decision about Sherrod's fate.
"We need to make sure someone has seen the video," Agriculture official Krysta Harden wrote in an e-mail at 3:06 p.m. on July 19. "I am quick to jump to conclusions but want to be certain it is what it is said to be before I tell the Secy" she said in reference to Vilsack.
But another Agriculture official, Carol Jett, piped in otherwise: "We need to take immediate action."
Harden added that Vilsack "is absolutely sick and mad over the S Sherrod issue. He wants her immediately on [administrative] leave."
"Concur," wrote Agriculture official John Berge. "She should be fired."
Sherrod was eventually fired by top Vilsack aide Cheryl Cook. Sherrod repeatedly told CNN that Cook told her she had to step aside because the White House wanted her out, though the administration denied that was the reason.
Within two days of the firing, Vilsack acknowledged there should have been a fuller examination of the facts before she was fired. Vilsack apologized to Sherrod and offered her a new job.
Sherrod has still not accepted the post, and she did not return a call on Friday seeking reaction to the release of the emails.
Statement from Shirley Sherrod Regarding Chain of Emails Leading to Her Dismissal:
"While the newly reported details surrounding my dismissal from the United States Department of Agriculture shed light on decisions that were made within the Department, I have accepted the apologies of both President Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
I do believe, however, that this incident is an undeniable teaching moment for this country. As we continue to examine the importance of diversity among all ranks of government and the private sector, we cannot forget that racism still exists. We need to combat it once and for all and I look forward to taking an active role in leading that national conversation.
I have always said that I support President Obama and I am available to him and his administration as we find a way to work together to eradicate racism and racial views that are dividing this nation and us as American citizens."
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