As the Pigford investigation continues, it is important to note that we have demonstrated in our Pigford Report that there is massive fraud in the Pigford I settlement, but you have yet to hear a pro-Pigford politician admit to that fact.  To this day, President Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack maintains there are, at most, 10 cases of fraud. Big Government showed two videos of black farmers alleging that Congressman Sanford Bishop not only knew about the fraud in Pigford I, but also instructed the black farmers who brought the information to light to keep quiet as long as “the money was flowing.”

It’s important to note that Eddie Slaughter is not just a black farmer, he is the Vice President of one of the largest black farmer advocacy groups in America, the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association.

After seeing the BigGovernment.com interview, Congressman Bishop, clearly upset with the video revelation, made the following admission to his local paper, the Albany Herald yesterday:

“Yes, I am aware that there is fraud in the program, that’s why anti-fraud provisions were written into the settlement,” Bishop said Thursday morning “My job was to help secure funding for constituents who had been discriminated against by the USDA. It’s not my job to monitor fraud in the program. I can’t assume responsibility for fraud. You can’t lay that at my feet.”

“This is ridiculous. It’s not my job to determine who is a qualified claimant or not, or who gets paid or who doesn’t get paid.”

“I’ve worked with Eddie Slaughter for more than 15 years.”

We now have an admission from a prominent member of the Congressional Black Caucus, and a co-sponsor of Pigford legislation, that he was not only told by a black farmer that the Pigford I payout process was “rife with fraud,” but also that as a member of Congress there was nothing he could do about it. (more…)

As we have been chronicling in our Pigford coverage this week, the amount of evidence suggesting massive fraud is staggering and will continue to build and build.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack came out last week to say there have only been three cases of fraud out of the 20,000 claims.

Well Mr. Vilsack, why don’t you try this on for size?  And by the way, we will be bringing more crime rings your way very soon.

All excerpts from the Mississippi Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi:

Suspect admits she OK’d slaying

Date:  Jan 13, 2006

By Jimmie Gates

Two days after she denied knowing that federal witness Clovis Reed would be killed, Levon Edmond admitted Thursday that she agreed to the slaying and alleged one of her accomplices had killed another woman earlier.

The second woman’s body is buried in the same area where Reed’s headless and handless corpse was found in Simpson County in 2003, Edmond told U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate.

(more…)

In the pantheon of civic behavior, ex-politicians leaving DC to become lobbyists to advocate on behalf of private interests against taxpayer interests is right up there among the most undesirable.

What’s even worse?  When a former Secretary of Agriculture – who is African-American – leaves his post and now spends his time trolling for and representing litigants suing the USDA citing discrimination against African-Americans during the time he was in charge of the agency.

Why isn’t he suing himself, and paying the claims out of his own pocket? Instead, the USDA has admitted “no wrongdoing” (i.e. no one has been fired for the wholesale discrimination) and the taxpayer is completely and exclusively on the hook.

As Big Government will continue to show over the next few weeks, Pigford is a universe of its own filled with crooked politicians, cover-ups, greedy attorneys, and crime rings. And one of the brightest stars in the Pigford universe is Mike Espy:

MIKE ESPY (Alphonso Michael Espy) is the former Secretary of the United States Department of Agriculture, and a former U.S. Representative from the 2nd District of Mississippi. He currently works as a private sector attorney, counselor, and agricultural advisor, having his own law and consulting firms: Mike Espy, PLLC, and AE Agritrade, Inc.

Prior to his appointment as USDA Secretary, Mike Espy served for seven years as a Member of Congress. While there, he served his bi-racial district as a member of the Budget and Agriculture Committees.

Before his election to Congress, Mike worked as a trial lawyer and served as Assistant Attorney General.

In 1997, Espy was indicted on 30 criminal charges of receiving gifts from food companies. Tyson Foods, the largest poultry producer in the U.S., was found guilty of paying Espy more than $12,000 in illegal gifts and was fined $6 million for the transgression. In another case, Sun Diamond was fined $1.5 million for giving Espy $6,000 in illegal gifts. (more…)

As of four months ago, I was like many BigGovernment.com readers, except that I had the pleasure of writing a few articles as a contributor to BigGovernment.com and BigJournalism.com over the past year as time permitted.  But things changed in early August of this year when Andrew Breitbart and I stumbled upon what we both thought could not only be a huge story, but perhaps one of the most massive taxpayer frauds in the history of this country: the Pigford I and II settlements.

Since that date, I have been researching and writing the foundation of the report we present today. After sifting through thousands of news articles, archives, and web sites and hearing the stories of a dozen or so whistleblowers including an FBI agent, current and former USDA employees, and a black farmer who was discriminated against, we feel that our initial reaction was right:  Pigford is a massive story that deserves national attention.

Obama and National Black Farmers Association Founder John Boyd

This past Tuesday, Nov 30^th, the Democrat-controlled lame-duck House passed the $1.25 billion Black Farmer’s Settlement funding known as Pigford II by a vote of 256-152. The previous week, the bill had passed the Senate with conspicuous assurances of strict fraud-protection measures to shield taxpayers from blatant and rampant abuse; much of which we have uncovered in our months of research.

The bill is headed to President Obama for signature this Wednesday. As we document in our report, then-Senator Obama originally introduced the Pigford II legislation with no co-sponsors in 2007 to curry favor with rural black Southern voters, to which he was trailing significantly to then front-runner Hillary Clinton.

On top of the original billion-plus dollars previously doled out indiscriminately in Pigford I, the American taxpayer will now be on the hook for an additional $1.25 billion in payments to black “farmers,” whom did not have to provide proof of: (more…)

Yesterday, I reported on the horrific rape of a two-year old by Keith Winfield in 2005 in Massachusetts. Then-Middlesex County DA Martha Coakley failed to take action to bring charges against Mr. Winfield. Today, the story takes another turn. In part II of the Curling-Iron Rapist Case, let’s look at two of the key players in the case: The lawyer for the family of the raped toddler, Larry Frisoli, and his brother and legal partner, Frank Frisoli.

Larry Frisoli was a highly-respected and high profile lawyer who had handled the wrongful-death suit in the famous and horrifying Jeffrey Curley case, where an 8-year Jeffrey was savagely kidnapped off the street and brutally raped and murdered.  Larry represented Jeffrey’s family, and won a symbolic $328 million wrongful death suite against the perpetrators in 2000. The perpetrators went to prison for life and were broke. That same year, Larry Frisoli was named “Lawyer of the Year” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

Attorney Larry Frisoli

Fast forward to 2005, when Larry Frisoli was called by the family of the raped toddler to represent them.  After the mother of the raped toddler took the child to the hospital, the hospital notified DSS that the child had been molested and or abused.   The DSS came to the parent’s home, and tried to take the child away; thinking the parents had perpetrated the crime. The parents called family friend and attorney Larry Frisoli to sort out the madness.

As we now know, and what seemed clear to Larry and his clients very early in the case, was that the child had been left in the care of Policeman Keith Winfield, the uncle of the child, the prior day.   Officer Winfield, during his hour alone with his 23-month old niece, raped her with a hot curling iron.

(more…)

Part one of a series

In researching the ever-intensifying Massachusetts Senate race between Democrat Martha Coakley and her Republican challenger Scott Brown, it only takes a few keystrokes to unearth her ongoing history of questionable judgment and puzzling prosecutorial decisions.  Even though the election has been effectively nationalized, with some polls showing the underdog Brown within two points or so of the colorless Coakley, she remains largely unknown outside New England.

So as a public service to the voters of the Bay State, during the run-up to the special election on Jan. 19, Big Journalism will be offering some of the Martha’s Greatest Hits, so that they can fully make up their minds whether she would make a suitable successor to the late Edward Moore Kennedy – who, as you recall, began his illustrious career by being expelled from Harvard for cheating, went on to drown Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick, and then turned to a life of drinking and debauchery, including the infamous “waitress sandwich” with soon-to-be-retired Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd, before attempting to inflict “universal health care” on the country shortly before his death last year.

You can read all about Ted here in this classic profile of the last and worst of the Kennedy brothers by the late Michael Kelly.  Be sure to read the whole thing, just to get a flavor of the kind of candidate Massachusetts voters seem to like.

Homework done?  Good.  Because Martha Coakley, the current Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and thus its top law enforcement officer, is shaping up as a worthy heir to the Lion of the Senate.(more…)

As many readers know by now, on Dec 5^th, Senator Max Baucus( D-MT) , the man entrusted with writing the govt. takeover bill of the American healthcare system, was forced to disclose the embarrassing fact that he had nominated his live-in girlfriend as the next U.S. Attorney for his home state of Montana. Senator Baucus did not disclose this fact out of some good-natured rationale; rather a political watchdog group had discovered the link, and the information was coming public, so he tried to get ahead of the story.

Understandably, the Republican Party among others are calling for an investigation into what seems to be clear conflict of interest in his dealings and a serious lapse of judgment. Considering his current girlfriend Melodee Hanes started working in Senator Baucus’ office as early as 2002, and the divorce to his current wife was not announced until early 2009, it would seem to be more than just a possible legal and political transgression he was making with Ms. Hanes. (more…)

I was driving to my local OSH hardware store in West L.A. yesterday to buy some tools for the house where I spotted an ACORN rally across the street at some FOX studio.  After buying some supplies, I went into my car to get the brand new hand-held HD video camera I had purchased just the night before for an upcoming vacation.  With camera in hand, I walked towards the protesters to gather some pictures and video footage of the rally.  I also called my friend Andrew Breitbart and suggested he come down. I had a feeling he’d be interested.

But before he could make it to the rally, an ACORN organizer had crossed the street and approached me with an ACORN flyer in her hand.  As she started to talk, I clicked the record button of the new camera I had bought on a whim, not knowing what it would capture or how it even worked, for that matter. I heard the same things you will now hear on this recording.  Three minutes later I walked away in shock.  I started to tremble from what she admitted to me with utter nonchalance.  I walked inside a nearby store and found a quiet place to play the tape for myself and realized that I had wintessed something maybe no one was ever supposed to hear:

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Follow along with the transcript:

Have you seen this organizer?

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