“Never before has such a low bar been set for certifying such a gargantuan class”
Judge Sandra Ikuta writing in her dissent against class certification of the Walmart lawsuit in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Walmart is getting sued by 6 women for sex discrimination; this despite the fact that most of the employees are women. The ambulance-chasing shysters fomenting this case succeeded in getting “class” status for their few plaintiffs from the notorious 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. One of the primary tests for certifying a lawsuit as a “class” is for the court to determine whether the named plaintiffs are sufficiently representative of the class. Additionally, the court must determine if actual discrimination occurred and that this discrimination was likely to be widespread and effect a large class; in this case, a half of million female employees.

This sad case began with a few hapless women who couldn’t qualify as managers, but wishing they were managers. These people are rolling the dice with their litigation lottery scam. These women ended up telling sad stories of how they didn’t get their promotions to manager due to discrimination (yes, it’s true, Walmart has a strict policy against promoting morons). This is not a tort, unless those people can show, with evidence, that they were passed over because they were a woman. In the Walmart case, the attorneys for the plaintiffs used a combination of sob stories, anecdotal evidence and statistics. The statistics showed nothing.

The Walmart case, filed in 2001, against the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer by six female workers who claimed the company paid women less than men and gave them fewer promotions. Their evidence? They said that 65 percent of Wal-Mart’s hourly employees were women, while just 33 percent of the company’s management team is female. So what? These statistics are not proof of wrongdoing. They’re the same sort of phony statistics that feminists and their media echo have used for years saying that women only make 70 cents of the dollar compared to men. That’s baloney.

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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…)

NOTE : Compare Rep. Sanford Bishop’s (D-Ga) statements in this article (published at 6pm) with what he said in this Albany Herald article that was published at 11:30am. In the earlier article Bishop says he was aware of the fraud and it wasn’t his job to police it. By the time he talked to the Atlanta reporter later in the day, he suddenly has no idea at all what the farmers are talking about and insults them by implying that they were drunkards.

From Bob Keefe at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

WASHINGTON — Democratic U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop called Internet insinuations that he was somehow involved in fraud surrounding last year’s settlement between the government and African-American farmers “one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.”

Videos featuring two Georgia farmers that are being circulated on the Web by conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart hint that Bishop, of Albany, may have known about possible fraud in last year’s so-called “Pigford” settlement between the government and black farmers who claimed that a Department of Agriculture farm loan program discriminated against them.

“I don’t know what they were imbibing,” Bishop said of the two farmers after watching the videos. “I’m just perplexed and shocked.” (more…)

**UPDATED**

The videos that Big Government broke yesterday showing farmers Eddie Slaughter and Willie Head saying that congressman Sanford Bishop knew about fraud in the Pigford Settlement appear to have broken Congressman Bishop. An angry Bishop called the local paper in Albany, Georgia and far from denying the claims that he know about fraud and did nothing about it, he readily admits it.

***

From the Albany Herald in Albany, Georgia:

An internet video surfaced Tuesday in which a black farmer, Eddie Slaughter of Buena Vista, accuses Rep. Sanford Bishop Jr., D-Albany, of being aware of fraud in the $1 billion Pigford farm discrimination settlement. That prompted a sharp and angry reaction from the congressman.

“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.”

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