Attention, Juan Williams – don’t presume that you speak for Eddie Slaughter when you accuse Newt Gingrich of dog whistle racism for his statements on food stamps and America’s work ethic. Readers of BigGovernment will remember Eddie Slaughter as the South Georgia farmer was gone on record talking about Pigford fraud and how his Congressman, representative Sanford Bishop tried to cover up that fraud. Mr. Slaughter had personal and political dealings with Newt Gingrich years ago that run very counter to the narrative that Juan Williams was trying to push during the recent presidential debate on Fox, as revealed in an interview I did with  Mr. Slaughter this morning.

Mr. Slaughter originally told me about his positive dealings with Gingrich about a year ago, when he both spoke at a press conference at CPAC about the Pigford settlement. Before Pigford became a vast fraud scheme benefiting attorneys and the political class, it began as a legitimate effort by a small group of black farmers to fight discrimination at the hands of the federal government. The issue for the farmers was that the statute of limitations was very short and because the civil rights office of the USDA had been shut down, there had been no real way to report any discrimination for close to 15 years. In order for the bona fide black farmers like Mr. Slaughter to file suit, they would need an extension of the statute limitations.

The black farmers approachedNewt Gingrich to get support. Now, according to the Juan Williams school of thought, Speaker Gingrich was Republican and therefore a presumed racist. Mr. Slaughter told a very different story however. When asked directly about in my interview he said, “I feel that he was more sincere than most in Washington DC.” And “I think he was more fair than most people running for office, from what know about him personally.”

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Continuing his fight against costly food stamp fraud and abuse, Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack requesting an immediate explanation of the USDA’s oversight procedures combating food stamp fraud.

Sen. Sessions’s move came in response to a USDA press release announcing “new tactics to combat fraud and enhance SNAP program integrity.”

As Sen. Sessions explains in his letter:

I have a responsibility on behalf of taxpayers to hold federal agencies accountable for how public funds are being spent. I would therefore ask that the Committee be immediately provided with a thorough explanation of all oversight actions your Department is taking, as well as a list of recommended federal reforms that would reduce waste, inefficiency, and abuse in the food stamp program. I would further ask for a follow-up report within the next sixty days detailing the findings of all oversight that USDA will have conducted….Unmonitored welfare programs, over time, can hurt the very people we are seeking to help. Our goal is not only to improve the outlook for our indebted Treasury, but to help needy Americans achieve a better future through work and personal development.

Annually, the nation’s food stamp program–officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)–costs taxpayers $89 billion, a figure that has more than doubled under President Barack Obama.   The number of Americans receiving food stamps has skyrocketed in recent years.  Today, 46 million Americans–1 out of 7 citizens–receive food stamps, a jump of more than two-thirds prior to Mr. Obama’s vast expansion of the program. (more…)

The Political Class has honed a dangerous skill, building the perfect undetectable fraud machine. Americans need to learn to spot these scams for their own protection and realize that the perpetrators can come from either political party and often work in cahoots with attorneys or big business.

Think about three seemingly unconnected news stories, all examples of costly or dangerously indictable fraud machines…

• The economic collapse of 2008 was caused in part by relaxed mortgage rules that allowed borrowers to get a home loan without a down payment or even proof of income in some cases.
• In the Pigford settlement, claimants were able to get $50,000 checks by asserting without proof that they had “attempted to farm.”
• In a move strongly supported by the NAACP and other liberal advocacy groups, the Obama Department of Justice just stopped South Carolina’s plan to put in place some minimal ID requirements for voting. Currently voters in a number of states don’t need to show any photo ID or other identity checks in order to cast a ballot.

All three stories are examples of systems that have been intentionally set up with such low standards that they invite fraud. But ingeniously, they have also been set up in a such a way that makes them almost critic-proof because the lack of standards makes detection of fraud nearly impossible. When the system is questioned, the defenders, creators and beneficiaries then point to the lack of “proof” of fraud as a reason to keep the status. Thus, a self-perpetuating fraud scheme is kept alive as long as possible.

Make no mistake, these scams are costly….

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The legal counsel of Governor Dannel Malloy (D-CT) has reported that “many” Connecticut state employees may be involved in food stamp fraud, and is urging heads of state departments to cooperate with investigators and prosecutors on both the state and federal levels.

During a rather abruptly organized press conference last Sunday, Gov. Malloy revealed that 800 of the 23,000 people who obtained federal disaster aid, following Tropical Storm Irene, were state employees, some of whom may actually qualify for the assistance. Thus far, 24 state employees appear to have fraudulently qualified for the disaster aid.

Andrew McDonald, the governor’s chief counsel, said, “We have credible information to suspect that many state employees who received the benefits did so by materially misrepresenting important information included in their applications” for food stamp benefits.”

Those who applied for the disaster funds, known as D-SNAP, received debit cards for as much as $1200, to replace food that had reportedly spoiled due to lack of electrical power during the period following the storm.

As was reported here on September 29, 2011, thousands of people waited in lines for days in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, in front of Connecticut’s DSS buildings, some of them obtaining emergency funds even though they lived in areas, such as the capital city of Hartford, which had not lost power as a result of the storm. The state administered the $12.4 million in disaster aid funded by the federal government.

The ease with which many were able to obtain D-SNAP funds was discussed anecdotally on local radio talk shows. The chaotic hordes of people lining up to receive D-SNAP funds led conservative Republican state Sen. Joseph Markley to approach the state auditors and ask them to look into the situation. On a talk radio program, Sen. Markley said, “I think, during the course of their investigation, they started turning over some rocks, and it became obvious that there was wrongdoing involved, and some embarrassment. And I believe that’s what led the governor to get out ahead of the story, holding this extraordinary press conference on a Sunday afternoon.”

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From Western Farm Press:

USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack

Racism is dead at USDA. Discrimination has gone the way of the dodo. Since 2009, when Secretary Vilsack called for a new era in civil rights, racism and discrimination have been banished to the scrapheap of USDA history.

And what a costly scrapheap — more akin to gold than garbage. A rough tally of USDA discrimination settlements: $1.15 billion for black farmers; $760 million for Indian farmers; and $1.3 billion for Hispanic and women farmers combined. If legislative and man-hour costs are tacked on, that towering scrapheap reaches well over the $3 billion mark. Settlements? Makes you wonder what the high-water mark was for the plaintiffs’ lawyers if they ‘settled’ for $3 billion.

As the green is doled out to a conga line of aggrieved farmers, ‘The Last Plantation’ atmosphere is apparently no more at USDA; buried in an act of monetary absolution. A contrite USDA wishes to be absolved of past sins. But sins require sinners. Where are they? Has USDA fired anyone? Have the guilty been named? Years and years of bias reportedly inflicted on over 100,000 U.S. famers — and no perpetrator to show for it? USDA admits guilt to the tune of billions in discrimination claims — and no heads roll? (more…)

From AgWeek:

WASHINGTON — Despite his earlier statements that the Obama administration would let Congress write the next farm bill, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack commented Oct. 3 and 4 on several sections of the bill…

…Vilsack said in the interview he is reluctant to cut the food stamp program, saying that its budget authority already was reduced to pay for teacher salaries and to make settlements for farmers who had sued USDA for discrimination in the Pigford II case.

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Last week, in Washington, DC, I attended what is is expected to be the last hearing on the Pigford settlement–Judge Paul Friedman, presiding.

Judge Friedman has been in charge of the scandal-infested case since it was conceived during the Clinton Administration. He has overseen a process that has funneled billions of dollars to lawyers, bureaucrats and fraudsters who have never farmed a day in their lives, leaving behind many black farmers who suffered actual racial discrimination by the USDA.

Pigford is an interesting bit of legal chicanery. It works on two different levels: one a false cover story, the other the behind-the-scenes legal reality.

In order for Pigford to proceed, there needs to be a public perception that Pigford is helping poor black farmers. That is the constant public drumbeat, and it works because it plays on people’s natural sympathy with the plight of those black farmers who were, in fact, hurt by the government.

Then there’s the actual legal mechanism, including the “attempted to farm” bamboozle, through which people who were never actually farmers have come forward to claim $50,000 payouts as part of an expanded class of beneficiaries that Friedman certified. (more…)

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was held on August 2 – 6, 2010 in Bonn, Germany.  It was the third round of U. N. climate change negotiations with representatives from 178 governments present.  The meeting was designed to set the agenda for what they hoped to accomplish at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico in November and December of last year.

The information in their press release conveyed the urgency of the U. N. to get this moving forward with solid agreements reached by the November/December conference. The text in this press release is so extremely important for all of us to understand that paragraphs have been copied verbatim.

“Governments have a responsibility this year to take the next essential step in the battle against climate change, said UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres.  How governments achieve the next essential step is up to them.  But it’s politically possible.  In Cancun, the job of governments is to turn the politically possible into the politically irreversible, she said.” (Bolded by Writer)

“Christiana Figueres pointed to the opportunity to capture the promises, pledges and progress that governments have already made, in accountable and binding ways.  According to Ms. Figueres, governments now need to resolve what to do with their public pledges to cut emissions.  All industrialized countries have made public pledges to cut emissions by 2020 and 38 developing countries have submitted plans to limit their emissions growth.”

“This needs to be captured in internationally agreed form, the U.N.’s top climate change official said.  More stringent actions to reduce emissions cannot be much longer postponed and industrial nations must lead, she added.”

“Ms. Figueres pointed out that governments agree to a comprehensive set of ways and means to allow developing countries to take concrete climate action.”

“This includes adapting to climate change, limiting emissions growth; providing adequate finance; boosting the use of clean technology; promoting sustainable forestry; and building up the skills and capacity to do all this.”

A brief history of the UNFCCC – With 194 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.  The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 190 of the UNFCCC Parties.  Under the Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments.  The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.”

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In the months of stories we’ve done on the Pigford settlement, people often leave comments that say “Hey, I have a houseplant — can I get $50,000, too?!?”

Since you asked — yes, you can. You don’t even need the plant.

Just visit FarmerClaims.gov and go to the bottom of the home page. You’ll find a link to a Summary of the Claims Process that brings up a PDF.  At the top of page 2, it explains what you need to provide for proof if you’re claiming that you made a ‘bona-fide’ attempt to apply but were actively discouraged.

This short video I made lets people know how easy it is to collect.

What does this mean practically?

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I know you need some Pigford to keep you going through the weekend, so here’s a couple of stray thoughts…

1) An Appeal By Any Other Name

This is from Paul Friedman’s decision on the Pigford settlement…

“…there is no right to appeal those decisions, except that the Monitor shall direct the arbitrator or adjudicator to reexamine the claim if he determines that a “clear and manifest error has occurred” that is “likely to result in a fundamental miscarriage of justice.”  Consent Decree at ¶¶ 9(a)(v), 9(b)(v), 10(i), 12(b)(iii)

Well, something must have changed because 10% of the decisions in Pigford were not only appealed but were actually overturned, according to the government’s own official numbers.  There’s a chart showing ‘reexamination results.’ Check it out — thousands of results changed. How is that not an ‘appeal’?

I want to make it clear that I’m not opposed to these appeals. Some of them actually were the only way that bona fide farmers actually got anything  from the settlement. But – something clearly happened and it’s different than Friedman’s decision.

What I think this does show is the whole process was screwed up and needs investigation. But you knew that already, right?

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I’m looking for some advice. It’s about money.

I don’t need to tell you that times are tough. It seems like half the experts think we are about to plunge into the second part of a double-dip recession and the other half think that we’re there already. Like a lot of people, the week to week struggle is tiring me out and it’s not just about me, either. I have a wife and kids to think about, too.

I won’t lie; the idea of getting $50,000 tax-free sounds pretty good to me.

I know exactly how I can get it, too. It wouldn’t take more than a few hours of work. All I need to do is fill out some forms and talk about the time that my sweet, dearly departed mother tried to get a farm loan from the USDA.

You may be thinking that it sounds too good to be true.

Trust me, it’s not. This is the real deal. I’ve been working on a documentary about the USDA’s “black farmers” settlement for months now. I’ve interviewed dozens of people and it’s very clear that you can collect a $50,000 check if you know how to fill out the paperwork correctly. And I know how to fill that paperwork out.

Basically, you tell the USDA that you or a relative attempted to farm during a certain period of time but that you or the relative were a victim of discrimination and the USDA didn’t even give out the loan paperwork. No proof one way or another. The claim is judged by an “adjudicator” who looks at your paperwork and if it seems specific, detailed and believable, they approve the claim and you collect a $50,000 check tax-free.

In the Pigford black farmers settlement, over 15,000 people collected these checks and I’ve been told by a number of people that over 80% of them collected on this “attempted to farm” standard. If you’re still skeptical, here’s the official government accounting. The U.S. government paid out over billion dollars in claims and most of it didn’t go to farmers.

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The visual I found on the official website of U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) at 9:42 a.m. Central today seems an appropriate metaphor for the way the longtime congressman-turned freshman senator and members of his staff have rushed to the aide of Nixa, Mo., resident John Dollarhite.

Two months ago, Dollarhite contacted Senator Blunt for help in fighting USDA fines of up to $4 million in fines for selling too many bunnies. The senator replied with an electronic letter in which he said, among other things, that “Eliminating the option of humanely reducing the horse population may lead to even greater suffering on the part of these horses.” In other words, Dollarhite said, the senator’s staffers weren’t much help and his interaction with them left him “pissed off.”

Now, fast forward to the present day, and things aren’t looking much better.

On the Facebook group page, USDA Bunny Tyranny of the Dollarhite Family, the head of the Dollarhite household posted the following status update early this morning:

Roy Blunt is for BIG Goverment….. I called Roy’s office in Springfield & Jefferson City today. They are supportive of the USDA and I should NOT have the right to own any animals of any kind because I did not have a license…… Please protest Roy’s Offices.

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Facing a July 29 deadline, John and Judy Dollarhite of Nixa, Mo., responded Friday to officials at the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service with a “Substitute Stipulation Agreement” that, hopefully, will allow the couple to avoid fines of up to $4 million in fines for selling too many bunnies.

The substitute agreement, prepared on behalf of John Dollarhite by attorney Richard Anderson, was submitted almost a month after I reported on John Dollarhite being “not happy” with the USDA’s revised offer which came on the heels of substantial national attention — including coverage on Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Drudge Report — about their plight.

The substitute agreement was addressed to Sarah L. Conant, a USDA bureaucrat with a very long title — Chief, Animal Health and Welfare Enforcement Branch, Investigative and Enforcement Services — who was the focus of my June 27 post, Animal Rights Activism Fuels USDA Rabbit Chase.

Below is the “meat” of the cover letter that accompanied the substitute agreement:

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Congressman Issa,

Back on January 3rd of this year, you said the following in a video interview about the Pigford II settlement.

I have to use every asset I can get including all the other committees to do what they can. So, Pigford, we’ll participate but we’ll make sure other committees do their work.

Now we’re well into the heat of the summer with several major deadlines for Pigford II looming and the American people have yet to see an investigation into the scandal.

Congressman Issa, I’ll be direct — the issue that is most troubling to many people is that you recently voted to keep Pigford funding. I have no idea why you would cast a vote against representative Steve King (R-IA) and his efforts to stop both the fraudulent nature of the settlement and the legislative chicanery that created it. I have seen no explanation forthcoming and frankly I’m not imaginative enough to be able to come up with one that makes sense.

The burden of proof is now on you to show that you will actually ‘use every asset’ to get an investigation into Pigford II started in all due haste, despite casting a vote to continue its funding. In other words, Congressman Issa — you now own responsibility for the billion dollar plus political payback Pigford II settlement.

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The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) supposedly voluntary guidelines for marketing food products to children, if adopted, would undermine free speech, seriously hinder small businesses, consumer choice, and could adversely affect rates of childhood obesity.

The guidelines, put forth by an interagency working group with members from the FTC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, stipulate that producers of food and drink products who market to children between the ages of 2 and 17 voluntarily make sure those products contribute to the government’s recommended daily nutritional requirements and do not contain high levels of added sugar or salt.

While the guidelines are touted as voluntary, the power these five agencies wield over the industry would almost certainly make them a de facto mandate, as few members of the industry would risk running afoul of government entities that can issue licenses, fines and sanctions, ban products, and file lawsuits.

The goal of the guidelines, as stated in the Agencies’ report is to address “high rates of childhood obesity” over the next five years. To accomplish that goal, they want to modify the nutritional makeup of foods that are heavily marketed to children so that only foods that make “a meaningful contribution to a healthful diet” are advertised to kids and teens.

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The Pigford “Black Farmers” settlement isn’t just a massive fraud that funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to people who never farmed a day in their life. No, the perversion of Pigford goes far beyond that because the way the settlement is structured it’s actually more difficult for legitimate farmers to collect than it is for an “attempted to farmer”.

Got that? Adding insult to injury, bona fide farmers are less likely to collect a $50,000 check then someone who meets the incredibly low standard by claiming that they attempted to farm.

This is one of the reasons that so many legitimate, hard-working farmers oppose the Pigford settlement and another reason that Congressman Darrell Issa needs to hear from you right now. Remember, Issa voted to keep funds flowing to Pigford when Representative Steve King (R-IA) tried to stop them a couple of weeks ago. And Rep. Issa is the person who should be pushing for investigations. Issa’s Washington phone number is 202-225-3906.

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Three weeks ago, I published two posts about a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to continue funding for the colossal case of fraud known as the Pigford II Settlement. Today, I offer a third piece in which I cast light on the thought process — or lack thereof — behind one congressman’s decision to vote in favor of making payments of $1.25 billion to a large group of people. Each person in the group claimed to be a black farmer discriminated against by the USDA but, not surprisingly, many turned out to be con artists backed by hungry class-action lawyers.

Unlike Tea Party rock star U.S. Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), the subject of my first post who later apologized for casting a vote in favor of the funding, U.S. Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) appears unapologetic in standing behind his vote.

In response to a recent inquiry from constituent Greg Cable, the freshman Republican from Missouri’s 7th Congressional District sent a 432-word reply via email to “explain” his vote in favor of funding Pigford II payouts.

Disappointed with Long’s response and a firm believer in the saying, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant,” the Ozark, Mo., father of four and grandfather of just as many shared it with the folks at BigGovernment.com. Finally, Editor-in-Chief Mike Flynn shared it with me.

Noteworthy in Congressman Long’s reply was the following statement he made about voting against the amendment proposed by U.S. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) that would have prohibited Pigford II funding:

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Guns drawn, a SWAT team kicks in the door of a private business. Are the cops there for drug dealers? Mafia mobsters? Terrorists?

No, the long arm of the law is out for the real dangerous contraband: raw milk and grass-fed chickens.

Nick Gillespie sits down with Kristin Canty, director of Farmageddon: The Unseen War on American Farms, a new documentary about small farms and co-ops that have been raided by the Food & Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and state-level agencies and have had their products seized and destroyed. One particularly gruesome case involved a flock of sheep being killed because of the non-existent threat of the sheep acquiring Mad Cow Disease.

Farmageddon does more than document government overreach; the movie also takes issue with FDA claims that raw milk and other products popular with foodies are unsafe and filled with dangerous bacteria. In a country where more and more folks are embracing small-scale and organic agriculture, the government is on a collision course with a growing subculture.

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Humane Society Lawyers Fight Culture of Cruelty, Government Bureaucracy

Soon after reading the words above, which appeared as the headline of an article published in November 2007 on the University of Virginia School of Law website, I discovered something ironic about Sarah L. Conant.

According to HumaneWatch, Conant is a 2006 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville.

According to a 2006 article published on the law school website, Conant’s favorite law school experience was founding the Virginia Animal Law Society, a nonprofit student organization affiliated with the radical animal rights organization, Animal Legal Defense Fund.

According to the same article, her post-graduation plans included serving as a Litigation Fellow for The Humane Society of the United States, Animal Protection Litigation Section, in Washington, D.C.

Now, let’s return to the headline of the 2007 article mentioned atop this post and expose the irony.

Today, Conant is an animal rights activist lawyer-turned government bureaucrat who, as a USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service employee with a very long title — Chief, Animal Health and Welfare Enforcement Branch, Investigative and Enforcement Services — is threatening John and Judy Dollarhite with fines of up to $3.9 million in fines for the “crime” of selling more than $500 worth of bunnies during a single calendar year without a USDA license. In short, Conant is now the government bureaucrat against whom she once claimed to fight.

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More than a month has passed since I published news about out-of-control agents from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service going after a couple in Nixa, Mo., for selling more than $500 worth of rabbits in a calendar year. Today, I offer an update likely to upset those who’ve been following the case of John and Judy Dollarhite.

On May 24, the Dollarhites were cautiously optimistic about their prospects after the USDA appeared to be rethinking their plan to levy up to $3.9 million in fines after some public attention — via more than a dozen posts here, at Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com and elsewhere as well as notice by Drudge Report and Rush Limbaugh — was cast on the matter. Now, it appears they had good reason to be cautious.

On June 21, I learned from Clay Bowler, the Springfield, Mo., blogger who was first to break the Dollarhite’s story, that the couple had received a foll0wup letter from the USDA. Based on the content of Bowler’s post about the USDA letter which stemmed from his conversation with John Dollarhite, I fired off an inquiry (below) to USDA APHIS Spokesperson David Sacks late that same afternoon:

Dave,

I understand John Dollarhite received a post-inspection letter from the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, offering him a settlement based on a handful of conditions. Thought I haven’t yet seen the letter, I understand it requires the Dollarhites to do the following:

After confirming, denying or clarifying the information above, please explain the authority under which USDA officials believe they can issue such an expansive set of requirements and explain how those same officials plan to respond to the huge public outcry that is certain to follow when the contents of the new letter become public.

Sincerely,

Bob McCarty

Sacks responded almost 24 hours later:

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