It’s shocking that there hasn’t been more of a public outcry about the discrimination that happened at the USDA recently concerning white farmers in America. What’s even worse, Republicans in Congress have also been silent while plans for billions in federal aid is designated for minority farmers but NOT for white farmers. Joe Biden is continuing where Obama left off with the discriminatory black farmer boondoggle.

It makes sense that Joe Biden would have the same Agriculture Secretary that Obama had for his two terms. Now, Biden and his Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack are continuing the multi-billion-dollar black farmer giveaway that Obama expanded and continued from early 2000.

The good news is two U.S. Reps have finally noticed the discrimination against white farmers and are doing something about it. Last week,  US Reps Burgess Owens and Tom Tiffany announced legislation they say would stop the USDA from discriminating against Americans based on race and other characteristics. The irony is that the tables are turned, and the whites are now being discriminated against. Isn’t this the exact thing that blacks fought against in the Civil Rights movement?

Rep. Burgess Owens

Rep. Owens: “Farmers from all walks of life face tremendous challenges, especially as their industry navigates a post-pandemic economy. I’m deeply concerned that Congress feels emboldened to perpetuate a modern-day form of racial segregation rather than provide relief to those who need it most. My grandfather, a respected farmer in the 1950s and ‘60s Black middle class, would be horrified by any policy that seeks to discriminate based on race. Racism was and will always be wrong.”

Rep. Owens spoke out on Twitter:

 

The Agriculture Civil Rights and Equality Act (ACRE) would “prohibit officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture” from “discriminating or providing preferential treatment to any person based on race, color, national origin or sex.”

Rep. Tiffany: “It’s one thing to gear relief programs to farmers who have fallen on hard times and are struggling to make ends meet. But it is fundamentally unfair for the government to treat farmers differently based on immutable characteristics. To extend assistance to some farmers but not others based on race undermines the constitution’s guarantee of equal protection for all Americans. If we are serious about ending discrimination in the agriculture sector, the first step is for the government to stop doing the discriminating.”

Rep. Tom Tiffany

The legislation is in response to Biden’s recent covid relief package that included “a $5 billion agriculture debt relief program earmarked exclusively for non-white farmers.”

Anyone unfamiliar with the previous black farmer boondoggle under Obama should know that it was a $50K giveaway to any minority who said they farmed. It was billions of taxpayer dollars that ONLY went to minorities.

OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON THE PIGFORD MINORITY GIVEAWAY:

PIGFORD has to be the biggest scam and fraud EVER, but I’ll bet most Americans haven’t even heard about it. IT’S ALL ABOUT FREE MONEY! Yes, free money for everyone EXCEPT white farmers. Our government has spent over 4 BILLION dollars on what was to be a small program to help minority farmers who “felt” they were discriminated against:

Essentially, the process encouraged people to lie and spawned a cottage industry. Claimants had only to file applications for a $50,000 payment by stating that they had “thought about” applying for loans to become farmers.

Where’s Congress on this big taxpayer giveaway? Oh, they’re voting for billions more to go to this scam of major proportions…

The Obama administration has again been protected from a troubling scandal by the mainstream media (MSM) using the omission tactic to ignore the scandal, its reality, and the negative blowback attendant to a disturbing story. As sunlight began to illuminate the scandal’s inconvenient and troubling facts, charges of racism were used to silence those sounding the alarm temporarily. Seemingly, the alarm-ringers’ only crime was having the temerity to respond with a politically incorrect point of view to abuses.

The underreported scandal referenced is generally identified as “Pigford.” Pigford’s germination occurred in 1997 as a lawsuit (Pigford vs. Glickman) alleging that 91 African-American farmers were unfairly denied loans by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) due to racial discrimination, which prevented the complainants from farming. In 1999, the black farmers won their case.

Pigford has the distinction of being an out-of-control waste of taxpayer funds and/or a cynical attempt by the Obama administration to curry favor with certain minority groups to which neither President Obama nor Attorney General Eric Holder can plead ignorance of involvement. Both have known since the court ruled on the Pigford lawsuit; in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama supported and voted for the initial settlement funding then, Eric Holder (and Obama) have been involved in overseeing and managing the Pigford “judgment fund.”

Yet can Pigford be fairly described as a scandal?

Pigford began innocently enough: as a lawsuit to redress a perceived wrong against a group of 91. But then the number climbed to 400….then 1,600…then…

The number of black farmers has metastasized — nay exploded — and the aggrieved group now includes blacks and Hispanics, Native Americans, and females. In fact, over 90,000 people have filed claims seeking payment under the terms of the original Pigford court ruling. That decision, now referred to as Pigford #1, was anticipated to cost approximately $120 million, including legal fees.

Pigford #2 is the appellation used to identify an expanded payment regime that funds more payments to African-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and females. This regimen grew out because thousands of claimants missed the original Pigford #1 filing deadline of October 12, 1999. Interestingly, Native American potential claimants were estimated at 5,300, while plaintiff lawyers pegged the exposure at an estimated 19,000 Native Americans.

The judgment fund announced by Agricultural Secretary Thomas Vilsack and Eric Holder in 2010 was expanded from just over $120 million to $1.25 billion, given the expectation of many more filers.

However, the claimants’ explosion has caused payouts to reach $4.4 billion and has swelled legal fees to over $130 million.

More importantly, the claim’s process created a rush to get a share of the monies allocated to the judgment fund, even if no real claim existed. Essentially, the process encouraged people to lie and spawned a cottage industry. Claimants had only to file applications for a $50,000 payment by stating that they had “thought about” applying for loans to become farmers. Proof of a claimant’s intent to farm also included a statement from that petitioner saying he or she had attempted to farm by planting a batch of tomatoes in his or her backyard and having that statement verified by a family member. In essence, the need to be a farmer at the time of the USDA’s alleged discriminatory actions was not a requirement to share in the financial redress.

Fraud was endemic to the claims process — for example, every apartment in a New York City building received a settlement of at least $50,000. Further, some families received checks of $50,000 for each family member.

Read more: American Thinker

 

 

 

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