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Shirley's Escapades

Mike

Well-known member
July 21, 2010
Forty Acres & a Mule -- Sherrod Style?
Rosslyn Smith

Shirley Sherrod's quick dismissal from the Obama administration may have had less to do with her comments on race before the NAACP than her long involvement in the aptly named Pigford case, a class action against the US government on behalf of black farmers alleging that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had discriminated against black farmers during the period from 1983 through 1997. According to Wikipedia:


The plaintiffs settled with the government in 1999. Under the consent decree, all African American farmers would be paid a "virtually automatic" US$50,000 plus granted certain loan forgiveness and tax offsets. This process was called "Track A".[2]


Alternatively, affected farmers could follow the "Track B" process, seeking a larger payment by presenting a greater amount of evidence - the legal standard in this case was to have a preponderance of evidence along with evidence of greater damages....


At the time the case was settled, it was estimated there would be in the area of 2,000 to 3,000 claims. As with most estimates involving government handouts that number was woefully short of the mark. Again, according to Wikipedia:


22,505 "Track A" applications were heard and decided upon, of which 13,348 (59%) were approved. US$995 million had been disbursed or credited to the "Track A" applicants as of January 2009, including US$760 million disbursed as US$50,000 cash awards. Fewer than 200 farmers opted for the "Track B" process.


Beyond those applications that were heard and decided upon, about 70,000 petitions were filed late and were not allowed to proceed. Some have argued that the notice program was defective, and others blamed the farmers' attorneys for "the inadequate notice and overall mismanagement of the settlement agreement." A provision in the 2008 farm bill essentially allowed a re-hearing in civil court for any claimant whose claim had been denied without a decision that had been based on its merits


In other words, according to Agri-Pulse.com the number of total claims filed not only exceeded the original estimate by almost 40 to 50 times, it is close to four times the USDA's estimate of 26,785 total black owned farms in 1977! One reason for this is that the settlement applied to farmers and those who "attempted to farm" and did not receive assistance from the USDA. Getting the latest round of Pigford cases from the 2008 farm bill settled is said to be a high priority for the Obama administration.


So where does Sherrod come into this picture? In a special to the Washington Examiner, Tom Blumer explains that Sherrod and the group she formed along with family members and others, New Communities. Inc. received the largest single settlement under Pigford.


... 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).


What makes this even more interesting to me is that Charles appears to be Charles Sherrod, who was a big player in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the early 1960s. The SNCC was the political womb that nurtured the Black Power movement and the Black Panthers before it faded away.


Blumer has some questions about this settlement and about Sherrod's rapid departure from the USDA


•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?
I second his conclusion that the media and bloggers shouldn't be so quick to dismiss Shirley Sherrod. Let me start by adding another question to the list. In her position at not for profit, Rural Development Leadership Network, a network of activists and community builder, was Sherrod involved in any way in encouraging people to submit fraudulent claims under Pigford? Did she put black people who owned rural land in touch with lawyers who would file the paperwork claiming attempts to farm had been prevented by the non cooperation of the local USDA?


I ask because there are a multitude of small parcels of non productive rural land all across the south, land unsuitable for mechanized agriculture that was once owned by subsistence farmers, black and white alike. Many of these parcels continue to be owned by family members who moved elsewhere out of sentimental reasons. The property taxes and other carrying costs are cheap and often ancestors are buried there in family plots. A drive on any country road in the South may turn up several carefully maintained postage stamp sized family cemeteries. As I read Blumer, I wondered how many of the owners claimed they had attempted to farm just such acreage to score a fast $50,000 from Uncle Sam?
 

Steve

Well-known member
•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?

isn't against the law to "sell a seat" or appointment?
 

Mike

Well-known member
Steve said:
•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?

isn't against the law to "sell a seat" or appointment?

There's more to Shirley than meets the eye..........................
 

jingo2

Well-known member
It seems Mr. Mike from your posts, esp today, that your sheets must still be in dryer as you seem to have time to rather racist youreself.
 

hopalong

Well-known member
Poor kojingo still out in the dark huh?
Poor lil girl :wink:
Need another crying towel????
Or your diaper changed???
:wink: :wink: :wink:

Mike are them red satin sheets that are in the dryer :D :D
Do they match kojingos red shoes?? :D :D

Ding dong the witch is dead
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Shirley Sherrod Attacks Andrew Breitbart And Fox News For Racist Intentions

July 21st, 2010

by Frances Martel

The woman at the center of the Andrew Breitbart/NAACP/Obama Administration/USDA/probably-Journolist-but-who’s-keeping-track-at-this-point scandal, Shirley Sherrod, spoke to Media Matters’ Joe Strupp today about the experience of going from cable news villain to heroine in less than 24 hours, and unlike many in the media, Sherrod is not angered by the White House or the NAACP: She’s reserving her outrage for Breitbart and Fox News.

Of Breitbart, Sherrod claims she did not know who he was before the scandal broke, and that she was not contacted for comment before the highly-abridged version of her speech. “He never contacted me,” she explains. “I think they intended it to be what it ended up being, a racist thing that could unite even more the racist people out there who follow them.”

Throughout the interview, however, Sherrod comes back to Fox News’ role in her demise much more than Breitbart’s. Explaining her reason for canceling a scheduled appearance on America Live with Megyn Kelly, Sherrod claims that the network’s bias would have prevented them from taking her at her word had she given an interview:

“They have called me today and initially I had said yes (to an interview), but I thought about it and I did not think they intended to be fair in their reporting. They are going to say what they want to say regardless of what I say.”

“It was unbelievable. I am refusing to be on there. They have been calling me and calling me. I have refused to do an interview because they are biased,” she explained. “I don’t think Fox News does it fairly. It is worse so now. I have sat and listened to the way they cover the news even before this administration and I saw what was going on.”

She also accused Fox News of racism, telling Strupp that “they are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to… where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person.”


And– surprise, surprise– she wants to sue, but isn’t sure who to attack legally yet: “I don’t know enough to know. I wish I did. I would love to sue. I am going to talk about it.” Sherrod has a lot to be angry about, and given the number of frivolous lawsuits filed in this country, she probably has legitimate ground to stand on against, at the very least, the USDA for using this video to fire her.


The most striking thing about this interview is how aggressively Sherrod takes on Fox News, so much so that it eclipses her rebukes of Breitbart, who originally ran the video. As Bret Baier argued yesterday, Fox News didn’t cover the story before her resignation (aside from a few comments in their primetime opinion hour). What’s more, the day after her resignation, Fox News’ opinion hosts covered the story in a light favorable to Sherrod and unfavorable to the NAACP and the White House.

The attacks on the network also feel off-color given the venue in which they’re presented: Media Matters, an institution primordially dedicated to discrediting Fox News. If we learned anything this month, it’s that websites with clear ideological biases sometimes make mountains out of molehills and hope no one notices when they backtrack. As Sherrod is entirely a victim of this type of political news coverage, it seems strange that she would be so eager to talk to Media Matters, and to talk almost exclusively about Fox News to them, and not nearly as much as Breitbart, the USDA, or the NAACP.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/shirley-sherrod-attacks-andrew-breitbart-and-fox-news-for-racist-intentions/
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Didn't Beck take her side?

July 21, 2010

Breitbart Didn’t Hide Sherrod’s Redemption and Other Things the Media’s Gotten Wrong So Far


by Guy Benson


As the mainstream media trips over itself to analyze and re-analyze the Shirley Sherrod controversy, Andrew Breitbart is under fire for ostensibly unethical behavior. Andrew is more than capable of defending himself, but I wanted to offer a few quick thoughts on this imbroglio:


(1) This President often decries the 24-hour, hyper-reactionary media cycle, yet his administration responded with warp-speed to toss Sherrod overboard. Can it now safely be asserted that the Obama administration “acted stupidly”?


(2) The administration’s thoughtless abandonment of Sherrod indicates a hair-trigger climate of paranoia about all issues racial within the West Wing. It seems J. Christian Adams’ whistle-blowing has taken its toll, and Team Obama is nervous about the degree of scrutiny its racially-tinged political machinations have received. On the heels of the New Black Panther kerfuffle, another major race flap just wouldn’t do–thus, a low-level African American female was deemed expendable, and was unceremoniously dumped. The White House now claims they didn’t press for Sherrod’s dismissal, yet is apologizing to her. Hmm.


(3) MSM critics are pouncing on Breitbart & Co. for “smearing” Sherrod by exploiting out-of-context remarks. As others have noted, many of these same critics were remarkably mute as the ACORN videos were revealed, yet eagerly jumped into the fray to prematurely crucify James O’Keefe when he was arrested in Louisiana. These duplicitous observers were also conspicuously subdued as Andrew Breitbart beat back the “N-word” accusations invented by the Congressional Black Caucus. The story selection speaks for itself.


(4) Did Breitbart really excise or ignore the exculpatory portion of Sherrod’s remarks? The initial version of the video included Sherrod’s change-of-heart conclusion that she ought to engage in class warfare rather than race warfare. Her subsequent remarks (the ones that were supposedly edited out) simply built on that theme. Also, does anyone really believe that Andrew Breitbart would intentionally distort a video clip to make a one-day splash? Risk his growing reputation with a deliberate, easily refutable distortion? For those clamoring for more careful consideration of context and intent, perhaps they should contemplate those questions.


(5) There’s also a largely unspoken racial double standard at play here. I agree that many people–especially the White House–rushed to judgment in this case. While I’m certainly not here to argue Ms. Sherrod should have lost her job over the video, she did openly discuss her impulse to discriminate against a man because of the color of his skin. She described the agony of being “faced with having to help” a white man. She also told her NAACP audience that she decided to refer the white farmer to “one of his own kind.” It’s worth asking: Would a white federal employee ever get off the hook for making similar comments to an all-white audience?
 

Tam

Well-known member
Shirley Sherrod made a comment about how She had never seen so much hatred and how we have endured 8 years of the Bushes and we never did anything like they are now. I guess this far left Dem Loon wasn't paying attention when this was going on

http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621

Don't miss the pictures at the end and see if you agree the Dems never showed any hatred towards the Bushes. :roll: :mad:
 
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