CPAC2011 Thursday Afternoon

Black farmers protesting Pigford case fraud

A guy from Brietbart TV invited bloggers downstairs for a press conference on the Pigford black farmers case. Brietbart was there with some farmers and blogger Lee Stranahan from the Huffington Post - dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He stood out, calling himself "the worst-dressed guy at CPAC" where almost every guy wears a jacket and tie, this writer included. It was nice to see someone from the left just as outraged as Brietbart over this politically-correct fraud. They played audio evidence of fraud by attorneys assisting black "farmers" applying for their piece of more than $2 billion in settlement funds for alleged discrimination against them.Black farmers, Brietbart, and Stranahan on the right

Stranahan was sitting on the right, but he's figuratively from the left - writing as he does for the Huffington Post. Unusual to see someone from the other side at CPAC, but it emphasized his indignation about what was happening with the Pigford case, as well as his respect for Andrew Brieitbart. He explained what we were listening to, which was an attorney named Burrell coaching a church full of alleged black farmers to fill out applications and "get their checks" from the federal government. The standard of proof was as loose as them them claiming their deceased father once tried to get an application from the US Department of Agriculture and was denied because he was black.Representative Steve King (R Iowa)

According to USDA figures, Iowa Congressman Steve King said, there were only 18,000 black farmers, but 94,000 application for compensation. He also said that then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama was encouraging farmers from Illinois to get involved.

We'll definitely be hearing more about this case. Brietbart has a special interest in it after the left accused him of shoddy journalism in the USDA white farmers case and the firing of Shirley Sherrod back in July, 2010. As it turned out, Sherrod and her husband each got $150,000 in "compensation" for pain and suffering, and stand to collect millions more.

Interesting. Very interesting.

I had to leave partway through to get to another session. More on this later, I'm sure.