Ousted USDA employee Shirley Sherrod says she will sue conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart, the Associated Press reports.
Sherrod made the announcement Thursday in San Diego at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention.
That should be interesting since the bar is set pretty high for public figures suing for defamation, asEd Morrissey notes:
Sue Breitbart for what, though? Defamation? Sherrod is a public official, which makes that kind of lawsuit darned near impossible. Breitbart used the clip to criticize the NAACP, not Sherrod directly, although she certainly came into the line of fire. People are allowed to criticize public officials in harsh and even unfair terms, especially when they make public remarks.
Morrissey thinks the court might have a problem with the case for another reason — Sherrod’s absurd public statements about Breitbart. She has accused him of being pro-slavery.
She also continues to erroneously blame Fox News for her firing:
“It wasn’t all media. It was Fox,” Sherrod says in commenting on President Obama’s remarks on The View blaming the media in part for the story.
The Judge in the Arizona immigration enforcement law case today enjoined key provisions of the law from being enforced tomorrow when the law goes into effect. This was not entirely suprising, as Arizona is in the Ninth Federal Circuit, which ought to be renamed the FAIL! circuit.
To my conservative friends who are blustering and hyperventilating: Relax. No matter the outcome of this hearing, it was going to be appealed. I’m more interested in the reaction of the average joe to this, because then we will better understand if the American public will understand that their consent is no longer required by the governing, who apparently have so little respect for the rule of law that they will openly display their disrespect for the concept.
Out of all the analyses I perused today, I think Legal Insurrection had one of the better ones. I don’t know if the Professor was trying to be subtle, or if he came to the real nub of today’s decision without really noting its significance.
The result of this statutory interpretation was that the Court found the procedure — as written — to interfere with the federal immigration scheme:
“Thus, an increase in the number of requests for determinations of immigration status, such as is likely to result from the mandatory requirement that Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies check the immigration status of any person who is arrested, will divert resources from the federal government’s other responsibilities and priorities.”
Now one of the thrusts of the government’s case is that the Arizona law violates the Supremacy Clause, because immigration is a matter where Congress was explicitly given jurisdiction in the Constitution. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are only two recognized situations that I am aware of where the Supremacy Clause becomes an issue:
1. State law regulates the Federal government directly, or it discriminates against it; and
2. State law interferes with a Congressional Policy.
Any argument that rests in any fashion on what amounts to a claim that “The state law will require the Federal government to do the job it reserved to itself as an exercise of its expressly granted power, which might mean that it could expend money and other resources that it would rather spend on other priorities.” meets neither of these standards. What’s more, it demonstrates a unilateral revocation of a concept that has kept this nation from coup and overthrow for about 230 years: The rule of law.
The rule of law, put simply, is the idea that the law rules men, not other men. Because the law applies to everyone equally, everyone submits to its authority, with the belief that if it ever becomes necessary, aggrieved parties will have their day in court, and “self-help” remedies (like gunfights), which are destructive to social order, will not be necessary. By this admission in her ruling, Judge Susan Bolton fails to comprehend that the Federal Government’s desire (or lack thereof) to enforce certain laws is a factor in whether or not a state may adopt a law that is the mirror of the corresponding Federal law does irreparable violence to this notion, as well as the notion of Federalism itself. The states are supposed to be co-equal sovereigns with the Federal government, granting it authority to perform specifically enumerated tasks, the performance of which is necessary to the maintenance of a viable nation.
What happened today was that a state which is suffering from a co-equal sovereign’s utter failure to perform a task that was specifically assigned to it. That assignment was originally made because of the expectation that the Federal government would secure the nation’s borders and protect its citizens from many of the ills that an enormous influx of illegal aliens would bring. Arizona, and other border states have had an incredible burden placed on their resources as they have had to provide services for people who have no legal right to be here, and from the other associated effects such as wage depression, and the growing amount of narco-crime that has followed the influx of these criminals. [Yes, I used the word "criminals". In my Black's Law Dictionary, it still applies to people who break the law.]
If the Federal government can be so arbitrary and capricious with regard to enforcement of laws relating to a core duty it holds, then we all have reason to fear, because selective enforcement can be applied to any Federal law. If this cannot motivate the average citizen to bring real change to Federal government, then not only are we lost, but we deserve to be. If we accept lawlessness garbed in the authority and mantle of law, then we have surrendered any notion of being a free people.
I wonder if Breitbart knew what a can of worms he was opening when he posted that edited Shirley Sherrod video? Because the more we look at her and her husband, that 13 million settlement she got just prior to being hired by the USDA, and the multi-billion Pigford vs Glickman class action settlement, the more disgusted and suspicious we get. The settlement is starting to look more like a boondoggle, or worse yet, reparations.
Zombie, did a little snooping and found more questions than answers:
In the 1999 case Pigford v. Glickman, the USDA agreed to pay 16,000 black farmers $1 billion after a judge held the federal government responsible for the decline in black farmers. Critics argued that more than 70,000 farmers were shut out of the lawsuit. In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley got a law passed to reopen the case, and the settlement talks moved forward.
The $1.25 billion settlement, announced Thursday, comes on top of the money paid out a decade ago. The new agreement would provide cash payments and debt relief to farmers who applied too late to participate in the earlier settlement, The Washington Post reported. Authorities say they are not certain how many farmers might apply this time, but analysts say the number could be higher than 70,000.
Seventy-thousand+ applicants in addition to the 16,000 already compensated now means that over 86,000 people are slated to be paid.
What I want to know is: How can there be 86,000 legitimate
claimants?
The Census pinpoints the precise number of African-American
farmers
In the pdf version of the government’s official 2007 Agricultural
Census, Table 53 on page 646 shows that there are exactly 39,697
African-American farmers grand total in the entire nation.
Moreover, another Dept. of Agriculture census report gives the total number of black farmers in 1992, the time of the Pigford vs Glickman lawsuit:
Last year, TX Congressman, Kevin Brady’s Health Care Bill Chart was a viral sensation. Today, he unveiled a special visual project highlighting how out of control the expansion of the federal government has become:
Texas Republican Rep. Kevin Brady says in a release that committee analysts actually couldn’t fit everything in: “This portrays only about one-third of the complexity of the final bill. It’s actually worse than this.”
In a conference call with conservative bloggers, today, Brady made note of the high potential for rationed care, and the 13 different sections in the law that disallow challenges to health care decisions.
He says there will be an explosion of bureaucratic government jobs, and IRS lawyers, while private sector jobs dwindle because the new taxes will cost thousands of jobs, making us uncompetitive with other countries.
Brady also assured us that Republican congressmen are dedicated to repealing the bill and replacing it with common sense reforms.
Look for this chart to make appearances at town halls all across the country, this August.
Plans are in the works for a similar chart on the Financial Reform Bill.
Congressman Brady is the Senior House Republican on the Joint Economic Committee and a ranking subcommittee Member for Ways and Means.You can visit his web sitehere.
No opposition research or GOTCHA politics needed when Dems are in charge. Just record what they say and play it back. The political ads write themselves.
So Barack Hussein Obama thinks it more important to go on a talk show with some of the most vapid ‘talents’ to waste pixels since Britney Spears had a show than to go to the Boy Scouts’ Centennial Jamboree. Is it news worthy?
Only if you think about how it demonstrates his priorities.
On the former, he can field softballs from a friendly panel who would much rather joke and giggle with him than ask a difficult question about the many failures of his adminstration or push him to denounce the tired tactic of his defenders and enablers of “Blame Bush!” nearly two years after taking the job he so desperately asked us to give him.
At the latter, he is likely to come face-to-face with people of all hues and creeds who focused on achievement and learning all the things that they can do, rather than wallowing in the conviction of all the things they are sure that they can’t do (even if they never tried). He will come face to face-to-face with people of all hues and creeds who make the daily attempt to adhere to a code that doesn’t have room for cynicism or the petty divisions that politicians cleverly manipulate in an attempt to increase their own power. At the latter, he would come face-to-face with people who believe in voluntarily giving service to their communities, not out of a tangled belief in collective salvation, but because they understand their faith enough to know that such service is a betterment to themselves personally, and is the real root of charity. And finally, he would come to face-to-face with people who believe in right and wrong in personal behavior, and are willing to take a stand regarding those beliefs, rather than bow to political expediency.
Knowing this, I understand his choice completely, and I find it unsurprising. If I were him, I wouldn’t want to be spending time with boys, young men, and their elders, any one of whom demonstrate more character on their absolute worst days than this shallow shell of a man who has left a trail of friends and associates in his wake so that the electorate doesn’t think too hard about birds of a feather flocking together. That would have to be singularly uncomfortable.
I know some conservatives and former scouts who are upset that the President of the United States will not lend the prestige of his office to a celebration of an American Institution. I myself have mixed feelings about this. While I regret that the current occupant of the Oval Office cannot suck it up, take a break from his perpetual vacation, and try to inspire young men and boys to aspire to such lofty goals, I find that I am glad that he has once again chosen what is easy over what is right. If the boys cannot have such an honored guest who demonstrates many of the morals that are the product of the code they live by, then I would honestly prefer that they didn’t have to endure one who clearly cannot.
And while I too, was a scout, and still try to live up to that code, I fear that their grace and respect is simply more than he deserves.
Yes, it’s cringeworthy, and yes, it’s unpresidential, but as Coulter says, (and she’s always right) Obama does well in these sorts of informal settings, so it was probably a shrewd move on his part to go on.
Van Irion, lead Attorney, with Anthony Shreeve, lead Plaintiff, for the Obamacare Class Action lawsuit against the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act, will personally serve a complaint and motion for preliminary injunction on Obama, Pelosi, Reid and AG Holder this Wednesday in Washington D.C. Irion represents over 25,000 Americans as named co-Plaintiffs on the lawsuit. The preliminary injunction is the first motion of its type to be filed against the PPACA and seeks to immediately bar the government from enforcing any aspect of the health care reform bill passed last March.
“I continue to hear from thousands across the country that are already being negatively affected by this bill. Some are loosing their current medical coverage. Some are business owners being unfairly targeted by the Tan Tax,” says Irion. “As time goes on, more begin to realize that this bill does little to improve quality of care in the U.S., but simply expands a flawed system. What Americans need is freedom to make their own choices for health care and insurance. There are free market solutions to the rising cost and diminishing availability of health care that are being completely ignored by Washington.”
Irion says that any regulation of health care on the Federal level is unconstitutional as it is not a specified Federal function in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution and is specifically barred by the 10th Amendment. Obamacare must be repealed as unconstitutional, but so must regulations that prevent or discourage buying insurance across state lines and individual ownership of health care insurance. These are reforms Irion plans to push for when he is elected Tennessee’s next Third District Congressman.
For the entire election year of 2008, conservatives were desperate to get the MSM to cover important stories about the Obamas, but the truth kept getting squashed by the Obama campaign.
Here are just a few, out of countless stories that never gained the traction they deserved, because the MSM bought, (or covered for) the Obamalies:
The Rev Wright story was important because it could have warned American voters that the “post-racial” candidate was nothing of the sort, as we’ve all come too late to discover.
The ACORN story was important because it could have warned voters about the Alinsky “end justifies the means” radicalism that has come to define his governing style.
And the Ayers story was important because it could have warned voters about the virulent anti-American radicalism that we’ve seen in so many of Obama’s policies.
One promising lead that would have shed light on the Obama/Ayers relationship, and was never followed up on in the fall of 2008, was the Ayers babysitting story. That one was quashed because, according to the rumors circulating at the time, there was only one nervous, anonymous source,and the media outlet being tipped on the story, needed at least two anonymous sources to run the story.
The McCain campaign approached us with a story they had on Obama, which needed a second source to confirm. They had found a young woman in Hyde Park who had played with the older Obama girl on occasion, and knew about babysitting William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn did for the Obama girls. The young woman was the daughter of a McCain supporter in Hyde Park (probably the only McCain supporter in Hyde Park), and was barely a teenager. The McCain camp went to Ben Smith with this story, but he refused to look into it because the only witness to the Ayers/Dohrn babysitting operation was a teenaged girl who happened to be the daughter of a McCain supporter.
We were charged with finding someone else who could verify that Ayers/Dohrn babysat the Obama girls. We brought their old swimming instructor up, and Ben Smith shot that person (now a respected advertising executive) down because she, too, was a Republican and a McCain supporter. So, Ben Smith refused to do a write-up on the Ayers/Dorhn babysitting…despite getting two different people who didn’t know each other to verify that this happened on more than one occasion.
When you look at a map of the Hyde Park area, you see Louis Farrakhan, the Obama/Rezko Mansion, and the William Ayers residence in very close proximity to one another…about as close to each other as The Gap, Banana Republic, and Express are to each other in a typical suburban mall. Walking distance. So close, young children could easily walk between the houses without parents worrying about them.
That story was one of many that could have deep-sixed the Obama campaign, but thanks to Journolister, Ben Smith, it was the story that was deep sixed.
I became a huge fan of Stanley Kurtz during the 2008 campaign. Dr. Kurtz, a painstaking, scholarly, responsible researcher, was, in my view, foremost among those happy few who dug deep into the question the liberal media struggled so very hard to ignore — Who is Barack Obama? Of course, Kurtz received the smear treatment for his efforts.
I have wondered what he’s been up to since then. Now we know:
Like Pundette, I became a Stanley Kurtz fan during the 2008 election, too. Can’t wait to read his new book to see what else he was able to dig up.
Is it just me, or is there a lot of news out there, today? There are about a dozen stories that I would like to touch on, and I don’t even know where to begin…I guess that means a link-fest is in order.
Before we get started, I’ve got a question: Why do I keep hearing Obama PSAs? Why can’t I escape his droning voice even on my conservative talk radio station? Why do I have to hear his PSAs about the Census, volunteerism, or whatever his latest enthusiasm is? Did Bush do these, too? Maybe he did, and I just didn’t notice because Bush’s voice didn’t annoy me? I don’t know. I just find it annoying.
And away we go:
• Here’s another totally unsurprising, but disturbing revelation about Obama’s pick for Medicare and Medicaid administrator:
•Journolist, Day 5…I told you there’d be more mobilization against Palin, there. This time, the Journolisters express admiration for Palin’s political skills, which leads some of them to coordinate a message to destroy her.
Luke Mitchell, then a senior editor at Harper’s magazine, asked Tomasky if his paper would be able to help: “Michael – Isn’t this something that can be fanned a bit by, say, the Guardian?”
Tomasky didn’t think it would work….
Mitchell replied: “Fair enough! But it seems to me that a concerted effort on the part of the left partisan press could be useful. Why geld ourselves? A lot of the people on this list work for organizations that are far more influential than, say, the Washington Times.
“Open question: Would it be a good use of this list to co-ordinate a message of the week along the lines of the GOP? Or is that too loathsome? It certainly sounds loathsome. But so does losing!”
Does he mean coordinate a message the same way political party strategists do, not only in the RNC, but DNC, as well? Only they’re journalists? Or did he mean coordinate a message about the GOP? Either way, they’re caught with their pants down, although to be fair, Erza Klein was against the idea:
“Nope, no message coordination. I’m not even sure that would be legal. This is a discussion list, though, and I want it to retain that character,” he wrote.
The end result, of course, was message coordination, and if they were trying to do so “along the lines of the (loathsome) GOP”, (the way the GOP does?) that begs the question, do some of these guys consider themselves to be the propaganda arm of the Democratic party or something?
One of them, Todd Gitlin, is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, “whose job is to train the next generation of America’s most elite journalists”…..
“On the question of liberals coordinating, what the hell’s wrong with some critical mass of liberal bloggers & journalists saying the following among themselves:
“McCain lies about his maverick status. Routinely, cavalierly, cynically. Palin lies about her maverick status. Ditto, ditto, ditto. McCain has a wretched temperament. McCain is a warmonger. Palin belongs to a crackpot church and feels warmly about a crackpot party that trashes America.
“Repeat after me:
“McCain lies about his maverick status. Routinely, cavalierly, cynically. Palin lies about her maverick status. Ditto, ditto, ditto. McCain has a wretched temperament. McCain is a warmonger. Palin belongs to a crackpot church and feels warmly about a crackpot party that trashes America.
“These people are cynical. These people are taking you for a ride. These people are fakes. These people love Bush.
“Again. And again. Vary the details. There are plenty. Somebody on the ‘list posted a strong list of McCain lies earlier today. Hammer it. Philosophize, as Nietzsche said, with a hammer.
“I don’t know about any of you, but I’m not waiting for any coordination. Get on with it!”
How many future journalists are being taught to consider themselves the propaganda arms of the Democratic party?
•Dan Riehl, inspired by Joan Walsh of Salon’s deplorable race-baiting, did a little googling to find out more about Shirley’s hubby, Charles Sherrod, and what do you know! He came up with more deplorable race baiting:
Go watch the video…Riehl has also been uncovering the Sherrod’s embrace of the Marxist Black Liberation Theology. Nice couple…I’m thinking the Obama administration would just like this whole story to go away…meanwhile, the MFM is in spin overdrivetrying to blamethis debacle on shoddy journalism(Fox News, and Breitbart).
More: Have you seen this clipof Ann Coulter smacking around Rick Sanchez on the subject of the Breitbart video?
“Unraveling” is a good word for it. I reject “failing” because he’s been so successful in transforming the economy to the European-style Social Democracy Progressives dream about. What’s unraveling is his support…what’s unraveling is his ability to fool people, what’s unraveling is Democratic prospects at the polls, this November:
It is somewhat amusing and somewhat poignant to witness former Journolisters offering panicked and pathetic explanations for why the political world is crumbling.
E.J. Dionne has not only devolved from a thoughtful columnist into a left-wing hit-man, but he has devolved even further, into the realm of a flagrantly dishonest left-wing hit-man. Today’s column contains falsehood after falsehood. First, he says the Sherrod flap grew out of a “doctored video pushed by right-wing hit man Andrew Breitbart.” Truth: The video was not doctored (it was an excerpt), and wasn’t even excerpted by Breitbard himself. And Breitbart himself used it in a way meant not to attack Sherrod but to note the applause by the listeners, which was a legitimate point. It was the NAACP and the Obama administration that over-reacted; conservatives, to our credit, asked for more context, and also provided fulsome, generous (perhaps even overly generous) testimonials to the unfairness done to Sherrod.
Read the whole thing…Dionne has lowered himself to smearing J Christian Adams, now.
Last week, with British PM, David Cameron at his side, Obama condemned the decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi:
The bottom line he says is that “we all disagreed with it”…
It’s true that all along, Obama has expressed his disapproval of the release in public statements, and privately to the victims’ families, as seen in this video from last August (1:07):
Now, The Australianis reporting that the Obama administration favored a conditional release on compassionate grounds as an alternative to prisoner transfer to Libya:
THE US government secretly advised Scottish ministers it would be “far preferable” to free the Lockerbie bomber than jail him in Libya.
Correspondence obtained by The Sunday Times reveals the Obama administration considered compassionate release more palatable than locking up Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in a Libyan prison.
The intervention, which has angered US relatives of those who died in the attack, was made by Richard LeBaron, deputy head of the US embassy in London, a week before Megrahi was freed in August last year on grounds that he had terminal cancer.
The document, acquired by a well-placed US source, threatens to undermine US President Barack Obama’s claim last week that all Americans were “surprised, disappointed and angry” to learn of Megrahi’s release.
Scottish ministers viewed the level of US resistance to compassionate release as “half-hearted” and a sign it would be accepted.
The US has tried to keep the letter secret, refusing to give permission to the Scottish authorities to publish it on the grounds it would prevent future “frank and open communications” with other governments.
In the letter, sent on August 12 last year to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond and justice officials, Mr LeBaron wrote that the US wanted Megrahi to remain imprisoned in view of the nature of the crime.
The note added: “Nevertheless, if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose.”
Mr LeBaron added that freeing the bomber and making him live in Scotland “would mitigate a number of the strong concerns we have expressed with regard to Megrahi’s release”.
The US administration lobbied the Scottish government more strongly against sending Megrahi home, under a prisoner transfer agreement signed by the British and Libyan governments, in a deal now known to have been linked to a pound stg. 550 million oil contract for BP.
Al-Megrahi, who it turns out,will live to a ripe old age, was released with the United States Government’s blessing.
Here is what Team Obama’s “smart” and sensitive form of diplomacy has wrought: A hero’s welcome home to Libya for the murderous Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, who was released last August claiming he had terminal cancer and three months to live. A year later, the jihadist is still alive, senators want an investigation, and The Australian reports that the Obama administration backed “compassionate release.”
There are a lot of contenders in the age of Obama for the title of most race-baiting pundit, but nobody does it better than the deplorableed Keith Olbermann!
@m4zdaman ah yes, the Klan. Formed by those who refused to accept the government or blacks in power. In other words, The Tea Party about 1 hour ago via Twitterrific
In the fifties and sixties, members of the KKK who fought the civil rights movement were uniformly Democrats. Infamous police commissioner Bull Connor not only attacked protesters with fire hoses, dogs and clubs, but served as both a KKK member and a committeeman for the Democrat Party.
Andrew Breitbart doesn’t owe anyone an apology, says Bozell; the NAACP owes the people an apology for honoring Sherrod, and she should have been fired from her post at the USDA for making speeches like the one Breitbart (partially) exposed. The speech, if listened to in full, is not all sweetness and light, even though, there was a redemptive quality to the personal story she was telling. A poisonous tendency toward racial demagoguery seems to be her m-o, and that has been on display ever since this story broke.
Hat tip:Frugal Cafewho has more on this still developing controversy.
Another week, another great group of candidates for our TBF poll. The candidates this week are:
Christine O’Donnell (DE-Sen), Patricia Sullivan, FLA-8), Allen West (FL-22), John Faulk, (TX-18), Tim Scott (SC-1), John Dennis (CA-8), Marco Rubio (FL-Sen), Sharron Angle (NV-Sen), Morgan Philpot (UT-2), Todd Young, (IN-9).
You can read up on each of these candidates at Right Klik.
The poll is at the top of my right sidebar, and remember, the winner gets the 10 dollar money bombs at the end of the week.
Andrew Breitbart speaking at the SRLC
