Friday Free-For-All: Breitbart Vindicated – NY Times Confirms Massive Fraud in Pigford

Joel Pollak, Big Government: NYTIMES CONFIRMS: MASSIVE FRAUD AT USDA IN PIGFORD; BREITBART VINDICATED:

So very convenient that this comes out five months after the election, and over a year after Andrew Breitbart’s death.

The New York Times reported Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has likely enabled massive fraud in the Pigford series of legal settlements, in which black, Hispanic, female and Native American farmers have claimed to be victims of past discrimination.

The cost of the settlements, which could exceed $4.4 billion, is the result of a process that “became a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees,” the Times notes.

Among those influential members of Congress was then-Senator Barack Obama, who made Pigford payouts a priority in exchange for political support for his 2008 presidential campaign among a coveted group of black voters in the rural South, the Times reports.

As president, Obama continued to support payouts for new groups of claimants while abandoning a review process that had been used to fight fraud. The aim was “buying the support” of minorities, according to the Times, while middlemen created a “cottage industry” in defrauding the government.

The Times investigation, led by reporter Sharon LaFraniere, vindicates the late Andrew Breitbart, for whom Pigford became a crucial issue in demonstrating the cynical use of racial politics by the institutional left to hurt the very people they claimed to be helping. Breitbart directed investigations of the Pigford fraud and championed the cause of the original black farmers in the lawsuit, arguing that many of them had been left behind while opportunistic lawyers and fraudulent claimants looted the federal treasury in exchange for votes and support.

Andrew talked about the Shirley Sherrod/Pigford saga in the CPAC bloggers lounge in Feb, 2011. This is well worth revisiting.

Everything he said there was confirmed by the NY Times investigation.

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Weasel Zippers: FBI Informant Claims Taliban Operatives Are Living In America, “They Can Commit Jihad At Any Time, They Hate America”…

Via CBS Miami:

“I am an informant and all I can tell you is that Talibans are walking freely right here in the soil of America right now, right now.”

That’s the haunting worry of South Floridian David Mahmood Siddiqui. He was the confidential FBI informant who has a rare view of of trying to infiltrate a largely secreted world of what the U.S. government considers terrorist sympathizers.

He met with CBS’4 Chief Investigator Michele Gillen saying he wants to tell his story to share what he’s uncovered and explain why he has concerns for the safety of the United States. Because of concerns for his safety, his face is concealed during the interview.

Asked by Gillen what he thinks the risk of having Taliban living in America is, he responded; “They can commit a jihad at any time, they hate America, you have an enemy living here in American soil, do not know when they will take action to kill innocent Americans.”

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Doug Ross: AT LAST, SOME IN CONGRESS ASK: Why does the DHS need 1,000 more rounds of ammo per person than the U.S. Army?

Kudos to Representative Jason Chaffetz for calling out a Department of Homeland Security that appears to resemble President Obama’s “Civilian National Security Force” more and more each day.
Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz said Thursday that the Department of Homeland Security is using roughly 1,000 rounds of ammunition more per person than the U.S. Army, as he and other lawmakers sharply questioned DHS officials on their “massive” bullet buys.

“It is entirely … inexplicable why the Department of Homeland Security needs so much ammunition,” Chaffetz, R-Utah, said at a hearing.

The hearing itself was unusual, as questions about the department’s ammunition purchases until recently had bubbled largely under the radar — on blogs and in the occasional news article. But as the Department of Homeland Security found itself publicly defending the purchases, lawmakers gradually showed more interest in the issue.

Here’s a video from the hearing, yesterday:

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Fox News: ‘Climate of Fear’? Obama’s ATF pick facing probe over retaliation claim:

An independent government watchdog agency is investigating allegations that President Obama’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives retaliated against employees for whistle-blowing, FoxNews.com has learned.

The allegations against B. Todd Jones, a Minnesota federal prosecutor who also is serving as acting director of the ATF while his nomination is pending, include claims that he mismanaged the prosecutor’s office and presided over a “climate of fear.” Specifically, he was accused of retaliating against whistle-blowing with “a suspension and a lowered performance appraisal.”

In a letter dated July 20, 2012 to the Office of Special Counsel, employees at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota first claimed that they were being mistreated and that the office had turned into a “hostile work environment.”

The letter, obtained by FoxNews.com, said Jones “instituted a climate of fear, has pushed employees out of the office, dismissed employees wrongly, violated the hiring practices of the EEOC and put in place an Orwellian style of management that continues to polarize the office.”

The letter also asked the OSC to “come to this office and investigate the actions of not only B. Todd Jones, but those who he has put in positions that further his dictator style and created this atmosphere of fear among us.”

A story that set off alarm bells on Jones, last year: ATF Director’s Warning To Whistleblowers: “If you don’t find the appropriate way to raise your concerns… there will be consequences”

And a related story on the Milwaukee F-ups via JS Online: Before flawed gun-buying sting, ATF mishandled another Milwaukee case:

More than a year before federal agents botched a gun-buying sting in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood, they rented a warehouse amid the taquerias and taverns that line S. 13th St.

Instead of going after gun and drug arrests, ATF agents used the south side sting – also dubbed Fearless Distributing – to target cigarette sellers trying to cheat the government out of taxes.

They snared several criminals, but made a careless mistake, one they would repeat six months later: They left behind valuable merchandise and got ripped off.

When ATF agents shut down the south side warehouse and returned the keys to the landlord in April 2012, they left behind cases of cigarettes with a Wisconsin retail value of about $82,000.

The landlord repeatedly called the agents and told them to pick up the cigarettes because new tenants were moving in. By the time the agents finally showed up, two cases were gone, according to interviews and a police report obtained by the Journal Sentinel.

Although the theft was captured on video, the cigarettes – with a retail value of nearly $10,000 – have not been recovered and no one has been criminally charged.

There’s only one thing to do as far as the  Regime is concerned –  gotta give the guy in charge of that a promotion. 

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Another story simmering under the surface…

Gateway Pundit: VOTER FRAUD: Obama FAILED To Qualify For INDIANA BALLOT? Was This an Isolated Incident?

It may not seem like news to discover voter fraud contributed to Obama’s election win.

Playing with ballot signatures is nothing new to Obama. CNN once did a surprisingly honest report on Obama’s Dirty Politics (Part 1 and Part 2), in which Obama challenged the signatures of his competition, thus knocking everyone off the ballot to guaranteed Obama would be the only choice Illinois voters would have as a senator. No follow-up reporting has been done on Obama’s role in voter fraud by the mainstream media until now. Fox News reported that Obama used voter fraud to provide enough signatures to be on the Indiana ballot. The signatures are obviously forged. Which begs the question: Are there other states where Obama applied illegal means to qualify?

FoxNews reports the following:

“The trial is underway for a former Democratic official and a Board of Elections worker who are accused of being part of a plot that has raised questions over whether President Obama’s campaign — when he was a candidate in 2008 — submitted enough legitimate signatures to have legally qualified for the presidential primary ballot.

The trial is underway for a former Democratic official and a Board of Elections worker who are accused of being part of a plot that has raised questions over whether President Obama’s campaign — when he was a candidate in 2008 — submitted enough legitimate signatures to have legally qualified for the presidential primary ballot.”

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The NY Times: Senators Quietly Seek a New Path on Gun Control:

Give it a rest!

Talks to revive gun control legislation are quietly under way on Capitol Hill as a bipartisan group of senators seeks a way to bridge the differences that led to last week’s collapse of the most serious effort to overhaul the country’s gun laws in 20 years.

Drawing on the lessons from battles in the 1980s and ’90s over the Brady Bill, which failed in Congress several times before ultimately passing, gun control supporters believe they can prevail by working on a two-pronged strategy. First, they are identifying senators who might be willing to change their votes and support a background check system with fewer loopholes.

Second, they are looking to build a national campaign that would better harness overwhelming public support for universal background checks – which many national polls put at near 90 percent approval – to pressure lawmakers.

Senators Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, have been talking in recent days about how they could persuade more senators to support their bill to expand background checks for gun buyers, which drew backing from only four Republicans last week.

“We’re going to work it hard,” Mr. Manchin said Thursday, adding that he was looking at tweaking the language of his bill in a way that he believed would satisfy senators who, for example, felt that background checks on person-to-person gun sales would be too onerous for people who live in rural areas far from a sporting goods store.

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 HOUSTON, TX — U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) issued the following statement on today’s Internet Sales Tax cloture vote:

“Today, it was an honor to attend the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, as well as a memorial ceremony remembering those lost in the tragic explosion in West, Texas.

“Unfortunately, the Senate Majority Leader scheduled the vote on the Internet sales tax bill while I was in Texas. Had I been present for the vote, I would have emphatically voted ‘no.’

“Restoring economic growth should be every elected official’s top priority. Our economy is stagnant–it’s grown just 0.8% a year for the last four years–and small businesses are gasping for breath.

“At a time when so many people are hurting, this bill would impose billions of dollars of new taxes on small businesses across America. That makes no sense.

“The Internet has been a haven for entrepreneurial growth. We should protect and cherish the freedom of the Internet, and Congress should not pass a massive new Internet sales tax.

“The Democratic leadership should not be doing the bidding of major corporate lobbyists, at the expense of mom-and-pop retailers across America. Forcing small Internet retailers to comply with the taxing authority of over 9,600 jurisdictions nationwide would kill jobs and stifle economic growth. There’s no reason for the Senate to pass this flawed bill–skipping the committee process and rushing the bill forward to stifle debate.”

Michelle Malkin: A National Security History Lesson for Marco Rubio:

Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio seems well meaning enough. As second-generation conservative Americans, I know we both share a common passion for this great land of opportunity. But when it comes to comprehending the real agenda of the open-borders zealots he’s allied himself with, Rubio doesn’t have a clue.

And his abject ignorance threatens all of us who cherish American sovereignty and exceptionalism.

On Fox News’ “The Sean Hannity Show” Tuesday night, Rubio defended his Gang of Eight “immigration reform” bill and insisted that we could and should have a system in place that vets foreign tourists and short-term visa holders based on their “national security” profiles.

“In essence, we should be able to analyze (whether) these are individuals coming from a part of the world that keeps feeding into the terrorist network,” Rubio earnestly explained. “(W)e should be very careful about who we allow in and take into account every single measure or every single factor that we think could lead to somebody being more likely possibly a member of a terrorist organization or involved in terror.”

Great idea, Rubio! Newsflash: The concept of a national security entry-exit screening database is at least 10 years old. It’s an idea that was sabotaged by the progressive soft-on-security ideologues with whom Rubio has recklessly partnered.

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Ace had the best take on this next story, which I ignored because I was to enraged to write coherently about it:  NY State Middle School Forces Girls to Ask Each Other for a Kiss as Part of Anti-Gay-Bullying “Workshop”

It’s unconscionable.

It’s truly horrifying.

Parents say their daughters were told to ask one another for a kiss and they say two girls were told to stand in front of the class and pretend they were lesbians on a date.“She told me, ‘Mom we all get teased and picked on enough. Now I’m going to be called a lesbian because I had to ask another girl if I could kiss her,’” parent, Mandy Coon, told reporters.

Coon says parents were given no warning about the presentation and there was no opportunity to opt-out. Both the school principal and the district superintendent are defending the workshops and advising they will schedule more.

“The school is overstepping its bounds in not notifying parents first and giving us the choice,” another parent said. “I thought it was very inappropriate. That kind of instruction is best left up to the parents.”

“I was absolutely furious — really furious,” a parent who asked to remain anonymous told reporter Todd Starnes, “These are just kids. I’m dumbfounded that they found this class was appropriate.”

There is a very real suspicion, held for good reason, that anything that is not illegal in a socialist state will be mandatory. That is, there are only two categories of actions: the illegal and criminal, and the mandatory and coerced. Only What the State Forbids and What the State Compels.

If the Gay Rights people are insisting that children must kiss same-sex children in order to make their lives more convenient, then I am going fully Anti-Gay-Rights.

Keep reading at the link.

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I’ve been dividing my time between this blog, and Breitbart’s The Conversation. Some of my best stuff has been posted there, lately.

Obama’s Pick For Labor Sec Threatened Alabama Police And Sheriffs Over Immigration Law:

On the Senate floor, Thursday morning, Senator Jeff Sessions expressed amazement that “law enforcement officers in America are being directed not to follow plain law”.

On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that the Sec of Homeland Security “doesn’t have the ability to direct agents not to do what Congress has explicitly required them to do” as Sessions put it.

The very same dysfunctional dynamic has been at work in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice,  led by Thomas Perez, the radical ideologue Obama nominated to be Labor Secretary.

AL.com reported:

Thomas Perez threatened to revoke federal funding for Alabama police and sheriffs if they enforced provisions of the state’s controversial immigration law.

Perez, 51, the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, made the warning in meetings with Alabama sheriffs and police chiefs in June and July 2011, soon after the law was passed.

Perez repeated it in letters sent to local law enforcement officials in December 2011, saying the department was watching how they enforced a provision of the law that required them to check the immigration status of people they stopped for questioning.

He told the sheriffs that the U.S. Attorney General’s office would cut their funding and file civil lawsuits against them if it determined that they were depriving people of their rights.

Keep reading…

‘Stop the NRA’ March Fizzles – You gotta check out the picture.

Obama’s Terrorist Pal Comes Clean About Their Friendship:

Oh, don’t get me started on that whole thing. The Obama camp’s ridiculous lies and the trusting media’s total lack of curiosity on the matter still makes me blind with rage.

The Daily Beast had quite a scoop, today. Contrary to what the Obama campaign’s “Fight the Smears” website alleged back in 2008, Obama was once friendly with formerWeather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers and didhold a political fundraiser in his living room back in 1995.

So good of the left-wing media to finally look into this….now that he’s been reelected and the ugly truth doesn’t really matter, anymore.

Via News Ninja, (H/T Ace):

THE DAILY BEAST: There was a big hullabaloo during the 2008 presidential election over your relationship to Obama. What is or was your relationship to him?

AYERS: “I brief him every Monday in the White House, and he never listens!  (that was an attempt at a joke – Ed.) No. The truth is exactly what he said and what the campaign said in 2008. David Axelrod said we were friendly, that was true; we served on a couple of boards together, that was true; he held a fundraiser in our living room, that was true; Michelle [Obama] and Bernardine were at the law firm together, that was true. Hyde Park in Chicago is a tiny neighborhood, so when he said I was “a guy around the neighborhood,” that was true. Today, I wish I knew him better and he was listening to me. Obama’s not a radical. I wish he were, but he’s not.”

Gotta love the history revisionism, there. 2008 was so long ago, how is anyone supposed to remember exactly what David Axelrod said about the Obama/Ayers friendship on the campaign trail.

Minimizing the significance of that alliance, Axelrod said: “Bill Ayers lives in his [Obama’s] neighborhood. Their kids attend the same school. They’re certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.”

I guess Ayers forgot to mention the part about their kids going to school together. Maybe because at the time,  Ayers’ three children were in their late twenties and early thirties, and Obama’s two daughters, Sasha and Malia, were aged six and nine, respectively, which means Axelrod was – you know – lying.

Ayers also forgot to mention his backyard 4th of July BBQ with the Obamas. And I’m sure oh, so much more….

But here’s what the Obama Campaign’s now defunct “Fight the Smears” website had to say about the dastardly “smears”  Bill Ayers just admitted were true.

Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques. Here’s the truth: the smear associating Barack to Ayers is “phony,” “tenuous,” – even “exaggerated at best if not outright false.”

(Fight the Smears linked to friendly news outlets as “proof” and a WaPo factcheck that was inconclusive because not enough was known about the relationship (and they sure as hell weren’t putting anyone on it.)

William Ayers is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with whom Barack served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990’s. According to the Associated Press, they are not close: “No evidence shows they were “pals” or even close when they worked on community boards years ago …”

Did anyone ask Bill Ayers?

Keep reading.

See also, in case you missed it:

Federal Judge to Big Sis: You Don’t Have Federal Discretion To Refuse To Deport Illegals

Video: Jeff Sessions and Big Sis Tangle During Immigration Hearing Over ICE Employee Morale

Video: Cruz Not Satisfied With Napolitano’s Answers On Border Security

Obama’s Regal Moment of Silence Photo-Op

News Alert: Boston Marathon Bombing Suspects Motivated by Religion not Ben Affleck Movies