U.S. Sens. Grassley, Hagan: Work to ensure black farmers receive funds for Pigford settlement claims

Hat tip:GreenLadyHere


Folks know that I've had some 'issues' with The President's decision last week to disrespect and dishonor the Black Farmers, by trying to go cheap on their settlement. What they were asking for, and were told ' it wasn't within the budget' is the equivalent of what we give the 51 State - EVERY DAMN YEAR WITHOUT ANY QUESTIONS.

But, I digress.

From BlackPoliticsOnTheWeb.com:

U.S. Sens. Grassley, Hagan: Work to ensure black farmers receive funds for Pigford settlement claims
May 5, 2009

Senators Chuck Grassley and Kay Hagan today introduced legislation to ensure that African American farmers, who successfully filed claims as a result of the 2008 farm bill, will receive the money they are entitled to.

“The Department of Justice decided to cap the $100 million in the farm bill, so anybody who was successful in their petition after the money was gone was out of luck. It was clear from the start that $100 million wasn’t going to be enough money. So, we’re making reasonable fixes to ensure that those who have been successful in their cases are awarded what they rightly are entitled to,” Grassley said. “We’ve been working too hard on this for too many years to let bureaucratic procedure and mumbo-jumbo discriminate against African American farmers and ranchers again.”

“Years ago, thousands of African American farmers were found to have been unfairly discriminated against when applying for loans, credit, and other forms of financial help to ensure their farm’s success,” said Hagan. “The 2008 Farm Bill passed without adequately addressing the costs required to settle the claims in the Pigford case, and ultimately, help right the injustices these farmers faced so many years ago. This legislation seeks to correct that problem, and ensures the farmers who were discriminated against receive what is fairly due to them.”

The Department of Agriculture settled a landmark class action lawsuit with African American farmers in 1999. The Department and the county commissioners discriminated against African American farmers when they denied, delayed, or otherwise frustrated the applications of those farmers and those attempting to farm for farm loans and other credit and benefit programs. This settlement permitted over 22,000 black farmers to have their claims evaluated on the merits, and almost 15,000 had their claims vindicated.

For a variety of reasons, nearly 75,000 additional black farmers filed their claims of discrimination through the Pigford consent decree process past the deadline for their claims to be evaluated on the merits. As a result, thousands of victims of discrimination continue to be denied an opportunity even to have their claims heard.

The case of the Black Farmers is about JUSTICE. Plain and simple. The Department of Agriculture is notorious in its racist practices against Black Farmers, and it's time a wrong be righted. I would have hoped that The President, who exploited this issue during the campaign, would take the lead on it, but since he won't, I'm fine with anyone else who wants to step up to the plate and DO THE RIGHT THING.

Obama Sides With Banks Accused of Racism

Hat tip: a JJP reader

From Mother Jones:

Obama Sides With Banks Accused of Racism
The administration defends lenders that allegedly bilked minority customers. What gives?
—By Stephanie Mencimer
Tue April 7, 2009 9:30 AM PST
A number of big national banks stand accused of systematically bilking black and Latino borrowers. And the administration of our first black president is siding with the banks.

At the end of April, the Obama administration will go before the US Supreme Court to argue that those banks—including bailout recipients Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase—should be allowed to duck a state investigation into their lending practices. If that sounds like the politics of the past, it is. The Obama administration has opted to maintain the stance of the Bush administration—one opposed by the NAACP and other major civil rights groups. And it won't be some Bush holdover making the arguments in Cuomo v. The Clearing House Association (an industry group whose membership includes the world's largest banks). Instead, the banks will be defended by the office of Obama's new solicitor general, former Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan, whom some conservatives have branded a "radical leftist" because of her record opposing military recruitment on college campuses.

The case got its start in 2005, when then-New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer discovered that many banks operating in his state were issuing a disproportionate number of high-interest loans to African Americans and Hispanics. Invoking state anti-discrimination laws, Spitzer wrote to those banks, politely asking for more information about their lending practices. He didn't even issue a subpoena. Rather than respond to the request, the banks sued Spitzer. They argued that they were legally entitled to blow him off because federal banking law preempted the state investigation—that is, only the feds could make such a request, not some lowly state AG.

To make their case, the banks sought help from the Bush administration, through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The OCC is a little-known federal bank regulator that over the past decade has become increasingly active in helping those banks and their subsidiaries squash state efforts to rein in abusive predatory lending practices. The OCC joined the banks in the case as a plaintiff, asserting that a Civil War-era banking law made the OCC the only sheriff in town. When it came to big national banks like Bank of America and Wells Fargo, only the OCC, it argued, could force the banks to comply with state consumer protection laws like those banning racial discrimination in lending.

With the OCC's backing, the banks prevailed in the trial court and the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. New York's current attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, has appealed the case to the Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments in late April. Kagan's office will be representing the OCC. The administration's position in Clearing House stands in sharp relief to other parts of the US government, where financial system regulators have recently come out in opposition to shielding banks from state consumer protection laws and enforcement.

Read more »

They Are Who We Thought They Were

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Civil liberties critics of the last Administration were labeled paranoid in an attempt to marginalize them. Seems as if these folks weren't so paranoid after all.

Chairman Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove

From The Gavel

Chairman Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove
May 22nd, 2008 by Jesse Lee
From the Judiciary Committee:


Conyers Subpoenas Karl Rove

(Washington, DC)- Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) issued a subpoena to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for testimony about the politicization of the Department of Justice (DOJ), including former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman’s case. Yesterday, Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, sent a letter to the Committee expressing that Rove would not agree to testify voluntarily, per the Committee’s previous requests.

“It is unfortunate that Mr. Rove has failed to cooperate with our requests,” Conyers said. “Although he does not seem the least bit hesitant to discuss these very issues weekly on cable television and in the print news media, Mr. Rove and his attorney have apparently concluded that a public hearing room would not be appropriate. Unfortunately, I have no choice today but to compel his testimony on these very important matters.”

Separately, Chairman Conyers recently received a letter from DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) indicating that the office has opened an investigation into allegations of selective prosecution of Siegelman and others.

IT'S ABOUT TIME.

Congress Grills Justice Department Voting Rights Chief

Congress set its sights on the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division in hearings yesterday. John Tanner, the head of the Civil Rights Division's Voting Rights Unit testified before the House Judiciary's Subcommittee on Civil Rights.

Congressmen Keith Ellison, Artur Davis, and others grilled Tanner until he was well cooked. Members of the Committee specifically called attention to Tanner's recent controversial comments about Blacks dying early....

From TPM:

Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) laid into voting section chief John Tanner during the hearing today over his comment earlier this month that "our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first." Tanner made the remarks as justification for his conviction that voter ID laws actually discriminate against whites. In Tanner's calculus, since minorities don't age "the way white people do," the effect of voter ID laws on the elderly means that whites are disproportionately affected. And since younger African-Americans frequently carry IDs because of racial profiling and the need to cash checks at "a check cashing business," voter ID laws actually favor African-Americans.

Watch a short video of Tanner's comments and his exchanges with members of the Sub-Committee on Civil Rights. Congressman Davis crushes the rationale for Tanner's comments.




Committee members also focused on the lack of overall enforcement of existing voting rights laws, and the lack of enforcement by the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division In General. A former employee of the Voting Rights Unit testified about how Tanner has contributed to the politicization of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division. There have been numerous reports about the lack of enforcement from within the Civil Rights Division, due to political interference. Several experienced career attorneys have left the Civil Rights Division within the last several years (under the Bush Administration).

Under the Bush Administration, the Civil Rights Division reportedly moved away from aggressive enforcement of Civil Rights Laws to more of a political wing of the White House, engaging in actions having little to do with Civil Rights and Voting Rights. The Division has been involved in numerous efforts that appear to be motivated by politics...such as aggressive enforcement of certain voting rules, in certain key battleground States at election time.

Watch Full Video of Hearing

(video may only be available for approximately 15 days from date posted) ____________________________


Related Postings

See PBS Investigative Report on Voter Suppression efforts under the Bush Administration

Greg Palast Reports on Fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias

The Justice Department and Voter Suppression