Brietphart? You've got to be a real loon to beleive anything published by that piece of human excrement. If you have fallen for his bull-shit again I suspect it is on purpose. But if you have an open mind.........
Breitbart, Sherrod and Pigford vs. Glickman
There are reliable bloggers, and there are unreliable bloggers. A reliable blogger tracks down answers instead of making ignorant accusations. For example, a good place for a blogger with questions to start would have been this 2006 Government Accountability Office report. Right on the first page you can see that the court didn't rely on the census to determine Pigford claimant eligibility:
As used in this report, the phrase “African-American farmers” refers to the class as defined by the court and not a more general definition. The certified class was defined as all African-American farmers who (1) farmed or attempted to farm between January 1, 1981, and December 31, 1996; (2) applied to USDA during that period for loans or benefits and believe they were discriminated against in USDA’s response to that application; and (3) filed a discrimination complaint on or before July 1, 1997, regarding USDA’s treatment of their applications.
Anyone who wanted a full understanding of how exactly 400 farmers exploded into 86,000 before blogging like a juvenile knee-jerk lunkhead could have read this transcript of the 2004 Judiciary Committe hearing on the "notice" provision in the Pigford vs. Glickman consent decree. Honey, I know it's 300 pages, but if you can't take 10 minutes to skim through it, you don't have any business blogging about it.
Another report that would have been helpful to a blogger looking for answers is this April 21, 2010 Congressional Research Service report. This report details the evolution of "Pigford II" which was launched by the 2008 Farm Bill. Don't thank Barack Obama for Pigford II, thank Republican Senator Charles Grassley for sponsoring this bill in the 110th congress, or thank Republican Senator George Allen for sponsoring it in the 109th congress.
If you wanted to blog accurately about Pigford you could have also interviewed an actual claimant. You can read such an interview at Salon.com.
Apparently collecting the facts is too difficult an exercise for some folks. No, after making wild accusations and relying on a couple of irresponsible paranoid bloggers for "facts," the tinfoil-hat-wearing author of the viral email below makes stabs at both NPR and Snopes.com. Ain't that something? A proven ignoramus and/or liar attacking NPR and Snopes.com for not reporting on his load of made-up black farmer census conspiracy B.S.
Honey, I hope you'll take a couple of lessons away from this unfortunate episode. First off, don't get caught up in these ridiculous TV and radio talker stampedes. Second, learn how to spot liars, frauds and nincompoops trying to pass themselves off as investigative reporters. --Granny, 8/10/2010