It is hard to be both woke and broke at the same time, but apparently no one has told the California State Senate. This past Saturday the Senate created a nine-member commission "to study and make recommendations for reparations to African Americans, particularly the descendants of slaves."
Apparently, too, no one has told the Senate about the Obama administration's appalling $4 billion trial run at reparations known by the somehow fitting name "Pigford."
Some years back, Stephen Colbert, who I am told is a comedian, laughed off the lethal gunrunning botch known as "Fast and Furious" as "the biggest scandal in history I have ever forgotten to talk about." No, Steve, Pigford is even better, and you've haven't even heard of it.
In my book "Unmasking Obama," I refer to the late Andrew Breitbart as the MVP of the samizdat, the loosely organized network of conservatives that did virtually all the serious reporting during the Obama years.
Pigford, Andrew's last great investigative project, is a scandal that deserves a book of its own and a place for Breitbart in a journalism hall of fame.
As Breitbart told the Daily Caller in December 2010, "All I've been doing is eating, breathing, sleeping Pigford, researching Pigford." Breitbart was referring here to Pigford v. Glickman, a multi-tiered lawsuit that would end up costing taxpayers billions, most of it pure scam.
The money was originally earmarked as compensation for black farmers allegedly denied Department of Agriculture, or USDA, loans, but before the Pigford gravy train had left the station, thousands of random blacks and other minorities, many of whom had not seen a farm since CBS canceled "Green Acres," hopped on board.
As late as September 2010, months after Breitbart began exposing the fraud at the heart of the case, President Obama and the major media still felt comfortable touting the Pigford settlement.
At a Sept. 10 press conference that year, White House correspondent April Ryan, now with CNN, asked Obama pleadingly whether he could assure "those awards are funded" before he left office.
After explaining the case to "those who aren't familiar," Obama insisted, "It is a fair settlement. It is a just settlement. We think it's important for Congress to fund that settlement. We're going to continue to make it a priority."
That Obama had to explain Pigford to White House correspondents testified to the media silence on the subject. In April 2013, however, with the president safely reelected and Breitbart dead, the New York Times did the unexpected.
The Times ran a major exposé on Pigford, calling the legal action "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."
Just as they had done with the 2008 New Black Panther voter intimidation case in Philadelphia, Obama's political appointees reportedly overruled career lawyers to appease Obama's base.
Pigford involved the USDA as well as the Justice Department, and the due bill was a good deal higher than in Philadelphia. In fact, the administration committed billions to female and minority farmers who had never even filed a bias claim.
"From the start, the claims process prompted allegations of widespread fraud and criticism that its very design encouraged people to lie," wrote Times reporter Sharon LaFraniere. "Those concerns were played down as the compensation effort grew."
The Times estimated the total cost of the swindle at about $4.4 billion, in the words of one USDA analyst, "a rip-off of the American taxpayers."
The unusually honest Times article tied Obama directly to this race-based boondoggle. Although his name was not mentioned in the article's headline – a grace note President Trump could only envy – LaFraniere did not deny Obama's responsibility.
As a senator, Obama had supported expanding Pigford compensation. As president, he pressed for an additional billion or so to make this happen.
Obama's billion-dollar demand maddened the career attorneys involved in the case given that the courts, including the Supreme Court, had already ruled against compensating the various female, Hispanic, Native American and additional black "farmers" who clamored for a slice of the Pigford pie.
Politics drove much of the decision-making. According to LaFraniere, President Bill Clinton had recruited a politico "known for his expertise in black voter turnout" to help launch the program.
Obama likewise viewed the Pigford payouts as government-issued walking around money. LaFraniere paraphrased a black farm leader as saying Obama's support for Pigford "led him to throw the backing of his 109,000-member black farmers' association behind the Obama presidential primary campaign."
The political courtship of Native Americans was even more flagrant. A Berkeley professor who had prepared a 340-page report on the case told LaFraniere, "It was just a joke. I was so disgusted. It was simply buying the support of the Native Americans."
LaFraniere concluded her deeply troubling report with a focus on Thomas Burrell, head of an entity called the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association. She recounted his rollicking speech to a group of several hundred African Americans at a Little Rock church.
"The judge has said since you all look alike, whichever one says he came into the office, that's the one to pay – hint, hint. There is no limit to the amount of money, and there is no limit to the amount of folks who can file."
Now imagine Pigford times 100, and imagine what happens next.
Jack Cashill's new book, "Unmasking Obama: The Fight to Tell the True Story of a Failed Presidency," is now widely available. Also see www.Cashill.com.
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