Here's your perfect example of working the system, fraud, abuse, free-loading, free-for-alls, corruption, cronyism when the Government is involved in the name of "social justice". Scams like we have in Medicare, Social Security, Disability, Obama Phone, Welfare, Food Stamps, Medicaid, everything connected with the Government, soon to be healthcare/insurance. That's the Welfare State for you. Socialism.
The Pigford Scandal
[www.nytimes.com]
"...interviews and records show, the Obama administration’s political appointees at the Justice and Agriculture Departments engineered a stunning turnabout: they committed $1.33 billion to compensate not just the 91 plaintiffs but thousands of Hispanic and female farmers who had never claimed bias in court.
The deal, several current and former government officials said, was fashioned in White House meetings despite the vehement objections — until now undisclosed — of career lawyers and agency officials who had argued that there was no credible evidence of widespread discrimination. What is more, some protested, the template for the deal — the $50,000 payouts to black farmers — had proved a magnet for fraud."
But an examination by The New York Times shows that it 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. In the past five years, it has grown to encompass a second group of African-Americans as well as Hispanic, female and Native American farmers. In all, more than 90,000 people have filed claims. The total cost could top $4.4 billion.
From the start, the claims process prompted allegations of widespread fraud and criticism that its very design encouraged people to lie: because relatively few records remained to verify accusations, claimants were not required to present documentary evidence that they had been unfairly treated or had even tried to farm. Agriculture Department reviewers found reams of suspicious claims, from nursery-school-age children and pockets of urban dwellers, sometimes in the same handwriting with nearly identical accounts of discrimination.
Yet those concerns were played down as the compensation effort grew. Though the government has started requiring more evidence to support some claims, even now people who say they were unfairly denied loans can collect up to $50,000 with little documentation."
The corruption of this government knows no bounds.
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New York Times Uncovers Devastating Fraud in Minority Farmers Program
Here's something you won't see on Gawker very often: Andrew Breitbart was somewhat right.
[gawker.com]
".. minority groups filling their coffers by scamming the U.S. government, unscrupulous lawyers abetting the scheming, a black president pressing for lots more money that went to fraudsters, conservative protestations ignored. Breitbart.com is already running a write-up of the article under the blaring headline "Breitbart Vindicated." The final scene of the article, in fact, which depicts a man who's made it his job to help black people get Pigford money saying to an entire church that they should file discrimination claims, is so wanton and grotesque it almost seems like a bit of right-wing fiction. After bragging to the hundreds of people assembled that he and all four of his siblings had gotten Pigford settlement money, the man, Thomas Burrell, tells the audience: "Let’s get the judge to go to work writing them checks! They have just opened the bank vault.”