Pigford documentarian Lee Stranahan had an exclusive interview with congressman Steve King at his Capitol Hill office Tuesday where King explains an area where he and Shirley Sherrod agree — that the Obama White House was responsible for Sherrod’s resignation and that USDA secretary acted as the fall guy.
King indicated that he believes that the resignation with forced because of Mrs. Sherrod’s involvement in the Pigford v. Glickman settlement.
Yesterday, I posted the first half of Andrew Breitbart discussing the fraud surrounding the Pigford case. In part two, Breitbart gets to the “sexy” part: then-Sen. Barack Obama.
Breitbart calls on the mainstream media and the blogosphere to investigate Pigford.
Earlier post:
CPAC 2011 video: Andrew Breitbart talks about the Pigford case, part one
Technorati tags: 
andrew breitbart shirley sherrod pigford CPAC politics republicans
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), and farmer Eddie Slaughter at the press conference in Washington, DC presenting newly discovered evidence showing fraud and corruption in the Pigford settlement:
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A reader writes:
I haven't read the NR article, and I'm not inclined to subscribe, but Conor's summary cited "nearly 100,000 claimants in the Pigford case," contrasted with a census figure of 18,500 black farmers. I work at a legal administration company, and I can tell you that the number of "claimants" in a class action and the number of approved claims are usually very different numbers. We could get a blank, unsigned form in the mail, with no accompanying documentation, and we'll make high-res scans of everything and (if the return address is legible) that person becomes a claimant in our database. That doesn't mean they get a check. Again, I don't know if this is pertinent to the controversy, but if it does indeed hinge on the use of the word "claimants" then it's a red herring.
Says another:
It's wrong to use the number of claimants as an indication of fraud, and I saw that as a clerk to a federal judge who doesn't like seeing this kind of thing propagated. Class actions do dragnets to gather up all potential claimants so they can be sifted through and processed in one go. You don't want people weeding themselves out and then realizing later they actually were entitled to something once the settlement fund has already been distributed. So, you cast a wide net and get everyone to submit up front everything that could possibly fit, and then you weed it out in the next steps of the process. Consequently, first-step advertisements are typically worded very broadly and include a lot of "if you don't put in your claim now, you'll lose it" language. You've likely seen some of them on TV advertising for drug class actions, telling anyone who took a common painkiller and had a common disease or heart attack to submit a claim.
That process leads to invalid claims being submitted, and that's by design, not necessarily because of fraud. Folks often genuinely believe they may be entitled to compensation, and anyway it's better to be safe than sorry, so they're encouraged to submit their claim and then the work of the case is to sift through and see who belongs and who doesn't. That's the way the process is supposed to work – it only yields fraud if there's fraud, i.e., lawyers coaching their clients to lie or the administrators ignoring their duty to weed out baseless claims. There's no evidence of that here – especially given that past filing windows have weeded out so many claimants – and you certainly can't deduce it from the two numbers that you mentioned.
And a third:
The Congressional Research Service looked at just this issue and has a reasonable explanation (PDF) for the gap: at p. 8. The Census was enumerating "farms" in 1987, not "farm operators." This goes a long way toward closing the gap. Add to this the number of people who tried to enter farming but could not because the discrimination underlying the settlement prevented them from getting loans, and you've closed even more of it. Finally, the 100,000 number is the number of claimants, not the number of actual award to successful claimants. Only 69% of the original claimants under the original consent decree actually received payments.
Ta-Nehisi, Adam Serwer, and Cynic analyze the anti-Pigford campaign.
From the Albany Herald:
Shirley Sherrod, ousted from her position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture after an internet video produced by conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart surfaced, has filed suit in District of Columbia Superior Court alleging defamation, false light and infliction of emotional distress.
Breitbart confirmed that his company, breitbart.com, LLC,had been served with a copy of the suit over the weekend. In addition to Breitbart, producer Larry O’Conner and an unknown ‘John Doe’ are also named in the suit.
Sherrod resigned as Georgia’s Director of Rural Development after the video clip appeared last July. The edited clip showed a speech she gave at an NAACP function where Sherrod spoke of not offering her full help and support to a white farmer, Roger Spooner, in 1986.
The full unedited video, however, showed Sherrod talking about assisting Spooner and moving beyond race in her life and professional responsibilities.
The suit alleges that “Mrs. Sherrod was forced to resign her job after Defendants ignited a media firestorm by publishing false and defamatory statements that Mrs. Sherrod ‘discriminates’ against people due to their race in performing her official duties.
“Defendants drew false support for their claims from a speech given by Mrs. Sherrod that they edited, deceptively, to create the appearance that Mrs. Sherrod was admitting present-day racism.”
Reached Monday afternoon for comment, Sherrod declined to answer questions or make a statement, instead referring all inquiries to her attorney, Tom Clare of Washington, D.C.
Attempts to reach Clare Monday evening were unsuccessful.
““I find it extremely telling that this lawsuit was brought almost seven months after the alleged incidents that caused a national media frenzy occurred.” Breitbart said. “It is no coincidence that this lawsuit was filed one day after I held a press conference revealing audio proof of orchestrated and systemic Pigford fraud. I can promise you this: neither I, nor my journalistic websites, will or can be silenced by the institutional Left, which is obviously funding this lawsuit. I welcome the judicial discovery process, including finding out which groups are doing so.”
Read the whole thing here.
For decades, black farmers were cheated out of loans by the US Department of Agriculture. Which led Timothy Pigford, an African American farmer, to sue. The case evolved into the Pigford class action suit. In November, President Obama signed a $ 4.6 billion settlement which also included Native American farmers.
On Friday, Big Government’s Andrew Breitbart was sued by former Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod over an edited video that appeared to show her practicing reverse-discrimination, which led to Sherrod’s dismissal. But in a press Big Government press release, it’s noted , “The lawsuit served today does not name as co-Defendants President Barack Obama, the USDA and USDA head Tom Vilsack, even though it is they who fired the Pigford claimant, and who, according to the Pigford claimant herself, denied her due process.”
As for the settlement, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), says it is “full of fraud.”
Breitbart visited the CPAC bloggers’ lounge on Saturday, the day after he was served with the Sherrod lawsuit. He tells us that there were only 18,000 black farmers when the Pigford case began, but there were 94,000 claimants. Anyone who considered farming, even for a brief moment, were encouraged to file a claim. It appears to be simply back-door reparations for those slick enough to work the system.
Here is part one of the video from Saturday. Look for part two tomorrow.
Technorati tags: andrew breitbart shirley sherrod pigford CPAC politics republicans
by Conor Friedersdorf
In the current issue of National Review, Daniel Foster has a long piece on Pigford vs. Glickman. As Wikipedia notes, the Pigford case is "a class action lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), alleging racial discrimination in its allocation of farm loans and assistance between 1983 and 1997. The lawsuit ended with a settlement in which the U.S. government agreed to pay African American farmers US$ 50,000 each if they had attempted to get USDA help but failed. To date, almost US$ 1 billion has been paid or credited to the farmers under the settlement's consent decree."
As Salon explains, the case is a matter of public controversy largely because Andrew Breitbart has become obsessed with it. His allegation is that the payout is rife with fraud and political corruption. I haven't mentioned the matter before because having witnessed Breitbart's carelessness with facts, the egregiously sloppy journalism he publishes on a daily basis, and his hubristic, immoral, "ends justify the means" approach to activism, I have serious doubts about his integrity and a strong conviction that his ethical compass is broken. More to the point, I just can't trust a damn thing he publishes, and having discredited himself on a national scale in the Shirley Sherrod case, a lot of others agree.
But I've enjoyed Foster's work for awhile now, and critical as I've been of a couple colleagues he works with at NR, the publication retains the ability to publish solid pieces, especially the ones prepped for print.
Although I can't personally vouch for the facts in his Pigford story, having never reported on the matter myself, it reads like a solid piece – one that raises serious questions worthy of scrutiny. Alas, it is behind National Review's paywall, and that presents a problem: As press coverage of the Pigford case increases – Breitbart is touting it singlemindedly at CPAC, and the stories are inevitable – the conversation is starting to focus is on the man whose heat-to-light ratio detracts from a cool-headed assessment of facts more than anyone in America. One purpose of this post is to suggest that we'd all be better off focusing the discussion on the NR piece, paywall or no. Certainly, liberal bloggers writing about the matter should acquire access to it. I'd be curious to see if they have a persuasive rebuttal. If so, I'll air it here. And if not – if the Foster piece has everything right – the story definitely merits attention.
Here's a very brief summary:
– Everyone agrees that between 1983 and 1997, the USDA discriminated against black farmers.
– The class action lawsuit made eligible for compensation farmers or aspiring farmers whose interests were harmed due to USDA discrimination. (There were other requirements too, but forget that for a moment.)
– According to Foster's piece, a 1997 census study found a total of 18,500 black farmers nationwide.
– Yet there are nearly 100,000 claimants in the Pigford case.
There's a lot more to Foster's story, and this matter generally. But that gap between the number of claiments and the total number of black farmers in America is what struck me. If accurate it suggests widespread fraud.
A word about the bigger picture.
There are conservative bloggers expressing outrage that Americans haven't been told more about this story. It's worth pondering that reaction. It's understandable: the misuse of public funds is always a legitimate story, and I hope this one gets reported out if that's what has happened. But the fact that Americans have never heard of the Pigford case before now is most damning because it means we were utterly ignorant of the fact that the federal government was discriminating against thousands of blacks for almost 15 years, and as recently as the late 1990s! That is far more troubling than the possibility that private citizens perpetrated fraud on a poorly conceived settlement (though it doesn't excuse it).
One narrative taking hold is that the Pigford case is about political correctness – that the fraud is "reparations in disguise," and is enabled by a mainstream media willing to look the other way rather than inform the public about an injustice. Anyone spreading that narrative ought to remember that although the federal government's racism against some Pigford claimants has been written about some in the media, it remains an obscure story known to very few people – and most of them didn't show any interest in the story until it fit into the narrative of PC excess and the left buying off votes.
There's nothing wrong or unnatural about political adversaries tuning into a story when their opponents may be guilty of corruption. A rare benefit of partisanship is that it creates an incentive to expose bad behavior. And the rest of us shouldn't care about their motives insofar as it affects how we go forward– if fraud has been perpetrated on a large scale, better that we learn about it if only to prevent the same sort of thing in the future. Had the federal government discriminated for years against black farmers, however, then paid them off efficiently and without fraud, the vast majority of people in the conservative movement – and most of America along with them – would've ignored the whole Pigford matter entirely. Is that the mark of a society overrun by political correctness?
Surely outrage is warranted for the initial discrimination.
So often, stories like this turn into conversational train wrecks. I see one coming – and an opportunity to do better. Let's treat this like a complicated matter, one where even people writing in good faith can make mistakes, making it a perfect fit for the vetting function that comes from honest back-and-forths in the blogosphere. Let's make it about determining the truth rather than point-scoring – whatever happened in Pigford, it needn't say anything definitive about the left or the right generally. Let's use Foster's piece as our point of reference on the right, rather than Big Government work, just as we'd reference a New York Times story rather than one appearing in the National Enquirer, even if they were in substantial agreement. There's got to be a better way of getting at the truth than watching Andrew Breitbart and Media Matters snipe back and forth at one another.
And although it's in no way obligated to do so, it would be awesome if NR put this one piece online for the sake of the conversation.
New Media Entrepreneur declares that his voice will not be suppressed.
Andrew Breitbart and the head of Breitbart.tv sued by Pigford claimant.
Los Angeles, CA, February 12, 2011 – Breitbart.com LLC announced today that its Chairman and CEO Andrew Breitbart and the head of Breitbart.tv, Larry O’Connor, have been sued in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by a central figure in the Pigford “back-door” reparations case. The Pigford case involves over $ 2.5 billion in US taxpayer money and constitutes one of the biggest cases of corruption
and politically-motivated fraud in the history of the United States. Mr. Breitbart and Breitbart.tv have been investigating and reporting on the Pigford case since late summer 2010.
Andrew Breitbart said, in response to being sued, “I find it extremely telling that this lawsuit was brought almost seven months after the alleged incidents that caused a national media frenzy occurred. It is no coincidence that this lawsuit was filed one day after I held a press conference revealing audio proof of orchestrated and systemic Pigford fraud. I can promise you this: neither I, nor my journalistic
websites, will or can be silenced by the institutional Left, which is obviously funding this lawsuit. I welcome the judicial discovery process, including finding out which groups are doing so.”
On Thursday, February 10, 2011, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Mr. Breitbart held a national press conference at which he, Huffington Post blogger Lee Stranahan, and black farmer Eddie Slaughter presented compelling evidence for, and Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Steve King (R-IA) specifically called for, Congressional investigation into the Pigford case.
At the press conference, Mr. Breitbart revealed two hours of audio of Thomas Burrell, the head of the Black Farmers & Agriculturalist Association, Inc., teaching non-farmers in the South how to commit fraud in the Pigford “back-door” reparations case. This audio conclusively demonstrates how people have conspired to grow the class of Pigford claimants to 94,000, when in fact, there were only
about 18,000 black farmers in the entire country during the relevant time period, and when there were never anticipated to be more than a few thousand potential claimants among those 18,000. The numbers just do not and cannot add up.
“I am determined to obtain justice for the truly and legitimately discriminated against American black farmers, who have heretofore been denied justice by the USDA and the Pigford case,” Andrew Breitbart said. “Nothing will deter my efforts to makes them whole. I will simultaneously continue to fight relentlessly against the efforts of those who would use these working American farmers to defraud
the American taxpayer to the tune of billions of dollars. This new lawsuit will not stop the American public from finding out what is really going on, who is directly culpable, and the critical role of the Pigford claimant in all off this.”
The lawsuit served today does not name as co-Defendants President Barack Obama, the USDA and USDA head Tom Vilsack, even though it is they who fired the Pigford claimant, and who, according to the Pigford claimant herself, denied her due process.
Mr. Breitbart categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech and, to reiterate, looks forward to exercising his full and broad discovery rights.
Mr. Breitbart is absolutely confident of being fully vindicated.
New Media Entrepreneur declares that his voice will not be suppressed.
Andrew Breitbart and the head of Breitbart.tv sued by Pigford claimant.
Los Angeles, CA, February 12, 2011 – Breitbart.com LLC announced today that its Chairman and CEO Andrew Breitbart and the head of Breitbart.tv, Larry O’Connor, have been sued in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by a central figure in the Pigford “back-door” reparations case. The Pigford case involves over $ 2.5 billion in US taxpayer money and constitutes one of the biggest cases of corruption
and politically-motivated fraud in the history of the United States. Mr. Breitbart and Breitbart.tv have been investigating and reporting on the Pigford case since late summer 2010.
Andrew Breitbart said, in response to being sued, “I find it extremely telling that this lawsuit was brought almost seven months after the alleged incidents that caused a national media frenzy occurred. It is no coincidence that this lawsuit was filed one day after I held a press conference revealing audio proof of orchestrated and systemic Pigford fraud. I can promise you this: neither I, nor my journalistic
websites, will or can be silenced by the institutional Left, which is obviously funding this lawsuit. I welcome the judicial discovery process, including finding out which groups are doing so.”
On Thursday, February 10, 2011, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Mr. Breitbart held a national press conference at which he, Huffington Post blogger Lee Stranahan, and black farmer Eddie Slaughter presented compelling evidence for, and Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Steve King (R-IA) specifically called for, Congressional investigation into the Pigford case.
At the press conference, Mr. Breitbart revealed two hours of audio of Thomas Burrell, the head of the Black Farmers & Agriculturalist Association, Inc., teaching non-farmers in the South how to commit fraud in the Pigford “back-door” reparations case. This audio conclusively demonstrates how people have conspired to grow the class of Pigford claimants to 94,000, when in fact, there were only
about 18,000 black farmers in the entire country during the relevant time period, and when there were never anticipated to be more than a few thousand potential claimants among those 18,000. The numbers just do not and cannot add up.
“I am determined to obtain justice for the truly and legitimately discriminated against American black farmers, who have heretofore been denied justice by the USDA and the Pigford case,” Andrew Breitbart said. “Nothing will deter my efforts to makes them whole. I will simultaneously continue to fight relentlessly against the efforts of those who would use these working American farmers to defraud
the American taxpayer to the tune of billions of dollars. This new lawsuit will not stop the American public from finding out what is really going on, who is directly culpable, and the critical role of the Pigford claimant in all off this.”
The lawsuit served today does not name as co-Defendants President Barack Obama, the USDA and USDA head Tom Vilsack, even though it is they who fired the Pigford claimant, and who, according to the Pigford claimant herself, denied her due process.
Mr. Breitbart categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech and, to reiterate, looks forward to exercising his full and broad discovery rights.
Mr. Breitbart is absolutely confident of being fully vindicated.
New Media Entrepreneur declares that his voice will not be suppressed.
Andrew Breitbart and the head of Breitbart.tv sued by Pigford claimant.
Los Angeles, CA, February 12, 2011 – Breitbart.com LLC announced today that its Chairman and CEO Andrew Breitbart and the head of Breitbart.tv, Larry O’Connor, have been sued in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia by a central figure in the Pigford “back-door” reparations case. The Pigford case involves over $ 2.5 billion in US taxpayer money and constitutes one of the biggest cases of corruption
and politically-motivated fraud in the history of the United States. Mr. Breitbart and Breitbart.tv have been investigating and reporting on the Pigford case since late summer 2010.
Andrew Breitbart said, in response to being sued, “I find it extremely telling that this lawsuit was brought almost seven months after the alleged incidents that caused a national media frenzy occurred. It is no coincidence that this lawsuit was filed one day after I held a press conference revealing audio proof of orchestrated and systemic Pigford fraud. I can promise you this: neither I, nor my journalistic
websites, will or can be silenced by the institutional Left, which is obviously funding this lawsuit. I welcome the judicial discovery process, including finding out which groups are doing so.”
On Thursday, February 10, 2011, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Mr. Breitbart held a national press conference at which he, Huffington Post blogger Lee Stranahan, and black farmer Eddie Slaughter presented compelling evidence for, and Representatives Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Steve King (R-IA) specifically called for, Congressional investigation into the Pigford case.
At the press conference, Mr. Breitbart revealed two hours of audio of Thomas Burrell, the head of the Black Farmers & Agriculturalist Association, Inc., teaching non-farmers in the South how to commit fraud in the Pigford “back-door” reparations case. This audio conclusively demonstrates how people have conspired to grow the class of Pigford claimants to 94,000, when in fact, there were only
about 18,000 black farmers in the entire country during the relevant time period, and when there were never anticipated to be more than a few thousand potential claimants among those 18,000. The numbers just do not and cannot add up.
“I am determined to obtain justice for the truly and legitimately discriminated against American black farmers, who have heretofore been denied justice by the USDA and the Pigford case,” Andrew Breitbart said. “Nothing will deter my efforts to makes them whole. I will simultaneously continue to fight relentlessly against the efforts of those who would use these working American farmers to defraud
the American taxpayer to the tune of billions of dollars. This new lawsuit will not stop the American public from finding out what is really going on, who is directly culpable, and the critical role of the Pigford claimant in all off this.”
The lawsuit served today does not name as co-Defendants President Barack Obama, the USDA and USDA head Tom Vilsack, even though it is they who fired the Pigford claimant, and who, according to the Pigford claimant herself, denied her due process.
Mr. Breitbart categorically rejects the transparent effort to chill his constitutionally protected free speech and, to reiterate, looks forward to exercising his full and broad discovery rights.
Mr. Breitbart is absolutely confident of being fully vindicated.
At a press conference at CPAC featuring Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Steve King and Andrew Breitbart, black farmer Eddie Slaughter tells his impassioned story about how the Pigford settlement has actually hurt the original and actual victims of discrimination at the hands of the USDA.
At a press conference at CPAC featuring Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Steve King and Andrew Breitbart, black farmer Eddie Slaughter tells his impassioned story about how the Pigford settlement has actually hurt the original and actual victims of discrimination at the hands of the USDA.
Yesterday at CPAC, Lee Stranahan and Andrew Breitbart led a press conference detailing new developments in Big Government’s ongoing Pigford Investigation. We will be highlighting key moments in the conference for you and posting them here at Big Government.
The first “highlight” is the full audio of a two-hour session conducted by Thomas Burrell, President of the Black Farmer Agricultural Association, Inc., where Mr. Burrell advises approximately 150 black non-farmers on how to fill out applications to receive Pigford settlement money. You can
When I say that Media Matters For America is posting some very dishonest stuff about the Pigford press conference that I was part of yesterday, it probably won’t shock most of the readers here one bit. That’s okay, because it saves me time.
Lee Stranahan explains the explosive new Pigford videos; Eddie Slaughter to his right.
But since I’m apparently the token liberal around here, I will take a second to make it clear that Media Matters IS taken seriously on the left. Stop snickering, it’s true. MMFA is considered a very reliable and well researched source that sets the record straight and exposes the lies on right. If you’re a Big reader, I know YOU don’t believe this but just understand that liberals do and that would include me, until recently.
But now that I’m seeing firsthand just exactly how deceptive Media Matters is being about the Pigford press conference, I’m going to set the record straight and expose their lies.
Take this story about the presser that claims Andrew Breitbart doesn’t understand Pigford. They run a section of video where AB, speaking off the cuff, makes a minor gaffe discussing the difference between Track A and Track B claims in Pigford. The two tracks are a topic Andrew has discussed many, many times and it’s in the Pigford report. Andrew obviously knows the difference between Track A and B claims and in his short introduction, he was focusing on how these tracks effected the real, bona fide farmers like Eddie Slaughter, who is sitting about 5 feet away from him in the video clip Media Matters put up.
But Media Matters only shows a short section of the press conference. Their ‘heavily edited’ video doesn’t show any of the other speakers, including Mr. Slaughter, Rep. Michelle Bachman, Rep. Steve King or me. Nor does Media Matters make ANY reference to the point of the press conference — the release of hard evidence of how simple it is to commit fraud in Pigford.
When I saw the Media Matters piece, I immediately left two comments to respond to their charges. Those comments haven’t been posted on Media Matters’s website but other comments, posted AFTER I left mine are visible on the site.
Here’s one comment I responded to…
Breitbart should have had the “journalists” that did the “investigation” at the press conference. The problem with this course of action, is that Breitbart is neither a journalist, nor does he employ any. The other problem was there was no investigation performed, unless you consider group of wackos coming up with talking points, an investigation.
This commenter doesn’t know that I was there at the press conference presenting material and discussing the two months that I’ve been on the road exclusively working on the Pigford story. He doesn’t know that Breitbart was introducing me, one of the journalists doing investigation.
Why doesn’t the commenter know? Because Media Matters posted a ‘heavily edited’ video that deliberately left out this key information. It’s exactly what Media Matters accuses their enemies of, and they won’t even publish my comments to clarify.
Over the past seven months, Andrew Breitbart has worked to expose what he says is rampant fraud in the federal government's awarding of settlement money to black Americans who claimed they were discriminated against in applying for farming permits with the Department of Agriculture. Some sort of fraud has been apparent for a while now, since the number of "farmers" awarded money under the "Pigford" settlement exceeded the number of black farmers in the nation at the time.
But the investigation has unearthed far more damning evidence of wrongdoing. Yesterday Breitbart unviled audio of the president of one of the organizations that worked with the federal govenrment to pay out settlement money all but endorsing fraud in the process. Check out his statements below the break, courtesy of Ed Morrissey:
Tom Burrell, president the Black Farmers and Agriculture Association, of tells potential claimants what happened when the checks hit the streets: “Where did you get that new truck from? Why is Sears Roebuck visiting your house? … Something’s up.
Stranahan then says that Burrell gives them the correct — and allegedly unchallengeable — answers that will win them a Pigford score. “Did he own land? Let’s suppose the answer is no. The judge is going to give you three more shots at it. … Did he ATTEMPT to own? … How does the judge know if you tried? [Laughter] …
Congress set up a system … “everyone who says they tried [unintelligible] then you have to give them credit for it.”
“The issue is not whether you farmed in 1965, but whether you were discriminated against in 1981-1996. … My sister said my daddy went to the USDA office between 1981 and 1996. … The judge says you get paid.”
Pretty damning stuff, no? Will this get the media paying attention to the scandal? By the way, make sure you check out Ed's post for more details on the presser, and Big Government's Pigford dossier for more on the investigation (they should be releasing this audio soon).
