Racial Harmony in the SOUTH in the 1970s?

Author: Raynor James    raynor@cctaxpayers.com

I believe there was much racial harmony in most small cities in the American South in the 1970s. I also believe that personal stories can often illustrate and clarify more universal truths. Are you willing to make a trip with me to check out those premises?

Recently, Hal’s and my son, David Kelly, sent out a letter that started that train of thought. The subject was “SSG James Blackwell’s Passing.” It was addressed to “ALCON.” In part, the letter read, “I have the sad duty to report that SSG James Blackwell, a long-time member of the Fredericksburg [Virginia] Guard has passed away.

“I interviewed Staff Sergeant Blackwell a few years ago. He has always been an inspiration to me. He was able to shine a light where few dared to tread. You see he was one of the two first African Americans to serve our local National Guard since the 1880s. He was a civil rights trail blazer of sorts, joining the local Fredericksburg Guard in 1971. My father, B.G. Hal D. James (Va,R) and Reverend/Mayor Lawrence A. Davies set it up. Think about how hard it would have been with the Vietnam War, the antimilitary public sentiment and joining an all-white, male only military organization. They did a wonderful job in their role as mentors as you can tell from the attached photos! When I became the Battalion Commander (2009), I invited both trail breakers to attend a drill weekend one more time and gave them both honorary life membership into the Fredericksburg Guard Association.

“SSG BLACKWELL, thank you for your service!” The letter was signed, “LTC David K. James (Retired), Director, Fredericksburg Guard Association Foundation.”

That letter set off a ton of memories. Lawrence Davies was a black minister who became our good friend and strong ally. May I tell you about it? It started while Hal was president of the Fredericksburg Jaycees. The Committee to name the “Young Man of the Year” came up with a list of candidates, and Lawrence was one of them. No black man had ever been nominated before, and it set off an uproar. There were people who threatened to resign if Lawrence were chosen. Hal met with the committee and instructed them to please base their decision strictly on merit. He said they had to do the right thing. Then, if that caused a problem, they’d need to figure out how to deal with that in an honorable way.

Lawrence was chosen. No one resigned. Everything was fine.

Remember the summer Washington, D.C. was almost burned to the ground? The Fredericksburg Guard was called up for riot duty. I was very worried as were others. Lawrence called Hal with an idea, and that was the birth of Fredericksburg’s Bi-racial Volunteers. Our sons and I went to the first meeting which was held in Lawrence” church, but discussion soon made it clear that it would be a good idea to have only young men as active members. As it evolved, pairs of young men (one black and one white) wearing arm bands went to outdoor events at which lots of young people were expected to congregate. They just roamed around and started conversations and “poured oil on troubled water” where needed. There wasn’t one single troubling incident in Fredericksburg that summer.

Later, Lawrence came to Hal about integrating the Jaycees and Hal sponsored Johnny Johnson, a black art professor at Mary Washington College. Johnny was accepted without any resistance. By the way, his art was beautiful, and I coveted it, but every year at the Woman’s Club art show, his prices stayed just ahead of my ability to pay.

You know about how integration of the National Guard went. No problems. Several similar things happened, and at some point, Lawrence ran for mayor of Fredericksburg. Hal and I were among his campaign workers. Not surprisingly, Lawrence won. In fact, he was Fredericksburg’s mayor for about 20 years. Lawrence wasn’t Fredericksburg’s black mayor; he was Fredericksburg’s beloved mayor of all of its people.

That’s just one little (then) city, but we knew people in lots of other towns who were having similar experiences. Then we made the big mistake of electing the flagrantly racist Barack Obama who managed to sabotage years of improvement. Things improved again with Trump. Now look at the pickle we’re all dealing with. We need prosperity and harmony!

Sunlight Is The Best Disinfectant

Yesterday I posted an article about a chart on The National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) website. The chart was essentially an accusation that the things that form the foundation of American culture are racist. Things such as a work ethic, the family unit, manners, respect for authority, self-reliance, delayed gratification, etc. Denigrating those values is not helpful to our social framework, nor is it a good thing to put in front of our children as fact. I wasn’t the only person upset that this chart was totally inaccurate and paid for with taxpayer money. Evidently someone was upset who knew how to get results.

Last night, Fox News reported that the chart had been removed from the website.

The article reports:

The National Museum for African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) has removed its controversial chart on whiteness from one of its webpages, telling people on Thursday that it didn’t contribute to a “productive conversation” about racial issues.

“Since yesterday, certain content in the ‘Talking About Race’ portal has been the subject of questions that we have taken seriously. We have listened to public sentiment and have removed a chart that does not contribute to the productive discussion we had intended,” the museum said in a statement.

Fox News reported yesterday that some described the chart as racist since it categorized things like “decision-making” and “delayed gratification” as part of whiteness.

The museum’s graphic broke the “aspects and assumptions of whiteness” into categories such as “rugged individualism” and “history.” For example, under “future orientation,” the graphic listed “delayed gratification” and planning for the future as ideas spread by white culture.

The article continues:

For instance, that information includes potential microagressions that could be committed by White people. “Acts of microaggressions include verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs or insults toward nonwhites. Whether intentional or not, these attitudes communicate hostile, derogatory, or harmful messages,” the site reads.

It also tells readers that “if you are white in America, you have benefited from the color of your skin.” The website also maintained a video from “White Fragility” author, Robin DiAngelo — whose book has been touted as a go-to in the wake of protests against racism ignited in part by the death of George Floyd.

According to DiAngelo, white people have a hard time admitting their privilege. The portal reads: “Dr. Robin DiAngelo coined the term white fragility to describe these feelings as ‘a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves.’ Since white people ‘live in a social environment that insulates them from race-based stress,’ whites are rarely challenged and have less of a tolerance to race-based stress.”

So according to this, if I encourage a child of another race to do better in school, that is a microagression, but if I encourage a white child to do better in school, that’s okay. Can you see where this is going? This was a probe. Had the chart not been exposed, the museum would have pushed its racist (yes, this is racist) agenda even further. The message in this chart (dismissing the value of the family unit, dismissing the value of a good work ethic, dismissing the idea of self-reliance, and delayed gratification) if followed will lead to a life of poverty and dependence. Consider the fact that the key to Democrat political victories is a permanent underclass that will continue to vote for the promises made be Democrats.

I am glad that the chart was taken down. I am saddened that there are people in leadership positions that believe the ideas expressed in the chart. The chart is a recipe for failure–not for success. It is not a message we want to teach any of our children.

A Toxic Website

The Federalist posted an article yesterday about some additions to The National Museum of African American History & Culture (NMAAHC) website that I would consider toxic. The NMAAHC is part of the Smithsonian museum group.

The article includes a screenshot of “Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness.”

Some of the traits listed on this chart are negative traits. However, some of the traits listed on the chart are traits needed to become a contributing member of society and avoid poverty. For instance, a two-parent family is less likely to be poor than a nuclear family. Delayed gratification is often the key to success and stability–it can also be called self-discipline. That is not a racist concept. Being polite should not be considered a racist concept. Respecting authority is also a key to an ordered society–it is not a racist concept. The chart notes that our aesthetics are based on European culture. That is because up until Ted Kennedy changed the immigration laws in 1965, we were a country of European immigrants. In 1860, slaves made up 12.8 percent of America’s population (article here). In a time that did not have mass communication, they were not going to have a lot of influence on the culture regardless of their status.

What this chart does is undermine the foundations of a civilized society. The foundations of America are Judeo-Christian. They include such things as two-parent families, a work ethic, manners, respect for authority, and all the things that make living together possible. Without those things society would devolve into chaos. I am sorry that the Smithsonian considers those things ‘white.’ I consider them civilized. Categorizing these values as ‘white’ places an obstacle in front of people of color if they want to be successful. Calling those things that result in success ‘white’ discourages others from doing the things necessary to succeed.  If someone considers the foundations of our society ‘white’ and thus racist, I suggest they find a country whose foundations and expectations are more to their liking and emigrate there.

When There Are No Police Available

Todd Starnes posted an article yesterday about a recent incident in Atlanta.

The article reports:

Two white motorists were stopped by a mob of armed black men and assaulted in Atlanta near the Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks died.

“He straight up said, ‘No white people are allowed on this road,” one of the victims told television station WSB.

He said they tried to explain they were just trying to get to the Interstate, but that only made things worse.

The gang pelted their car with rocks, knocking out windows and injuring the motorists. One man was punched.

“They said you can’t go this way,” a female motorist told the television station. When she asked why, they replied, “You’re not African American. Only African Americans are allowed on this road. You’re white, you’re a cracker. You’re not allowed on this road. Turn around.”

The article concludes with the suggestion that every law-abiding America should be armed. I suspect that had the driver pulled out a gun, he would have been allowed to proceed to the interstate. That suggestion sounds like something out of the wild west, but if the city officials in some of our major cities don’t get a handle on the lawlessness in those cities, citizens who believe in the Second Amendment will take care of it for them.

Three Things We Are Being Told That Are Simply Wrong

On Friday, Heritage Action posted an article titled, “Three False Charges Against America’s Police Officers.”

This is the article:

Many of the events following George Floyd’s death have only perpetuated injustice and led to violence and crime. Thousands of rioters across the country have destroyed private property, looted businesses, attacked police officers, and have even taken the lives of innocent Americans.

Amidst the lawlessness, some on the left are using George Floyd’s death as an opportunity to push for extreme leftist agendas. Many of these agendas distort the truth about the role and efficacy of our nation’s police departments and propose radical “reform” measures that could potentially contribute to more crime and chaos in our country. These radical proposals from the left are based on lies and must be countered with truth.

Here are some of the fictitious claims liberals make against police officers… and the facts to counter them.

FICTION: “American police departments are systemically racist.”

FACT: Allegations of systemic racism are false and harmful.

While it is important to address grievances caused by the nation’s police departments, broad, all-encompassing accusations of racism completely disregard years of intentional training, diversification, and reform in police departments. Police are deployed based upon the location of crime, calls for service, and other data much of which is centered in minority communities. Additionally, research suggests that officers take longer to discharge their weapon when confronting African American suspects compared to confrontations with white or Hispanic suspects. Accusing the country’s police departments of inherent prejudice only feeds the extreme liberal narrative that police departments should be disbanded altogether.

Additional Resources

Policing in America: Lessons from the Past, Opportunities for the Future

Confronting Police Abuse Requires Shifting Power From Police Unions

Reform of Policing: What Makes Sense—and What Doesn’t

FICTION: “Police officers increase the likelihood of violence and crime against Americans.”

FACT: Simply put: the more policing there is, the safer America is.

Take the example of New York City which had its peak homicide rate in 1990 after several decades of pursuing a policing system which pushed officers into the background and relegated them to simply responding to crimes. In 1990, New York City had 2,245 murders. After switching to community-based policing with the goal of preventing crime, New York City has seen a dramatic decrease in both shootings and murders (down to 292 in 2017), resulting in a safer city. This is in large part due to officer training, increased police diversification, and improved policing methods. The fact is that American communities are overwhelmingly safer with police than without police.

Additional Resource

Cops Count, Police Matter: Preventing Crime and Disorder in the 21st Century

FICTION: “To stop police violence we need to defund the police.”

FACT: This argument is simply irrational. America needs police officers to maintain law and order.

Defunding our nation’s police departments would only lead to more crime and chaos and would directly harm the communities who disproportionately suffer the most. Additionally, defunding police departments will only lead to tighter budget constraints and less well-equipped police officers, making it even harder for police officers to do an already difficult and stressful job. However, in instances in which police officers use force outside the bounds of their training or even unlawfully, often union contracts stand in the way of appropriate discipline. Therefore, to stop unlawful police violence it is important that we reform the police union contract system.

I Really Do Wonder How We Are Going To Look Back On 2020

Yesterday The National Review posted an article about some recent statements by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh.

The article reports:

Boston mayor Marty Walsh declared racism a “public health crisis” on Friday, and announced a proposal to transfer funds from the police department’s overtime budget to social services.

Walsh said $3 million would be immediately transferred from overtime for city police to the Boston Public Health Commission. The mayor will also propose that the City Council divert 20 percent of the polices’s overtime budget, or around $12 million, to other programs.

Is there anyone who actually believes this is going to make Boston safer?

The article concludes:

However, Walsh also praised the city police department, noting that use of force complaints dropped by 50 percent from 2013 to 2019. Over the same period, the crime rate dropped by 30 percent and the number of arrests dropped by one third.

“They have made this progress…by lifting people up, not locking people up,” Walsh said. “They, too, want to be a part of the solution, and they continue to deserve our respect and gratitude.” 

Calls have grown to “defund” police forces across the country following the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed during arrest by Minneapolis officers. Massive demonstrations protesting Floyd’s death have spread across the country, devolving into riots and looting in some cities, including Boston.

At the same time, African Americans have also seen a higher mortality rate from coronavirus infections than in the general population.

This is pandering. The Mayor knows that moving the money away from the police department is not going to make anyone safer–in fact, it may put some neighborhoods in danger. This decision is bowing to the pressure of the mob that is currently running wild.

This Might Be Part Of The Problem

Last Monday The New York Post posted an article about some of the required reading required of college freshman in a number of American colleges this year. The students are required to read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me.” The book deals with the author’s fear and hatred of police and white political power structures. This is not a book that will encourage law-abiding, successful college graduates. This is a book that will encourage racial division, class envy, and a skewed view of America and how it works.

The article reports:

Coates promotes the view that blacks are helpless to improve their situation given the white supremacy they face. In Coates’ world, whites cannot erase the stain of racism and instead many strive to control black bodies through violence. Coates’ book gives intellectual weight to the just-released platform by a Black Lives Matter-affiliated group, which stresses how “the interlinked systems of white supremacy, imperialism, capitalism and patriarchy shape the violence we face.” (It also claims the United States “is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people.”)

The first problem with seeing the world through this lens is that it isn’t true. As liberal political analyst Nate Cohn has pointed out, outside the South, President Obama received a larger share of the white vote in 2012 than either of the two previous Democratic presidential nominees.

But Coates’ thesis is contradicted by Coates himself. In his previous book, “The Beautiful Struggle,” he chronicled his life growing up in Baltimore. It documented the senselessness of black-on-black crime, the lack of proper parenting. There are no racist police or teachers in sight.

“Lexington Terrace was hot with gonorrhea. Teen pregnancy was the fashion,” he wrote. “Husbands were outties. Fathers were ghosts.”

“The Beautiful Struggle” fit into a narrative of “culture of despair” that, at that time, liberal sociologists Melissa Kearney and Kathryn Edin used to explain the continued prevalence of high black teen birth rates. But times have changed, and that sort of analysis is considered akin to blaming the victim. Better to highlight, if not exaggerate, black victimization. And with the proper lens, a modest number of police killings of black men serves this purpose.

It is truly sad that this book won the National Book Award for nonfiction.

The article further reports:

Besides providing a diversion, the use of Coates’ venomous book as freshman reading, taught by English instructors, is dangerous. First, it gives the book’s claims credibility. This in a campus atmosphere where, as Nicholas Kristof lamented in his New York Times essay “A Confession of Liberal Intolerance,” criticisms of Coates’ perspective inevitably will be dismissed as the complaints of ignorant racist apologists.

How much are parents paying for their children to be taught this trash? America is far from perfect, but there are many people of all races who have risen to leadership positions in both the public and private sector. To focus on the problems in America without celebrating the successes does not give the students a balanced picture of the country. That focus also encourages a victim mentality that will prevent the students from reaching their full potential when they graduate.

 

An Inappropriate Response Followed By An Appropriate Response

The rescue and rebuilding efforts are continuing in Louisiana. The area has been visited by President Obama and Donald Trump. The Cajun Navy is continuing its rescue efforts. However, President Obama’s initial response to the flooding left a lot to be desired.

Hot Air posted a story today that shows the proper response to President Obama’s initial response to the flooding.

In case you have forgotten, this was part of President Obama’s statement (released in between golf holes) on the flooding:

Care must be taken to ensure that actions, both intentional and unintentional, do not exclude groups of people based on race, color, national origin (including limited English proficiency), religion, sex, or disability.”

“Those planning for Katrina appeared to assume most people could rely on personal vehicles to evacuate and failed to consider the transportation needs of all segments of the population.”

“Many seeking temporary housing immediately encountered discriminatory advertisements that explicitly refused to rent to African Americans.”

Ben Husser, who has been helping his neighbors in Louisiana, penned the following response:

Dear Mr President,
I want to thank you for reminding us in South Louisiana not to discriminate against anyone based on race or religion. Had you not reminded us of this I don’t know what we would have done. See we rode around in a boat saving people and well race or religion never entered my mind. Not once. It didn’t enter my buddies mind or my wife’s. Just saving people.
I understand you may be miss informed because of all the race baiting that the media did a couple months ago here is South Louisiana. But I assure you that’s not what we stand for in South Louisiana. We love each other when the times get hard. We look out for our own. Now I know this doesn’t fit your agenda. But facts are facts.
O and by the way stay up in DC play a little golf and enjoy your last couple months in office. Make sure you clean out your desk. Clean out the house you’ve occupied for 8 years cause your time is up. Let ya buddy Ms Clinton know we don’t need her either. She needs her rest. Lord knows she needs rest more then the residents of South Louisiana do. She may could put some of that Clinton foundation blood money to good use down here helping others. But why would she do that. She already knows Louisiana doesn’t belong to her come November. If this was a state she needed she would have been on the boat with me. But that’s OK we got this we are strong here in Louisiana. Something you will never understand.

Thanks
The true citizens of Louisiana

I think that pretty much sums it up!

Ignorance Reigns

CNS News posted an article yesterday about a recent press conference by Maina Kiai, U.N. Special Rapporteur.

This is an excerpt from his statement regarding America:

. ..The country was founded on land stolen from its indigenous Native Americans; its early economic strength was built on race-based slavery against people of African descent; and successive waves of immigrants have faced discrimination, harassment or worse.

Today, unfortunately, America seems to be at a moment where it is struggling to live up to its ideals on a number of important issues, the most critical being racial, social and economic inequality, which are often intertwined.

To be clear, the focus of my mission was not race or discrimination. My mandate concerns the enjoyment of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. But it is impossible to discuss these rights without issues of racism pervading the discussions. Racism and the exclusion, persecution and marginalization that come with it, affect the enabling environment for the exercise of association and assembly rights.

This issue is particularly grave in the African-American community, and understanding its context means looking back at 400 years of slavery. It also means looking at the emergence of the Jim Crow laws that destroyed the achievements of the Reconstruction Era, which emerged at the end of slavery in 1865, and enforced segregation and marginalized the African-American community to a life of misery, poverty and persecution.

It means looking at what happened after Jim Crow laws were dismantled, when old philosophies of exclusion and discrimination were reborn, cloaked in new and euphemistic terms. These may have not been race-based on their face, but they have, intentionally or not, disproportionately targeted African-Americans and other minorities.

The so-called “War on Drugs” is a perfect example. From it, one out of every 15 black men is in currently jail. One out of every 13 African-Americans, meanwhile, has lost their right to vote due to a felony conviction. An aggressive emphasis on street-level “law and order” (or “broken windows” approach) policing combined with wide police discretion means that African-Americans are subjected to systematic police harassment – and sometimes much worse – often for doing nothing more than walking down the street or gathering in a group. Convictions and incarcerations dramatically increased once the “War on Drugs” was set in motion, without a corresponding increase in drug use.

Similarly the crime laws passed under the Bill Clinton administration (1993-2001), including the federal “three strikes” law, implemented aggressively against people of color have contributed to the huge rises in incarceration and exclusion of the black community further fueling discontent and anger.

The effects can often snowball: A minor criminal offense – or even an arrest without substantiated charges – can show up on a background check, making it difficult to find a job, secure a student loan or find a place to live. This marginalization in turn makes it more likely that a person will turn to crime, for lack of any other option, and the vicious cycle continues.

Please send this man back to whatever country he is from. I can guarantee that his standard of living will not be what it is in America. I would also like to mention that in the Islamic culture, slavery is still acceptable, and America was not the only country in the world to practice slavery–the problem was worldwide.  American history does have its blemishes, but we have come a long way. Unfortunately our welfare programs have destroyed the black family structure and created the crime in black communities. The problem is not racism–it is a cultural problem that can only be solved by the black community. There are black leaders who are working to solve the problem, but they do not get the publicity that the black leaders who profit by screaming ‘racism’ get.

When The Image And The Truth Totally Disagree

This story is based on a story from November 2015, but it is particularly relevant now. As I have said before, I am not a strong supporter of Donald Trump, but I am dismayed at the charges routinely leveled against him that have no basis in fact. One day I am going to read in the news that Donald Trump conferred with aliens on Mars before deciding to run for President (and what is worse–there will be people who believe that).

On November 13, 2015, The American Spectator posted as article about some activities of Donald Trump during the 1990’s. These activities totally negate the most recent charge that Donald Trump is a racist.

This is the story:

…The culture clash began to approach a climax last fall, when Mr. Trump’s lawyer sent members of the town council a copy of the film “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” a film that deals with upper-class racism. Mr. Trump then approached the town council about lifting the restrictions that had been placed on the club. He also asked some council members not to vote on the request because their membership in other clubs created a conflict of interest.

Last December, after the council refused to lift the restrictions, Mr. Trump filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Palm Beach, alleging that the town was discriminating against Mar-a-Lago, in part because it is open to Jews and African-Americans. The suit seeks $100 million in damages.

… Mr. Foxman seems pleased that Mr. Trump has elevated the issue of discriminatory policies at social clubs. “He put the light on Palm Beach,” Mr. Foxman says. “Not on the beauty and the glitter, but on its seamier side of discrimination. It has an impact.”

In recent weeks, Mr. Foxman says, the league has received calls from Jewish residents telling of how Palm Beach clubs are changing. Locals concur that in the past year, organizations such as the Bath and Tennis Club have begun to admit Jewish patrons. The Palm Beach Civic Association, which for many years was believed to engage in discriminatory behavior, this month named a Jewish resident as its chief officer.

In other words? In other words, long before he was running for president, there was Donald Trump battling racism and anti-Semitism in Palm Beach society. Using every tool at his disposal.

This was almost twenty years before Donald Trump announced his run for the Presidency. These are not the actions of a racist.

Sometimes You Just Have To Wonder

North Carolina recently passed some voting laws designed to prevent voter fraud. Despite what you have heard, voter fraud is a problem in America.

As I reported in 2011:

“Most of the findings focused on a group called Houston Votes, a voter registration group headed by Sean Caddle, who formerly worked for the Service Employees International Union. Among the findings were that only 1,793 of the 25,000 registrations the group submitted appeared to be valid. The other registrations included one of a woman who registered six times in the same day; registrations of non-citizens; so many applications from one Houston Voters collector in one day that it was deemed to be beyond human capability; and 1,597 registrations that named the same person multiple times, often with different signatures.”

That is just one example. I actually think 24,000 voters in one city could make a difference in the election results. That is why I believe in voter identification.

There seem to be a number of people in North Carolina protesting the new voter identification laws. Protest is their right, but one has to wonder why they would not want to be sure that only voters legally entitled to vote do so.

Yesterday ABC News (Channel 11) posted a story about the protest. It seems that many of the protesters were not from North Carolina. One man interviewed was from Boston. These are paid protesters!

The is the video posted on YouTube:

The article reports:

However, the movement’s de facto leader, NAACP head Rev. William Barber says the GOP video shows no such thing. He points out that the NAACP invited anyone who wanted to support the cause to go to Winston-Salem for that voting rights rally and says he’s not at all surprised people in other states took them up on it.

As for the GOP’s broader charge that out-of-state unions are both footing the bill and providing the foot soldiers for Moral Mondays, Barber told us he “won’t dignify the accusation.” His only comment: “I’m going to pray for them and their shameful attempt to change the subject away from voter suppression. Our fight is in the courts and with the legislature.”

The protester in the video just admitted that the unions were paying the protesters. I guess the Reverend may have missed that. As far as voter suppression goes, anytime a person who is not legally entitled to vote casts a ballot in an election, he suppresses the vote of someone who is legally entitled to vote. The voter identification law will end the current voter suppression–it will not create voter suppression.

Punishing Achievement While Rewarding Mediocrity

Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an editorial about an area of discrimination we rarely hear about. It seems that our elite universities have been discriminating against Asian-American students.

The editorial reports:

The percentage of Asian-American students at Harvard and other elite universities has held suspiciously steady for two decades at about 18%, while the number of college-age Asian-Americans has increased rapidly. In May the coalition (a coaltion of sixty-four organizations) asked the civil-rights arms of the Education and Justice Departments to investigate why Asian-Americans, who make up about 5% of the population but earn an estimated 30% of National Merit semifinalist honors, aren’t accepted to Harvard in numbers that reflect these qualifications.

Sixty-four organizations filed a complaint with the Education Department. The Education Department dismissed the complaint, stating that there is pending litigation on the matter. (One suit was filed by Students for Fair Admissions against Harvard and the University of North Carolina).

The editorial further points out:

A similarly narrow ruling next year could give Harvard and other top schools license to maintain de facto quotas. Asian-Americans need to score 140 points higher on the SAT than white students to be considered equal applicants on paper, and 450 points higher than African-Americans, according to independent research cited in the complaint.

Why are we preventing our best and brightest from entering our best schools simply because of their race? I thought there were laws against discrimination based on race. This kind of activity does not help anyone. Students with the lower scores may not be equipped to handle the academic workload at these elite schools.This really must be discouraging to the students who have achieved the high scores.

The editorial concludes:

Meantime, the Asian-American coalition says it will continue to push back, potentially broadening the complaint. Quota-like admissions also seem to exist at Yale, Princeton and elsewhere, and the feds won’t have litigation as an excuse to look the other way. But if the Obama Administration finds another excuse, as it probably will, Asian-Americans will need the Supreme Court to end their exclusion.

Racial discrimination should never be acceptable regardless of who it is aimed at. I hope the Asian-American students sue the pants off the schools that are doing this and then use the money to provide scholarships to Asian-American students in their communities.

Huh?

I feel obligated to write about this story because it has been all over the news lately, but to be honest, I really don’t understand it.

CBS News in Seattle, Washington, is reporting that Rachel Dolezal is resigning as the leader of the NAACP in Spokane after it was discovered that she had lied about her racial heritage for the past 37 years.

The article reports:

Meanwhile, Spokane is investigating whether she lied about her ethnicity when she landed an appointment to the city’s police oversight board. On her application, she said her ethnic origins included white, black and American Indian.

Dolezal, a 37-year-old woman with a light brown complexion and dark curly hair, attended historically black Howard University, teaches African studies at a local university and was married to a black man. For years, she has publicly complained of being the victim of racial harassment in the heavily white region.

The uproar over racial authenticity and professional honesty unfolded last week after Dolezal’s parents told the media their daughter is white with a trace of Native American heritage. They produced photos of her as girl with a pale complexion and straight blond hair.

Her mother, Ruthanne Dolezal of Troy, Montana, told reporters she has had no contact with her daughter in years. She said Rachel began to “disguise herself” after her parents adopted four African-American children more than a decade ago.

Although I do not think it was right for her to lie about her background, I really don’t understand the issue. She wanted to work for civil rights. She obviously felt that she could do a better job of that as a member of the minority she was interested in helping. I have a problem with her lying, I don’t have a problem with her working for the NAACP. I do, however, wonder if she would have been elected to head the local NAACP chapter if she had been white. That is what we should be thinking about. Do you have to be the same race as another person to understand the struggles of that race and to want to help? Maybe we all need to look at the unintentional segregation we put on ourselves and instead start thinking about which people want to make things better, not who is what color.

Rewriting History

Gateway Pundit posted an article yesterday about the 65th anniversary of the march in Selma, Alabama.

The article reminds us:

On this day in 1965, state police under the command of the Democrat Governor, George Wallace, attacked African-Americans who were demonstrating for voting rights in Selma, Alabama. The rampaging Democrats used billy clubs and tear gas and dogs in their “Bloody Sunday” assault.

A Republican-appointed federal judge, Frank Johnson, soon ruled in favor of the demonstrators, enabling them to complete their march two weeks later.

Meanwhile, the Daily Caller reported yesterday:

A civil rights leader refused to march across the historic bridge in Selma during the 50th anniversary celebration Saturday because former President George W. Bush was also marching.

Diane Nash, described as a lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr., said she did not wish to march across the bridge in Alabama because she said Bush represented violence — something she claimed was at odds with the Selma legacy.

History has been rewritten to erase the role the political parties played in the civil rights movement–the Southern Democrats opposed civil rights laws and the northern Republicans supported them. It is a shame Ms. Nash decided not to march instead of taking a stand for unity.

 

Truth Doesn’t Change–Even When Society Does

Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an article about next month’s 50-year anniversary of Daniel Patrick Moynihan‘s report on the black family. At the time the future Senator was serving as assistant secretary in Lyndon Johnson‘s Labor Department. Senator Moynihan (he was first elected to the Senate in 1976) was concerned about the increasing number of fatherless homes in the black community.

The article in the Wall Street Journal reports:

“The fundamental problem is that of family structure,” wrote Moynihan, who had a doctorate in sociology. “The evidence—not final but powerfully persuasive—is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling.”

For his troubles, Moynihan was denounced as a victim-blaming racist bent on undermining the civil-rights movement. Even worse, writes Harvard’s Paul Peterson in the current issue of the journal Education Next, Moynihan’s “findings were totally ignored by those who designed public policies at the time.” The Great Society architects would go on to expand old programs or formulate new ones that exacerbated the problems Moynihan identified. Marriage was penalized and single parenting was subsidized. In effect, the government paid mothers to keep fathers out of the home—and paid them well.

This, of course, made the problem of fatherless families worse–not better.

The article reminds us that we are also approaching the 50-year anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which ensured that the black minorities were able to vote.

The article points out:

With a twice-elected black man now occupying the White House, it might be difficult for younger Americans to appreciate this milestone. However, in 1964, three years after Barack Obama was born, black voter registration in Mississippi was less than 7%, the lowest in the South. By 1966 it had grown to 60%, the highest in the South.

Today black voter-registration rates in the South, where most blacks still live, are higher than in other regions of the country, and for the first time on record the black voter-turnout rate in 2012 exceeded white turnout.

So what have The Great Society and the Voting Rights Act accomplished?

The article concludes:

But even as we note this progress, the political gains have not redounded to the black underclass, which by several important measures—including income, academic achievement and employment—has stagnated or lost ground over the past half-century. And while the civil-rights establishment and black political leaders continue to deny it, family structure offers a much more plausible explanation of these outcomes than does residual white racism.

In 2012 the poverty rate for all blacks was more than 28%, but for married black couples it was 8.4% and has been in the single digits for two decades. Just 8% of children raised by married couples live in poverty, compared with 40% of children raised by single mothers.

One important lesson of the past half-century is that counterproductive cultural traits can hurt a group more than political clout can help it. Moynihan was right about that, too.

The country needs voters of every ethnic group–but they need smart voters–voters who will vote for things that will strengthen the family and foundations of society–not voters who support the undermining of those things.

Some Clarity On The Ferguson Grand Jury

Yesterday Andrew McCarthy posted an article in the National Review Online about the Grand Jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson.

Mr. McCarthy sums up the story as follows:

All very reasonable, but let’s not pretend reason has anything to do with what happened in Ferguson this week. In Liberal Fascism’s focus on myth, Jonah recalls Mussolini’s assertion, “It is faith that moves mountains, not reason. Reason is a tool, but it can never be the motive force of the crowd.” The crowd in Ferguson was moved to riot on the article of a false faith that condemns America and its police forces as incorrigibly racist. It is from this condemnation that all purported “reasoning” proceeds.

Such reasoning dictates that our constitutional right not to be indicted in the absence of just cause should be subordinated to the mob’s demand for a public trial. Succeeding in that legerdemain, it next dictates that our constitutional right not to be convicted in the absence of proof beyond a reasonable doubt be subordinated to the mob’s demand for a guilty verdict.

Such a verdict that would have had only the most tangential connection to the tragedy of an 18-year-old’s death or a police officer’s well-founded fear for his life. But it would have fed the myth.

The article reminds us that the American Left has fostered the myth that white policemen kill black teenagers. There is no reference to the amount of crime committed by black teenagers, we are simply supposed to buy the myth at face value–it is useful for manipulating crowds.

The article points out that the discussion of Grand Jury rules and procedures was irrelevant:

As it turns out, there was no need to thumb the legal treatises of Blackstone or Joseph Story. If you were going to hit the books, Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism would have served you better. Brilliantly illustrating modern liberalism’s roots in 20th-century progressivism — a movement as comfortable marching lockstep with Stalin as it was borrowing copiously from Mussolini — Jonah homes in on the centrality of myth. It is irrelevant whether an idea around which the Left’s avant-garde rouse the rabble is true; the point is the idea’s power to mold consciousness and rally the troops.

It is unfortunate that a young man is dead. It is also unfortunate that the young man chose to rob a store and attack a policeman. (The forensic evidence confirms the fact that Michael Brown did attack Darren Wilson.) However, it is also unfortunate that a good policeman has resigned the force and had his life negatively impacted by simply defending his own life.

The mob mentality here is right in line with Saul Alinsky‘s Rules for Radicals. The article explains:

Darren Wilson was a white cop and Michael Brown was a black teenager killed in a violent confrontation with Wilson. Therefore, Brown was the victim of a cold-blooded, racially motivated murder, Q.E.D. That is the myth, and it will be served — don’t bother us with the facts.

Once you’ve got that, none of the rest matters. In fact, at the hands of the left-leaning punditocracy, the rest was pure Alinsky: a coopting of language — in this instance, the argot of grand-jury procedure — to reason back to the ordained conclusion that “justice” demanded Wilson’s indictment for murder. And, of course, his ultimate conviction.

What the ‘protestors’ (thugs and criminals) gained from destroying their own city I don’t know. I wonder if the Nike sneakers were worth the fact that there will no longer be a place to buy sneakers in the town. Very few of the violent protestors were actually from the town, which tells us that this whole scenario was a planned show to manipulate the low-information voter by using the low-information media. The really sad part of this story was that innocent people had their businesses destroyed and their lives ruined by the actions of people driven by rage caused by misinformation they were given. They were played.

In North Carolina, People Voted

Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article about the mid-term voting in North Carolina. Some of the pundits on the American left have blamed the Republican victory on the “disfranchisement” of likely Democratic voters.” The actual numbers tell a different story.

The article reports:

Francis Barry of Bloomberg, having looked more closely than Weiser at the numbers, concludes that North Carolina’s voting law changes did not determine the outcome of the Senate race. He notes that even with seven fewer early voting days, early voting in North Carolina increased this year by 35 percent compared with the 2010 midterm.

Moreover, statewide turnout as a whole increased from the previous midterm election, from 43.7 percent to 44.1 percent. And the share of the Black vote as a percentage of the total increased from its 2010 level.

We will be hearing more about discrimination against black voters as 2016 approaches and the left tries to undo voter identification laws. However, the numbers prove that making changes to improve the cost, integrity, and efficiency of elections does not lower voter turnout. I would also like to note that almost half of the people in North Carolina voted in a midterm election. They wanted to make their voices heard. That is a good thing.

Common Sense During An Election Season

Dave Chadwick describes himself as a 59-year-old African American man, born and raised in Jacksonville (North Carolina), and now living with my family in New Bern (North Carolina).

He recently wrote a letter to the New Bern Sun Journal stating his thoughts on the current election cycle. After reading the letter, I am convinced we need this man in public office.

This is the letter:

I am a 59-year-old African American man, born and raised in Jacksonville, and now living with my family in New Bern.

I am insulted by the arrogance of the Democratic candidates during this election because they talk to us through their advertisements as if we are stupid.

My kids attend public schools here in New Bern. Not only are the staff and teachers at the schools outstanding, my kids have plenty of books.

I seriously doubt if money is really being transferred from the schools to yacht owners. But each time someone purchases a yacht, jobs are created and secured at companies like Hatteras Yachts located right here in New Bern.

I was shocked to hear the radio commercial that featured a couple of ladies suggesting the Republicans were trying to take away the rights of African Americans to vote. The voter ID initiative,(if that’s what they’re referring to) is to preserve the integrity of the vote, and a photo ID can be acquired for free through the North Carolina DMV.

And recently, the commitment of the incumbent Democratic Senator Kay Hagan to a strong military and American security was questioned by the Republican candidate. In her rebuttal commercial, the Democratic Senatorial candidate cited her relatives who have served in the military and her support for the administration’s current strategy regarding the terror group ISIS.

Well, almost everyone in Eastern North Carolina has relatives currently serving or who have previously served in the military. Despite all the “support of the administration’s ISIS strategy,” it doesn’t seem like much progress is being made at stopping them. I just finished watching a CBS, 60 minutes story on Benghazi which is completely inconsistent with the administration’s story.

These things do not invoke trust within me or many of my friends for the current Obama administration. The Democrats are spending an awful lot of money on negative ads designed to discredit Republicans.

Why would anyone choose that kind of strategy over one that highlights their own accomplishments?

Thank you for allowing me to voice this opinion.

 David Chadwick, New Bern

Thank you, Mr. Chadwick, for introducing some common sense into the race.

Mr. Chadwick was recently interviewed on NewsMax TV. This is the interview:

This Isn’t News–Some Of Us Have Known It All Along

Yesterday the Daily Caller posted an article about a recent statement by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy.

The article reports:

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed global warming regulations aren’t just about stemming global temperature rises — according to agency’s chief, they are also about “justice” for “communities of color.”

“Carbon pollution standards are an issue of justice,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a teleconference call with environmental activists. “If we want to protect communities of color, we need to protect them from climate change.”

McCarthy is referring to the EPA’s proposed rule that would limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The agency says the rule will not only help fight global warming, but will also improve public health as coal-fired power plants are shuttered. McCarthy, however, put special emphasis on how the rule would reduce asthma rates, which affect African-American children.

Rush Limbaugh said once that if the world were going to end tomorrow, the New York Times headline would be, “World Ends Tomorrow–Women And Children Most Effected.”

If we have any doubt that the climate-control movement was the new home of the communists and socialists, the above statement by Ms. McCarthy should remove all doubt.

The article reports:

Green For All acknowledges the need to disrupt the current economy, because we understand that our current economy was based upon human trafficking, the exploitation of labor, and violent racism,” according to the group’s website. “We are safe enough to be invited into spaces where power-building groups are not, and radical enough to push a deeply justice-based agenda in those spaces. We are radical enough to partner with grassroots organizations when other national groups are turned away, and enough of an ally to offer resources and support in those spaces.”

The article reminds us that the disruption in the economy would hit the very people the movement claims to be helping the hardest. The higher energy costs would impact small businesses, causing people to lose their jobs. Lower paid and unskilled workers would be impacted. Low income people would be devastated by higher energy costs.

Wealth redistribution never accomplishes anything good. It simply makes more people poor. It also allows certain people who are in control to be immune from having their wealth redistributed. Generally speaking, it is a really bad idea. Socialist and communist countries have a much lower standard of living than countries where people are free and have property rights. To move in the direction of socialism or communism is to move toward poverty–not toward economic equality or freedom.

Looking Behind The Economic Numbers

Breitbart.com posted an article today the current state of the American economy. The article points out that the current stated unemployment rate of 6.1 percent does not tell the whole story.

The article reports:

Only about half of the drop in the adult participation rate may be attributed to the Baby Boom generation reaching retirement age. Lacking adequate resources to retire, a larger percentage of adults over 65 are working than before the recession.

Many Americans who would like full time jobs are stuck in part-time positions, because businesses can hire desirable part-time workers to supplement a core of permanent, full-time employees, but at lower wages. And Obamacare’s employer health insurance mandates will not apply to workers on the job less than 30 hours a week.

The article also mentions the fact that many of our young people are being encouraged by colleges to obtain degrees in subjects that are of limited value in the workplace. These students graduate with massive debt and no marketable skills.

The article concludes:

New business regulations, more burdensome than are necessary to accomplish legitimate consumer protection and environmental objectives, exacerbate these problems.

All of this suppresses wages except for the most skilled and talented workers.

No surprise, average family income, adjusted for inflation has fallen from about $55,600 in 2007 to $51,000 even as the gap between families at the bottom and top widens.

It’s time for a new economic policy for America.

American Voters Have More Common Sense Than Some Of Their Elected Officials

Hot Air posted a story today about voter identification laws in America. A Fox News poll released this week stated that 70 percent of American voters favor voter identification.

The article cites some results of the poll:

Seven in 10 registered voters are in favor of identification laws in order to root out fraud at the ballot box, according to a Fox News poll released this week.

The survey found majority support in every major demographic, including black voters and Democrats.

The 70 percent who support voter ID laws remains largely unchanged in the past few years. Another 27 percent believe the laws are unnecessary…

The survey found majorities of every demographic support the law. Ninety-one percent of Republicans offer support, and 66 percent of independents feel the same.

Fifty-five percent of Democrats support the laws, while 43 percent oppose them.

Opposition to the laws is highest among black respondents, but even there a bare majority, 51 percent, support them. Forty-six percent of African Americans oppose the laws.

Voter fraud impacts every voter. If you are an American citizen registered to vote, a fraudulent vote can easily cancel out your vote and rob you of the privilege of voting. Voter fraud benefits no one. Voter identification laws are one weapon against voter fraud. Rather than ‘infringing on your right to vote’ as many left-leaning politicians claim, voter identification laws protect your vote if you are voting legally.

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Using A Fool’s Folly To Gain Political Advantage

The Democrat party is desperately looking for an issue that will bring Democrats out to vote in this year’s mid-term election. They have a few issues that have worked in the past, but they are having a hard time finding one that will work this year. Well, I think they think they have found their issue–it’s the ongoing problem of racism in America. We had our conservative racist last week–Cliven Bundy was taken to the cleaners by the press. Now we have our Democrat racist this week–Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.

Mr. Sterling was taped by a former girlfriend during an argument. Those tapes were then released to the press as evidence that Mr. Sterling was a racist. At this point I should mention that Mr. Sterling is 80 years old, extremely wealthy and his girlfriend is young, black, and Mexican. He seems more like an older man in the clutches of a gold-digger than a racist.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article on the controversy yesterday.

The article reports:

The more you learn about the story, the stranger it gets. If you listen to the tapes, which have been made public by TMZ and Deadspin, it is hard to make sense of them. Sterling doesn’t want Stiviano to put up photos of herself with African-Americans on Instagram or bring them with her to Los Angeles Clippers games. He says he doesn’t care if she associates or sleeps with black people, just don’t put them up on Instagram. An odd distinction! His request was motivated, evidently, by the fact that one or more of Sterling’s friends called him to comment on the Instagram photos. While Sterling never says this, reading between the lines it appears that someone must have teased him about his mistress consorting with blacks.

As usual, President Obama chose to comment on how this incident shows that America is racist:

“The United States continues to wrestle with the legacy of race and slavery and segregation, that’s still there, the vestiges of discrimination,” Obama said during a news conference in Malaysia, where he was traveling.

No, the incident shows that a wealthy older man is vulnerable to a woman who wants a large portion of his money. Individual people may be racist in America, just as individual people all over the world may have prejudices. However, the comments of a man in a heated domestic argument should not be used to accuse America of being racist. There is also a strong possibility that Mr. Sterling’s girlfriend was baiting him to make sure she got a really good tape. I also wonder if she asked Mr. Sterling for money for the tape before releasing it and if he refused. That may be the reason the tape was released–blackmail didn’t work.

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Something To Consider

Be forewarned–this is going to be a controversial article, but it is definitely something to think about.

In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty. A website called The Bunker quotes off the record remarks he made at the time:

”These Negroes, they‘re getting pretty uppity these days and that‘s a problem for us since they‘ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we‘ve got to do something about this, we‘ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.” ~Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat)

President Lyndon Baines Johnson, And is “Great Society” to help the Negro… was recorded on a White House taped (and saved) conversation claiming, “I’ll have them niggers voting Democratic for the next two hundred years.”

In a January 2011 article in the Wall Street Journal, Walter Williams stated:

Even in the antebellum era, when slaves often weren’t permitted to wed, most black children lived with a biological mother and father. During Reconstruction and up until the 1940s, 75% to 85% of black children lived in two-parent families. Today, more than 70% of black children are born to single women. “The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do, what Jim Crow couldn’t do, what the harshest racism couldn’t do,” Mr. Williams says. “And that is to destroy the black family.”

Cliven Bundy recently stated (as reported by CNN):

“I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro,” Bundy said, “and in front of that government house the door was usually open and the older people and the kids – and there is always at least a half a dozen people sitting on the porch – they didn’t have nothing to do. They didn’t have nothing for their kids to do. They didn’t have nothing for their young girls to do.

“And because they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do?” Bundy continued. “They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy? They didn’t get no more freedom. They got less freedom.”

Mr. Bundy has been accused of racism on the basis of that statement. My question is simple, “Is that statement racist, or is that statement honest?”

 

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Why The Freedom Of Information Act Is Important

PJMedia reported yesterday that documents obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that the Department of Justice played a major behind-the-scenes role in organizing protests against George Zimmerman. George Zimmerman is currently on trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin. The Community Relations Service (CRS), a division of the Justice Department, was sent to Sanford, Florida, to organize rallies against George Zimmerman.

The article shows the timeline:

  • March 25 – 27, 2012, CRS spent $674.14 upon being “deployed to Sanford, FL to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.”
  • March 25 – 28, 2012, CRS spent $1,142.84 “in Sanford, FL to work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain.”
  • March 30 – April 1, 2012, CRS spent $892.55 in Sanford, FL “to provide support for protest deployment in Florida.”
  • March 30 – April 1, 2012, CRS spent an additional $751.60 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance to the City of Sanford, event organizers, and law enforcement agencies for the march and rally on March 31.”
  • April 3 – 12, 2012, CRS spent $1,307.40 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance, conciliation, and onsite mediation during demonstrations planned in Sanford.”
  • April 11-12, 2012, CRS spent $552.35 in Sanford, FL “to provide technical assistance for the preparation of possible marches and rallies related to the fatal shooting of a 17 year old African American male.” – expenses for employees to travel, eat, sleep?

What in the world were they thinking?

Meanwhile, MYWay News is reporting today the the judge in the Zimmerman case will allow the jury to consider a charge of manslaughter as well as the charge of second-degree murder. Essentially the rules have been changed at the end of the trial. George Zimmerman is facing 25 to 30 years in jail because he defended his life from someone he thought was trying to kill him. That seems a little unfair to me.

The article at MyWay reports:

It is standard for prosecutors in Florida murder cases to ask that the jury be allowed to consider lesser charges that were not actually brought against the defendant. And it is not unusual for judges to grant such requests.

Unfortunately, I suspect we will have riots if George Zimmerman is found innocent. That is unfortunate because the evidence seems to back up his claim that he was simply defending himself after he was attacked. The prosecution (and the media) has tried to paint a very negative picture of George Zimmerman. The media has pretty much ignored the fact that Trayvon Martin’s autopsy showed drugs in his system and that he had a history of aggressive behavior.

It is truly unfortunate that the government didn’t stay out of this trial. What were they thinking by getting involved?

 

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Why The Government Is Broke

Yesterday Breitbart.com posted an article about the Pigford Settlement. I have written about the Pigford Settlement before, you can use the search engine on this site to find the history of the program. Briefly, the Pigford Settlement was a $4.55 billion program signed into law in 2010 that provided $3.4 billion to American Indian tribes for past royalties from oil, gas, and timber extraction from their lands and $1.15 billion for AfricanAmerican farmers who said they have been unfairly denied federal loans and other assistance.

Breitbart.com reports:

On December 7, 2012, the United States Government Accountability Office released report number GAO-13-69R, also known as “Civil Rights: Additional Actions in Pigford II Claims Process Could Reduce Risk of Improper Determinations.”

In English that means that a lot of people receiving money in the Pigford Settlement may not actually be legally entitled to it.

The GAO report states:

For example, by the terms of the settlement agreement, most claims must be evaluated based solely on the information submitted by the claimants and, as a result, the adjudicator of these claims has no way of independently verifying that information.

Wow! Free money. Just like your Obama phone.

The article concludes:

Let’s go slowly through that paragraph. There are three main points it makes:

  1. “By terms of the settlement agreement” shows the fraud is baked right in. This is a feature, not a bug.
  2. “most claims must be evaluated based solely on the information submitted by the claimants” means that a majority of claims are judged based only on statements by the person who stands to collect a $50,000 check.
  3. “adjudicator of these claims has no way of independently verifying that information” means that there’s no way for the person judging the claim to check for fraud.

In other words, the lawyers and politicians who designed Pigford gave people judging a claim’s validity no objective way to determine whether it is actually fraudulent or not; they have to accept the claimant’s statement as truth. In a government payout program whose architects anticipated some level of fraudulent or duplicate claims, no one included oversight against such a contingency.

These are American taxpayer dollars that are being spent. I don’t want to see anyone’s taxes raised until the government is held accountable for the money it is already spending. I suspect we could come very close to balancing the budget just by taking out the waste and fraud. Let’s do that before we take more money away from the people who actually legally earned it.

 

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