doremus observes
Doremus Jessup, editor of the Fort
Beulah The Daily Informer, in Sinclair Lewis'
famous book "It Can't Happen Here", at its
conclusion, "drove out saluted by the meadow larks,
and onward all day, to a hidden cabin in the Northern
Woods where quiet men awaited news of freedom.....still
Doremus goes on, into the sunrise, for a Doremus Jessup
can never die......
*******************************JUSTICE Slipping Away for Black
Farmers
USDA, Justice Dept.
Thwart Payouts to Most in Landmark Settlement,
By Darryl Fears Washington
Post
Tuesday, July 20, 2004;
The Department of Agriculture has
denied payments to almost 90 percent of black farmers who
sought compensation for discrimination under a landmark
court settlement the agency reached with African American
growers five years ago, according to a report set for
release today by a Washington-based environmental group.
Virginia
farmer John Boyd, shown addressing a protest outside the
Department of Agriculture in 2002, said loan
discrimination against African American farmers in
Virginia was routine. Justice lawyers fought the farmers'
claims. (Dudley M. Brooks)
A two-year investigation by the
Environmental Working Group found that USDA officials
contracted Justice Department lawyers to aggressively
fight the farmers' claims after the settlement of the $3
billion class-action lawsuit. Of the 94,000 growers who
sought restitution for discrimination in a process set up
by the court, 81,000 were turned away, the report says.
The report, funded by the Ford Foundation, said the
USDA's actions "willfully obstructed justice"
and "deliberately undermined" the spirit of the
settlement.
USDA SPOKESMAN, Ed Lloyd, took issue
with the report's conclusion.Lloyd said "the court
sought to appoint an independent arbitrator to oversee
individual claims under the settlement. USDA provides
information regarding each farmer's case to an arbitrator
and then steps out of the way."
The settlement came in a class-action
lawsuit that claimed the USDA discriminated against black
farmers in providing loans and other aid. Under its
terms, black farmers could file for compensation along
two tracks. Track A promised an automatic payment of
$50,000 if a claim was approved. Track B, which provided
the possibility of greater compensation, required a
hearing before restitution could be made.
According to the report, about 40 % of
the 22,100 farmers whose claims were reviewed under Track
A were denied. Of the 173 farmers who filed cases under
Track B, only 18 won compensation. Arbitrators never
reviewed an additional 72,000 claims, saying they were
filed late.
Linwood Brown, who grew tobacco, corn
and soybeans in Brunswick County, Va., south of Richmond,
received $490,000 for his discrimination claim, but he
said he was challenged at every step. "They
challenged it for four or five years, saying that
wrongdoing is not the same thing as discrimination,"
Brown said. "They said I must be able to prove that
I was discriminated against and show that a white farmer
got his money on time. I was able to do that because I
kept records."
Brown and John Boyd, another Virginia
farmer, said discrimination in the state was routine.
"I know quite a few farmers who were turned
away" even though their cases were similar to his,
Brown said. "The white farmers got money on
time," he said. "Black farmers didn't get money
on time. We always got turned down."
Federal lawyers fought claims
aggressively. The Justice Department spent 56,000 hours
of attorney and paralegal time challenging 129 claims,
and billed USDA $12 million, according to the
Environmental Working Group report. Carolyn Cooksie, USDA
deputy administrator of farm loans, said time and money
was spent to have Farm Service Agency and Justice
officials review the claims.
Native American and Latino farmers have
similar class-action claims pending against USDA. The
lawsuit came when black farmers were on the verge of
extinction. There were nearly 1 million at the end of the
1920s, but fewer than 30,000 exist today.
"The . . . settlement is a
complete failure," said Arianne Callender, a lawyer
for the group, known as EWG. "In part, it was the
plaintiffs' lawyers who failed them. But USDA took
advantage of every aspect of the court's rules and the
settlement's shortcomings to avoid responsibility."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Call
for Election Monitors to Prevent Another Stolen Election
in 2004
To: George W.
Bush
We call on you to request expert election monitors to
avoid an unprecedented electoral - and Constitutional -
crisis over the Presidential election of November 2,
2004. Such a request was made by 13 Members of Congress
on July 1, 2004.
We saw a preview of this crisis in 2000 in Florida. We
believe the 2004 crisis will be worse because:
Across the nation, error-prone punchcard machines have
been replaced by touchscreen machines that have failed
repeatedly in actual elections. These machines lack paper
trails, their source code is proprietary, and computer
security experts believe these machines are hackable, so
voters have no confidence their votes will be recorded
and counted honestly. To compound voter fears, Diebold
CEO Wally O'Dell vowed to "deliver" Ohio's
crucial electoral votes to you The crimes committed by
partisan Florida election officials in 2000 were never
punished, which sent a clear signal to partisan officials
that they could violate election laws with impunity.
As the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights documented in
2001, discrimination against minorities - mostly
Democrats - in 2000 was widespread. More than half of the
votes that went uncounted nationwide were cast by
minorities. Most of these problems were never fixed, as
the Commission documented in April 2004.
Most of the Florida non-felons whose voting rights were
illegally revoked in 2000 have not regained their voting
rights, and the 2004 "felon" purge was rigged
to hurt Democrats by removing black "felons"
and help Republicans by overlooking Hispanic
"felons." This revelation - following a lawsuit
opposed by Florida - created a furor, but officials
insist they will "find other ways" to purge
"felons".
Also in Florida, Republicans eliminated the witness
requirement for absentee ballots, creating a major
opportunity for fraud. Republicans are tricking new
citizens into registering as Republicans by illegally
pre-checking the "Republican" box.
In Missouri, the Republican Secretary of State is trying
to stop mainly Democratic voters in St. Louis from voting
early There may be many other illegal activities underway
at the state and local level that have simply not been
discovered because no one is looking for them.
Key officials in your administration seek the power to
postpone (or cancel) the 2004 election based on warnings
of terrorist attacks, even though past warnings have been
conspicuously politicized Pro-Republican bias in the
corporate-owned media, especially at Fox News, has been
widely documented, creating an uneven playing field for
the campaign. This problem is compounded by the extremely
limited coverage planned for the summer conventions.
All five Republican Supreme Court Justices who betrayed
America by throwing out 175,000 uncounted votes in 2000
remain on the Court, so any dispute that ends up in the
Supreme Court will lack legitimacy The American people
share our concerns. A poll in June 2004 found 44% of all
voters - and 62% of Democrats - fear a Florida-style
debacle in November.
We believe observers who are experts in administering
honest, transparent, and fair elections are needed for
the "battleground" states (Arkansas, Florida,
Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania,
Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin) that will decide
the Presidency. We call on you to request such experts
from the United Nations, the Organization of American
States, and the Carter Center.
Go at http://democrats.com:81/CT00007201ODU5MjUz.HTML to sign the petition!
Republicans Go
Ballistic Over Call for UN Monitors for Election 2004 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1153&slug=
House%20Florida%20Fight
Think the passions from the 2000 presidential election
have cooled? Certainly not in the House, which voted
Thursday to strike a Florida representative's words from
the record after she said Republicans 'stole' that
closely fought contest. The verbal battle broke out after
Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., proposed a measure barring any
federal official from requesting that the UN formally
observe the U.S. elections on Nov. 2. His proposal was
approved 243-161... Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., and
several other House Democrats have made that suggestion.
They argue that some black voters were disenfranchised in
2000 and problems could occur again... 'I come from
Florida, where you and others participated in what I call
the United States coup d'etat. We need to make sure it
doesn't happen again,' Brown said. 'Over and over again
after the election when you stole the election, you came
back here and said, 'Get over it.' No, we're not going to
get over it. And we want verification from the world.'
Dems Mobilize Army of Lawyers
"Lawyers for the [Kerry]
campaign are gathering intelligence and preparing
litigation over the ballot machines being used and the
rules concerning how voters will be registered or their
votes disqualified. In some cases, the lawyers are
compiling dossiers on the people involved and their track
records on enforcing voting rights. The disputed 2000
presidential election remains a fresh wound for
Democrats, and Mr. Kerry has been referring to it on the
stump while assuring his audiences that he will not let
this year's election be a repeat of the 2000 vote. 'A
million African-Americans disenfranchised in the last
election,' he said at the N.A.A.C.P. convention in
Philadelphia on Thursday. 'Well, we're not just going to
sit there and wait for it to happen. On Election Day in
your cities, my campaign will provide teams of election
observers and lawyers to monitor elections, and we will
enforce the law.'"
Democratic
Leaders Call for Pre-Election Investigation
21-Jul-04
Stolen
Election 2004
Democratic
leaders write, "We are writing to request that the
General Accounting Office (GAO) complete a study of
critical issues that concern the integrity of the voting
process in the United States. The ability of Americans to
register to vote, cast a ballot and have each vote
counted in the upcoming Federal election are issues
central to the health of our democracy. The importance of
an immediate review by the respected professionals at GAO
cannot be overstated." The letter focuses on 4
issues: Provisional Voting, Voter Registration, Personal
Identification, and Purging of Voters. Unfortunately
paper trails are not included. Dems want answers by
9-15-04 to prevent chaos on Election Day
http://www.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Stolen%20Election%202004
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