THE HANDSTAND

AUGUST 2004


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......
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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