26 July 2010
CAJ note: There’s a lot of material out there about this story. We’ve decided to blog it together. Hence the awkward headline. After this maybe we’ll finally be able to get to the 92,000 classified documents pertaining to the Afghan war that have been released by Wikileaks this weekend.
This story began on 19 July.
That morning we posted this item from DaTechguy, “Andrew Breitbart: When he says he has video, believe him”
When he says he has video. Believe him.
This is why the Democratic Party is scared. This is why the NAACP is scared. This is why black conservatives, previously marginalized as “Uncle Toms” by these progressive bullies, and shamefully, the NAACP, are coming out of […]
Later that day we carried this from the Washington Examiner, “Shirley Sherrod’s Disappearing Act: Not So Fast”
My oh my, that happened quickly. Perhaps too quickly.
Until yesterday, Shirley Sherrod was Georgia Director of Rural Development for the USDA. Earlier in the day at Big Government, Andrew Breitbart put up a video that exposed Ms. Sherrod as someone all too willing to discriminate based on race.
Within hours of […]
Jim Hoft of GatewayPundit has been a one-man mine of information. Here are his headlines in chronological order:
Racism?… What Racism?
Yesterday Big Government broke video of a USDA official, Shirley Sherrod,recounting for attendees at an NAACP awards dinner how she withheld help from a white farmer seeking the agency’s help in saving his farm. The crowd in attendance at the NAACP event was not fazed by the admission.
Shirley Sherrod resigned from her post last night after the the story broke.
But the story of NAACP racism does not end there. This former civil rights organization has long history of allowing disgusting, vile, racist, anti-Semiticspeakers to address their members…
Yesterday, video was released of Georgia Director of Rural Development Shirley Sherrod admitting in a speech at an NAACP banquet in March that she discriminated against farmers because of their race. Sherrod was appointed last year by Obama’s Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. After the video was released, where Sherrod told NAACP members that she refused to fully assist a white farmer because of his race, the Obama Administration forced her to resign.
Today, Sherrod told reporters that “she” was the real victim… Not the white farmer she neglected to assist.
Breitbart TV reported…
7/20/2010: Prominent Black Activist Admits Branding Tea Party Racist Is Effective Tool For NAACP & Democrats
Prominent black activist Mary Frances Berry admitted today that accusing the tea party activists of being racists is an effective tool for the democrats and far left organizations.
Mary Frances Berry admitted this at the Politico:
Professor of American Social Thought and History, U. Penn. :
Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness…
7/21/2010: Breitbart to Hannity: “NAACP Tarred Tea Party Movement” (w/Video)
From the video:
Breitbart reiterates the first video released on Breitbart.tv features Sherrod telling a racist tale that is received by the NAACP audience with laughter and cheers. The audience wasn’t cheering redemption; they were cheering discrimination.
Breitbart clarifies he released the video to target not Sherrod, but the NAACP who had condemned the Tea Party’s alleged racism. Though Sherrod became the scapegoat, it was the delight the NAACP audience took in the racist part of Sherrod’s speech that was truly damning. Breitbart noted he’s agnostic to her firing.
Andrew also mentioned that Mary Frances Berry argued that bogus racism charges flung at the Tea Party are meant to distract the public from staggering unemployment figures and other hot-button political topics unfavorable to the Democrats and the left…
7/21/2010: Call Off the Beer Run… Obama Distances Himself from Radical Sherrod
Obama officials told reporters today that the president will not likely call Shirley Sherrod, the racist official caught on tape bashing whitey during a recent NAACP speech.
We’ll see how long that lasts.
CNN reported, via Free Republic:
White House aides said Wednesday they do not expect President Barack Obama to call Shirley Sherrod, the black former USDA employee who resigned after a video clip of her discussing a white farmer surfaced earlier this week.
Obama also likely will not show up to explain things at a White House briefing, as he did during the controversy surrounding the arrest of professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. last year.
“No more beer summits here,” one aide said…
7/21/2010: NAACP President Was In Attendance at Sherrod Speech (w/Video)
…Following the release of this inflammatory tape NAACP President Ben Jealous released a statement denouncing not only the racist remarks by Shirley Sherrod but also the reaction of the crowd to her speech. NAACP President Ben Jealous even promised to look into the disturbing behavior of those in attendance.
“Since our founding in 1909, the NAACP has been a multi-racial, multi-faith organization that– while generally rooted in African American communities– fights to end racial discrimination against all Americans.
We concur with US Agriculture Secretary Vilsack in accepting the resignation of Shirley Sherrod for her remarks at a local NAACP Freedom Fund banquet.
Racism is about the abuse of power. Sherrod had it in her position at USDA. According to her remarks, she mistreated a white farmer in need of assistance because of his race.
We are appalled by her actions, just as we are with abuses of power against farmers of color and female farmers.
Her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story that she ultimately realized her mistake, as well as the common predicament of working people of all races, she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man.
The reaction from many in the audience is disturbing. We will be looking into the behavior of NAACP representatives at this local event and take any appropriate action.
We thank those who brought this to our national office’s attention…
But, President Jealous forgot to mention one thing.
He may have been at the event.
If you listen to the Sherrod’s speech at Annual NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner in Georgia in March you’ll here her thank her guests and…
“The President who is with us tonight.” (0:45 seconds into the speech)…
7/21/2010: Figures. Shirley Sherrod Is Linked to Terrorist Bill Ayers
…Guess what? White farmer-hater Shirley Sherrod is linked to Bill Ayers.
Reader Dude Meister discovered this information:
An announcement of Ms. Sherrod’s July 2009 appointment to her USDA position at ruraldevelopment.org gives off quite a few clues:
RDLN Graduate and Board Vice Chair Shirley Sherrod was appointed Georgia Director for Rural Development by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on July 25. Only days earlier, she learned that New Communities, a group she founded with her husband and other families (see below) has won a thirteen million dollar settlement in the minority farmers law suit Pigford vs Vilsack.
This must-read story at Illinois Review and The Washington Examiner also reveals that Ms. Sherrod’s husband is a former honcho in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee back in the 1960’s. You can read more about it in Bill Ayers book “Fugitive Days.” Yes, that Bill Ayers. He was involved in SNCC as well.
7/22/2010: Rep. King: “Shirley Sherrod’s Initial Hiring Should Be Investigated” (w/Video)
How does some far left anti-white radical linked to terrorist Bill Ayers get a high level job in the Department of Agriculture?
Representative Steve King (R-IA) wants an investigation…
[CAJ note: Hoft has the lawsuit spelled “Pickford.” We have also seen it spelled “Pigford.”]
From the video: Rep. Steve King tells radio talk show host Ben Shapiro that there are very curious circumstances behind Shirley Sherrod’s initial hiring at the USDA and calls for investigations into the matter.
This is an amazing interview. Rep. King claims that 75-99% of reparations paid in the Pickford Farms Case.
At first they believed that 1,000 – 2,000 black farmers were discriminated against. More than 20,000 claims were paid out when even the President of the black farmers association admitted there were only 18,000 black farmers in America.
One of the recipients of the largest payout in the Pickford case was none other than Shirley Sherrod.
Rep. King says there ought to be an investigation on this if the GOP wins back the gavel in November…
…Sherrod wants Big Government shut down.
Sherrod said she was offered some type of civil rights position in the department’s Office of Outreach, and that she was expecting to receive something official in an e-mail from the department. She said Thursday she had not had a chance to see that yet…
…But “I would not want to be the one person at USDA that’s responsible for issues of discrimination within the agency,” she said. “You know, there’s a lawsuit by black farmers, there’s a lawsuit by Hispanic and Native American and women farmers … There are changes that would need to happen in order to once and for all really deal with discrimination.”
…The audience at the March event, she said, was “not laughing … I literally had people on the edge of their seats because I want their attention so that I could then get to the real message.”
She said if Breitbart’s site were shut down, “That would be a great thing, because I don’t see how that advances us in this country … at a time when we should be trying to look at how we can make space for all of us in this country, so that we can all live and work together, he’s doing more to divide us.”…
7/22/2010: …Shirley on Breitbart: “He’d Like to Get Us Stuck In the Time of Slavery” (w/Video)
Radical far left activist Shirley Sherrod told CNN today that Andrew Breitbart would “like to get us stuck in the time of slavery.”
Horrible. She certainly doesn’t know Andrew.
Video via HotAirPundit…
Good. Despite enormous pressure from the democratic-media complex, Andrew Breitbart is not folding like a lawn chair. The media wants desperately for Breitbart to admit wrongdoing in the Sherrod racial incident. Instead, he is lashing back at the media for misrepresenting his story, her words and the audience’s reaction to her incredibly offensive and racist speech.
The Politico reported:
An unrepentant Andrew Breitbart told POLITICO on Thursday that the Obama administration and its allies have manufactured a controversy over the video he posted of Shirley Sherrod’s speech to the NAACP as part of an orchestrated effort to take him down.
“I am public enemy No. 1 or 2 to the Democratic Party, the progressive movement and the Obama administration based upon the successes my journalism has had,” Breitbart said in a telephone interview late Thursday morning as he headed to the airport for what he said was a long-planned, three-day vacation.
Breitbart asserted that liberal media outlets are shifting the focus to the misleading excerpting in the videos he posted — as well as his erroneous statement about the context of the footage — to divert attention from what he asserts is a double standard on racist behavior exposed by the video, which he released Monday to push back against a recently passed NAACP resolution expressing concern about “racist elements” in the tea party movement.
“The desire here is to make it about me and not the Democratic establishment and the NAACP vs. the tea party,” Breitbart said, defending the footage he posted as “a self-contained newsworthy video that established the media standard of pointing out that the NAACP countenanced racism in its own award dinner setting. That was the point. That was the point. And the video proves it.”…
7/23/2010: …(Video) What the MSM Won’t Show You From Shirley Sherrod’s Hate Speech
…The democratic-media complex slammed Andrew Breitbart and FOX News for showing only a segment from her speech.
Earlier today an anonymous reader sent me this damning video revealing the buried racist remarks from the rest of Sherrod’s NAACP speech.
Of course, the state-run media does not want you to see this:
Shirley Sherrod and the state-run media owe Andrew Breitbart an apology.
But, Hoft posts elsewhere on GatewayPundit, the President DID call Ms. Sherrod to offer her an apology of sorts for Sec. Vilsak acting stupidly. Or something.
Next…
On 7/22/2010 from TheRightFieldLine, “Victim Shirley Sherrod initiated legal action, the Pigford Farms case, that yielded millions for a bankrupt commune she co-owned.”
…the Pigford Farms case is a class-action lawsuit filed against the federal government on behalf of black farmers and black wannabe farmers, who say they were discriminated against in loan proceedings. The federal government settled Pigford Farms for an unbelievable $1.15 billion. An incredibly high percentage of those receiving awards under this settlement have done so fraudulently.
Shirley Sherrod was not only an initiator of the Pigford Farms case, she received a chunk of change for her company, New Communities, Inc. To be accurate, she received the largest chunk of change for New Communities — $13 million. New Communities was a bankrupt commune-type land trust held by Sherrod and her husband. She and her husband personally received $150,000 each to compensate them for “pain and suffering.”
Neo-neocon blogged on 7/24/2010 “Shirley Sherrod should have quit while she was ahead: accuses Breitbart of wanting to enslave blacks.”
…For those who don’t have the patience to listen to the video, I’ve kindly provided a transcript. The important section begins with Anderson Cooper quoting Breitbart—”If anybody reads the sainted, martyred Sherrod’s entire speech, this person certainly has not gotten past black vs. white”—and asking her to comment on whether she has in fact gotten past black vs. white. Sherrod replies emphatically, “I know I’ve gotten past black vs. white,” and then proceeds to show just how very far she’s gotten past it (that is, not at all):
SHERROD: [Breitbart’s] probably the person who’s never gotten past [black vs. white] and never attempted to get past it. He can’t see, because he’s never tried…he can’t see what I’ve done to get past it, and he’s not interested in what I’ve done to get past it.
I don’t think he’s interested in seeing anyone get past it, cause I think he’d like to get us stuck back in the times of slavery. That’s where I think he’d like to see all black people end up again. And that’s why…
I think he’s so vicious—yes, I do—and I think that’s why he’s so vicious against a black president, you know…I don’t even think it was the NAACP he was totally after. I think he was after a black president…
That’s the narrative, right? Disagree with Barack Obama and you’re “after” him. ~CAJ
7/24/2010: Politics Daily, “Five Minutes with Andrew Breitbart” [H/T Sisu]
…I recently chatted with Breitbart about the controversial Sherrod video, as well as his take on the now-defunct JournoList, a listserv where hundreds of liberal journalists and academics would share information.
…Q: You say you couldn’t wait to get this story out. Was it your past experience challenging the allegations that someone at a D.C. Tea Party rally used a racial epithet that informed your decision?
A: I couldn’t get any mainstream media to cover that story [Breitbart’s offer of $100,000], even though they played up the ‘N word’ allegation. And so, given that we were in day seven of this successful propaganda campaign asking the question, ‘Is the Tea Party racist?’ — and because the standard they set was that someone in an audience expressing a racist thought — like at the Tea Party it was often based merely on an infiltrator holding a [offensive or racist] sign — the [Sherrod] video was evidence. You had people in the audience abiding by her discriminating against a white farmer — clapping and agreeing. That is a [liberal organizer [Saul] Alinsky standard — hold the opposition to the standard that they set…
We believe that entire Breitbart interview is worthwhile reading. ~CAJ
7/26/2010: Washington Examiner, Did the White House lie about not being able to contact Shirley Sherrod?
Credit where credit is due. The New York Times’ report on the White House’s dissembling in the Shirley Sherrod affair sure raises a lot of questions about whether the administration was being truthful. Specifically, the claims that the famously effective White House operators were unable to reach Sherrod after repeated efforts to contact her:
Some presidential historians said they were shocked at how long it took a White House that prides itself on being tech savvy — President Obama, after all, fought to keep his BlackBerry — to get through.
“I was astonished,” said Richard Reeves, a professor at the University of Southern California and the author of several books about the presidency. “It seems impossible to me that the president can’t get to people anytime he wants to.”
Other historians and political strategists said they found it hard to believe that though the Agriculture Department managed to call Ms. Sherrod (three times, she says) on Monday to ask her to tender her resignation via BlackBerry, the White House could not reach her until Thursday….
7/26/2010: Weasel Zippers, Devastating Video: Shirley Sherrod’s Husband Says “We Must Stop the White Man and Uncle Toms From Stealing Our Elections”…
The left’s quest to turn Shirley Sherrod into a martyr has been dealt a crushing blow, this is video from January of this year of her husband Charles railing against the white man and uncle toms:
Via Dan Riehl:
Update: How could we overlook the contributions by Ann Althouse?! Our favorite?
Friday, July 23, 2010
“Shirley Sherrod, who didn’t know who Andrew Breitbart was 72 hours ago, now knows him well enough to say that he wants to put all blacks back into slavery.”
