Whiny white farmers fronting for racist Stephen Miller have shut down President Biden’s plan to target debt relief to minority farmers who’ve suffered systemic discrimination from banks and the USDA. Judges in multiple courts have issued injunctions against that racial-justice portion of the American Rescue Plan, and now the Biden Administration has declined to appeal those injunctions:
Justice Department lawyers did something highly unusual this week: They passed up the chance to appeal a judge’s order blocking a congressionally created program supported by President Joe Biden from going into effect.
…While the Justice Department has filed appeals within hours to defend the administration’s high-profile priorities in areas like immigration, this time federal government lawyers let the 60-day appeal period run — and then run out [Josh Gerstein and Ximena Bustillo, “DOJ Forgoes Appeal of Order Blocking Money for Minority Farmers,” Politico, 2021.08.24].
Legal experts tell Politico that the Biden Administration probably recognizes that it will lose an appeal before the current Supreme Court and that Congress just needs to pass a new bill:
[Sen. Kirsten] Gillibrand’s bill, the Relief for America’s Small Farmers Act, was introduced in May 2020 in an attempt to stem the growth of USDA debt held by small farmers and combat the rise of farm bankruptcies. While the bill isn’t aimed directly at providing redress for historical discrimination, benefits based on economic critera raise fewer legal issues.
And most farms operated by people of color are small. The average size of a Black-run farm is 132 acres, according to the 2017 Agricultural Census, compared with 431 acres for white farmers.
The goal, according to Gillibrand, is to pass the bill within reconciliation [Josh Gerstein and Ximena Bustillo, “Historic Debt Relief for Minority Farmers Faces Legal Juggernaut,” Politico, 2021.08.03].
White landowners, bankers, and politicians keenly conscious of race and the privilege their white skin conveyed used their power to deny blacks and other minorities of land and liberty, placing those minorities at an ongoing disadvantage in the agricultural marketplace. Now powerful whites are crying that race-conscious policies seeking to undo that injustice are unjust. We face the same conundrum when we try to educate Americans about systemic racism: the beneficiaries of a racist system say it’s now racist to even talk about racism, let alone differentiate between victims and beneficiaries of racism and seek to help the victims.
“When all you know is privilege, equality feels like oppression.” And besides, the dirty little secret is that those who are complaining the loudest don’t want anyone else to have ANY of the money, attention, toys. My grandmother would say they’re spoiled rotten. Just plain spoiled rotten.
Eve, reminds me of our Governor. “Federal agriculture subsidies for me…not for thee”. “Let them eat [cow] cakes!”
Much of this goes back to when the soil bank was created. The small farmed needed the his land to make a living, while the wealthy farmer could buy more land, place it in the soil bank and let the government make the payments on the land.Same goes today, only different programs as the noems and arnolds are qualified recipients of most government handouts.
The number of acres in agroecosystems has tripled since the 1940s but ag practices like tiling have made soils unable to absorb rainfall creating elevated levels of salinity and concentrated animal feeding operations contribute to nutrient runoff.
President Joe Biden has established a task force to determine the social costs of carbon and has required federal agencies to immediately begin applying their findings in their regulatory actions and other decision-making.
Following the release of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s latest measurements Iowa Farmers Union President Aaron Lehman said that state’s Nutrient Reduction Management Strategy is proving to be ineffective in controlling the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. But, Lehman is concerned that without further financial incentives from the Biden administration Republican welfare farmers will simply continue polluting waterways.
Democracy is being cancelled by the Supreme Court. Biden needs to put at least 7 Democratic justices on the court to save it.
Here is an idea what Jerry is talking about with the activist, magat spotus…
It is hard to even measure how radical this decision is. It is a sign that having secured a media narrative of “moderation” the Court feels free to stomp all over legal norms and basic rationality in order to impose a right-wing agenda. As Ian Millhiser at Vox wrote, the decision implies the Biden administration “committed some legal violation when it rescinded a Trump-era immigration policy, but it does not identify what that violation is.” So the Biden administration is now being forced into a policy it doesn’t want, based on legal reasoning that is not even available to them.
Just what was expected from appointing and confirming unqualified ideologues.
Cibvet, the shady hypocrisy surrounding the Governor is nauseating when it comes to ensuring she gets her federal money every time while condemning others as “Marxists” when they require just a little help from Uncle Sam. I wish the media would spend a little more time highlighting all of the federal money the Noems and Arnolds have brought in to their coffers. They should especially highlight the agriculture subsidies and COVID relief money given to her families every time she goes on a Twitter tirade against Federal “Marxism Handouts” Hello: KELO? KOTA?
Cibvet, and another thing…we have a Governor who complains a lot about all the money we waste on government. Kristi continually touts herself as a “True” “Small Government” and “Freedom-Loving” “Conservative”…yet, we the taxpayers have been paying for her salary and benefits for almost the past 12 years. Over a decade, we’ve been footing the bill for Kristi to live the good life and travel around on our dime to tell us how we need to be more responsible and work harder. This is one of the biggest con jobs I’ve seen in politics.
Rewriting this bill is proper progress.
It’s the first step towards getting Critical Race Theory as the accepted norm when dealing with anything BIPOC.
PS – Hear, hear Eve Fisher #WellSaid
We are becoming a less developed nation and the Supreme Court is helping by kicking us back a couple of centuries. Time to put more justices on the court. They need more anyway with the increased number of high profile cases and the appeals yet to be seen. Get um on before they overturn Roe vs Wade.