Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln Makes $1.5 Billion Deal Favoring Whites and Angers Black Farmers

Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln appears desperate for votes in the 2010 Election and in her desperation, she appears to have turned her back on Arkansas black farmers. Lincoln made a $1.5 Billion deal with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. What was the quid pro quo? Black Lawmakers are angry and they and Arkansas black farmers note that the deal was made primarily for white farmers while black farmers are being denied funding for to settle prior suit for discrimination against black farmers. This situation looks like just another example of 136 years of Arkansas Plantation Politics. You can take the girl (Lincoln) off the plantation but we evidential you can't seem to get the plantation out of the girl. Yes - Sen Lincoln is obviously no  girl and as a woman  is fully responsible for her actions and failures to listen to her constituents. She long ago needed to set aside plantation politics.  And, Lincoln definitely did not need to be making deals with the political chief for the Chicago gang at Big "White" House. Background Story from The Hill follows:
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By Alexander Bolton, The Hill: African-American lawmakers are irate that the Obama administration has promised Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) $1.5 billion in farm aid while claiming it can’t pay a landmark legal settlement with black farmers.

Six members of the Congressional Black Caucus wrote to President Obama on Thursday calling on him to find a way to compensate black farmers who suffered discrimination in government loan programs during the 1980s and 1990s. The letter was spurred by behind-the-scenes deal-making in the Senate as part of an effort to pass small-business legislation.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel promised Lincoln, who sponsored the provision, that the administration would find a way to pay out $1.5 million in disaster assistance to farmers while they wait for programs in the 2008 farm bill to be implemented.

At the same time, the administration has told black farmers it lacks the funds to pay a $1.2 billion agreement they reached with the Department of Agriculture in 1999 to settle the Pigford class-action lawsuit. . . . Members of the black caucus say that if the administration can find $1.5 billion within its administrative funds to pay mostly white farmers in Arkansas and other states, it should be able to pay black farmers who suffered discrimination. “The current hardships experienced by other farmers should not trump hardships placed on African Americans and Native Americans by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the past,” they wrote. . . . [Full Story]

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