One unhappy night in 1992, 40-year-old Timothy Pigford, a fourth-generation black farmer having a terrible time of it trying to grow soybeans in North Carolina, sat in the living room of the house he was barely holding on to and drew up the outline of a lawsuit against the federal government. It was a decision more than 15 years in coming, ever since the first of the many times he’d been denied a USDA loan because — he was convinced — of the color of his skin. Before all was said and done, he would spend 20 years of his …
Pigford’s Harvest
How an honorable farmer’s quest for justice launched an epic fraud
In This Issue
Articles
Arab Agony
Upheaval is shaking the Arab world. Countries there are alike in being under one-man rule, and this authoritarianism is being tested to destruction. The outcome might be political reform and ...
The Fear of Worse
One of the problems with history is that it is lived forwards but written backwards. Those who are called upon to make it do not have the advantage of knowing ...
Palin vs. Romney
Two potential candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have been described as “frontrunners”: former governors Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. According to pollster Scott Rasmussen, they’re the candidates with the ...
Lost in Space
Almost half a century after the first man went into orbit, and at a time when the federal government is so deeply in debt that no expenditure can be allowed ...
Nullification Temptation
The House may have passed a bill that would repeal Obamacare, but a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democratic president who has hung his legacy on the survival ...
Features
The Education Ex-Governor
Last spring, it looked like the Oklahoma state legislature was going to reject a school-choice bill to provide vouchers for learning-disabled students. Earl Sears, a Republican, announced his opposition on ...
The Sense of the Senate
One thing leads to another. Complain bitterly that the Senate filibuster undermines democracy and you wind up concluding that the Senate’s existence is undemocratic. In 2009 the Washington Post’s Ezra ...
Pigford’s Harvest
One unhappy night in 1992, 40-year-old Timothy Pigford, a fourth-generation black farmer having a terrible time of it trying to grow soybeans in North Carolina, sat in the living room ...
A Lion in High Summer
Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared in the February 21, 2011, issue of National Review. We are making it available to mark the retirement of Thomas Sowell from writing a ...
Books, Arts & Manners
The Gilded Guild
Walter Olson is one of the nation’s leading critics of the litigation explosion. Through his blog, Overlawyered, as well as his books and his work as a think-tank fellow, he ...
Australian Model
Think of him as the Tea Partier from Down Under. John Howard, the second-longest-serving prime minister in Australian history and leader of the Liberal (in American terms, read Conservative) party ...
A Kind Word for the Man
Authority is a curiously neglected subject. Round up a gaggle of grad students, and they can discourse about power and hegemony into the wee hours. And as you are nodding ...
The Old Is New Again
The Golden Ass of Apuleius, which I am in the process of translating, is like a telescope. Through this work of the mid-second century a.d., you can see a whole ...
Film: The Great Quest
Imagine, for a moment, that when Steve McQueen rode his motorcycle up barbed wire in The Great Escape, it was the first time that American movie audiences had been exposed ...
Morpheme Addiction
Until very recently the only thing I knew how to say in Turkish was the proverb Nerede çokluk, orada bokluk, which means (I shall bowdlerize slightly) “Where there are people, ...
Sections
Letters
Marital Goods
Jason Lee Steorts misses the boat when he argues that monogamous same-sex unions and heterosexual infertile unions possess the same kind of value, and that therefore we should have ...
The Week
‐ It looks like Egypt has discovered term limits.
‐ The House vote to repeal Obamacare is being treated by the media as a political stunt, since the bill is unlikely ...
Tweets from @youthcaptain
Tweets from @youthcaptain, the next leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea:
Was supposed to have some Dad-and-me time today. He’s “too busy” watching stuff in Egypt and Jordan etc. ...
Poetry
OMEGA
All day long my watch has been stopping
On me, every few hours, a good Omega
Automatic chronometer, certified,
Gold face and bezel, circa 1970,
Self-winding. My father left it to me
When he died, ...
Exit, Stage Left
The chairman of the NEA recently said we might have too much theater in this country. Rocco Landesman was quoted by the New York Times thus: “You can either increase ...
Recommended
Biden Signs Executive Order Allowing the U.S. to Fund Global Abortions
The policy was first instated by President Reagan to ensure that taxpayers would not be required to indirectly fund abortions in other countries.
The Absurd Criticism of Rand Paul’s Rachel Levine Questioning
How likely is it that this dangerous ideological agenda is about to get worse?
Exclusive: 48 Senators Promise to Oppose Any Bill that Funds Abortion
Pro-life lawmakers pledge to resist spending bills that don’t include the Hyde amendment.
Cruz: Actually, It Is Constitutional to Impeach and Convict a Former President
Never mind how he voted.
What Happened to Officer Sicknick?
Democratic impeachment managers have a duty to explain how Officer Sicknick died.
Minnesota Nasty
Minneapolis is a nice city no longer.
The Latest
Ted Cruz Responds to Reports John Boehner Told Him to ‘Go F--- Yourself’
‘He suggested that I do something that was anatomically impossible,’ the Texas senator said.
AOC Calls for Investigation into ‘Extraordinarily Serious’ Cuomo Sexual-Harassment Allegations
Lindsey Boylan, a former staffer for the N.Y. governor, recently published an essay detailing the alleged harassment, including unwanted touching and kissing.
Biden: Illegal Immigrants Should Be Able to Get Vaccine without Fear of ICE
The Department of Homeland Security announced earlier this month that ICE would not conduct enforcement activities at or near vaccination sites.
GameStop: Markets Adjust, Politicians Frown
The week of February 22: GameStop, again, a poor choice for Interior, China’s rare-earths play, and much, much more.
House Narrowly Passes Massive COVID-Response Bill, Including $15 Minimum Wage
The bill passed largely along party lines.
What Makes the Classics Worth Studying
One classical scholar believes that the field is too implicated in ‘whiteness’ to survive as-is. Here’s why he’s wrong.