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POPSPigford II: justice or fraud? But critics cite several concerns with the soon-to-be-law. One is that about 33,000 black farms were in existence at the time of Pigford's original filing, yet 80,000 claimants have filed for settlement. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) of Minnesota, for one, recently called Pigford II "a complete fraud." "This is what happens when government rings the dinner bell, and it's an indication of just how loose the rules are for vetting past injustices, real or not," Investors Business Daily wrote Tuesday in an editorial. Jimmy Dismuke, a black hog farmer from Arkansas, claims he's seen fraud first-hand in the Pigford process. In a recent story published at Big Government.com, a conservative website, Mr. Dismuke says he has counted more than 300 fraudulent Pigford claims in Arkansas alone, including a case in which people who kept potted tomato plants claimed to be farmers and got $50,000.
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POPSMore Evidence of Stability in Abortion Attitudes This is by political scientist Alan Abramowitz, a highly regarded scholar of public opinion. In addition to this result, the new CBS/NYT poll found that 62 percent of respondents considered the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion "a good thing" for the country while only 32 percent considered the decision "a bad thing" for the country. And 64 percent of respondents said they did not want the decision to be overturned by the Court compared with only 29 percent who did.