‘Senator Joni Ernst forgot to mention the teeny-
tiny $460,000 in federal subsidies her family
received via the farm subsidy program’.

‘The District-Sentinel reports’:

“The truth about her family’s farm roots and
living within one’s means, however, is more
complex”.

“Relatives of Ernst (née: Culver), based in Red
Oak, Iowa (population: 5,568) have received over
$460,000 in farm subsidies between 1995 and 2009″.

“Ernst’s father, Richard Culver, was given $14,705
in conservation payments and $23,690 in commodity
subsidies by the federal government–with all but
twelve dollars allocated for corn support”.

“Richard’s brother, Dallas Culver, benefited from
$367,141 in federal agricultural aid, with over
$250,000 geared toward corn subsidies”.

“And the brothers’ late grandfather Harold Culver
received $57,479 from Washington—again, mostly
corn subsidies—between 1995 and 2001. He passed
away in January 2003″.

“The Sentinel cross-referenced the Environmental
Working Group farm subsidy database with open
source information to verify the Culvers’…

Leon Brittan has died, he was aged 75.

You’ll find fulsome obituaries elsewhere and perhaps even praise but I want to focus on the truth, or not, of the allegations that Leon Brittan was a paedophile.

Over the last two years there have been many rumours and news stories alleging that Leon Brittan was a paedophile, though you may not have realised as he has invariably been euphemistically alluded to as “a former senior Tory cabinet minister” or something similar. There had been some concern among journalists, and even this blogger, that the continued and ubiquitous use of this term might itself have become so synonymous with Leon Brittan that its use might itself have precipitated legal action if Lord Brittan decided to take that route.

The allegations are not new they go back to the early 1980s at least, as Bernhard Ingham, former press secretary to Margaret Thatcher, has…

Indeed, there is nothing more dreadful than doubt. Doubts separate people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.

From The Teaching of Buddha.

Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai