The reward for being tall and well built
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Jeremy Corbyn refuses to call Hamas a terror group
Former UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to label Hamas a terror group Monday during a heated interview with talk show host Piers Morgan.
The far-left pol wouldn’t give a straight answer when Morgan repeatedly asked him if the Palestinian militants who launched a devastating attack on Israel last month were terrorists during a “Piers Morgan Uncensored” segment.
“Are they a terror group?” Morgan asked.
“Everybody knows what they are,” the member of Parliament replied to the TalkTV host.
“Are they a terror group?” Morgan asked again. “Can you say it? Can you say it? Can you call them a terror group?”
“Is it possible to have a rational discussion with you?” Corbyn asked in reply as he tried to talk through Morgan’s repeated questioning.
The verbal fracas came to an end when Morgan’s other guest, ex-General Secretary of Unite the Union Len McCluskey, said “Of course” Hamas is a terror group.
“Why can’t you say that?” Morgan directed at an annoyed Corbyn.
Hamas, the ruling body in Gaza, has been designated a terror group by the United States, the UK government and the European Union.
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How the US Spent $4.1 Billion on Global LGBT Initiatives
During the past three fiscal years, $4.1 billion in federal money from taxpayers has flowed to LGBT initiatives in the United States and around the world, an Epoch Times investigation has revealed.
From Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30, 2023, the U.S. government issued more than 1,100 grants to fund LGBT-promoting projects around the world, according to a review of a federal spending website.
The scope of projects varies widely.
Plans to create a "safe space for LGBTQ youth and adults to seek support and resources" earned a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. government in 2022 for the LGBT Life Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
A proposal for encouraging "diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities by promoting economic empowerment of and opportunity for LGBTQI+ people in Serbia" was also a winning plan. To fund it, the U.S. government awarded Serbian activist group Grupa Izadji a grant of $500,000.
An Armenian activist group, the Pink Human Rights Defender, received $1 million from the United States "to empower the LGBTI community" in Armenia, a tiny country next to Turkey.
The federal spending website can be filtered to show entries that include specific keywords. A list of payouts filtered by using the keyword "LGBT" included 1,181 grants, 31 loans, and nine direct payments during the past three fiscal years.
Overall, during the past fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, the government issued 454,821 grants.
Government grants may be direct payments to groups that are unrestricted or for a specific use. Federal loans can be repaid over long periods of time at low interest rates.
Of grants connected to the keyword "LGBT," individual payouts of at least $1 million totaled more than $3.7 billion combined. Many additional smaller grants also were awarded for LGBT initiatives.
Filtering the list for grants that included the word "transgender" returned 574 entries. In that category, grants that paid out at least $1 million totaled nearly $478 million.
An independent researcher who asked to remain anonymous has been tracking how the federal government spends money on grants related to gender ideology.
He started the work when he was laid off from his oil field job in the early part of the COVID-19 pandemic. After doing some digging, he was shocked to learn that, while he and his friends got little relief from the federal government, taxpayer dollars poured into LGBT activist causes, he said.
"I just couldn't believe it," he said.
He now works at a politically left-wing oil company and his superiors likely would object to how he now presents his findings on social media, he told The Epoch Times.
"I could write for 20 years about just the money that's already been spent over the past three or four years," he said. The oil worker-turned-investigator shares his findings on X under the handle Randoland.us.
A Department of Education search revealed an ongoing grant paid to Emory University for researchers to study "the rectal mucosal effects of cross-sex hormone therapy among U.S. and Thai transgender women," The Epoch Times confirmed.
The project started in 2019 with a projected end date of July 2024. According to the government website, researchers will receive almost $3.5 million from the U.S. government to do the work.
The project is categorized under "allergy and infectious diseases research," with the stated purpose to "assist public and private nonprofit institutions and individuals to establish, expand, and improve biomedical research and research training in infectious diseases and related areas," according to the federal spending website.
Some small grants focus on studies that examine equally tiny portions of the population.
One grant recipient examines the effects of alcohol on intimate partner violence in transgender and non-gender-conforming adults, The Epoch Times confirmed.
A 2023 project received nearly $350,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to translate the “Homosaurus”—a thesaurus of LGBT terms—into Spanish.
The Homosaurus website includes definitions for sexual terms such as: "anonymous sex," "aromantic porn films," "pederasts," "children's sexuality," and "gay children."
The Homosaurus has reclassified as "fetishes" the words "gerontophilia," "ephebophilia," and "hebephilia," Greek words that mean sexual attraction to the elderly, people aged 15 to 19, and children aged 11 to 14, respectively.
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UK: Farmer, 64, who faced jail after the RSCPA wrongfully charged him with trying to behead a sheep was left 'depressed' and £90,000 out of pocket during five-year battle to clear his name
The rogue RSPCA again. They are under strong influence from one-eyed animal rights activists
A farmer who was prosecuted by the RSPCA over unfounded animal cruelty allegations has been awarded almost £30,000 over his wrongful arrest.
Courton Green, 64, faced jail after the animal charity brought a controversial private prosecution against him, based on the testimony of an inexperienced farmhand that he had been mistreating his sheep.
A judge cleared the lifelong farmer of all wrongdoing in 2020 and condemned the RSPCA - finding that it had 'cut corners' during an interview following an unlawful arrest by Lincolnshire Police.
Mr Green was arrested at the behest of the charity in January 2018 and was interviewed by RSPCA inspector Rebecca Harper on police premises. The charity accused him of trying to behead a sheep, which it claimed was alive, using the bucket of a tractor.
The only witness was an inexperienced farmhand who was unaware that dead sheep must have their necks broken before they can be skinned for dog food.
Mr Green, from Sleaford, Lincolnshire, has a 315-acre farm in Lincolnshire with 400 cattle and 4,000 sheep. The 64-year-old was brought up on a farm and has three daughters, two of whom are also livestock farmers.
Now, after a two-year battle with the force, Mr Green has been awarded compensation of £28,311 over the arrest that made him a 'pariah' in his local community.
Mr Green welcomed this but last night he blasted the RSPCA for bringing a case that has hung over him for five years', costing him his reputation and his 'life's work' to cover legal bills that he is unable to recover from the charity.
He told the Mail: 'I don't need to exaggerate because I'm through the other side now, but I was left very, very depressed for a considerable period of time by this.
'It cost me £90,000 and I've got very little of that back. I had been building up livestock all my life and got to about 400 cattle, every single one of those had to be sold and couldn't be replaced.
'I moved to a new farm, near a village with about seven or eight houses, and I wanted to make friends, be accepted and be a part of the village community. I was made a pariah as soon as they found out what I'd been arrested for.'
Clearing Mr Green of seven charges of mistreating sheep after a four-day trial, judge Peter Veits said that the case raised concerns over the charity's role as a prosecutor. He said that it had 'become involved in matters that could have been left to the appropriate bodies'.
He said: 'When you have livestock you have to go to markets and I didn't want, in 20 years' time, either of my daughters to be in the market selling sheep and people pointing and saying 'that's Courton Green's daughter, he got prosecuted'. I just couldn't have that.'
It comes as a primary school teacher who was sacked after appearing in a viral video which showed her striking a horse criticised the RSPCA after she was cleared of animal cruelty last month.
In 2021 the charity announced that it would halt private prosecutions to prevent 'reputational damage' following criticism from judges in a series of high-profile court defeats. It has since brought other cases.
Mr Green's solicitor, Iain Gould, said: 'Lincolnshire Police regrettably allowed themselves to be used as unthinking pawns by an animal welfare charity seeking to operate in the style of a law enforcement agency, causing considerable hardship and suffering to my client as a result.'
An RSPCA spokesman said: 'This case was three years ago and the issue of wrongful arrest is a matter for the police and not the RSPCA.
'There was no suggestion that the trial should not have taken place; the judge was clear that he could make no criticism of the way this case was presented in court; and the court awarded no costs to the defendant
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Australia: Most journalism is now an arm of the government, with little loyalty to the common people
Who knew that news media services would become so partisan that they would support government agendas that conflict with the common people? The Albanese government is attempting to prioritise the failing ABC and SBS news services over other news on smart TVs and social media while also trying to control ‘the truth’ through its proposed Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Bill. The recent Voice Referendum demonstrated how out of touch the mainstream media has become.
In the absence of journalism that gives a voice to the trials and travails of the common people, the fourth estate – and therefore liberal democracy itself – is under threat.
Journalism is traditionally the engine room of the fourth estate in liberal democracies. Leigh Hunt, a supporter of Byron, Keats, and Shelley, and editor of The Examiner, was imprisoned in 1813 for his political writings. He was known as ‘a martyr in the cause of liberty’. He and his brother fought against oppression and for reform. They were often charged with libel, but usually won by acting in their own defence until they took on the Prince Regent.
To me, Leigh Hunt was the quintessential journalist who looked after the interests of we mere commoners.
Hunt’s father was a Tory who had escaped from Philadelphia to England during the Revolutionary War. Leigh Hunt, who was against slavery, epitomised the idea of the ‘fourth estate’, a term often attributed to the 19th Century politician Edmund Burke by the philosopher Thomas Carlyle. The other estates, according to Carlyle, were the Lords Spiritual (the clergy), the Lords Temporal (the secular members of the House of Lords or the upper house), and the Commons (or the House of Commons which traditionally represents the ‘common people’). Hunt looked after the interests of the rest of us and set the standard for today’s journalists.
The fourth estate, or the free press (which Carlyle considered to be far more important than the other estates), has the ability to report on political activities and to frame political debates. A key role for the free press in liberal democracies is ‘spreading facts and opinions and sparking revolution against tyranny’. It is another check and balance that fits neatly with the doctrine of the separation of powers.
I often tell my students that the separation of powers is unlike the experience of your mum’s version of the rule of law. Most of us can recall a time where we were told that we could go outside and play, but only if we finished the dishes first; only to be told that it was subsequently too late and it was now bedtime. Or else. If only we had the judiciary to interpret the playtime laws back then!
(For Millennials and above, our parents were the rule of law back in our day, we couldn’t complain to the state or our school and have our parents’ rights overturned. When you become a parent, and you are wondering why you feel like your own children are your bosses, you did this to yourselves. Enjoy.)
The Hunt brothers’ Examiner and later Robert Stephen Rintoul’s The Spectator were founded on a zeal for reform and for improving the lot of the common people. The Hunts eventually had to rely on advertising revenues and their readership declined as the Examiner changed its purpose and political position over time.
The Spectator was not immune from such influence, and it was Leigh Hunt’s son, Thornton Leigh Hunt, who acted as a ‘front’ for its American purchasers. This period of decline in this masthead’s readership was the result of straying from its values and supporting American President James Buchanan who dithered about as an antebellum ‘lame duck’. The Spectator briefly dithered about, too, until the masthead was sold at a marked-down price to the journalist Meredith Townsend.
As current UK editor Fraser Nelson states, The Spectator has rarely strayed from its values, and in particular, remains ‘unafraid to go against the grain’. However, the Voice to Parliament, coastal wind farms, industrial relations, and even a Special Rate Variation to IPART in my local community have seen the news media support the government and stifle debate while completely ignoring the interests of the people.
It beggars belief that journalism has shifted from looking after the common people to now supporting governments and their political agendas. The current cost-of-living crisis is exacerbated by the federal government trampling on the political and property rights of ordinary Australians while trying to crash through or crash. The government seems hell-bent on rushing to undermine our freedoms and our prosperity.
Saying ‘the science is settled’ is pre-Enlightenment dogma that is inherently political. Whether ‘the science’ relates to climate, the food we eat, the cars we drive, or whatever, in John Stuart Mill’s time ‘the science’ included phrenology. Although the courts weren’t convinced by phrenology, which is now regarded as quackery, the use of phrenology as a defence for criminal responsibility for those suffering from mental illnesses helped to improve the quality of medical testimony.
It is interesting that one of the foremost writers on the philosophy of scientific method, John Stuart Mill, wrote for The Examiner. Further, if you are Gen X or older and you read Mill’s On Liberty, you will find nothing new or controversial in it – but in his day it was radical. And key to Mill’s ideal of free speech is to let bad ideas be heard so they can be debated and discounted. As with phrenology, along the way we might arrive at a better conclusion than had we censored debate.
How we got here in the first place is for further discussion, but the bottom line is that the Albanese government’s plans to prioritise the ABC and SBS over other media outlets assumes that state-funded media somehow knows better than everybody else. This should make Leigh Hunt turn in his grave.
Leigh Hunt would have stood up for the common people. His historical actions prove it. He went to gaol (not jail!) for his views, much like Australia’s only political prisoner, Pauline Hanson.
Leigh Hunt was a fourth estate journalist in the true sense of the term. He supported the common people. Not the uneducated idiots as the Wokerati might proclaim, but the people who do the work that allows many others to enjoy free speech, liberty, and prosperity.
News media services are now joining with the Wokerati and spruiking the quotes of politicians and their sympathisers while ignoring the common majority. Cost of living pressures, rate rises, transmission lines, coastal wind farms, and so on are rarely reported as problems created by our own political leaders. In many cases, social media has become the last remnant of the liberal democratic public sphere where the people’s views are being heard.
All the evidence suggests we are heading toward a cost-of-living Armageddon created by our government. If our politicians are the opponents of the common people, and the courts appear to be increasingly in step with the narrative, then the fourth estate might once have acted as our saviour. But based on the majority of the fourth estate’s performance to date, it is quite the revelation that perhaps only God can save us now.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/11/whither-journalism-for-the-common-people/
****************************************My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair
Bliss: What every woman wants: to feel safe and secure in the arms of her man. Robert Irwin and Rorie Buckey. See 
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