The Republicans' Pitbull and his quest for new fire hydrants.

Rust never sleeps. Karl Rove has helped his party launch a new "grass-roots" organization intended to funnel rightwing billionaires' contribution toward the defeat of Democrat candidates in the US fall elections.

You may recall that Rove was lured to Toronto during the by ersatz doctor Charles McVety to highlight his mini G8/G20 extravaganza.

More about American Crossroads here. ReformaTories have a history of being coached by US experts in various sleazy political tactics.

Watch for some Canadian version of Rove's project to be spawned in the months to come, in support of the Cons' attempt to elect a majority government for Harper.

And now for something completely different ...

In the hoohaw leading up to the G-8/G-20 spectacle and photo opp for Stevie Spiteful, we missed a delicious little tempest in a teapot about $arah, Bristol and a US political satirist.


This is what set off the fury of Palin's groupies - a blogpost and a cartoon for Florida's Sun-Sentinel.

Back during the 2008 presidential campaign, when Sarah Palin and her family were introduced to America in all their homespun glory, I couldn’t help but imagine what the Republican spin machine would have done had Joe Biden’s daughter been the one to get pregnant out of wedlock as a teenager.

Because it was Sarah Palin’s daughter, however, the pregnancy became a celebration of life and an affirmation, somehow, of the emblematic American family. Hypocrisy is a commodity that has never been in short supply in American politics. The latest, most titillating case is that of U.S. Congressman Mark Souder of Indiana, a fierce protector of traditional family values (with all the usual anti-gay riffs), who just resigned from office.

Not only did he have sex with a staffer, but he even sat for a video interview with her touting the virtues of abstinence.

Well. The usual mob of fundamentalist religious rightwing zealots went ballistic, deliberately obfuscating the point of Lowe's observations (Bristol Palin marketing herself as a 30K per-appearance motivational speaker? that's a nifty mash-up of political opportunism and greed) while spinning it as an attack upon the sacred $arah and her holy progeny. This is typical:

Every parent viewing Lowe's cartoon should be outraged at his salacious, left-handed effort to demean Bristol Palin and to encourage America's daughters to embrace immoral practices.

As we've often observed when writing about Bible Spice and her traveling freak show, we just couldn't make this sh*t up.

Are you for us or against us?

This lovely little pallid-skinned family learned the hard way that the law a temporary regulation as enforced by police officers is a rough and blunt instrument.

It was a raid scripted straight from the cliché template of some Hollywood hack writer -
Opening: cops descend upon a crack house, break doors down, kick the residents awake, cuff them and lock them up.

Except the purpose of the warrant was to pre-emptively charge, arrest and detain community activists planning protest strategies during the G-20. That was the purported crime targeted by police.

As John Booth writes here, respect of citizens' civil rights was not on display last night.

[He]was woken at 4 am this morning to find police pointing a gun in his face. He was handcuffed and brought outside. Thirty minutes later police apologize to him. Booth is the upstairs neighbour of some G20 protesters, but he lives in a separate unit with his wife and six month old child.

“You hear all this stuff in the news about this one billion dollars' worth of security which is supposed to protect the public - well I am a great example of an innocent by-stander who has been violated despite this very claim. And this is allegedly our tax payers dollars at work.”

What did Stevie Spiteful purchase with the 1,100,000,000. dollars he spent on G-20 and G-8 public government security. A whole lot of weapons, fences, overtime, contracted-out services.

Not much in the way of serving and protecting the public, and very little in the way of skills, competence and discernment.

Altogether now! (with update)

1, 2, 3, 4, can I see a little more?

Nooooo!

Oxfam’s Big Heads arrived earlier Thursday, bearing surprises and calling on G8 world leaders to keep their promises. To illustrate the importance of maternal health care for third world countries, the leader lookalikes wore faux nude pregnancy suits adorned with maple leaves in the appropriate spots. [...] “There are a thousand women around the world who die every day in pregnancy and child birth. Most are living in abject poverty as it is already,” said Victoria Harnett, the G8/G20 coordinator for Oxfam Canada.

The low-key protest was one of a few planned for Thursday as leaders from Canada, the U.S., Japan, Britain, Italy, France, Italy and Russia prepare to gather here. “The message we want to get across today is that it is absolutely essential that G8 leaders start keeping their promises,” said Harnett, noting that many of the promises made at the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland are nearing deadline.

She said among the broken promises is a $50-billion pledge to help the world’s poor by 2010, “and by Oxfam’s calculations they are falling short by $20 billion of that.”

From here. And. Also. The other protest event was staged by 12 members of the Council of Canadians in four canoes, headed for Peninsula Lake inside the G-8 security perimeter.

Minutes after the canoes set out, a helicopter began circling overhead and they were surrounded by an armada of police boats—including two menacing black RCMP Zodiacs—not to mention three other boats carrying media. [...] “We tried to deliver a ‘Scrap the summits’ message to the G8 leaders. We believe the G8 is an undemocratic, illegitimate body and that it is much better to have a meeting like this at the United Nations,” Brent Patterson of the Council of Canadians [...] said since the G8 is sealed up like a drum and protected by thousands of police and soldiers, the water route seemed a good way to make their statement.

“The point of today’s exercise was to try to tell a much broader audience … that a club of eight of the richest countries in the world should not be making decisions that impact the whole world. So that’s our concern and that’s the message we wanted to deliver,” he said.

To echo the sentiment expressed in fern hill's post, I predict that there's going to be a short trip up S**t Creek without a paddle in Stevie Spiteful's future.

UPDATE: Oxfam Canada's blogposts regarding the Big Heads' presence at the G-8, with more photos.

Then they came for the trees ... (Updated)

The Integrated Security Unit is planning to clear-cut all trees (and presumably, MASSIVE shrubs too) from the RCMP-controlled zones during the G-20 in Toronto.

The trees could be ripped out of the ground by demonstrators “and then you’ve got a huge bar,” said Constable Wendy Drummond, a spokeswoman for the Integrated Security Unit. [...] Organizers would not say which trees or how many will be hauled away.

“If they’re removing any trees, it’s because they don’t want folks to jump over and launch things from above,” said local city councillor Adam Vaughan.

Mr. Calzavara says the thought that a sapling could be turned into a weapon is “outrageous.” “I would challenge the police to get a couple of burly officers and try to pull one of these trees out of the ground,” he said. “You’d need an axe to cut the thing down. And if you’ve already got an axe, you wouldn’t need a tree.”

Uh-oh. I predict that Mr Calzavara will be visited by the forces of public government order shortly and that all the sharp implements in his home will be confiscated. He might be even arrested for providing the terrists with instructions on weapons deployment.

The only sane response to this insanity is: "Pitchez la vache!"

Update from "No Stone Left Undisturbed" News.

More from Constable Drummond, spokesthingy for the Integrated Security Unit.

But it’s not all about keeping the trees from becoming projectiles, she said. “Trees in full bloom have obscure views and observation is key in a lot of our policing.”

Trees: gone. Next: rocks.

It beats super-gluing every stone to the ground. Summit security are having fences erected around Lake Shore Blvd. to enclose the piles of landscaping stones so the rocks can't be picked up during protests and used as projectiles -- you know, like a sapling can be.

We couldn't make up such idiocy. Tranna residents should thank Stevie and his New©™ Government for these experiential opportunities inspired by the surrealistic theatre of Beckett, Ionesco and Pinter.

Un grand merci to our reader and buddy k'in for the original headline and the source. She is a most appreciated contributor to this blog, in the comment section.

The difference between inflammatory and defamatory.

The Toronto Police union is calling for Sid Ryan to resign after the labour leader suggested police may plant agent provocateurs among the G20 protesters to incite violence. “It’s a totally irresponsible, inflammatory and idiotic thing to say for someone in his position. Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association. “It’s a total insult to police everywhere.”

At a Wednesday news conference for the “People First!” rally, Ryan said he had concerns the police would use disguised agents to cause chaos in order to provoke a violent response from security forces. “They’ve done it before,” said Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour. “I’m concerned about that as a tactic to justify police presence and justify the spending of $1.3 billion on security.”

From here. Notice McCormack said inflammatory and not defamatory. An explanation for this would be, as the letter from the Council of Canadians to Harper illustrates, there is cause for such concerns.

“Three undercover police officers attempted to incite violence in 2007 at the Montebello protest against the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The proof of their actions was caught on film,” adds Barlow. “The Sûreté du Québec was forced to admit that they were police officers, dressed in black and holding rocks. Yet, to date no one has been held accountable and through his silence, Harper appears to have given tacit approval of the use of agents provocateurs.”

It was the above incident that came to mind when this occurred in Ottawa, shortly before Stevie and his bullies disclosed the billion dollars (and rising) budget anticipated for the G-8/B-20 held in Ontario, much of it dedicated to public government security.

Lake of Nightmares ....

Emperor Stevie the Flatulent First believes if you build it, they will come.

It should be interesting to read what the international media will say and write about Lake Ersatz (which a member of Bread'n'Roses adroitly pegged as a shallow pool of ReformaTory talent) and all the attendent perks and hoo-haw.

It's another way for Stevie and his cadre of bullies to manage and massage their message. And the fact he's using money slashed from CIDA funding previously granted to organizations like MATCH International is just the whipped cream on his sundae.

I tend to think about this 2 million $$$ exercise of lunatic largesse in hopeful terms - as Lake ConBeGone. Stevie thinks he knows about feeding sharks but once there's blood in the water, nobody in the water is safe. He has fed a number of his opponents - and members of his own New©™ Government to those yawing jaws.

He could be next. Indigestible though his reign as Supreme Leader was, he will be a choice morsel chunk when his time comes.

Idiots Saboteur or Provocateur?

Early Tuesday morning an act of calculated civil disruption and arson, now claimed by a purported anarchist group, took place in Ottawa.

A very short video, taken by an accomplice of the perpetrators of the incendiary device shows two individuals leaving the ATM area of the RBC branch in the Glebe, a quiet residential area within a few kilometers of Parliament. The video footage was posted online, followed by a written statement scrolling up the screen and read aloud by a computerized voice.

Various media are spinning the story, on the basis of limited information released by the group claiming to be responsible for this criminal action and what the police are disclosing about their investigations.

As well, Radio Canada is reporting that the posting is linked to a community-based centre that provides unsupervised access to its computers and the internet. The centre is located in Montebello Quebec where demonstrations and confrontations happened when Harper met the elected leaders of the US and Mexico to discuss border securityand free trade. Presumably anarchist groups as well as the RCMP and CSIS would have scouted out such facilities, back in 2007.

It would be irresponsible not to speculate, in view of headlines such as these:

Anti-terror laws could apply

Firebombing of Ottawa bank is escalation of fringe extremist tactics

Bank blast could be taste of G-8, G-20 troubles

In one report, witnesses say they saw a group of men fleeing the scene and taking off in an SUV. While the exploitation of SUVs and sophisticated technology is not limited to those who support the established "world order", I find it quite interesting that these self-proclaimed anarchists - an obscure group that has conveniently emerged as a champion of First Nations rights, among other hot button causes - chose a neighbourhood known for its residents' progressive leanings rather than a Royal Bank branch located at a strip mall in a Conservative suburban stronghold.